Love makes no shadow

Question 1:

The question is from Krishna Prem.

Intelligence is intrinsic to life. Intelligence is a natural quality of life. Just as fire is hot, and air is invisible, and water flows downwards, so is life intelligent.

Intelligence is not an achievement; you are born intelligent. Trees are intelligent in their own way, they have enough intelligence for their own life. Birds are intelligent, so are animals. In fact, what religions mean by God is only this: that the universe is intelligent, that there is intelligence hidden everywhere. And if you have eyes to see, you can see it everywhere.

Life is intelligence. Only man has become intelligent. Man has damaged the natural flow of life.

Except in man, there is no unintelligence. Have you ever seen a bird you can call stupid? Have you ever seen an animal you can call idiotic? No, such things happen only to man. Something has gone wrong. Man's intelligence has been damaged, corrupted, has been crippled.

And meditation is nothing but the undoing of that damage. Meditation will not be needed at all if man is left alone. If the priest and the politician do not interfere with man's intelligence, there will be no need for any meditation. Meditation is medicinal. First you have to create the disease, then meditation is needed. If the disease is not there, meditation is not needed. And it is not accidental that the words 'medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root. It is medicinal.

Each child is born intelligent, and the moment the child is born, we pounce upon him and start destroying his intelligence, because intelligence is dangerous to the political structure, to the social structure, to the religious structure. It is dangerous to the Pope, it is dangerous to the Shankaracharya of Puri, it is dangerous to.the priest, it is dangerous to the leader. It is dangerous to the status quo, the establishment.

Intelligence is naturally rebellious. Intelligence cannot be forced into any servitude. Intelligence is very assertive, individual. Intelligence cannot be converted into a mechanical imitation. People have to be converted to carbon copies; their originality has to be destroyed, otherwise all the nonsense that has existed on the earth would be impossible.

You need a leader because first you have to be made unintelligent - otherwise there would be no need for any leader. Why should you follow anybody? You will follow your intelligence. If somebody wants to become a leader, then one thing has to be done: your intelligence has to be destroyed somehow. You have to be shaken from your very roots, you have to be made afraid. You have to be made unconfident in yourself - that is a must, only then can the leader come in.

If you are intelligent, you will solve your problems yourself. Intelligence is enough to solve all the problems. In fact, whatsoever problems are created in life, you have more intelligence than those problems. It is a provision, it is a gift of God.

But there are ambitious people who want to rule, dominate; there are ambitious madmen - they create fear in you. Fear is like rust: it destroys all intelligence. If you want to destroy somebody's intelligence, the first necessary thing is to create fear: create hell and make people afraid. When people are afraid of hell, they will go to the priest and bow down to the priest. They will listen to the priest. If they don't listen to the priest... then hellfire - naturally, they are afraid. They have to protect themselves from hellfire, and the priest is needed. The priest becomes a must.

I have heard about two men who were partners in a business. Their business was very unique and they used to travel around the country.

One partner would come to the town. In the night, he would go around and throw coal-tar on people's windows, and then disappear by morning. After two or three days, the other would come. He used to clean off the coal-tar; he would clean the people's windows. And people would pay, of course - they have to pay.

They were partners in the same business. One would damage, the other would come to undo it.

Fear has to be created, and greed has to be created.

Intelligence is not greedy. You will be surprised to know that an intelligent man is never greedy.

Greed is part of unintelligence. You hoard for tomorrow because you are not confident that tomorrow you will be able to tackle your life, otherwise why hoard? You become misers, you become greedy, because you don't know whether tomorrow your intelligence will be capable of coping with life or not. Who knows? You are not confident about your intelligence so you hoard, you become greedy.

An intelligent person is not afraid, is not greedy. Greed and fear go together - that's why heaven and hell go together: hell is fear, heaven is greed.

Create fear in people and create greed in people - make them as greedy as possible. Make them so greedy that life cannot satisfy them, then they will go to the priest and to the leader. Then they will start fantasizing about some future life where their foolish desires and stupid fantasies will be fulfilled. Watch it. To demand the impossible is to be unintelligent.

