Now, Something Beyond The Machine

The first question:

Question 1:

Ruparahi, the future only appears bleak, but it has always appeared so. This is not anything new.

You can go as far back as possible in human history, to the very first moment of human beginnings when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, and you will find the future has always looked bleak. Just think of Adam and Eve being thrown out of the garden of God and the doors being slammed behind them. How was the future? It must have appeared very bleak. All that they had known was being taken away. Their security, their safety, their world, everything was being taken away. What future hope was there? Only darkness, death. It must have been frightening.

And this is not only a parable: each time a child is born the future looks bleak, because again the womb - the safe secure environment of the womb - is taken away from the child, and the helpless child is expelled. What do you think about the child? Psychoanalysts say that the greatest trauma is the birth trauma, and the person suffers it his whole life. The word "trauma" comes from a root which means "wound". The birth trauma is the greatest wound; it is very rare to find a person whose birth trauma is healed.

It heals only when a person becomes enlightened, because when a person becomes enlightened he is again in the eternal womb of God; otherwise the wound goes on and on hurting.

Your whole life you try to hide that wound, but by hiding it it cannot disappear. Each child being born, coming out of the birth canal, must be feeling the future is bleak; and each age has felt it. Because the future is unknown, that's why it looks bleak.

This is not something new that modern man is feeling; it is as ancient as man. You can go to the ancient-most records and it is always said in every ancient scripture, "The future is bleak." And the corollary to it is that the past was golden. "The future is bleak." The past was good - satyug, the Age of Truth; and the future, kalyug - the Age of Death and Darkness.

This attitude is somewhere deep in your mind; it has nothing to do with time and the realities surrounding you. And you have to drop this pessimistic attitude, Ruparahi. It all depends on your approach.

For example, it is so simple to say that "the burden of the West already lies heavy on the world: the atomic bomb," and nobody will argue against you, it looks so obvious. But I would like to tell you to think again, reconsider. In fact, it is the atom bomb which has made wars impossible. Now there can be no world war.

In the past we could have continued wars because our wars were so inefficient, there was no danger.

That's why, down the ages, in three thousand years we have fought five thousand wars. There was no problem; it was just a game. And the male egoistic mind has enjoyed it very much, it has needed it very much. And wars would have continued if there was no atom bomb. The atom bomb is the end of war.

The future is not bleak. The very existence of the atom bomb means, now, if you decide for war, it will be universal suicide. Who is ready to take that risk? Nobody can win and everybody will die.

Nobody can be the winner; then what is the point of the game?

War is significant if somebody can win and somebody is defeated. War becomes absurd if nobody can win and both are destroyed. It is only because of the existence of the atom bomb that Russia and America are prevented from war; otherwise there seems to be no other possibility except war.

Both are ready, absolutely ready, but the atom bomb is making it impossible.

It is ridiculous now to go to war. If both parties are going to be destroyed, then what is the point?

The atom bomb has made war pointless.

When I think about the atom bomb I see great hope. I am not a pessimist at all. I believe things are going to be better every day, better and better. You will be surprised, but this is so simple if you understand.

It is because of the atom bomb that war has become total. Up to now it was a partial thing - a few people will die - but now the whole earth will die. We have attained to superkill. We have so many bombs ready that we can kill each person one thousand times, we can destroy one thousand earths like this. This earth is small now before our destructive powers; compared to our destructive powers this earth is nothing.

Now who is going to take this risk, and for what? You will not be there to gloat over your victory - nobody will be there.

War is not going to happen. The Third World War is not going to happen, and it will not be because of Buddha and Christ and their teachings of non-violence and love, no! It will be because of the atom bomb. Because death is absolute now, suicide will be complete. Not only will man be destroyed, but birds, animals, trees, all life will be destroyed on earth.

This is the only possibility of dropping war forever. We have become too efficient in killing; now killing can be allowed no more. Think this way and you will be surprised - then the future is bleak no more.

You say, "... violence through frustration." That's true. Whenever one feels frustrated... and the world is feeling frustrated, particularly the West. Frustration comes as a shadow of success. In the East there is no frustration because there is no success, so the shadow is missing. In the West there is great frustration because the success has come; all that man ever needed is available, and there is no content ment. Success has failed - that's the frustration.

But that's also the point of sannyas, meditation, religion. Yes, you can become frustrated and you can become violent because all that you have hoped for has failed - you have succeeded, and nothing has succeeded - great frustration arises in you - you can become murderous, you can become suicidal. But the other possibility is also there, you can start thinking in a totally new way:

that success cannot be in the outer world, that success has to be something inner, that you were rushing in a wrong direction. Your direction was wrong; that's why you have failed.

In the West, because of frustration, people are becoming more and more interested in meditation, prayer, contemplation. That too is part of the same frustration. My own observation is a person becomes a meditator only when there are only two possibilities: suicide or transformation.

