Born with Joy

The first question:

Question 1:

Rani, it is difficult to enjoy because you will have to disappear. Joy is possible if you are not. You and joy cannot coexist: when joy is there you are absent, when you are there joy is absent. They are like light and darkness - they can't exist together in the same place.

Hence, to enjoy is difficult; it is not easy because to die is difficult, to die is not easy. And only those who know how to die moment-to-moment know how to enjoy. The more capable you are of dying the deeper will be your joy. Intense will be the flame of it, and great will be the flowering of it.

It is also difficult to enjoy, Rani, because you have so many investments in remaining miserable.

Unless you see it, you can go on trying to enjoy, but you will never enjoy. Those investments in misery have to be dropped. And from their very childhood everybody learns that misery pays. If you are miserable the parents are more loving. If you are ill the parents are more caring. If you are happy, healthy, nobody cares, you don't get attention. And attention is food for the ego. Without the attention the ego cannot live; it is its very breath. Just as the body needs oxygen, the ego needs attention.

Whenever you are healthy, happy, the parents don't pay any attention to you; there is no need. But when you are ill, miserable, crying, weeping, the whole family becomes attentive to your needs, as if you have created a kind of emergency. They drop all their work: the mother runs from the kitchen, the father drops his newspaper, and everybody is focused on you. It gives you great ego-fulfilment.

And slowly slowly you learn the way of the ego: remain miserable and people will pay attention to you, remain miserable and they will sympathize with you. And whenever you are enjoying nobody sympathizes with you. That's why people pay so much respect to ascetic people. Somebody is fasting and people say, 'Look, what a great saint!' He is simply being miserable.

If you are feasting, nobody is going to sympathize with you, but fast, and people sympathize. If you are in love with a woman, who is going to sympathize with you? On the contrary, people will be jealous. You are a competitor. They wanted the same woman themselves. You are an enemy.

Renounce sex, become celibate, move to a cave, and people will come from faraway places to pay their respects: 'Here is a great ascetic!' And you are simply being miserable. But misery pays:

misery can make you a MAHATMA. That has been the whole history of humanity: misery has always paid, you have respected miserable people. And if the misery is self-inflicted, of course, you gain more respect; it is voluntary.

Mahatma Gandhi became such a great name in the world because he was voluntarily miserable, inflicting misery upon himself How can you not be attentive to him? If he had been enjoying and living a total life, a whole and healthy life, you would have been jealous, you would have been antagonistic.

See these tricks and strategies of the mind and you will be able to drop them. Don't ask for attention, otherwise you will remain miserable. Attention can only be given when you are miserable; that is part of a natural mechanism.

It happens in your body, too. If you have a headache, your attention moves to the head; you forget the whole body. If you have a pain in the leg, then the whole attention moves towards the leg, you forget the whole body; then the leg becomes very important. It is good that legs and heads and hands are not politicians, otherwise they would constantly be in pain, they would remain constantly in pain. It is good that they don't have any egos. If the leg had some kind of ego, then the leg would continuously create trouble, because only when there is trouble do you pay attention: you massage the leg, you take care of it.

This is the inner mechanism, too: attention goes to the part which is in pain. And this is the mechanism of the family, of the society, of the world at large. Once you have learned the trick it becomes unconscious, it becomes autonomous; you simply go on using the trick. The husband comes home and the wife immediately starts being miserable. This I have watched.

I used to stay in many families when I was travelling around this country. The wife is laughing and is happy, and suddenly the husband comes - and I am watching - and her face changes. Not that she is doing it, no; it is not needed to be done anymore, it is automatic. Seeing the husband coming, seeing the key move in the hole, suddenly an automatic change happens in her, her face becomes miserable because the husband will only pay attention to her if she is in misery, otherwise not.

This mechanism has to be made conscious. Watch out for it, otherwise it will destroy all possibilities of joy in life. It has destroyed - millions of people live in misery and hell because they hanker for attention. It is stupid to hanker for attention; it does not give you anything, it only strengthens the ego, which is not you. It is not your essence, it is only your personality, your pseudo self. It goes on nourishing the pseudo self, and the essential self goes on starving.

The essential self need not have any attention. The essential self can live without any attention because it is not dependent on anybody else. And the essential self is capable of rejoicing in its aloneness. It does not even need the other, so what to say about attention? It does not even need the other. Its real bliss is inner, it does not come from the outside, it does not depend on any condition; it is unconditional. It is a spontaneous, inner, intrinsic phenomenon.

Watch and see how you are profiting from misery, and then you will know why it is so difficult to enjoy. Stop these investments in misery, arid the joy will flow again.

We are born with joy. Joy is our very being. It does not need anything to be joyous. One can simply be joyous sitting by oneself. Joy is natural, misery is unnatural. But misery is profitable, and joy is purposeless - it will not bring you any profit.

So one has to decide. If you want to be joyous, you have to be a nobody. This is the decision. If you want to be joyous, you will have to be a nobody because you will not get any attention. On the contrary, people will feel jealous, people will be antagonistic to you, people will not like you. People will like you only if you are in misery, then they will sympathize. In sympathy your ego is fulfilled and their ego is fulfilled. Whenever they sympathize with somebody, they are higher and you are lower.

