The World Of No-Thing

The first question:

Question 1:

Aneesha, the no-self is the real self; there is no difference at all. It is just a different way of expressing the same thing. The "real self" is a positive way of expressing it, and "no-self" the negative way.

But always remember, the negative is far better than the positive. The greatest Masters of the world have always expressed in the negative way for a certain reason: the positive can deceive you, can easily deceive you. If it is said that you have a real self, what are you going to understand by it? You will think of whatsoever you understand about yourself, that the real self will be a purified state of the same thing, higher, holier, more dignified, deathless, divine - but you will conceive of it according to the idea of the self that you already have. Your real self will become only a modified idea, a decorated idea of the false self. That is the danger.

The real self is utterly different; not only utterly different from your false self, it is diametrically opposite to it. You cannot have any idea of the real self through the unreal self. The unreal has to cease for the real to be. The unreal has to go absolutely.

What idea can you have of light if you know only darkness? Whatsoever you will think of light will remain a form of darkness. You know darkness.

That's why Buddha has chosen a negative way. He does not talk about the real self, atma, soul, atta. He talks about anatta, no-self, anatma, absence of self. He negates the whole idea of the self because the idea of the self will carry, will remain continuous with, your false idea of the self.

You have to disappear as you are, then the real arises. You don't have any idea, not even in your dreams, of what is the real. You are unreal and you live in unreality. You live in dreams, you are fast asleep. You cannot conceive of what awakening is going to be.

Only one thing can be said: whatsoever you know will not be there. This is the negative way of saying it.

Sufis have also chosen in the same way. They say fana - first dissolve, dissolve in toto. Nothing is to remain of you; and only then that great transformation. When you are absent, God becomes a presence in you - but only then. That condition has to be fulfilled.

The danger with the positive expression is this: that any positive expression is bound to be limited.

The positive means the defined. Only the negative can be undefined, only the negative can be unbounded. The positive immediately becomes a thing, and you are not a thing. You are a no-thing; that's why Buddha says you are a nothing. Remember always, "nothing" does not mean nothing, it simply means "no-thing".

But we live in the world of things, we are surrounded by things. And it is very easy to think of our own self as another thing - luminous, divine, but still a thing. It is not a thing, it is a no-thing. It is not even a person, it is only a presence. It is not even a flower, but only a fragrance.

In our "thingified" culture, personal existence has lost all significance. We are continuously surrounded by things, man-made things. Things distract the human person from the fact that he is a no-thing. Maybe that's why we are so interested in things. "Have as many things as you can, go on accumulating things. The more things you have, the more you ARE": this is our logic.

When you have a great bank balance you feel you are. The moment the bank balance disappears you start disappearing. People commit suicide when they go bankrupt, as if their soul was in the bank. Their bank balance was their soul. How can they live now without a soul?

Just watch how attached you become to things. Your house, your many scientific gadgets, which are nothing but toys - how deeply you become obsessed with them. And slowly, slowly you forget completely that you are a no-thing.

Not only that you forget that you are a no-thing, you forget that your wife is not a thing, that your child is not a thing. Surrounded by things and things, living in a thingified culture.... That is the real name for a materialist culture. One tends to forget all that is spiritual, and one tends to reduce everything into a thing. Even persons are reduced.

When you meet a woman and you fall in love, she is a person. Sooner or later you reduce her into a thing - she becomes a wife. A wife is a thing; a woman is a person. If you really love any woman you will not reduce her to a wife. A wife is a function. If you really love a man you will not reduce him to a husband. A husband? It is a legal contract, a formality. To be in love with a man, undefined, indefinable, has beauty; to reduce him to a contract, to reduce him to a function, to reduce him to a husband, means you have reduced him into a thing.

But whatsoever you do, a person remains a person and he cannot be reduced into a thing. And that creates trouble. The wife remains a woman, whatsoever you think. She remains a woman. You can believe that she is a wife, but still she is a woman - vast, unpredictable. That creates trouble.

You would like her to be as predictable as a thing, as your car, as your tape recorder, as your TV - predictable, manipulatable, controllable, always obedient. And she tries, but still there is something inside her which is not a thing at all - a no-thing, a freedom. That asserts. And whenever that freedom asserts, there is trouble.

And you also have that freedom, and whenever your freedom asserts there is trouble.

We love people, but our love is not real love because we go on reducing them into things. Real love will raise them higher, higher than the person. Real love will make them presences. Watch.

When you meet a man or a woman, the other is a person. If your love is not real, the person will disappear and there will be a thing, a wife, a husband, et cetera. If your love is real, if you respect the nothingness of the other person, the innermost unbounded infinity and eternity of the person, you will raise him or her into a presence. The person will disappear; there will be a presence, a very, very vital presence. But the presence cannot be predictable, and the presence cannot be manipulated.

The presence means freedom. It is as free as the fragrance of a flower.