An intelligent person is perfectly satisfied with the possible. He works for the probable, he never works for the impossible and the improbable, no. He looks at life and its limitations. He is not a perfectionist. A perfectionist is neurotic. If you are a perfectionist you will go neurotic.

For example, if you love a woman and you ask absolute fidelity, you will go mad and she will go mad. This is not possible: absolute fidelity means she will not even think, she will not even dream of another man. This is not possible. Who are you'? Why has she fallen in love with you? Because you are a man. If she can fall in love with you, why can't she think of others? That possibility remains open. And how is she going to manage if she sees some beautiful person walking by and if a desire arises in her? Even to say 'This man is beautiful' is to desire - the desire has entered. You only say that something is beautiful when it feels worthy of being possessed, of being enjoyed. You are not indifferent.

Now if you ask absolute fidelity - as people have asked then there is bound to be conflict, and you will remain suspicious. And you will remain suspicious because you know your mind too - you also think of other women. So how can you trust that your woman is not thinking of other men? You know you are thinking, so you know she is also thinking. Now... distrust, conflict, agony. The love that was possible has become impossible because of an impossible desire.

People ask that which cannot be done. You want security for the future, which is not possible. You want absolute security for tomorrow - it cannot be guaranteed; it is not in the nature of life. An intelligent person knows that it is not in the nature of life - the future remains open. The bank can go bankrupt, the wife can escape with somebody else, the husband can die, the children may prove unworthy. Who knows about tomorrow? You may fall ill, you may become crippled. Who knows about tomorrow?

To ask security for tomorrow means to remain in constant fear. It is not possible, so fear cannot be destroyed. Fear will be there, you will be trembling; and meanwhile the present moment is being missed. With the desire of security in the future you are destroying the present, which is the only life available. And more and more will you become shaken, afraid, greedy.

A child is born; a child is a very, very open phenomenon, utterly intelligent. But we jump upon him, we start destroying his intelligence. We start creating fear in him. You call it teaching, you call it making the child capable of coping with life. You create fear in him. He is unafraid.

And your schools, colleges, universities - they all make him more and more unintelligent. They demand foolish things. They demand foolish things to be crammed in which the child and his natural intelligence cannot see any point. For what? That child cannot see the point. Why cram these things? But the university says, the college says, the home, the family, the well-wishers say 'Cram!

You don't know now, but later on you will know why it is needed.'

Cram history all the nonsense that man has been doing to other men, all the madness - cram it!

And the child cannot see the point. What does it matter when a certain king ruled England? From what date to what date? He has to cram those stupid things. Naturally, his intelligence becomes more and more burdened, crippled; more and more dust collects on his intelligence. By the time a man comes back from the university, he is unintelligent: the university has done its job. It is very rare that a man can come from the university still intelligent, still remaining intelligent. Very few people have been able to escape the university, avoid the university, pass through the university and yet save their intelligence - very rarely. It is such a great mechanism to destroy you. The moment you become educated, you have become unintelligent.

Can t you see this? The educated person behaves very unintelligently. Go to the primitive people who have never been educated, and you will find a pure intelligence functioning.

I have heard...

A woman was trying to open a tin, and she could not find the way to open it. So she went to look in the cookery book. By the time she looked into the book, the cook had opened it. She came back, and she was surprised.

She asked the cook 'How did you do it?'

He said 'Lady, when you don't know how to read, you have to use your intelligence!'

Yes, it is right. When you don't know how to read you HAVE to use your intelligence. What else can you do? The moment you start reading - those three dangerous R's, when you have become capable in them - you need not be intelligent, the books will take care.

Have you watched it? When a person starts typing, his handwriting is lost, then his handwriting is no longer beautiful. There is no need: the typewriter takes care.

If you carry a calculator in your pocket, you will forget all mathematics - there is no need. Sooner or later there will be small computers, and everybody will be carrying them. They will have all the information of an ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, and then there will be no need for you to be intelligent at all; the computer will take care.