They have the upper hand. They are enjoying the trip of sympathy.

Sympathy is violent. They are seeing the fact that you are miserable and they are not. They are in a position to sympathize, and you are in a position to be sympathized with. Their ego is fulfilled and your ego is fulfilled because 'Look,' you say to yourself, 'how important you are. Everybody is sympathizing with you.'

So ego fulfils from both sides. It is profitable. Nobody loses. When you are joyous, rejoicing, dancing, singing, just being happy for no reason at all, your ego will disappear because it will not get attention. And others will not feel good because you are not giving them an opportunity to fulfil their egos.

That's the reason why people were against Jesus and against Buddha, and why they are against me. They would like me also to be fasting, living under a tree like a beggar, then they would be very happy. They would come in thousands, they would worship me. But if I live in my own way - and my way is the way of the feast, my way is the way of festivity - then they are shocked. They are perfectly happy if somebody leaves the palace and becomes a beggar. They are perfectly happy - they love the man. But if a beggar moves into the palace, they will all be against him. They will not like the idea at all.

Just watch. You also do such things.

If a man is Lying on a bed of thorns, immediately you prostrate yourself as if he were doing something great, as if he were bringing some bliss to humanity. He is just being a masochist, but you love, you respect him. Your respect seems to be morbid. Your respect seems to be ill, sick. And because of your respect he is Lying there on the thorns: he wants your attention and this is the most simple way to get your attention and your respect. His ego is fulfilled. He is ready to lie down on those thorns and suffer.

This thing is happening on a smaller scale or a bigger scale everywhere. Beware of it; it is a very ancient trap. And then you can enjoy, there is nothing else but to enjoy. If you are ready to become a nobody, if you are not in need of others' attention, there is no problem at all. You can enjoy, small things you can enjoy. Very small things can give you the greatest joy possible.

Just see Jesus with his friends, eating, drinking... People could not tolerate it. They would have loved him if he had been an ascetic; but he was not.

One day he came into a town and Mary Magdalene came to see this man for the first time. And she fell in love with this man. This man was worth loving. How can you avoid it? How can you manage not to fall in love with such a man? She brought very precious perfume and poured it on Jesus' feet, and washed Jesus' feet with that precious perfume. And she was crying with joy. And Judas said to Jesus, 'This is wrong. You should have prevented the woman. The perfume was very precious. It could have been sold. It could have fed a few poor people in the town.'

Now with whom are you going to agree? - with Judas or with Jesus? If you are honest you will agree with Judas. If you are honest with yourself you will agree with Judas. He seems to be the beginning of socialism, communism, Gandhism. He seems to be very logically right. He was the most intellectual disciple of Jesus, the only educated disciple of Jesus, and his logic is flawless.

But what did Jesus say? Jesus said something absurd. He said, 'You can feed the poor when I am gone. The poor will always be there, you need not worry. But while I am here, rejoice.'

Do you agree with Jesus? If you agree, you can be joyous. If you don't agree, you are going to remain miserable. 'But look!' your head will say, 'Judas seems to be right.' Jesus seems to be utterly absurd. What is he saying? 'The poor will always be there, but right now you are with the bridegroom. Enjoy! Celebrate! ' This is celebration.

Now if the people were against Jesus it seems to be absolutely fitting with our so-called intellect.

Jesus says, 'I cannot prevent the woman because she is in such joy. I cannot destroy her joy. Look at her tears, look at her being. She is in such a festive mood. This is just symbolic. This pouring of the precious perfume on my feet is just symbolic that she is utterly happy. She is celebrating. I cannot stop anybody from celebrating.' Then, if you agree with Jesus, you can be joyous.

So it depends on you, Rani, whether you agree with Judas or you agree with Jesus.

The second question:

Question 2:

Andreas, I never asked anybody any such question. To ask the question is to search for guidance, is to seek for guidance. A question is always a need for an answer from somebody else. If you have questions to ask, you will have to choose a Master.

A Master is one who is ready to answer you. A disciple is one who is not only asking from curiosity but is ready to stake his whole being on his questioning, is ready to transform his life according to the answer given. If you really ask the question you have already become a disciple. That is the meaning of being a disciple: to ask.

Jesus says, 'Ask, and it shall be given to you. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. Seek, and ye shall find.'

'Ask, and it shall be given unto you...' Asking is the beginning of disciplehood. And unless you are a disciple, the Master will not take much note of you, because many come just as curiosity seekers - out of curiosity but not really ready to inquire.

Inquiry needs commitment, inquiry needs involvement, inquiry is risky, dangerous. It is not only intellectual, it is existential. So if you really want to ask, remember, let me make you alert, you are already becoming a disciple. And if you think that to choose a Master is to prevent one's enlightenment, please don't ask questions.

And I was surprised, because Andreas has asked at least seven questions today. The largest number of questions is from him.

Secondly, you say, 'You had no Master.'

That is true, I had no Master. That does not mean that I was not a disciple. I accepted the whole existence as my Master. It needs more courage to accept the whole existence as your Master. If you cannot accept even a single man as your Master, how can you accept the whole existence as your Master - the trees and rocks and the rivers and the clouds? If you cannot love a single human being, how can you love the whole? It is true I had no Master, but that does not mean that I was not a disciple. My disciplehood was a greater involvement than your disciplehood is. I trusted the clouds - which is very difficult. I trusted the trees - which is almost impossible. I trusted existence as such.