When in the outside world there seems to be only suicide and nothing else, then one turns in. Only at that point, at that peak of frustration, does one turn in. The turning in cannot happen in a lukewarm person; it happens only when things are really hot and there is no way outside anymore, all ways have been proved false. When you have been frustrated totally by the outside world and all exterior journeys, when all extroversion seems meaningless, only then does the desire, the longing for an inner pilgrimage open up.

It has always been so. It is only at the extremes, when life faces a crisis, that transformations happen.

Water evaporates at a hundred degrees; that much heat is needed. The West has created that much heat of frustration. A few people will become violent, a few people will become murderous, a few people will become suicidal, but the major part of humanity will start turning in.

You say, "... the automatization of the soul." Industrialization and the growth of technology has not made man automatic, has not made man a machine. Man has always been a machine.

Industrialization has only revealed the truth. It is a great revelation. Man has always lived in slavery, but the slavery was not so apparent, was not so penetrating; there was always an illusion of freedom.

The mechanization of all that you are surrounded with has made you aware that you are also nothing but a machine. You have always been that. Buddhas have always been telling you that you exist unconsciously, that you exist like a robot, that you are not yet a man, but illusions persisted. The modern world has taken the last illusion from you, it has revealed the truth to you: that you are nothing but a machine efficient, inefficient, but a machine.

It had to be so because only when you live with machines, only then can you become aware of your machine-like existence. You had always lived with trees and animals and people, and it had always given you the false idea that there is freedom.

Freedom exists only when you are utterly conscious. Only a Buddha is free. Freedom is in Buddhahood; nobody else is free, nobody else can be free. But people can believe... it is a very consoling illusion. The modern world has taken your illusion away from you; and it is good because now a great desire to be free will arise, a great longing to attain to something beyond the machine.

For example, the computer has proved that howsoever efficient you are in your mind it does not make you really a man, because that can be done better by a computer than by your mind. Now the people who used to do beautiful mathematics will be offended because the computer can do it in a far better way. And the work of the computer is so fast that they say, if a problem will take seventy years of his whole life for a great mathematician to solve, working day in, day out, the computer can solve it within a second.

Now, what is the lesson to be learned? That the brain is nothing but a biocomputer. Without the computer it would never have been revealed to you that your brain is a computer. With the computer, now, the people who think they are great intellectuals, mathematicians, scientists, specialists, are all reduced to machines. It was not possible two thousand years before: there was no way to know that the mind functions as a machine, that the mind is nothing but a machine.

There is just one thing the computer cannot do. It can be logical, but it cannot be loving; it can be rational, but it cannot be meditative. A computer cannot meditate, a computer cannot love - and that is the hope, and that is where man can still go beyond machines. You can love. Your love will be the decisive factor in the coming days - not logic: the computer is perfectly logical, more logical than any Aristotle; not mathematics: the computer is more mathematical than any Albert Einstein.

The computer is going to solve all problems. The computer will solve every problem that scientists used to take years to solve. It can solve them within seconds. Sooner or later science will go into the hands of computers; the scientist will be needed only to operate the computer, that's all. The computer can do it far more quickly, far more efficiently, with less and less possibility of making any errors. This is something tremendously significant. It can make you very much frightened, it can give you the idea that there is nothing left, man is a machine; but it can also fill you with great hope that now the computer has revealed that the head is not man's real reality.

Now we have to search for the heart, because the computer has no heart. Only by searching for our heart, only by allowing our heart to dance and sing and love, will we be able to retain the glory and dignity of being man; otherwise it is gone.

The future looks bleak to you because you only see the darker side of the phenomenon. You are not aware of its lighter side. I see the dawn coming very close. Yes, the night is very dark, but the future is not bleak, not at all.

In fact, for the first time in human history millions of people will be able to become Buddhas. It was very rare to become a Buddha in the past because it was very rare to become aware of the mechanicalness of man. It needed great intelligence to be aware that man is a machine. But now it will not need any intelligence at all; it will be so obvious that man is a machine.

And you say, "... the destruction of the forests and the pollution of the air and sea so that it is uncertain whether the environment can maintain its delicate balance. Can the world support another West?" That is one of the most beautiful things about science and technology: it creates problems just to solve them. And the problem can only be solved when it has been created; then it becomes a challenge. Now the greatest challenge before technology is how to maintain the balance of nature, how to maintain ecological harmony. It was never there before, it is a new problem.

For the first time the West is facing a new problem. We have lived on this earth for millions of years.

Slowly, slowly we had been growing more and more expert technologically, but we had not yet been able to destroy the natural balance; we were yet a very small force on the earth. Now for the first time our energy is bigger, far bigger, than the earth's energy to keep its balance. This is a great phenomenon. Man has become so powerful that he can destroy the natural balance. But he will not destroy it, because to destroy the natural balance means he will be destroyed himself.

He will find new ways; and new ways are being found. The way to regain the delicate balance of nature is not by renouncing technology. It is not by becoming hippies, it is not by becoming Gandhians, no, not at all. The way to regain the balance of nature is through superior technology, higher technology, more technology. If technology can destroy the balance, why can't technology regain it? Anything that can be destroyed can be created.