Go to the primitive people, the uneducated people, the villagers, and you will find a subtle intelligence. Yes, they are not more informed, that is true, they are not knowledgeable, that is true but they are tremendously intelligent. Their intelligence is like a flame with no smoke around it.

The society has.done something wrong with man - for certain reasons. It wants you to be slaves, it wants you to be always afraid, it wants you to be always greedy, it wants you to be always ambitious, it wants you to be always competitive. It wants you to be unloving, it wants you to be full of anger and hatred, it wants you to remain weak, imitative - carbon copies. It does not want you to become original Buddhas, original Krishnas or Christs, no. That's why your intelligence has been destroyed.

Meditation is needed only to undo what the society has done. Meditation is negative: it simply negates the damage, it destroys the illness; and once the illness has gone, your well-being asserts itself of its own accord.

And in this century this has gone too far: universal education has been a calamity. And remember I am not against education, I am against THIS education.

There is a possibility of a different kind of education which will be helpful in sharpening your intelligence, not destroying it; which will not burden it with unnecessary facts, which will not burden it with unnecessary knowledge, which will not burden it at all, but rather it will help it to become more radiant, fresh, young.

This education only makes you capable of memorising. That education will make you capable of more clarity. This education destroys your inventiveness. That education will help you to become more inventive.

For example, the education that I would like in the world will not require a child to answer in an old stereotyped way. It will not encourage repetition, parroting. It will encourage inventiveness. Even if the invented answer is not as right as the copied answer can be, still it will appreciate the boy who has brought a new answer to an old problem. Certainly his answer cannot be as right as Socrates' answer - naturally, a small boy... his answer cannot be as exact as that of Albert Einstein - naturally.

But to ask that his answer should be as right as that of Albert Einstein is foolish. If he is inventive, he is in the right direction; one day. he will become an Albert Einstein. If he is trying to create something new naturally, he has his limitations, but just his effort in trying to create something new should be appreciated, should be praised.

Education should not be competitive. People should not be judged against each other.

Competitiveness is very violent and very destructive. Somebody is not good at mathematics and you call him mediocre and he may be good at carpentry. But nobody looks at that. Somebody is not good at literature and you call him stupid - and he will be good at music, at dance.

A real education will help people to find THEIR life where they can be fully alive. If a man is born to be a carpenter, then that is the right thing for him to do. There is nobody to enforce anything else.

This world can become such a great, intelligent world if a man is allowed to be himself, helped to be himself, supported in every way to be himself, and nobody comes in and interferes. In fact, nobody manipulates the child. If he wants to become a dancer, then that is good - dancers are needed.

Much dance is needed in the world. If he wants to become a poet, good. Much poetry is needed; there is never enough. If he wants to become a carpenter or a fisherman - perfectly good. If he wants to become a woodcutter - perfectly good. There is no need for him to become a president or a prime minister. In fact, lesser people become interested in those targets; it will be a blessing.

Right now everything is topsy-turvy. One who wanted to become a carpenter has become a doctor; one who wanted to become a doctor has become a carpenter. Everybody is in somebody else's place, hence so much unintelligence - everybody is doing somebody else s job. Once you start seeing it, you will feel why people are behaving unintelligently.

In India we have been meditating deeply, and we have found one word: SWADHARMA, self-nature.

That carries the greatest implication for a future world.

Krishna has said: SWADHARME NADHANAM SHREYAH: it is good to die in your own self- nature, following your self-nature. PER DHARMO BAVAHA BAHA: somebody else's nature is very dangerous. Don't become imitators. Just be yourself.

I have heard...

Bill always wanted to go moose-hunting so he saved up enough money and went to the North Woods. There he was fitted out with necessary equipment and the storekeeper advised him to hire Pierre, the greatest moose caller in the land.

'It's true' said the storekeeper 'that Pierre is expensive, but he has a sexy quality in his call that no moose can resist.'