If that is possible then you need not have any Master in particular, because then everything is your Master.

When a great Sufi mystic, Hassan, was dying, somebody asked, 'Hassan, who was your Master?'

He said, 'Now it is too late to ask. Time is short, I am dying.' But the inquirer asked, 'You can simply say the name. You are still alive, you are still breathing and talking, you can simply tell me the name.'

He said, 'It will be difficult because I had thousands of Masters. If I just relate their names it will take months and years. It is too late. But three Masters I will certainly tell you about.

'One was a thief. Once I got lost in the desert, and when I reached the village it was very late. Half the night was already gone; shops were closed, caravanserais were closed. There was not a single human being on the roads. I searched for somebody to inquire of. I found one man who was trying to make a hole in the wall of a house. I asked him where I could stay, and he said, "I am a thief, and you look like a Sufi mystic to me."' His robe, his aura. 'And the thief said, "Right now it will be very difficult to find any place to stay, but you can come to my home. You can stay with me - if you can stay with a thief." '

Hassan said, 'I hesitated a little bit. Then I remembered. If the thief is not afraid of a Sufi, then why should the Sufi be afraid of a thief? In fact, he should be afraid of me. So I said, "Yes, I will come."

And I went, and I stayed with the thief. And the man was so lovely, so beautiful, I stayed for one month! And each night he would say to me, "Now I am going to my work. You rest, you pray, you do your work." And when he would come back I would ask, "Could you get anything?" He said, "Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try again." And he was never in a state of hopelessness.

'For one month continuously he came empty-handed, but he was always happy. And he said, "I will try tomorrow. God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen. And you also pray for me. At least you can say to God, 'Help this poor man.'"

And then Hassan said, 'When I was meditating and meditating for years on end, nothing was happening, and many times the moment came when I was so desperate, so hopeless that I thought to stop all this nonsense. There is no God, and all this prayer is just madness, all this meditation is false - and suddenly I would remember the thief who would say every night, "God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen."

'So I tried one day more. If the thief was so hopeful, with such hope and trust, I should try at least one day more. And many times it happened, but the thief and the memory of him helped me to wait one day more. And one day, it happened, it DID happen! I bowed down. I was thousands of miles away from the thief and his house, but I bowed down in his direction. He was my first Master.

'And my second Master was a dog. I was thirsty and I was going towards the river, and a dog came.

He was also thirsty. He looked into the river, he saw another dog there - his own image - and became afraid. He barked and the other dog barked, too. But his thirst was so much that he would hesitate and go back. He would come again and look into the water and find the dog there. But the thirst was so much that he suddenly jumped into the water, and the image disappeared. He drank the water, he swam in the water - it was a hot summer. And I was watching. I knew that a message had come to me from God. One has to jump in spite of all fears.

'When I was on the verge of jumping into the unknown, the same fear was there. I would go to the very edge, hesitate, and come back. And I would remember the dog. If the dog could manage, why not I? And then one day I jumped into the unknown. I disappeared and only the unknown was left behind. The dog was my second Master.

'And the third Master was a small child. I entered into a town and a small child was bringing a candle, a lit candle, hiding it in his hands and going to the mosque to put the candle there. Just joking, I asked the boy, "Have you lit the candle yourself?" He said, "Yes, sir." And I asked, jokingly, "Can you tell me from where the light came? There was a moment when the candle was unlit, then there was a moment when the candle was lit, can you show me the source from which the light came? And you have lit it, so you must have seen the light coming - from where?" And the boy laughed and blew out the candle, and said, "Now you have seen the light going, where has it gone? You tell me!"

And my ego was shattered, and my whole knowledge was shattered. And that moment I felt my own stupidity. Since then I dropped all knowledgeability.'

Hassan talked about three Masters. And he said, 'There have been many, and no time is left for me to talk about them all.'

Yes, this is true, I had no Master because I had millions of Masters. I have learnt from every possible source.

If you can be that kind of disciple you need not have a Master. But remember, it is not that you do not have a Master. Either you choose one or you choose all, but in any case you have to be a disciple.

To be a disciple is a must on the path. What does it mean to be a disciple? It means to be able to learn, to be available to learn, to be vulnerable to existence. What actually happens when you choose a Master? You start learning how to learn. And with one Master, slowly slowly you get in tune, and slowly slowly you see the point that in the same way you can get in tune with the whole existence.

The Master is just a miniature of the whole. Coming closer to the Master you start becoming aware of the beatitude, of closeness, of love, of intimacy, of involvement, of commitment. And slowly slowly you see the point that if just being so close to one single person can be such a tremendous joy, how much more it will be when you are close to the whole. The Master is just the beginning, the Master is not the end. And the true Master is only a door - through him you pass and go beyond. The true Master helps you to go beyond him.

You say, 'You had no Master. No Buddha has a Master. Sometimes I think that choosing a Master means to prevent one's own enlightenment.'