Because no person can really be reduced totally and finally into a thing, people stop loving people.

They start loving things. It is more safe that way. Watch yourself. Do you love things? That means you have forgotten completely who you are and you have forgotten completely that God exists as a presence in existence. And you will never be able to have any communion with God.

Millions of people only go on gathering things, go on possessing things. Finally what happens?

They are possessed by things. If you try to possess things you will be possessed by things. And this is the ugliest state a man can fall to.

Things seem solid - certainly they are solid. There is no need to believe in things; there is no need to trust. They are so solid, they are there, tangible. Their existence needs no proof. Things seem solid; they are solid. And, the no-thing seems to be in danger today, because that no-thing that you are is not solid. It is not tangible, it is not visible. You cannot touch it, you cannot see it, you cannot hear it. Unless you have a heart to feel it, your senses are incapable of knowing anything about it. It is not an experience of your senses; it is something transcendental to the senses.

Deep concern, care, respect, love, responsibility, the giving of self to another, these are not thing-like activities; and when you start believing too much in things these activities start disappearing.

That's why I say this country thinks it is religious. It is not! It believes in things. There are two kinds of people in this country, but both believe in things. One kind is called the worldly: that kind goes on accumulating things. The other kind is called the other-worldly, spiritual, religious: he goes on renouncing things. But both are focused on things, both concentrate on thing - one to possess, one to dispossess. But their eyes remain focused on things.

I call this country one of the most materialistic countries in the world. But it is living in a great illusion, and the illusion is created because the people who renounce things appear to be religious. It is not a question of possessing things or renouncing things.

A religious person is one who has started living in the world of no-things, who knows how to love, how to pray, how to meditate - because meditation is not any solid thing. You cannot show it to anybody. And neither is love a commodity. You cannot sell it in the marketplace; you cannot profit out of it. The religious person is one who starts entering into the world of no-things. And the beginning has to be with the acceptance, with the celebration of your own no-thinghood, of your own nothingness.

It is far better to use the negative expression so that you don't start thinking about yourself as a thing.

Aneesha, symbols are significant because a symbol creates its own center in you, and starts creating a reality around it. For example, if you believe that you are a soul, your whole life is going to be different. It will be settled by that symbol of the soul. If you believe that you are a no-self, anatta, a silent nothingness, an utter emptiness, that you are a nobody, that will transform your whole life. It is going to be different.

The person who thinks "I am a soul" will live differently from the person who thinks "There is nobody inside me." What will be the difference? The person who thinks "I am a soul" will be alienated. He will think himself separate from existence. That's what alienation is.

The word "alienation" comes from a Latin root, alienare, which means "to make strange or to separate what once was united." The person who thinks "I am" certainly will have to draw lines around himself to make it clear who he is - "I am not the tree, I am not the rock, I am not the woman I love, I am not the child I have given birth to, I am not this earth, I am not the sun." He will have to go on defining himself, "what I am not." He will have to eliminate millions of things; then a tiny space will be left of which he will think "I am." This is alienation.

The positive language used down the ages by the religious people has created great alienation.

Man has become a stranger in a world which is his home. He feels homeless, uprooted, an outsider.

And the reason is a wrong symbol. Change the symbol, and you see how your life starts changing.

Small changes sometimes bring great revolutions. Just a slight change. Symbols are significant; they create their own world. Each symbol creates a world. A symbol is a seed.

Just think that you are a no-self. Now, there is no need to draw any boundary around you. How can you draw one? You are not. You cannot draw a boundary when you are not. You need not think "I am not the tree, and I am not the rock, and I am not the earth, and I am not the people who are here." You will have to think in a totally different way. You will have to say, "Because I am not, that means I am all. Because I am not, that means I am not a wave in the ocean, but the ocean itself. I am not means God is. " And suddenly you belong to the world and the world belongs to you, and it is your home. And that brings great peace and great joy: you are not alienated.

Alienation is bound to create some kind of neurosis, schizophrenia, some kind of great paranoia, because if you are, then you are against this whole world. And you are so small, and the world is so vast, there is no possibility of your ever being the conqueror. Now the whole stupid idea of conquering nature arises. Once you accept that you are a self, now you have to conquer, you have to prove. You have to conquer other selves; you have to conquer nature; you have to prove yourself.

The greatest teachers have always been negative. They don't say that you are, they say you are not; and the beauty of that negativity is immense, incalculable, immeasurable.

Remember the significance of the symbol. The symbol is just a center around which you become integrated.

The opposite of symbolic is diabolic. The symbol draws people together and generates action. The diabolic is what pulls apart and enervates. Without a symbol creating unity and involvement, people slip into diabolic apathy. Apathy creates sleep and an illusion as if the problems have been solved.

But they are not solved.