'How does that work?' asked Bill.

'Well' said the other 'Pierre will spot a moose at three hundred yards, then cup his hands and make his first call. When the moose hears that, he will become excited with anticipatory desire and approach to two hundred yards. Pierre will then call again, putting a bit more oomph into it, and the moose will skip with eager glee to a distance of a hundred yards. This time Pierre really gives his call a sexy delivery, prolonging it a bit, which impels the moose, agitated with carnal intent, to come to a point only twenty-five yards away from you. And that is the time, my friend, for you to aim and shoot.'

'Suppose I miss?' wondered Bill.

'Oh, that would be terrible!' said the other.

'But why?' asked Bill.

'Because then poor Pierre gets mated.'

That has happened to man - imitating, imitating. Man has completely lost the vision of his own reality. The Zen people say: Seek out your original face.

So says Tantra. Tantra says: Find out what is your authenticity. Who are you? If you don't know who you are, you will always be in some accident - always. Your life will be a long series of accidents, and whatsoever happens will never be satisfying. Discontent will be the only taste of your life.

You can see it around you. Why do so many people look so dull, bored just passing the days somehow? Passing tremendously valuable time which they will not be able to recover - and passing with such dullness, as if only waiting for death. What has happened to so many people? Why don't they have the same freshness as the trees? Why doesn't man have the same song as the birds?

What has happened to man?

One thing has happened: Man has been imitating. Man has been trying to become somebody else.

Nobody is at his own home. Everybody is knocking at somebody else's door, hence discontent, dullness, boredom, anguish.

When Saraha says that intelligence is the very quality of meditativeness, he means this: An intelligent person will try just to be himself, whatsoever the cost. An intelligent person will never copy, will never imitate. He will never parrot. An intelligent person will listen to his own intrinsic call.

He will feel his own being and move accordingly, whatsoever the risk.

There is risk! When you copy others there is less risk. When you don't copy anybody you are alone.

There is risk! But life happens only to those who live dangerously. Life happens only to those who are adventurous, who are courageous, almost daredevils - only to them does life happen. Life does not happen to lukewarm people.

An intelligent person trusts himself. His trust is absolute about himself. How can you trust anybody else if you cannot even trust yourself?

People come to me and they say 'Osho, we want to trust you.' I ask them 'Do you trust yourself? If you trust yourself then there is a possibility to trust me too, otherwise there is no possibility.' How can you trust me if you don't trust yourself? You are the closest to yourself. You can trust me too if you trust yourself. If you trust yourself, then you will trust your trust in me, otherwise there is no possibility.

Intelligence is trust in your own being. Intelligence is adventure, thrill, joy. Intelligence is to live in this moment, not to hanker for the future. Intelligence is not to think of the past and not to bother about the future: past is no more future is not yet. Intelligence is to make the uttermost use of the present moment that is available - the future will come out of it. If this moment has been lived in delight and joy, the next moment is going to be born out of it. It will bring more joy naturally, but there is no need to bother about it. If my today has been golden, my tomorrow will be even more. golden.

From where will it come? It will grow out of today. If this life has been a benediction, my next life will be a higher benediction. From where can it come? It will grow out of me, out of my LIVED experience. So an intelligent person is not concerned about heaven and hell, is not concerned about after-life, is not concerned even about God, is not concerned even about the soul. An intelligent person simply lives intelligently, and God and soul and heaven and NIRVANA - they all follow naturally.

You live in belief; belief is unintelligent. Live through knowing; knowing is intelligence. And Saraha is absolutely right: Intelligence is meditation.

Unintelligent people also meditate, but certainly they meditate in an unintelligent way. They think that you have to go to the church every Sunday for one hour - that is to be given to religion. This is an unintelligent way to be related to religion. What has the church to do with it? Your real life is in the six days, Sunday is not your real day. You will live non-religiously for six days, and then you go to the church just for one or two hours. Whom are you trying to deceive? Trying to deceive God that you are a church-goer.