And now it is almost feasible to float cities in the sky, in the air, in big, enormous balloons! There is no need for man to live on the earth. And it will be really beautiful - floating cities in the air, and the green earth below you, huge forests again as the earth used to be before man started cutting forests. The earth can become the same again. You can come back to the earth for holidays.

It is possible now to float cities in the ocean, and that will be beautiful. It is possible now to make underground cities so the earth, its greenery, its beauty, is not destroyed. You can live in air- conditioned cities underneath the earth. You can come once in a while for your Sunday prayer to the earth, and go back. It is possible for man now to be transported to another planet. The moon may become our next colony, the moon may become our habitation.

The way is not by regressing; it is not possible to regress. Now man cannot live without electricity and man cannot live without all the comforts that technology has made available. And there is no need either - it will become so poor a world. You don't know how man had lived in the past, always starving, always ill. You don't know how man had lived in the past; people have forgotten. You don't know how low the average age was in the past: if twenty children were born only two would survive.

Life was very ugly.

And without machines there was slavery. It is only because of machines that slavery has disappeared from the earth. If more machines come then more of this slavery will disappear. Horses will be free again if more cars are there; oxen will be free again if more machines are there to do their work; animals can be free again.

Freedom was not possible without machines. If you drop machines man will again become slaves.

There will be people who will start dominating and forcing. You see the pyramids? They look so beautiful, but each pyramid was made in such a way that millions of people died in making it. That was the only way to make it. All the beautiful palaces of the world, and the forts.... Much violence has happened, only then could they be made. The Great Wall of China - millions of people died in making it. They were forced, generations of people were forced, to just make this China Wall. Now people go and see it, and they have completely forgotten that it represents a very ugly chapter of history.

For the first time electricity and technology have taken all the work; man need not do it. Technology can free man absolutely from work and the earth caul be playful for the first time. Luxury is possible for the first time. There is no need to go back.

That's why I am against the Gandhian approach towards life, utterly against. If Gandhi is believed, then the world will again become ugly, poor, dirty, ill. The way is ahead: one has to go to superior technology that can rearrange the balance. The earth can really become paradise.

I am all for science. My religion is not against science; my religion absorbs science in itself. I believe in a scientific world. And through science a great religion, a greater religion than ever, is going to happen to man, because when man will be really free to be playful and there will be no need to work, tremendous creativity will be released. People will paint, and people will play music, and people will dance, and people will write poems, and people will pray, and people will meditate. Their whole energy will be free to soar high.

Only a small part of humanity has been creative, because all the other people have been forced to do futile things which can be done by machines more easily and without any trouble to anybody.

Millions of people are simply laboring their whole lives. Their whole lives consist only of perspiration, there is no inspiration. This is ugly, this should not be.

And this is possible only for the first time. Just think... the whole of humanity freed from the imprisonment of labor, then the energy will start moving in new directions. People will become adventurers, explorers, scientists, musicians, poets, painters, dancers, meditators. They will have to because the energy will need some expression. Millions of people can bloom like Buddhas.

I am tremendously hopeful about the future.

You say, Ruparahi, "To me the future of the East appears bleak whichever way one looks at it. "

It is not bleak. It can be bleak if stupidity wins over intelligence. If the old, rotten mind wins over intelligence - then it is bleak. If Gandhi wins, then it is bleak. If Morarji Desai and people like him win, then it is bleak. But if I am heard and understood it is not bleak.

You say, "... either poverty and starvation through fatalism, or Westernization through capitalism." I am all for Westernization of the East, and I am all for capitalism too, because capitalism is the only natural system. Communism is a violent, enforced, artificial system. Capitalism is a natural growth; nobody has forced it on anybody, it has come on its own. It is part of human evolution. Capitalism is not like communism - a few people trying to enforce a particular system, forcibly, on others.

Capitalism has grown out of freedom. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon, and it fits perfectly well with human potentials.

I am all in favor of Adam Smith and all against Karl Marx.

Capitalism means laissez-faire. People should be free to do their own thing; no government should interfere with people's freedom. The government which governs the least is the best. That's what capitalism is. The interference of the state, nationalization of the industries, are all inhuman.

Communism can exist only in the climate of dictatorship. Communism cannot be democratic, socialism can never be democratic. No socialist can have the democratic mind, because socialism ar communism means to impose a particular system on people. How can you be democratic? It has to be forcibly imposed. The whole country has to be turned into a concentration camp.

Capitalism needs no enforcement from above. Capitalism is a democratic way of life. And capitalism is also very psychologically true, because no two persons are psychologically equal. The whole idea of equality is false, inhuman, untrue, unscientific. No two human beings are equal; people are unequal. In every possible way they are unequal. Their talents, their intelligence, their bodies, their health, their age, their beauty, their qualities - everything is different No two individuals are alike or equal.