A symbol is a seed, a creative seed. Choose the symbol very intelligently. Much will depend on it; your whole life may be decided by the symbol you choose. If you choose a wrong symbol, you will be moving in a wrong direction. The function of the Master is to give you right seeds, right symbols.

Sannyas is a symbol, nothing else, a symbol around which you can create a new vision, a new perspective.

There are people who have forgotten the significance of symbols. They start falling apart, they start falling to pieces. There is nothing to keep them together. The symbol keeps you together, it is like glue. It gives you direction, it gives you meaning, it gives you a possible future, it makes you aware of your potentiality.

And if you don't choose a right symbol, then your life will become diabolic; it will become disintegrated, fragmentary. And when a person becomes disintegrated and fragmentary, his life takes the color of apathy, indifference. He drags, he is bored, he somehow manages to live. He simply waits for death to come and deliver him. His life can't have any poetry, his life can't have any splendor, his life can't have any dance. There is nothing to dance for.

Man is a symbolic animal; that is my definition of man. Man cannot live without symbols. It is because of this great need that religions have always existed. They have existed because man needs symbols.

This century is the first in the whole of human history which is living without symbols - and suffering much, unnecessarily. When you don't have symbols you start disintegrating. Modern man lives in apathy, boredom. He is continuously tired and weary of existence. There is nothing to hold him together, he is always falling apart. He has no center, he is only a circumference. He can't have any richness of being.

So choose a right symbol. And no-self is far better than the self.

Aneesha, you ask, "Is there a difference between the real self and no-self?" There is no difference in reality. When you arrive, the no-self is the real self. But there is a difference before you have arrived.

When you are on the journey there is a difference.

And my suggestion is choose the negative, and there is far more possibility of your reaching the positive by choosing the negative. If you choose the positive you will be lost. Then your self will be nothing but a sanctified idea of your ego.

The second question:

Question 2:

Samarpan, it all depends on the poet. Poetry is simply a flowering, an outpouring of the heart of the poet. On a rosebush there will be a rose flower; it depends on the rosebush. No other flower will happen to the rosebush, only the rose. It depends on the poet.

In Sanskrit, in the ancient language of India, we have two words for poet. I think there is no other language in the world which has two words for poet. One is rishi and the other is kavi. The English word "poet" only translates the second, kavi. For that first word, rishi, in English there is no equivalent. It has been translated as "the seer", but that is only approximately right.

These two words will be good to understand. The rishi means one who has seen, one who has arrived, one who has entered into the source, and now a poetry arises out of him. He is not a poet in the ordinary sense; he does not compose poetry. Poetry simply flows out of him. Even if he talks prose, there is poetry in it. And even if he sits silently underneath a tree, there is poetry in his silence. If he walks, his walk has a grace of its own, a poetry. If he looks towards you, you will find poetry pouring through his eyes. If he touches you, you will feel poetry flowing into your body through his touch. One who has arrived becomes poetry. A rishi is a poet who has become poetry itself.

The poet only has glimpses. The poet only once in a while comes to know what reality is, and that is only for a moment, like lightning. One moment the window opens and then it is closed again. But that glimpse stirs his heart Now he tries to express it, to find the right words, right rhythm. If he is a poet he will compose poetry, if he is a painter he will paint, if he is a musician he will try to bring that glimpse back again in his songs or in his music, or if he is a sculptor then he will try to transform a marble rock into his vision. But there is great effort. The vision is gone, only the memory lingers.

The taste is still on the tongue, but only a lingering taste, and great effort is needed to express it.

The poet tries to express. The rishi can't help expressing it. There is no effort involved, because the experience is not just a glimpse. The experience has become his very soul: he is it.

You ask me, "Is poetry the voice of wonder...?" Yes, the RISHI'S poetry is the voice of wonder; it is the voice of God himself. That's why in the East we say, "The Vedas are not written by man, but by God himself." It simply means that God has spoken through man and the people he has used were only mediums, vehicles. The words are not their own; the words have come from God. So is the case with the Upanishads and the Geeta, and so is the case with the Koran and the Bible and the Tao Te Ching.

Koran is a descendance from the beyond. Mohammed is only on the receiving end; he has not composed it, he has not written it. It has been written through him, he was only a medium. He has been used by God, just as you write with a pen; the pen is not the writer. The pen is only used, it is an instrument of writing, but the writing comes from beyond - it comes from you. You use your hand to hold the pen, but the hand is not the writer either. That again is an instrument.

When God speaks, then there is no effort involved, then there is no deliberate composition of poetry or painting. Then one is in a kind of drunkenness - one is a drunkard. One is drowned in God and something flows. Then certainly the poetry is the voice of wonder and it has great mystery in it. It has the taste of eternity. It is nectar.

And blessed are those who can move and can be moved by such poetry, who can move into this poetry, this kind of poetry, and can be moved by this kind of poetry. Yes, blessed they are.