Or, if you try a little harder, then every day twenty minutes in the morning, twenty in the evening - you do Transcendental Meditation. You sit with closed eyes and you repeat a mantra in a very stupid way 'Om, Om, Om', which dulls the mind even more. To repeat a mantra.mechanically takes your intelligence away; it does not give you intelligence, it is like a lullaby.

Down the centuries, mothers have known this. Whenever a child is restless and does not want to go to sleep, the mother comes and sings a lullaby. The child feels bored; and the child cannot escape.

Where to go? The mother is holding him on the bed. So the only way to escape is in sleep. So he goes to sleep; he simply surrenders. He says 'It is foolish to be awake now, because she is doing such a boring thing just a single line she goes on repeating.'

There are stories that mothers and grandmothers tell to children when they don't go to sleep. If you look into these stories, you will find a certain pattern of constant repetition.

Just the other day I was reading a story told by a grandmother to a small child who does not want go to sleep, because he does not FEEL like sleeping right now. His intelligence says that he is perfectly awake, but the grandmother is forcing him. She has other things to do the child is not important.

Children are very puzzled: things look very absurd. When they want to sleep in the morning, everybody wants to wake them up. When they don't want to go to sleep, everybody is forcing them to sleep. They become very puzzled. What is the matter with these people? When sleep comes, good - that is intelligence. When it is not coming, it is perfectly good to be awake.

So this old grandmother is telling a story. At first the child remains interested, but by and by... Any intelligent child will feel bored, only a stupid child will not feel bored.

The story is:

A man goes to sleep and dreams that he is standing before a great palace. And in the palace there are one thousand and one rooms. So he goes from one room to another - one thousand rooms - then he reaches the last room. And there is a beautiful bed, so he falls on the bed, falls asleep and dreams... that he is standing at the door of a big palace which has one thousand and one rooms.

So he goes into one thousand rooms, then he reaches the one thousand and first room. Again there is a beautiful bed, so he goes to sleep... and dreams that he is standing before a palace...

This is the way it goes!

Now, how long can the child remain alert? Just out of sheer boredom the child falls asleep. He is saying 'Now be finished!'

A mantra does the same. You repeat 'Ram, Ram', 'Om, Om, 'Allah, Allah' - or anything. You go on repeating, you go on repeating. Now you are doing two jobs: both the grandmother's and the child's. Your intelligence is like the child, and your learning of the mantra is like the grandmother. The child tries to stop you, gets interested in other things, thinks of beautiful things - beautiful women, beautiful scenes but you catch hold of him red-handed and bring him again to 'Om, Om, Om'. By and by. your inner child feels that it is futile to struggle; the inner child goes to sleep.

Yes, the mantra can give you a certain sleep: it is an autohypnotic sleep. There is nothing wrong in it if sleep is difficult for you - if you suffer from insomnia, it is good. But it has nothing to do with spirituality; it is a very unintelligent way to meditate. Then what is the intelligent way to meditate?

The intelligent way is to bring intelligence into everything that you do. Walking, walk intelligently with awareness; eating, eat intelligently with awareness. Do you remember ever eating intelligently?

Ever thinking about what you are eating? Is it nutritious? Has it any nourishment value'? Or are you just stuffing without any nourishment?

Have you ever watched what you do? You go on smoking... then intelligence is needed. What are you doing? Just taking in smoke and throwing it out, and meanwhile destroying your lungs? And what are you really doing? Wasting money, wasting health.

Bring intelligence in while you are smoking, while you are eating. Bring intelligence in when you go and make love to your woman or to your man. What are you doing? Have you really any love?

Sometimes you make love out of habit. Then it is ugly, then it is immoral. Love has to be very conscious, only then it becomes prayer.

While making love to your woman, what exactly are you doing? Using the woman's body to throw some energy that has become too much for you? Or are you paying respect, are you loving to the woman, do you have some reverence for the woman?

I don't see it. Husbands don't respect their wives, they use them. Wives use their husbands, they don't respect them. If reverence does not arise out of love, then intelligence is missing somewhere.