And it is good. The variety makes life rich; the variety gives people individuality, uniqueness.

Capitalism means freedom, it represents freedom. I am not against equal opportunities for all - please, don't misunderstand me. Equal opportunities should be available to everybody, but for what? - equal opportunities to grow to your unequal potentials, equal opportunities to be different, to be dissimilar, equal opportunities to be whatsoever you want to be.

Communism is an ugly phenomenon. It destroys human freedom in the name of equality. And the equality can never be managed, there is no possible way. Even in Soviet Russia there is no equality; only the classes have changed their labels. First there used to be the proletarians and the bourgeoisie; now there are the rulers and the ruled. And the distinctions are far greater than ever.

And the whole country has fallen into a kind of dull state.

Communism makes people drab and dull, placid, because nobody feels the freedom to be himself, so joy disappears from life. Nobody feels any enthusiasm to work for others. That is unnatural, inhuman. How can you feel enthusiasm if you are working for the inhuman state, the machinery called the state? When you work for your children, your wife, there is enthusiasm. If you are working for your wife and you would like her to have a beautiful house, a small cottage in the hills, you are in great enthusiasm. You would like your children to be healthy; you are in great enthusiasm. Who cares for the state? For what?

The state is an abstraction; nobody can love the state. That's why in Russia and in China you will find people dragging, dull. Their intelligence has lost color, they are no more rainbows of life.

Communism - in the beautiful name of equality - destroys the most valuable thing: freedom.

Freedom is the ultimate value. There is nothing higher than freedom, because it is through freedom that everything else becomes possible.

Capitalism is a higher value system than communism, and communism will always remain dictatorial because it is afraid, afraid because something inhuman has been imposed on human beings. The moment you withdraw the structure of dictatorship, people will start becoming unequal again. Just give five years to Soviet Russia, five years of democracy and you will see: again people are different; somebody has become rich and somebody has become poor and somebody has become famous and somebody has become something else. Just five years of democratic freedom, and fifty years of dictatorship will go down the drain; hence the fear. This is an unnatural imposition on people; it destroys their spirit.

I am all for capitalism. Capitalism is the system that produces capital. Communism is the system that reduces everybody to the lowest denominator. That is the only way to make people equal.

For example, if somebody here is seven feet tall - there are a few Dutch sannyasins seven feet tall - and somebody is just five: now if you want to make these people equal, what can be done? The five-foot tall person cannot be stretched to seven, but the seven-foot tall person can be cut to five.

That's the only possible way.

Communism reduces people to the lowest denominator. People are not allowed to have higher intelligence, because that will make them unequal. They have to be reduced to the lowest intelligence.

Capitalism functions in a totally different way. It helps you to express, to manifest, to flower in your totality.

And I am not saying that there are not wrong things in capitalism. They are there - but capitalism is not responsible for them. Human ignorance is responsible for them, human unconsciousness is responsible for them. Capitalism has many errors in it; it is not the perfect system. It is the most perfect in available systems, but it is not the perfect system, because man is not perfect. It simply reflects man, with all its illusions, with all human errors, with all human stupidities; but it reflects perfectly well.

Communism is against all that is good, valuable, all that takes you higher than humanity.

Communism is an effort to live by bread alone. Bread is needed, but it is needed only so that you can pray, so that you can sing a song, so that you can fall in love, so that you can paint. Bread is needed, but only as a means. Communism has turned the means into the end.

I am in favor of the East being Westernized because Westernization means nothing but modernization. Forget the word "West". Westernization means modernization: more technology, more science, more industrialization; and higher technology so that we can save this earth and its delicate ecological balance. The East has to be modernized, and then the future is not bleak.

But the greatest problem is that the Eastern mind is against modernization. Their old traditions are great blocks. Their conditioning of the mind is such that they are committing suicide. And they think that they have great culture and great values and great ideas. And it is all rotten! And because of that rotten past, they cannot understand the modern explosion of great knowledge that can transform this earth into a real paradise.

These old patterns have to be destroyed. People ask me, particularly Indians, "What are you doing to help India to get out of its poverty?" That's actually what I am doing, because to me it is not only a question of going and distributing clothes to poor people; that is not going to help. It is not a question of distributing anything, it is not a question of charity; it is a question of changing their mind and their structure of thinking. But then the problem arises: they will be the most antagonistic to me. This is how life is paradoxical.

What I am saying can change the fate of the East, it can transform its whole ugliness into beauty, but the Eastern people will be the most against me because whatsoever I will say will go against their conditioning, their ideas - settled ideas, of centuries. That's why you don't see many Indians here.

The Western mind immediately feels a deep affinity with me. It is because I am always in favor of the modern, of the new. The Western mind can understand me immediately, it feels a great alikeness, but the Eastern mind simply feels agitated. The moment the Eastern mind hears what I am saying he becomes annoyed, antagonistic; he starts defending himself.