But the other kind of poetry is also there which is not the voice of God. It is just man's creation. It is mundane. Howsoever beautiful, it carries man's signature on it, it carries all the limitations of man.

The other kind of poetry may be an avoidance of the real kind. It may be an escape.

Samarpan, you ask, "Is poetry the voice of wonder, or an avoidance of moving closer to the source, a sensuous lingering?" The other kind of poetry can be an avoidance. You may be afraid to take the jump, you may be afraid to lose yourself totally, so you allow only a few glimpses here and there, and then you "drown" yourself - what you call creativity. You paint, you make poetry, you create music - and you get lost in "doings". That may be an avoidance. Maybe you are afraid: that lightning was too much.

You are afraid that if you don't get drowned in your so-called creativity, the window may open again.

And who knows? You may not be capable of resisting the temptation of jumping out of it. It is so alluring, it is so magnetic, it simply pulls one into the unknown. It is like a vortex, and it is so powerful that nothing can hold you.

It is possible, Samarpan. The other kind of poetry, the other kind of painting and creativity, may be just an avoidance of the creator.

Gurdjieff used to divide art into two divisions: one he used to call objective art, and the other subjective art. The objective art is the art that flows out of a man who has arrived, and the subjective art is illusory, dreamlike. It is out of the man who himself is fast asleep, only dreaming that he is awake - only dreaming that he is awake. And certainly when you dream that you are awake, that dream becomes a hindrance to awakening, because you are already thinking that you are awake, so what is the point of thinking of another awakening? You are awake in your mind, so you go on sleeping.

It is very right to have two words for poets. Because Mohammed's words are poetry, pure poetry, but it is different from Milton. Omar Khayyam's words are pure poetry, but it is different from Shakespeare. Buddha's words are pure poetry, but it is different from Kalidas.

And where is the difference? The difference is that Buddha is no more, only God is. Buddha has become a hollow bamboo, a flute. The song is descending from the beyond - Buddha is a flute on the lips of the beyond. He is not a doer; he is not at all. His nothingness is the source of his poetry.

But Kalidas is very much, Shakespeare is very much, Milton is very much. All the poets of the world, they are very much. You can just watch it. You will be surprised, poets are very egoistic people, sometimes more egoistic than the people who have much money and much power. And poets are very quarrelsome and are continuously fighting with each other, condemning each other, taunting each other, or very ironical about each other. They also create poetry, but their poetry is ordinary, subjective, dreamlike. Their poetry reflects only their faces. They are not rishis, they are only kavis.

When the poetry starts reflecting the face of God, then you are a rishi, a seer, a real poet.

Kelly comes to Cohen's office to sell him a dictaphone and after listening to the sales pitch, Cohen, who has a very strong Jewish accent says, "Tell me what for I need a dictaphone? I have a secretary, an office boy, a junior vice-president. What for I need a dictaphone?"

Kelly, being a super-salesman, says: "Tell you what, Mr. Cohen, you take the dictaphone one month free of charge and just try it."

"Well," said Cohen, "if it shouldn't cost a penny, what the hell - I have nothing to lose."

After one month, Kelly returned and asked Cohen how he enjoyed it. "Well," Cohen said, "it is pretty okay, but there seems to be one thing wrong with it."

"What is that?" replied the salesman.

"The damn thing talks too much like a Jew!"

The poetry is going to be your reflection. If you are there too much, then in your poetry your ego will be reflected, then it will be nothing but an ornament for the ego. But if you are not there, then God will be reflected. Then poetry is sacred. That is the beauty of a Zen haiku; it is sacred. That is the beauty of the Upanishads; they are sacred.

Remember it: for the real poetry to be born you have to die. You and real poetry cannot exist together. Real poetry is religion. Religion is the highest form of art, and art is the lowest form of religion. Religion is pure aesthetics.

The third question:

Question 3:

It can't be helped. They are utterly incapable of understanding something which is non-political.

They can understand only politics; they are experts in understanding politics. And even when there is nothing of politics, they suspect. They are constantly suspicious, and they go on finding politics even when nothing of it exists.

Now, this place is absolutely a non-political place. We are not interested in any kind of politics, but whenever they see that so many people are gathering, they become suspicious.

Now the central Indian government wants to know how many sannyasins we have in the whole world, how many centers we have in India and abroad, how many government officials are sannyasins, and so many queries. Just because the orange people are growing and spreading, they are becoming afraid... something is on the way.

And I am not interested in politics at all, but their paranoia, their fear, is that if so many people are here, then sooner or later there may be trouble for them. And out of their fear they can go on interpreting things. They will be their interpretations, and they can create so much mess in their own minds, and they can start believing in their own fears. Politicians are, deep down, paranoid.

It is out of fear that a person wants power. It is to hide one's fear that a person becomes interested in power-trips. He wants great power so that he can feel that there is no fear, "at least not for me."