Enlightenment is simply enlightenment; it is neither mine nor yours. The ego is separate, the essence is not separate. To think in terms of your own enlightenment is to be caught in the net, in the trap of the ego again. You miss the whole point. If you think of 'your own' enlightenment, just as you think of your own car, your own house, your own wife, you are starting to think of enlightenment also as something that you will possess. You will not be there to possess it. You will be possessed by it.

And to surrender to a Master simply means an experiment in being possessed by somebody. You drop yourself and the other enters you and fills you. You learn surrender. It is just the ABE of surrender. But you cannot learn the xYz if you have not even learned the ABE of it. When you go to learn how to swim you don't go directly to the ocean, you don't go to deep waters, you learn in shallow water near the bank or you learn in a swimming pool.

The Master is like a swimming pool where you can learn how to swim. Once you have learned, all the oceans are yours, then you can go anywhere. Then this whole existence belongs to you. But you are no more there. In fact, it will be better to say you belong to the whole existence - not that you possess enlightenment, enlightenment possesses you.

'Sometimes I think that choosing a Master means to prevent one's own enlightenment.'

You don't have a Master yet, so who has prevented you from becoming enlightened? Why are you not enlightened yet? Then those who don't have Masters must be enlightened. If choosing a Master prevents enlightenment, then those who don't have Masters must be enlightened. Choosing the Master does not prevent enlightenment. Getting caught by the Master and getting caught into the Master - which prevents enlightenment - these are two different things. That is why Buddha says, 'If you meet me on the way, kill me immediately.' And I say to you too: If you see me on the way, kill me immediately.

The Master is a ladder. You have to use it and you have to go beyond it. The Master is a boat. You have to use it, and when you have reached the other shore you have to leave it. You need not carry it on your head. If you carry it on your head you are stupid.

And you have not reached anywhere. You must be dreaming, because such stupid people never reach to the other shore.

Choosing the Master does not prevent enlightenment; but a moment comes when you have to go beyond the Master, then don't cling - clinging to the Master will prevent you. But if there is a real Master he will not allow you to cling to him. That is the definition of a real Master. He teaches you to get involved, he teaches you to become committed, and one day he teaches you to become uncommitted again, to become uninvolved again. Then the Master is perfect.

The ordinary so-called masters just teach you one thing: how to become attached to them and then to remain attached to them. That's the definition of a pseudo master. Avoid the pseudo masters.

But to find a true Master is not going to prevent your enlightenment. You will not become enlightened without him. It is a paradoxical phenomenon. You have to choose the Master and you have to go beyond the Master. If you understand this paradox, my answer will be clear to you.

The third question:

Question 3:

God cannot be conquered. The very idea is foolish. You have to be conquered by God, you have to allow God to conquer you, and on the contrary you are saying, 'I want to conquer the kingdom of God.' This is the male ego, the aggressive mind: it always thinks in terms of conquering - conquer nature, conquer God, conquer love. And you have destroyed everything that you have conquered. You have destroyed the beauty of nature, the ecology, the inner harmony of nature by your conquering it.

Even a man like Bertrand Russell writes a book called THE CONQUEST OF NATURE. But this is how the Western mind has been thinking continuously - in terms of conquering. Either conquer this world or conquer that world, but you remain an Alexander.

This is not the way to approach love, this is not the way to pray. The very word 'conquering' is ugly.

Surrendering, letting God conquer you, allowing him to enter you... Don't prevent him. You need not go in search of him, you need not become a soldier to conquer. That's the difference between a soldier and a sannyasin: the soldier wants to conquer, the sannyasin wants to be conquered.

There was a loud hammering on the door of heaven. St. Peter appeared and said, 'I say, that's a tremendous racket. Who is making all the fuss?'

The shabby man standing there said, 'I'm Paddy McGinnis and I'm strong with the IRA these thirty years.'

St. Peter said, 'I'm sorry, Mr. McGinnis, but we have no record of you. You can't come in.'

'And who is saying anything about coming in?' said Paddy. 'I'm here a-tellin' you, you've got fifteen minutes to evacuate the place!'

This is the meaning of conquering God and the kingdom of God.

Drop this whole mind. This mind won't allow you. This mind is irreverent. This mind is incapable of knowing what worship is, what prayer is. Be a little more aware, alert about what you are asking. Do you want to possess God in your hands? Do you want God to be in your bank balance? God is not a treasure to be put in the bank, and God is not a thing that you can hold in your fist. God is not a thing! God is not a property!

Remember not to use the words that you use in your ordinary ego trips; these words will mislead you. These words show your ambition. These words are political. These words are not religious. A religious person surrenders, he prays, he waits, he opens up his being. He trusts, he says to God, 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.' He prays, 'Let me be destroyed utterly, completely, so there is no hindrance left. Let me be absolutely empty so you can come and fill me totally.'

The fourth question:

Question 4:

It is nothing new. It has always been so. It has d joy cang to do with Christians, this is so with Hindus, this is so with Buddhists, and this has always been so. They were thinking in the same way about Christ, too. These are the same people. They were thinking in the same way about Buddha, too, and these are the same people. Man is a very strange animal. The most strange thing about man is that he never learns; he goes on doing the same thing again and again.