He has become too attached to his mind, and his mind is the cause of all his problems. He wants to change those problems, but he clings to the mind. And that is not possible. First the mind has to be changed; only then will those problems disappear.

For example, the whole East suffers from repressed sexuality, great repression, but again and again they go on insisting that they have great ideas of celibacy, great ideas of character, morality. And those are the ideas which are making them repressed. Those are the ideas that are keeping them unflowing, because once your sexuality is repressed, your creativity is repressed, because sex energy is your creative energy. It is God's way of helping you becoming creative. Sex is creativity.

The man who has repressed his sex will not be able to create anything; he will be stuck.

Now what to do with the East? If you tell them to become a little more loving, a little more sensuous, a little more sensate, they immediately are against you; they say, "Then why has Buddha said this, and Mahavira has said that? You are teaching materialism! "

I am simply teaching you totality. And let me say it to you, that Buddha's approach is not total, it is partial. But I can understand him, because if you are against me, now, twenty-five centuries after Buddha, if Buddha had said these things that I am saying to you, how much would you have been against him? I can understand why he never told you about the total growth of human beings, why he had to remain partial. Even that was too much for the Indian people, and Buddhism was thrown out of the country even that was too much. If he had talked the way I am talking, you would have immediately killed him. It was not possible; the climate was not ready for him to talk to you in total terms.

I am taking the risk of talking to you in total terms - and creating unnecessary troubles for myself!

I can also go on teaching that old, stupid kind of spirituality, and the country will be very proud of me and they will worship me. But I am not interested in being worshiped, and I am not interested in India being proud of me. My whole interest is how to change this country's rotten mind, how to give it a new vision.

But they will be against me, although what I am doing is their only hope.

India needs to become modern, it needs to become more capitalistic, but the very word "capitalism"

frightens people. They start thinking of me as if I am working for the C.I.A. Foolish people. The C.I.A. may be working for me, but why should I work for the C.I.A.? But their mind is settled.

Whatsoever you do, go on talking about socialism and they feel good. So in India everybody talks about socialism. People who are not socialistic at all, they also talk about socialism because that's what brings votes.

I may be the only person in this whole country who has the guts to say that capitalism is the only right thing. I may be the only person in this country who has the guts to say that India should become more and more friendly with America and drop its policy of neutrality. That is all nonsense; that is not going to help India. It is only through American capital and American know-how and American technology that this country's problems can be solved.

And don't be worried, Ruparahi, that if we make this country industrialized, more technologized, that if more technology and industry is brought to the country, then the ecology will be destroyed. Don't be worried. Technology itself can find ways to overcome all those things.

Technology is the only potential means in the hands of man to transform the outer world. The outer world can be transformed totally. We can bring it to an even better ecological balance than nature itself, because nature's ways are very primitive and rudimentary. And what is man really? - nature's highest growth. If man cannot bring a better balance, then who is going to bring it? Man is nature's highest peak; it is through man that nature can resettle its own problems.

I don't think that the future is bleak. The future is very hopeful, very bright. It has never been so before because for the first time man is coming closer and closer to a point where he can be freed from all work. Man for the first time can live in luxury, and to live in luxury is to be ready to move inwards, because then there is no hindrance on the outside. Then you can simply move inwards, you will have to move inwards: the outer journey is finished. All that can be attained in the outside world has been attained... now a new adventure.

What happened to Buddha can happen to the whole of humanity in the future. He lived in luxury - he was the son of a king - and because of that luxurious living he became aware. Because there was no problem on the outside, he could relapse into himself, he could find ways and means to enter inwards. He became interested in knowing "Who am I?" What happened to Buddha can happen to the whole of humanity if the whole of humanity becomes rich, outwardly rich. To be outwardly rich is the beginning of inward richness.

And I teach you a religion which implies science in it, and I teach you a religion which is sensate, sensuous. I teach you a religion which accepts the body, loves the body, respects the body. I teach you a religion which is earthly, earthy, which loves this beautiful earth, which is not against the earth.

The earth has to be the base of your heavenly flight.

The second question:

Question 2:

Siddhartha, this is what I have been talking about: the rotten mind.

What is wrong in hugging a person you love, in kissing a person you love? Don't enforce your hug on anybody, that's true; then it is ugly - and that's what the Indians go on doing. And my women sannyasins are aware of it.

If you are there in the marketplace, then Indians behave really in an ugly way. They will pinch your bottoms. Now, that is ugly. They will rub their bodies against your body. That is ugly. They will look at you as if they would like to eat you. That is ugly. They will look at you as if they would like to see how you are behind your clothes. That is ugly, but that is accepted, that is perfectly good.

If you love a person and you hold hands and you hug each other and you kiss each other, it should be nobody's business. Why should others feel offended? If they feel offended, then something is wrong with them. Maybe they are feeling jealous, but they cannot show their jealousy, so they become angry. Maybe they would also like to hug somebody, but they don't have the courage; they are afraid of the society. Hence they feel very angry at you. What they cannot do, they would not like anybody else to do either.