Even the greatest politicians are constantly trembling inside. To hide that trembling, they need great power around themselves; only then can their fear subside, can they console themselves. They constantly live in fear; fear is their problem.

And because all the politicians live in fear, they are creating a world of paranoia, a fear-oriented world. Now, the Americans are afraid of the Russians, and the Russians are afraid of the Americans.

This is so foolish. And because the Americans are afraid of the Russians, seventy, eighty percent of their energy goes into preparing for war; and because the Russians are afraid of the Americans - because the Americans are preparing for war - eighty percent of their energy goes into preparation for war.

Now this same energy can make this earth a paradise. There is no need at all for anybody to be poor in the world now. And if people are poor, it is because of these foolish politicians - these fear-oriented politicians.

Now, the Russians cannot stop preparing for more war, because they say the Americans are doing it: "Unless America stops, we cannot stop." And America makes it a condition: "Unless you stop, we cannot stop." Then who is going to stop first?

And this is not only the case with America and Russia, this is the case with every country. India is afraid - Pakistan is preparing, China is preparing - so we have to prepare. Pakistan is afraid that India is preparing for war, so Pakistan has to prepare for war.

It happened, a procession was coming, a marriage procession, and Mulla Nasrudin was standing by the side of a cemetery wall. Night was descending, things were becoming dark. He was reading a book, a detective novel or something like that, and he was full of fear, and he was still dreaming about, thinking about the things he had been reading; and suddenly he saw this procession coming towards him, and he thought "These must be my enemies. Why are they coming towards me? And somebody is sitting on a horse with a sword! And bands and people! Must be enemies."

He frightened himself so much, he jumped inside the cemetery, searched for some place to hide.

There was a freshly dug grave, so he went in, lay there with closed eyes so that the danger would pass.

Now, these people, the marriage procession people, had seen somebody standing by the side of the wall. In the dark it was not clear who he was, and suddenly he jumped inside the cemetery; they panicked: "Somebody is trying to do something. Maybe he is going to throw a bomb." So they stopped by the wall, and the few brave ones went in, ready to fight. They looked around; there was nobody. Then they came across that freshly dug grave, and Mulla Nasrudin was there. He stopped breathing because he became very much afraid that "Now, these people have come, so whatsoever I was afraid of is going to happen now. This is the last time. I am finished."

They all leaned over the grave and looked at him, what this man was doing - and he looked alive!

And how long can you stop your breathing? Finally, he had to breathe, so they asked, "What are you doing here?"

And Mulla Nasrudin opened his eyes and he said, "And what are you doing here? Why are you here?"

And those people were also angry; they said, "First you tell us why you are here! "

Then the whole thing was clear to Nasrudin. He laughed. He said, "Now, this is a very, very difficult philosophical problem. You are here because of me, I am here because of you. Now, it cannot be solved. There is no beginning and no end; it is a vicious circle."

And this goes on and on... the whole world preparing for war, and the whole world wants to live in peace. It is because of these stupid politicians. Because their orientation is fear, they make the whole country afraid. They spread fear. They live in fear. They are constantly suspicious.

Because I talk about laissez-faire, because I say that real political freedom can exist only when there is economic freedom... Economic freedom has to be the fundamental freedom. Once you destroy economic freedom, political freedom disappears; and when political freedom disappears, religious freedom disappears. They are all connected together.

If freedom is to exist in the world, it has to exist in its multi-dimensions - religious, political, economic.

It cannot exist only as political; it cannot exist only as economic. Freedom is one phenomenon. It has multi-dimensions to it, but they are all interlinked.

Just think of a country which allows no economic freedom. How can it be politically free? That's why communism cannot create freedom. It creates "equality". Equality means people's freedom to be unequal has been taken away. Equality means people who can earn more, who have the talents to earn more, will not be allowed to earn more. And there are people who have the talents.

It is not only that poets have talents different from non-poets, it is not only that philosophers have talents different from non-philosophers; so is the case with the rich and the poor too. Andrew Carnegie or Rockefeller have certain talents which nobody else has. Andrew Carnegie was born poor, but died the richest man in the world - had some genius. In a communist structure, this genius cannot be allowed. Nobody can become an Andrew Carnegie in Russia. But this is destroying people's freedom; that means this is unfair, unfair to Andrew Carnegie.

And the problem is the people who cannot become rich, cannot create wealth, cannot create capital, cannot create richness. It is people like Andrew Carnegie who create richness.

It is only people like Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, G.E. Moore who create philosophy. If you stop them from creating philosophy, there will be no philosophy. It is people like Rockefeller and Morgan and Carnegie who create wealth. If you don't allow them to create wealth, there will be no wealth.

Just stop a few poets from creating poetry. Do you think everybody else will become poets because you have stopped a few people and you have "distributed poetry equally"; now everybody should be equally a poet? No.