Why did they crucify Jesus? What was wrong with this man? They thought him wicked, they thought him a representative of evil, a personification of the devil. They were angry. And, of course, the people who were interested in Jesus were younger people, because only young people can be interested in the new. The older generation has too much of an investment with the established, is too involved with the status quo. Do you think Jesus' followers were old people? He himself was young, and the people that surrounded him were young people. Parents were angry, very angry.

Rabbis were angry, priests were angry, because he was bringing a revolution. If Jesus is right, then the whole established religion is wrong. If Jesus is right, then what about the priests? Jesus and the priests can't both be right - either Jesus or the priests. The priests became organized against this man. They had to kill him. And the older generation was with them, naturally. The mind always feels comfortable with the old because it is familiar, one is accustomed to it. The new always feels dangerous, one feels suspicious of it. And religion is always new. True religion is always new, true religion is always rebellious. Whenever there is a man like Jesus or Buddha, there is bound to be great trouble.

But Jesus is crucified, and then slowly slowly,Jesus' life becomes the foundation of a new, established religion. Once Christianity becomes an established religion supported by the state and supported by the elders and Christianity itself has its own priesthood, then there is no problem. Then if a man like me comes, problems arise.

You say, 'My orthodox Christian parents think that you are a dangerous sophist, and some wicked force is working through you to destroy religion.'

In a way they are true. What they call religion is not religion, and I am certainly in favour of destroying it. What I call religion they cannot understand; it is impossible for them to conceive. They have become too stereotyped in their thinking, their minds are too conditioned, fixed. They are no longer fluid, flexible, they are rigid. The older a person becomes the more rigid he becomes.

Let me tell you a few things that were said about Christians in the early days of Christianity, and then you will understand what your parents are saying about me.

Tacitus says, 'There is a group, hated for their abominations, called Christians.'

And Suetonius says, 'The Christians are a class of men given to a new and wicked superstition.'

And Celcius says, 'They worship to an extravagant degree this man who appeared recently. They are like frogs holding a symposium round a swamp, debating which of them is the most sinful.'

And Lucian says, 'The poor wretches have convinced themselves that they are going to be immortal and live for all time by worshipping that crucified sophist and living under his laws... They receive their doctrines by tradition, without any definite evidence.'

And Pliny the Younger says, 'It is their habit, on a fixed day, to assemble before daylight and recite by turns a form of words to Christ as a god. The contagion of this perverse and extravagant superstition has penetrated not only the cities but the villages and the country too. Yet it seems possible to stop it and set it right.'

These things were not said about me, these things were said about Christ. And similar things have been said about Buddha.

Hindus have created a beautiful story about Buddha. They say that he was an incarnation of God.

They had to say it. Hindus are more polite and, of course, more cunning, more sophisticated, and they know how to play with words. Buddha was an incarnation of God, they say, but not a good incarnation.

But how can an incarnation of God be bad? They have a beautiful story to illustrate it. They say when God created the world he created hell and heaven and earth, the three worlds. Then millions of years passed and nobody went to hell; it remained empty. And the devil and all his disciples were very angry, and they were waiting and waiting and nobody would come. And every arrangement was ready: the fire was burning, and nobody was coming. Finally they had to go to God, and the devil said, 'This is nonsense. Why did you create hell if nobody is going to come there? And what are we doing there? - just waiting and waiting! And how long do we have to wait? Not even a single soul has entered. The whole thing is pointless. Either send a few people so we become occupied...

And we have rehearsed and we have trained ourselves and made ourselves so skillful that we are hankering... we have to do something! You are driving us mad! Either send a few people there, or drop the whole project!'

God said, 'You wait. Then I will have to come to the earth. I will be born as Gautam the Buddha, and I will mislead people and misguide people. Then they will start falling into hell automatically.'

Then God came as Gautam the Buddha, and he misguided people because hell needs people. And since Buddha misguided people, hell has been overcrowded.

Now, see the beauty of the story and the cunningness of it. Buddha is accepted as an incarnation of God, but it is just to send people to hell. So beware of Buddha, don't follow him; otherwise you will go to hell. Buddha was here to help the devil, to give him some occupation. Since then hell has been overcrowded, there is no space: people have to wait for years outside the gate.

This has always been so, and this is going to remain being so. Religion, whenever it comes fresh from the beyond, is very shattering to tradition. And the traditional people become afraid. Not that they are worried about religion being destroyed - they are not religious at all, otherwise they would not be afraid of it - their religion is only a social formality. They talk about God because it is convenient to talk about God. They go to the church, too, because it makes things easier. The church functions as a lubricant. It is a Sunday religion. It is good, it keeps you in good company, and everybody knows that you are religious. That helps in many ways.

The church is no more than a Rotary Club or a Lions' Club. If you are a Rotarian, it helps you. People know that you must be good if you belong to the Rotary Club. And in the Rotary Club you become acquainted with all the topmost people of the town. Friendship arises: it helps in your business, in your day-to-day life. The church is nothing but a kind of religious club: it is convenient. Nobody is sincerely there, people are just showing respect to Christ, paying service - but that service is lip service. They don't bother a bit about Christ, Christianity, and all his teachings.