Otherwise you will feel tremendously grateful to the other, and your love-making will become a great meditation. Whatsoever you are doing, bring the quality of intelligence into it. Do it intelligently:

that's what meditation is.

And Saraha's statement is of tremendous significance: Intelligence is meditation.

Intelligence has to spread all over your life. It is not a Sunday thing. And you cannot do it for twenty minutes and then forget about it. Intelligence has to be just like breathing. Whatsoever you are doing - small, big, whatsoever, cleaning the floor - can be done intelligently or unintelligently. And you know that when you do it unintelligently there is no joy - you are doing a duty; carrying it somehow.

I have heard an illustration of how love can be reduced to duty and destroyed.

It happened in a church school class of ninth grade girls. The class was studying Christian love and what it might mean to them and their lives. They finally decided that Christian love meant 'doing something lovable for someone you didn't like'.

Children are very intelligent. Their conclusion is perfectly right. Listen to it again. They finally decided that Christian love meant 'doing something lovable for someone you didn't like'.

The teacher suggested that during the week they might test out their concept. When they returned the following week, the teacher asked for reports. One girl raised her hand and said 'I've done something!'

The teacher replied 'Marvelous! What did you do?'

'Well' the girl said 'in my math class at school there is this glunky kid...'

The teacher said 'Glunky...?'

And the girl replied 'Yes, you know... glunky. She's got four heads, and she's all thumbs, and she's got three left feet, and when she comes down the hall in school, everyone says "Here comes that glunky kid again." She doesn't have any friends, and nobody asks her to parties, and you know, she's just glunky.'

The teacher said 'I think I know just what you mean. What did you do?'

'Well, this glunky kid's in my math class, and she's having a tough time. I'm pretty good in math so I offered to help her with homework.'

'Wonderful' said the teacher. 'So, what happened?'

'Well, I did help her, and it was fun, and she just couldn't thank me enough, but NOW, I can't get rid of her!'

If you are doing something just as a duty - you don't love, you don't love it and you are doing it just as a duty - sooner or later you will be caught into it. And you will be in a difficulty about how to get rid of it. Just watch in your twenty-four hour day: how many things are you doing that you don't derive any pleasure from, that you don't grow out of? In fact. you want to get rid of them. If you are doing too many things in your life which you really want to get rid of, you are living unintelligently.

An intelligent person will make his life in such a way that it will have a poetry of spontaneity, of love, of joy. It is YOUR life, and if you are not kind enough to YOURSELF, who is going to be kind enough to you? If you are wasting it, it is nobody else's responsibility. I teach you to be responsible towards yourself - that is your first responsibility. Everything else comes next. Everything else. Even God comes next! Because he can come only when you are. You are the very centre of your world, of your existence.

So, be intelligent. Bring in the quality of intelligence. And the more intelligent you become, the more capable you will be of bringing more intelligence into your life.

Each single moment can become so luminous with intelligence... Then there is no need for any religion, no need to meditate, no need to go to the church, no need to go to any temple, no need for anything extra. Life in its intrinsicness is intelligent. Just live totally, harmoniously, in awareness, and everything follows beautifully. A life of celebration follows the luminousness of intelligence.

Question 2:

It is related.

No, not at all, it is ugly. When you do something only out of duty, without love, you are harming yourself and you are harming the other too. Because if you are not doing it out of love, you will feel that the other has to be grateful: you will feel that you have obliged the other. You will wait for a return; in fact, you will make a demand, gross or subtle, 'Now, you do something for me, I have done so much for you.'

When you do something out of love, you do it without any idea of any return. It is not a bargain-you do it because you are happy doing it; the other is not obliged. Not that love is not returned - love is returned a thousand-fold but only love is returned, never duty.

In fact, if you are doing a duty toward somebody, he will never be able to forgive you. You can see it in children: they are never able to forgive their parents. Their parents must have been doing a great duty. It is difficult to forgive those people who have been doing duty.