And, because they are so sexually repressed, whenever they see somebody hugging, kissing, holding hands, showering so much love on each other, their repressed sexuality starts surfacing.

They become afraid of themselves.

They are not offended by your behavior; they are offended by their own unconscious tendencies because they suddenly start surfacing! All their repressed sexuality starts coming up, and they become frightened that, if it is allowed, they may do something. They are somehow controlling themselves. Now, here is a person who provokes them. Here are two persons in such a deep hug, they start losing control.

The Indian mind has lived in control, discipline, character. It is a hypocritical mind. On the surface is control, deep down there are ali kinds of things boiling. And when you provoke them they are offended - not against you: they are offended by their own unconscious, but they are not aware of that at all. They throw the responsibility wholly on you, that you are doing something wrong.

And, Siddartha, although you are my sannyasin, still the Indian mind continues in you. It is a very deep-rooted thing, centuries and centuries of conditioning.

You say, "Many times when I see our friends hugging, kissing passionately, and caressing each other's bodies, I feel that it is this sight which offends Indian society in general and creates great misunderstandings about you and your teachings."

No, it is not creating any MISunderstanding. Exactly, precisely, this is my teaching! It is love that I teach. It is loving behavior that I teach. You are not going against me when you are doing it.

I would like the whole country to be in a hugging, kissing atmosphere. That climate is needed.

People have forgotten how it feels to hug others' bodies. People have forgotten the warmth, the flow of energy that comes from the other's body. Indians have completely lost roots in their own bodies.

Even husbands and wives make love so quickly, so fast, that there is no hugging, caressing at all.

It is done almost as if it is a sin, in secrecy, nobody should know about it. Indians live as if there is no sex in their life. This has become their patterned way of existence; now you are disrupting it. I would also like them to learn a few ways of how to be loving. Love is not obscene, but that's how they think: they think love is obscene.

If two persons are fighting on the road, no Indian thinks it is obscene. Even if they murder each other, nobody thinks it is obscene. In fact, the crowd will gather to watch what is happening and they will be very much thrilled. And if nothing happens, they will go away very sad, that "Nothing happened, and we waited so long." It was a kind of free entertainment. They are not offended. Even if knives are drawn, they are not offended. If blood flows, they are not offended; it is not obscene.

In Indian films, murder is allowed, suicide is allowed; kissing is not allowed. Just think and see the whole absurdity of it. Murder is allowed. Kissing is far more dangerous, far more dangerous than murder? What kind of valuation is this? Suicide is allowed. All kinds of sadistic, masochistic tortures are allowed, but kissing is not allowed. A certain distance has to be maintained between the lips - six inches, I think. Lips should not come more than six inches closer; otherwise there will be an atomic explosion!

It is just a very repressive society.

There is no misunderstanding about me. I am very simple and plain. Whatsoever I say, I say, and I say it the way it is. I call a spade a spade. Then whatsoever happens, it's good. But I have decided to be utterly honest and truthful - whatsoever the cost. So don't think that "great difficulties" are created for me. Nobody can create difficulties for me. But if I have to say the truth, difficulties are bound to be there.

And do you think if you stop kissing and hugging on the roads, streets, people will not have anything against me? Then why were they against Jesus? His disciples were not kissing and hugging. Why did they crucify him? Why were they against Socrates? Why did they poison him? Why were they against Al Hillaj Mansur? Why did they kill him? These are excuses. Don't be deceived by the excuses that people find. If they cannot find this excuse, they will find another. And whatsoever I am saying is such - it is explosive, it is dynamite.

In that way, you need not bother about what you do - whatsoever you do is okay: even if you become absolute saints according to Indians, then too they will be against me because what I am saying and what I am trying to do is utter rebellion. It has never been done that way, it has never been spoken that way - but people find excuses. If one excuse is dropped, they will find another.

The Western disciples have come only recently. Seven years before, you were not here, and people were against me as they are against me today. I only had Indian disciples, but still they were against me. So it is not you, it is I who is creating trouble for himself. You are not responsible at all. You are just an excuse, and they go on finding excuses, and my every statement can become an excuse.

In fact, your hugging and kissing and your caressing each other, embracing each other, has been a great help to me. Because of that they have forgotten everything else that I say! It is a protection.

Now, I have even been seeing editorials written in which it is said that what Osho says is right; his disciples are wrong... and I am so grateful to you. If you were not here, I would be wrong! Now at least because of your behavior I am becoming prestigious, respectable.

Go on doing it. Soon they will throw the whole responsibility on you and I will be completely free of blame!

Even the Municipal Corporation of Poona has passed a resolution in which it is said that, " We are not against Osho's teachings - his teachings are perfectly true and right - but we are against the behavior of his disciples." So beautiful! I enjoy how stupid people can be. They cannot fight with me, they cannot argue with me, they feel impotent against me; now they are finding scapegoats, now they are finding other excuses.