Who bothers about Christ's teachings? Who follows them? If you had followed Christ the world would have been totally different: there would not have been any wars. And half of the world is Christian. If Christians really follow Jesus... Jesus says, 'Love your enemies,' and Christians go on bombing the enemy. It is Christians who bombed Japan, who used the first atomic bomb. Now think of Jesus watching from his place - what will be happening to him? Christians dropping atom bombs? And he has said to these people, 'Love your enemy as yourself.'

Who has followed Jesus? There is no question of following. People just go to the church. It is a good feeling to go to the church, to remain religious.

I have heard...

The airplane was going through some especially turbulent weather, but the pilot knew he had everything under control. He tried to calm the passengers with soothing words spoken over the loudspeaker system. He also asked the stewardesses to reassure the people that everything would be all right.

One very religious little old lady, however, would not be comforted. The stewardess told her how capable the pilot was and how reliable the plane's technology was, but the woman was still sure she'd never see the ground again.

At a loss, the stewardess finally called on the highest court of appeal, 'Just trust in providence,' she said soothingly.

The little old lady's eyes opened even wider, 'Is it as bad as that?' she asked.

A religious old lady... But to really think of God means that death is certain. 'Is it as bad as that?'

People have double faces. Their original face is not even known to themselves. People have split personalities. Your parents will be thinking they are Christian and religious. They are neither Christian nor religious. If they are really religious, they will understand me because whatsoever I am saying is the same - exactly the same, precisely the same. My language may be different from Jesus' - it has to be, twenty centuries have passed - but what I am doing is exactly the same work, the continuity of the same work.

But I can understand their problem, too. They are losing their hold on you, and they are afraid.

Just the other night I was reading an article. In Germany parents have formed a certain society to prevent young people from going into new religions, particularly Eastern mystic experiences. In America they are creating a lot of trouble for the young people, too.

You will be surprised that parents are hiring kidnappers. Young people are being kidnapped by their own parents and then they are being given to psychologists. Certain psychologists are trying to deprogramme them, they are called deprogrammers. They think the young people have been conditioned.

For example, if you really become too involved with me, and your parents become very afraid, and you don't want to go back to your country, you can be kidnapped. Your own parents can do it. 'For your own sake, because you have fallen in the trap of a devil, of some evil force.' And it looks to them...'What are you doing with orange clothes and a beard and long hair and the mala? And who is this man... very evil-looking? And what is wrong with wearing a cross? having a picture of Jesus?

What are you doing there?' And if they come and see the Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini, they will go crazy. They will become very concerned.

Yes, you can be kidnapped, and then you can be forced into what they call deprogramming to uncondition you. They think you have been hypnotized, so you have to be dehypnotized. So they will teach you Christianity and the Christian catechism again. And they will force you day in, day out, for months, so that you can again become a Christian, and you can again say, 'Yes I believe in God and the Son and the Holy Ghost,' and then they are at ease. When you believe in the Holy Ghost, then all is okay. And when you start reading the Bible again, all is okay. 'Now you have come back, you have become religious.' When you start making atom bombs again, you are really Christian, Catholic. When you go to the army and they cut your long hair and make you a soldier, then you are a perfect Christian, a Catholic. When you start a cut-throat competition in the world for money, for power, for prestige, when you start destroying others so that you can reach higher and higher for worldly possessions, you are perfect, you are a religious person.

Even politicians are thought to be religious persons because they go to the church, they listen to the sermon of the priest. Politicians are 'religious', and my sannyasins are 'not religious'!

You will have to understand it. You will have to be very very patient with your parents. You will have to be very kind, too. They need compassion. They are encaged in a certain ideology and they cannot look outside it. They are incapable of feeling anything new, of being anything new. They are incapable of understanding, they have become too rigid. Their whole ideology has become a settled phenomenon, and they are afraid. If they see you happy, they can only think you have gone mad, because they have lived an unhappy life and a very religious life.

And they know religious people are unhappy people - sad, with long faces. They cannot believe that you can be religious and dancing, and you can be religious and laughing, and you can be religious and yet happy. Then what about all their saints? Were they fools? They lived with long faces the whole of their lives. They carried their life as a burden, as if a mountain were being carried on their head, and you are so lightfooted, so weightless, with no burden, with no seriousness around you.

You are such a laughter, how can they believe you are religious? The only thing possible is that you have been hypnotized. How can you be so happy in such an unhappy world? It is not possible. You must be living in a kind of illusion. Hence they say, 'This man is an evil force, he has hypnotized you. The laughter that you are going through is false, the joy that you are experiencing is false. Our misery is right and true, and your joy is false.'

When they will be able to make you miserable again they will be at ease. Their son has come back home, or their daughter has come back home.

You will have to be understanding. They cannot understand me, they cannot understand you, but they are your parents and you owe something to them. Be loving to them. Don't be antagonistic.

Don't resent them. Don't start arguing and fighting with them because that will make them more convinced that they are right and you are wrong. Be more loving. Nobody has loved them; they have lived in a false world where all is pretension. Nobody has loved them. If you love them, it will be more convincing than logic.

Listen to them. Don't start arguing. Listen patiently. Nobody has ever listened to them. That's why psychoanalysis has become so important in the world. Psychoanalysis is nothing but just finding a patient listener, the psychoanalyst, to whom you can talk to your heart's content, and say whatsoever you want - sense, nonsense, whatsoever you want.