People are different, people are unequal. The most fundamental error that Karl Marx committed was that he was not at all aware of the psychological inequality of human beings. Communism lacks something very fundamental, the perspective that people are unequal psychologically. And a fair and free world has to give people full freedom to be unequal, to move into their own talents, to be themselves.

Because I say that capitalism is the natural evolution of human society, immediately the politicians become afraid. They think then I must be working for America or the C.l.A. or something.

Just a few days before, a well-known communist, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, wrote an article against me, declaring that I am working for the C.l.A. Now, this is surprising because others say that Khwaja Ahmed Abbas is a Russian agent. In America, if you talk about communism, you are a Russian agent.

If you talk about communism you are a Russian agent, if you talk about capitalism you are an American agent; that means you cannot talk at all. Otherwise you will have to be either the Russian agent or the American agent. That means there is no possibility to think, to contemplate, to meditate, to talk the way you feel. If I talk about communism and for communism I am a Russian agent, if I talk about capitalism I am an American agent; then where is the possibility for me not to be anybody's agent and just to talk the way I want to talk? There seems to be no possibility.

This is the world your politicians have created. Continuously afraid... continuously afraid.

And it is not only that the Indian government is afraid of me. It is so absurd that other governments of other countries are becoming afraid. Now here are German agents from the German government, watching what is happening. Now the Indian government is afraid of why German spies are here!

Now Indian spies are following the German spies: there must be something, otherwise why should Germany be interested in me? And soon other spies will be coming!

And this is a place where nothing is happening for anybody. They're all fools! German, Indian, et cetera, they're all fools. They are unnecessarily wasting their time.

But I am not saying don't send your spies. Go on sending. A few of them are bound to become sannyasins! A few of them have already become!

Just the other day I received a letter from a very well-known professor in Germany just to inform me that the Protestant Church of Germany has sent spies here. Now they are becoming afraid because Christians are becoming sannyasins. That is dangerous.

You will soon see all kinds of spies here. Be very loving to them, and help them to know as much as they can know about me. A few of them are bound to become sannyasins, and that will shock their governments and their churches very much.

From a very reliable source in New Delhi, I have just received information that Eva Renzi was here as a German government spy. Now, this is what Indian spies have discovered! You see the paranoia?

You ask me, "Why do politicians go on misunderstanding you?" To understand me, a little intelligence is also needed.

A very smug and complacent politician disclosed airily to a New Delhi reporter that he had attended both Oxford and Cambridge.

"Why did you leave Oxford?" asked the reporter.

"Pneumonia, dear boy," explained the politician.

"Because you caught it?" persisted the reporter.

"No," admitted the politician. "Because I could not spell it."

A little intelligence is certainly needed.

The politician was campaigning to be elected to parliament. He was trying to make conversation with an old farmer.

He said, "Say, mister, your corn looks kind of yellow."

Farmer, "Yep, that is the kind we planted."

The politician, "Looks as though you will only have half a crop. "

Farmer, "Don't expect any more. The landlord gets the other half."

The politician, "Have you been living here all your life?"

Farmer, "Nope, just part of it up to now."

The politician, "Say, there is not much difference between you and a fool, is there?"

Farmer, "Nope, just the fence."

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Prageet, madness is of two kinds, and modern psychiatry is aware of only one kind; and because it is not aware of the other kind, its understanding about madness is very lopsided, erroneous, faulty, and harmful too.

The first kind of madness that psychiatrists are aware of is falling below the rational mind. When you cannot cope with realities, when they are too much, when they become unbearable, madness is a way of escaping into your own subjective world, so that you can forget the realities that are there. You create your own subjective world, you start living in a kind of imaginary world, you start dreaming even with open eyes, so that you can avoid the realities that have become too much and are unbearable. This is an escape; one falls below the rational mind. This is going back to the animal mind. This is falling into the unconscious.

There are other people who manage the same thing in other ways. The alcoholic manages it through alcohol. He drinks too much; he becomes completely unconscious. He forgets the whole world and all its problems and anxieties - the wife, the children, the market, the people. He moves into his unconscious through the help of alcohol. This is a temporary kind of madness which will be gone after a few hours.

And whenever there are difficult times in the world, drugs become very important. After the Second World War, drugs became of immense importance all over the world, particularly in the countries which had seen the Second World War, in the countries which became aware that we are sitting on a volcano that can erupt at any moment. We have seen Hiroshima and Nagasaki being burned within seconds - one hundred thousand people burned within five seconds. Now the reality is too much to bear. Hence the new generation, the younger generation, became interested in drugs.

Drugs and their impact all around the world, and their influence on the new generation, are rooted in the experience of the Second World War. It is the Second World War that has created hippies, that has created drug-people; because life is so dangerous and death can happen any moment... how to avoid it, how to forget all about it?