Continue doing whatsoever you are doing. This is going to help my work.

And I am not here to compromise. Whether the difficulties are there or not, I am not here to compromise - not an iota of compromise. Even if they make my life impossible here, that is perfectly okay, but no compromise.

And you say, "With this particular type of behavior, if the society is offended...." Society is going to be offended if we want to change the society, if we want to change the mind of the society. People don't leave their old minds easily. They have invested so much in it, how can they leave it so easily? They will be offended. And, Siddhartha, you ask me, "... why shouldn't we simply correct our behavior...?"

Your behavior is already correct. And if they are suffering, they have to correct their minds. If they are suffering, that is their problem. They will have to reconsider.

I would like many more and many more sannyasins roaming around the country, hugging, kissing, loving. Make it a problem everywhere, so they have to understand that something has to be done.

In the beginning they are always offended. Nobody wants to change. Even if it is for your benefit, nobody wants to change.

Love is a religious phenomenon, the greatest religious phenomenon there is. It is love that becomes prayer.

Sufis say... a great Master is reported to have said:

I must empty myself to others in tears and in kisses, in hugs and smiles.

That is the way one becomes empty and ready for God to enter in.

In a moment, when one is empty, suddenly all becomes full of God. When you kiss somebody with deep love, you are emptying yourself into the other. When you hug somebody ecstatically, you are pouring yourself into the other. This is the way of emptying yourself. And when you are utterly empty, God comes in. To be empty is to be in meditation.

The third question:

Question 3:

I will tell you one story:

A man was arraigned before an Arkansas justice on a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses. The judge looked at him thoughtfully. "Your name is Jim Moore?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are charged with a crime that merits a long term in the penitentiary?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are guilty of that crime?"

The man squared his shoulders doggedly. "I am."

"You ask me for mercy?"

"No, sir."

The judge smiled grimly. "You have had a great deal of trouble within the last two years?"

"I have."

"You have often wished you were dead?"

"I have, please Your Honor."

"You wanted to steal enough money to take you far away from Arkansas?"

"You are right, Judge."

"If a man had stepped up and shot you as you entered the store, you would have said,'Thank you, sir'?"

"Why, yes, I would. But, Judge, how in the world did you find out so much about me?"

"Some time ago," said the Judge, with a solemn air, "I divorced my wife. Shortly afterwards you married her. The result is conclusive. I discharge you. Here, take this fifty dollar bill. You have suffered enough."

You need not be worried about hell. You have suffered enough. You are already in it. You can only go to heaven, because nothing else is left. Celibates may go to hell, but you cannot. You have suffered enough. Celibates may need a little taste of suffering, but not you.

In fact, there is no hell somewhere else and no heaven either. Hell is here, heaven is here. Hell and heaven are your ways of being. They are your ways of living. You can live in such a way that the whole life is a benediction.

But don't go on throwing the responsibility only on your wife. In the first place it is you who have chosen her. Why have you chosen such a wife who is constantly at your neck?

And do you think, if you are divorced, you will not again choose another woman of the same type?

If you ask psychologists they will say you will again choose the same type of woman. You needed it; it is your own choice. You cannot live without misery. You think your wife is creating misery? It is because you wanted to live in misery - that's why you have chosen this woman. You will again choose the same type of woman. You will only become attracted to the same type of woman, unless you drop your old mind completely.

Except our own minds, there is no other way to change or transform. You must be thinking that if you divorce this woman things will be good. You are wrong, you are utterly wrong. You don't know a thing about human psychology. You will get trapped again. You will search for a woman again; you will miss this woman very much. She will miss you, you will miss her. You will again find the same type of person; you will be attracted only to that kind of person. Watch your mind.

And then, she cannot only be at fault. You must be doing something to her too. It is your statement; I don't know her statement. It will be unfair to the poor woman if I accept your statement about her totally. You may be fifty percent right, but what about the other fifty percent? You must be supplying fuel to the fire.

And if life was so ugly, why have you given birth to three children? Who is responsible for that?

Why have you brought three souls into the ugly world of your family, into the nightmare that you are living? Why? Can't you have any love for your children?

People go on reproducing without thinking at all of what they are doing. If your life is such a hell, at least you could have prevented your children from falling into the trap of your misery. You would have saved them! Now, those three children are being brought up by two persons like you and your wife. They will learn ways and means from you, and they will perpetuate you in the world. When you are gone, you will still be here in the world creating hell. Those children will perpetuate, they will keep the continuity of your stupid ways of living, miserable ways of living.

Now your boy will find a woman just like your wife - who else? - because he will know only this woman. He will love his mother, and whenever he falls in love with a woman, it simply means that woman reminds him of his mother. Now again the same game will be played. Maybe you have chosen your wife according to your mother; your father and your mother were playing the same game that you are playing, and your children will perpetuate the same structure and the same gestalt. That's how miseries persist.