People are feeling suffocated, boiling, within. They want to say something but nobody is there to hear. The world has turned deaf. The man cannot talk to his woman, because the moment you talk conflict starts. You say something, she understands something else. The woman cannot talk to the man because talking is always risky. It is better to keep quiet and to remain silent. At least it gives you a feeling of peace, that all is quiet. Say a single word, and the argument starts. Sooner or later people learn that it is better to remain silent, not to say anything.

Nobody has listened to them. Just see the misery of the fact that they have to go and find a person to listen... But they have to pay for it, and the costs are really very high. Psychoanalysis is one of the highly paying professions. It is a Jewish concern and Jews know how to do business. Freud founded the greatest empire, and his followers are just looting, just enjoying. And what are they doing? They simply listen. No other help is needed. If you listen to the person for months together, years together, he loses steam. And once he has thrown his steam out he feels calm and quiet. And he thinks this is because of psychoanalysis.

In older societies, more primitive societies, this is not needed because people are very willing to listen. Go to an Indian village - people are very willing to listen. They have enough time to listen, nobody is in a hurry. People are sitting and talking and listening to each other. You cannot convince Indian villagers that there is any need for psychoanalysis, they are psychoanalyzing each other already; they need not pay for it.

But in a highly sophisticated, cultured, civilized society, people are in such a hurry that nobody is available to talk to anybody else. Parents never see their children, or even if they see them, then just polite words: 'Hello, how are you?' and they are gone. Or a pat on the head which is almost mechanical, or a hug which is false, or even a kiss which is just an empty gesture. But nobody talks, nobody faces the other.

There is no friendship, no love. Parents live in one world, the children live in another. Parents are so suffocated by their own misery, helplessness, turmoil, that they have to drown themselves in alcohol. Children are getting drowned in drugs. And the strange thing is that the people who drown themselves in alcohol are very much against drugs. And they are doing the same thing; it is not different, it is the same thing. Somehow to drown oneself, to forget all about oneself and the world and the problems... Even children have so many problems because we teach them competition, ambition. We send them to the school and the competition starts: 'You have to be first. You have to bring an A grade.' Now you have made them anxious. They are continuously in turmoil, anxiety:

whether they will be able to make it or not.

Small children have ulcers. Young people are having heart attacks. Young people are going mad, committing suicide - this has not happened ever before - or if you don't want to commit suicide, you don't want to go mad, you don't want to have ulcers, cancer, heart attacks, then drown yourself in drugs. But then the state is against you, then the society is against you, and you feel guilty. You are doing something illegal, you are a criminal; they will throw you into gaol.

The only possibility of getting out of this whole nonsense is to find a new space in your being through prayer, through meditation; to find your original source of life and energy. And that's what you are doing here with me. If you really go into meditation you will not need alcohol, you will not need drugs.

If you really go into meditation, your life will be a life of love, of sharing, of joy - non-competitive, non-ambitious. You will not become a politician, you will live as a nobody. You will not suffer from an inferiority complex because you will not compare yourself with anybody else. And you will live in great gratitude because your life will have joy. You will not be attached to misery because you will not have any investment in misery. If you don't have any ego, you need not have any investment in misery. Then you can feast and your life can be a festival. That's what I am teaching And to me this is religion: to make life a feast, a festival; to transform energy in such a way that you become a celebration.

But your parents will find it difficult. Help them to understand. Be loving. Listen patiently to their arguments, and don't argue, rather, love. Just show by your being, by your integrity, by your patience, by your caring about them that you are moving on the right path. It is up to you: if you can prove by your love that you are moving on the right path, only then will they think that the man you are with is not evil. If you argue and fight and become antagonistic - which seems to be very natural, because they will be antagonistic and in a fighting mood, and the natural reaction is to be the same: tit for tat - if you do that, then you will be proving that your Master is evil and you will be proving that you have moved on a wrong path.

What I am going to be proved to be in the world depends on The last question:

Question 5:

Then what is the need to transcend it?

The need of transcendence arises only because you are in it. You are born in it, you are born out of it. You are a sexual phenomenon.

Except for Jesus, nobody has been born of a virgin. And Christians insist too much on the theory that Mary was a virgin so that they can condemn sex. If Jesus is also born of sex, then it will be difficult to condemn sex. In fact, Jesus was born out of sex as much as anybody else.

The body has to be constituted from male and female energy, otherwise the body cannot be constituted. To say that Mary was virgin is to say that you have electricity in your house with only one pole: positive or negative. That will be just as nonsensical. Electricity needs to have both poles, positive and negative. Without those two poles electricity cannot exist, cannot come into existence - not even in Jesus' house; the electricity will need two poles. The electricity does not care who you are - even in my house it needs two poles.

You can ask Haridas. He tries, the whole day he tries, continuously working to make electricity virgin. But up to now he has not succeeded. But later on you can write stories about me that in Osho's house the electricity had only one pole. These stories are always created later on, because you have to prove that your Master was exceptional.

Jainas say that Mahavir never perspired. Now, what kind of foolishness...? He missed the joy of perspiring in the sun. And he lived naked and moved naked. In fact, he must have perspired more than anybody else. If you say I don't perspire it may be right because I live in an air-conditioned room, but Mahavir, moving naked, never perspired? Something seems to be suspicious, fishy. He must have been stinking. To hide the fact you have to cover it and say that he never perspired, so the whole root is cut.