In times of stress and strain, people start taking drugs. And this has always been so. It is a way of creating a temporary madness. And by madness I mean falling below the rational mind - because it is only the rational mind which can be aware of problems. It knows no solutions; it knows only problems. So if the problems are manageable and you can co-exist with the problems, you remain sane. When you see it is too much, you go insane. Insanity is a built-in process of avoiding problems, realities, anxieties, stress situations.

People avoid in many ways. Somebody will become an alcoholic, somebody will take LSD, somebody marijuana. And there are other people who are not so courageous - they will fall ill.

They will have cancers, tuberculosis, paralysis; so they can say to the world, "What can I do? I am paralyzed. If I cannot face realities, it is not my responsibility. Now I am paralyzed." "If my business is going to the dogs, what can I do? I have cancer. "

These are ways that people protect their egos - poor ways, pit;able ways, but still they are ways to protect your ego. Rather than dropping the ego, people go on protecting it. Wherever life becomes too much of a tension, all these things will happen. People will have strange illnesses, incurable illnesses - incurable because there is a great support from the inside of the person for the illness, and without his cooperation with the medicine and with the doctor there is no possibility of curing him. Nobody can cure you against you: remember it as a fundamental truth.

If there is a deep investment in your cancer, if you want it to be there because that protects you, that gives you a feeling that it is because of the cancer that you are not able to fight in the marketplace, that you are not able to compete, that it is because of the cancer - if it gives you a satisfaction - if this investment is there - nobody can cure you, because you will go on creating it. It is a psychological disease; it is rooted in your psychology.

And everybody knows it. Students start feeling ill when the examination comes close. Some students go mad when the examination is just there. And after the examination they are okay again. Each time there is an examination they fall ill - fever, pneumonia, hepatitis, this and that. If you watch you will be surprised - why at the times of examinations do so many students become ill? And suddenly after the examinations everything is okay. That is a trick, a strategy. They can say to their parents, "What can I do? I was ill; that's why I could not pass," or, "I was ill; that's why I have come third class. Otherwise the gold medal was certainly mine." It is a strategy.

If your illness is a strategy, then there is no way to cure it. If your alcoholism is a strategy, then there is no way to cure it, because you want it to be there. You are a creator, you are creating it on your own - maybe not consciously.

And so is madness; that is the last resort. When everything fails, even cancer fails, alcohol fails, marijuana fails, paralysis fails, when everything fails, then the last resort is to go mad.

That's why madness happens more in the Western countries than in the Eastern, because life is still not so stressful. People are poor, but life is not so stressful. People are so poor, they cannot afford so much stress. People are so poor, they cannot afford psychiatry, psychoanalysis.

Madness is a luxury. Only rich countries can afford it.

This is one kind of madness that psychologists are aware of: falling below the rational mind, moving into the unconscious, dropping the small conscious that you had. It was not very much in the first place; only one-tenth part of your mind is conscious. You are just like an iceberg - one- tenth above the surface, nine-tenths below the surface. Nine-tenths of your mind is unconscious.

Madness means dropping that one-tenth that was conscious so the whole iceberg goes underneath the surface.

But there is another kind of madness - that too has to be called madness because of a certain similarity - that is going beyond the rational mind. One is falling below the rational mind; the other is falling above the rational mind, falling upwards. In both cases the rational mind is lost: in one you become unconscious, in the other you become superconscious. In both cases the ordinary mind is lost.

In one you become totally unconscious, a certain integrity arises in you. And you can watch: in mad people there is a certain integrity, a certain consistency - they are one. You can rely on a madman.

He is not two, he is utterly one. He is very consistent because he has only one mind, that is the unconscious. The duality has disappeared. And you will find a certain innocence also in a madman.

He is like a child. He is not cunning, he cannot be. In fact, he had to become mad because he could not be cunning. He could not cope in a cunning world. You will find a certain simplicity, purity, in a madman.

If you have watched mad people you will fall in love with them. They have a kind of togetherness.

They are not divided, they are not split; they are one. Of course, they are one against reality, they are one in their dream world, they are one in their illusions, but they are one.

I have heard about a man who worked for many years in a drama company and his role was always Abraham Lincoln. After many years working as Abraham Lincoln, talking as Abraham Lincoln, wearing the clothes of Abraham Lincoln, slowly, slowly the man went mad. He started thinking that he WAS Abraham Lincoln. At first his family and friends thought that he was joking, kidding, but slowly, slowly it became clear to them that he was not joking. He had fallen into that trap. He believed it; because not only in the drama - outside the drama he would wear the same clothes. He would have the same walking stick; he would walk the way Abraham Lincoln used to walk. He would stutter the way Abraham Lincoln used to stutter. He remained Abraham Lincoln twenty-four hours a day.