At least you could have saved these three children's lives, and you could have saved the future of humanity, because the ripple that you have created will go on and on. Even when you are gone it will be there. Whatsoever you do abides. Whatsoever ripples you create in the ocean of life remain; you disappear. It is like throwing a stone in a silent lake: the stone falls deep into the lake, disappears, goes to the bottom and rests there, but the ripples that have been created, they go on spreading towards the shores. And the ocean of life knows no shores, so those waves go on and on, forever and forever.

At least you could have been a little more alert not to produce children.

And it is never late. Still life can be changed - but don' t hope that your wife should change. That is the wrong approach. You change. Change radically. Stop doing things that you have always been doing. Start doing things that you have never done. Change radically, become a new person, and you will be surprised. When you become a new person, your wife becomes a new person. She will have to, to respond to you. In the beginning she will find it hard because it will be almost like living with another husband, but slowly, slowly she will see that if you can change, why can't she? Never hope that the other should change. In every relationship start the change from your side.

Life can still become a paradise; it is never too late. But great courage is needed to change. All that is really needed is a little more awareness. De-automatize your behavior; just watch what you have been doing up to now. You do the same thing, and the wife reacts in the same way. It has become a settled pattern.

Watch any husband and wife - they are almost predictable. In the morning the husband will spread his newspaper and start reading, and the wife will say the same thing that she has been saying for years, and the husband will react in the same way. It has become almost structured, programmed.

Just small changes, and you will be surprised. Tomorrow, don't sit in your chair early in the morning and start reading your paper. Just start cleaning the house, and see what happens. Your wife will be wide-eyed, and she will not be able to believe what has happened to you. Smile when you see your wife, hug, and see how she is taken aback. You have never hugged her. Years have passed, and you have never looked into the poor woman's eyes.

Tonight, just sit in front of her, look into her eyes. She will think in the beginning that you have gone crazy, you have become a Rajneesh freak or something, but don't be worried. Just hold her hand and be ecstatic. If you cannot be, at least pretend. Be ecstatic. Sometimes it happens that if you start pretending, it starts happening! Just start smiling, for no reason at all, and watch. Your poor woman may have a heart attack!

You have not been holding her hand - do you remember since how long? Have you ever taken her for a morning walk? Or when the moon is full, have you taken her for a walk in the night under the stars? She is also human, she also needs love.

But particularly people in India go on using women as if they are just servants. Their whole work consists of taking care of the children and the kitchen and the house, as if that's their whole life.

Have you respected your wife as a human being?

Then, if anger arises, it is natural. If she feels frustrated - because her life is running out and she has not known any joy, she has not known any bliss, she has not known anything that can give meaning and significance to her life....

Have you just sat by her side sometimes, silently, just holding her hand, not saying a word, just feeling her, and letting her feel you? No, that is not done in India at all.

Wives and husbands have only one kind of communication: quarreling. I have been acquainted with thousands of Indian families, I have stayed with thousands of Indian families. While I was traveling all over the country I was staying with so many families that I have come to know almost all kinds of families, but very rarely have I seen husbands and wives respectful to each other. Using each other, exploiting each other, reducing each other to things, but never respecting each other's divinity - then this hell is created.

Don't think that only your wife is responsible. She may be, but that is not the point, because she has not asked the question. You have asked the question. Start changing your life. Give the poor woman a little feeling of significance. Give the little woman a little feeling that she is needed. Do you know the greatest need in life is to be needed? And unless a person feels that he or she is needed, his or her life remains meaningless, desert-like.

Laugh with her, listen to music together, go for a holiday in the Himalayas. Caress her body, because bodies start shrinking when nobody caresses them. Bodies start becoming ugly when nobody looks with appreciation. And then you think, "Why is my wife not beautiful?" You are not creating the climate in which beauty flowers, blooms.

If you love a person, the person immediately becomes beautiful! Love is such an alchemical process.

Look at a person with loving eyes, and suddenly you will see his, her aura changing, the face becoming radiant, more blood coming to the face, eyes becoming more shiny, radiance, intelligence - and like a miracle. Love is a miracle, love is magical.

It is not yet too late.

But our ways of thinking are utterly wrong. We have forgotten how to live a really human life - warm, welcoming, sensate, sensuous. The words "sensuous" and "sensate" have become dirty words; particularly in India they are dirty words. I am using them knowing that people will be offended.

Become sensuous. The senses are as divine as anything else. The whole existence is divine.

And the last question:

Question 4:

Dhanya, that is the way to hear me. It is for the first time you have heard me. It is for the first time communion has happened and not only communication. Communication is through words, communion is through music. Communication is an intellectual process; communion is that of the heart, when two hearts meet and mingle and melt.

Dhanya, your name means "the blessed one". You are... you are blessed. This is the way to be with me. This is adab the way to be with a Master - heart to heart, silence to silence, spirit to spirit.

When my words start disappearing and you start hearing the gaps between the words, when you start hearing the gaps between the lines, you will be full of great music. That is my real message.