He never defecated, never urinated. How can you think of Mahavir pissing? That does not look right at all.

These stories are created. These stories simply prove that the followers are stupid. They don't say anything about Mahavir or Christ or Mohammed, they simply prove that the followers that came in their wake are neurotic.

Jesus was born out of two sexes just as everybody else is.

You come out of sex, each cell of your body is a sexual cell. Each cell of your body has two poles:

the feminine and the masculine, yin and yang.

You ask me, 'Can't sex be transcended without going into it?'

The only possibility is not to be born. Once you are born you are already a sexual being. Whether you make love to a woman or man doesn't matter. You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality. Sexuality has already penetrated. The moment you were in the womb of your mother you became a sexual being. There is no way to avoid it. So all that you can do is repress it. You will become unnatural, and your whole life will be a perverted life. Repression is possible, but transcendence is not possible in the way you are asking about.

I have heard...

Ellen and Dolph had been married thirty years and never missed a night of connubial bliss. One day Ellen visited her doctor and was told that she must have complete rest and quiet for six months or she would not live.

Ellen and Dolph decided they should stay completely apart during this period. She moved into an upstairs bedroom and he remained downstairs.

After three months of complete abstinence and solitude, his will-power collapsed, and Dolph started for her bedroom. As he started to climb the stairs, he saw her coming down.

'Dear,' she said, 'I was just coming down to die.'

'I'm glad, honey,' he said, 'because I was just going up to kill you.'

Don't be mad, let things be simple. There is no need to kill or die. Repression will make things very complicated in your life; you will become split, schizophrenic - just celibate on the surface, and deep down just the opposite of it.

Transcendence means the disappearance of the need for the other, the disappearance of the desire to get lost into a woman or into a man. And this is possible only if you have understood. And understanding comes only through experience. So I don't say drop out of your relationships, rather, become more meditative in your relationships.

Making love, let it be a meditation too. And you will be surprised: if while making love you also move in a meditative state you will have great insights into what is happening, and the whole urge called sex will become conscious. And once it has become conscious it can disappear.

And it disappears on its own; you need not cultivate, you need not practise anything for it. When it goes on its own it is beautiful. Yes, sex disappears - one transcends it - but not by fighting it.

This is true, and because of this truth much misunderstanding has happened in the world. Sex disappeared in Buddha's life, sex disappeared in Christ's life. People have seen sex disappearing, and people have seen that when sex disappears there is great splendour. Something of the sky dances on the earth. The beyond reaches to the earth. The mundane becomes suffused with the sacred. And because people have seen these things, great desire has arisen in them too to transcend sex. But then the whole thing goes wrong: they start fighting with it.

It is a secret science, and if you don't move rightly, everything will go wrong.

A man is told by a friend that he should pick a wife who is 'an economist in the kitchen, a lady in the parlour, and a prostitute in bed'.

They meet sometime after the wedding and the friend asks if he is satisfied with his choice.

'Well,' says the newly-wed, 'I did what you said, but I guess I made a mistake somewhere. The woman I married turned out to be a prostitute in the parlour, a lady in the kitchen, and an economist in bed!'

Just a little mismanagement, just a thing here and a thing there misplaced, and everything goes wrong.

Transcendence is never through repression, transcendence is through understanding, transcendence is through awareness.

Just the other night I was giving sannyas to a psychoanalyst - a beautiful man. I have given him the name: Anand Veetkam. It means bliss beyond sex. And to him I said that if you become meditative while making love you will come to know a few immensely significant things.

The first and the most significant thing is that when you are going into a deep orgasm, when the climax is happening, there is great joy because in that moment sex disappears. Sex brings you to the orgasmic state, and once its purpose is fulfilled, sex disappears. In the orgasmic state there is no sexuality left in you. You are simply throbbing and there is no desire. You are utterly herenow, there is no future, no fantasy, no imagination, nothing. And when the orgasm happens, the man is alone - the woman may be there but he is not aware of the woman. And the woman is alone - the man is there but she is not aware of the mall.

Orgasm is individual: it is happening inside the man, it is happening inside the woman. The other has triggered it, but then the function of the other is finished; you are no more interested in the other.

In deep orgasm you are simply inside yourself. There is no sex in it, hence the bliss. And after a good orgasm, for hours you will feel very very blissful. And for hours you will not think of sex again.

The desire has left you. What has happened?

If you are feeling blissful, the desire cannot be there. If the desire is there, bliss cannot be there.

Desire and bliss are never together.

And if you meditate deeply while making love, you will become aware that time disappears. At the peak there is no time, suddenly you are herenow. Only then do you know the meaning of here and now, otherwise you are in the past or in the future. And when time disappears, mind disappears, because mind is another aspect of time, another name for time. Mind is past plus future. When there is no time there is no mind. Just think: no mind, no time, no sexual desire - and there is great bliss.

But people miss it because they are not alert about it. People go into love-making unconsciously, mechanically. Go consciously, mindfully, remembering what is happening, watching, remaining a witness, and that will release understanding in you. That will release awareness in you. And awareness is transcendence. Awareness is freedom.