Friends persuaded him, tried to convince him that, "What are you doing?" But he was so convinced, he said, "What are you saying? I am Abraham Lincoln! " Finally, seeing there was no way, they took him to a psychiatrist. He tried all that he knew, but the man was utterly convinced.

Mad people are very together. You cannot create doubt in them - doubt is part of the rational mind.

Whatsoever they believe, they believe fanatically, so all mad people are fanatics and all fanatics are mad people. Remember that.

A fanatic is one who believes, "Only I am right, and everybody else is wrong." The fanatic is one who believes, "Whosoever believes in what I say is right, and whosoever thinks that I am wrong is wrong."

There is no possibility of any communication with a fanatic; you cannot communicate. He thinks only in two ways: either you are a friend or an enemy. Whosoever believes the way you believe is the friend, and whosoever does not believe the way you believe is the enemy.

That's why I call Morarji Desai a fanatic. He thinks the whole country has to believe the way he believes - that I have to believe in his ideology, only then can I be allowed to exist in this country.

The fanatic can never be a democrat; the fanatic is always a fascist. The fanatic is mad.

All efforts failed. And the man was so convinced about his being Abraham Lincoln that slowly, slowly, day in, day out as the psychiatrist was trying, even the psychiatrist started being doubtful - maybe he is. He also looked like Abraham Lincoln. For years he had been acting, and when you act something for years, you become it. The lie repeated again and again becomes a truth.

When the psychiatrist also started becoming suspicious, that "Who knows? You may be right. We all may be wrong; that is also a possibility," he tried one thing.

There is now a machine in America; it is called a lie detector. It is used in the courts. He brought a lie detector; it detects whether people are lying or not. It is a simple device. The person is not aware that he is standing or sitting on the lie detector; it is hidden underneath. It is something like a cardiogram, it goes on making a graph of his heartbeats. When he is speaking the truth there is a harmony in the graph, and whenever he speaks a lie the harmony is broken.

So first a few questions have to be asked about which he cannot lie, about which there is no possibility of lying, so we know the graph is going harmoniously. The man was asked, "Look at the clock. What does the clock say?" And he said, "Fifteen to ten." A letter was given to him and he was told, "Read this letter," and he read the letter. Now the graph was there going on harmoniously.

And a few more questions to be absolutely certain - "How many people are present in the room?"

He said "Seven." "What color is the curtain?" He said "Green." Things like that, about which he could not lie, there was no possibility.

And then he was asked, "Are you Abraham Lincoln?" He was getting tired. Every day for years people had been persuading him that he was not. So just to get rid of the whole thing, he said, "No, I am not," but the lie detector said that he was lying!

The conviction had gone so deep that he was only lying just to convince people, to get rid of these foolish people. He said, "No, I am not," but he knew he was.

Madness has a consistency, a togetherness. There is no doubt in it; it is utter belief. And the same is the case with the other madness. A man goes above reason, beyond reason, becomes utterly conscious, superconscious. In the first madness, the one part that was conscious becomes dissolved into the nine parts that were unconscious. In this other madness, the nine parts that were not conscious start moving upwards and all come to the light, above the surface. The whole mind becomes conscious.

That is the meaning of the word "Buddha", becoming absolutely conscious. Now this man will also look mad, because he will be consistent, utterly consistent. He will be together, more together than any madman can ever be. He will be absolutely integrated. He will be an individual, literally an individual - it means indivisible. He will not have any split at all.

So both look alike: the madman believes, and the Buddha trusts. And trust and belief look alike. The madman is one, utterly unconscious; the Buddha is also one, utterly conscious. And oneness looks alike. The madman has dropped reason, reasoning, mind; Buddha has also dropped reasoning, rationality, mind. That is similar; and yet they are poles apart. One has fallen below humanity, and the other has risen above humanity.

Modern psychology will remain incomplete unless it starts studying Buddhas. It will remain incomplete, its vision will remain incomplete, partial; and a partial vision is very dangerous. A partial truth is very dangerous, more dangerous than a lie, because it gives you the feeling that you are right.

Modern psychology has to take a quantum leap. It has to become the psychology of the Buddhas.

It will have to go deep into Sufism, into Hasidism, into Zen, into Tantra, into Yoga, into Tao. Only then will it really be psychology. The word "psychology" means the science of the soul. It is not yet psychology; it is not yet the science of the soul.

These are the two possibilities: you can go below yourself, you can go above yourself.

Become mad like Buddha, Bahaudin, Mohammed, Christ. Become mad like me. And that madness has immense beauty, because all that is beautiful is born out of that madness, and all that is poetic flows out of that madness. The greatest experiences of life, the greatest ecstasies of life, are born out of that madness.

Initiating you into sannyas, I am really initiating you into that kind of madness. This place belongs to mad people.

The last question:

Question 5:

I have heard this definition of a masochist and a sadist:

A masochist says: "Beat me, whip me, put me in chains."

A sadist says: "No, I won't."