Respect arises for those people who have loved you, not out of any sense of duty but just out of sheer joy.

Do you see the difference? A mother loves you just because she feels love for you - whether you return it or not is irrelevant. There is no bargain in it; it is not a contract, it is not business. If you don't make a return, she will never mention it, she will never think about it. In fact, she has attained to so much joy while loving you, what more can she expect?

A mother always feels that she could not do as much as she wanted to do. But if the mother is doing it out of duty, then she feels she has done too much, and you have betrayed her - you are not returning her love. And she will constantly hammer the fact into your head that she has done this and that, and she has carried you for nine months in her womb. And she will relate the whole story again and again. That does not help to create love; it simply helps divorce. The children become very, very angry.

I know of a young boy. I was staying with the family, and the mother brought the boy in front of me:

they wanted me to teach the boy something because he was very ungrateful.

I knew the family very well, I knew the father and the mother, so I knew why he was ungrateful. They had done all that they could do, but always only out of a sense of duty.

I told them 'You are responsible, you have never loved the boy. He feels hurt. You have never allowed him to feel worthy. Your love is not love, it is just like a hard rock on the heart of the boy. Now he is growing up and is capable of rebelling against you, that's why he's rebelling. The boy looked at me with such gratitude. He started crying. He said 'Whosoever comes to the family, any guest, any friend, I'm always brought into the court - everybody has to teach me. You are the first man... This is exactly the case. These people have been torturing me, and my mother goes on saying "For nine months I carried you in my womb." And I say to her "But I had not asked you to. That had nothing to do with me, it was your business. You decided. Why didn't you get an abortion? I would not have interfered. Why did you get pregnant in the first place? I had not applied for it!"'

And I knew he was angry, but he was right.

Now you ask: IS IT NOT GOOD TO SERVE PEOPLE OUT OF A SENSE OF DUTY? No, in fact, if you serve people out of a sense of duty you will become their torturers: you will become very dominant over them. It is a way to dominate. it is political.

Start by massaging their feet, and soon you will be at their necks. Soon you will kill them. And naturally, when you start massaging their feet, they spread their feet. They say 'Perfectly okay', and they don't know what is going to happen. All public servants, sooner or later, become politicians.

That is the right way to start your political life: become a public servant. Serve people out of sense of duty, and then, sooner or later, you can jump on their heads; then you can exploit them. Then you can crush them, and they cannot even utter a cry, because you are public servants.

To become masters of people, the beginning is in public service.

My whole approach here is to make you alert to these traps. These are trips, ego trips. In the name of humbleness, humility, service, you are going on an ego trip. Do, but only do out of love, otherwise, don't do. Please don't do. It is better if you don't do anything.

You will be able to do, because nobody can remain undoing continuously. Energy is created, and you have to give it - but give it out of love. When you give out of love, you feel grateful to the other because he has accepted your love, he has accepted your energy, he has shared with you, he has unburdened you.

Do only when you can feel grateful to the person you have done something for, not otherwise.

Question 3:

Jealousy has nothing to do with love. In fact, your so-called love also has nothing to do with love.

These are beautiful words which you use without knowing what.they mean, without experiencing what they mean. You go on using the word 'love'. You use it so much that you forget the fact that you have not experienced it yet. That is one of the dangers of using such beautiful words: 'God', 'love', NIRVANA, 'prayer' beautiful words. You go on using them, you go on repeating them, and by and by, the very repetition makes you feel as if you know.

What do you know about love? If you know anything about love, you cannot ask this question.

because jealousy is never present in love. And wherever jealousy is present, love is not present.

Jealousy is not part of love, jealousy is part of possessiveness. Possessiveness has nothing to do with love. You want to possess. Through possession you feel strong: your territory is bigger. And if somebody else tries to trespass on your territory, you are angry. Or if somebody has a bigger house than your house, you are jealous. Of if somebody tries to dispossess you of your property, you are jealous and angry.

If you love, jealousy is impossible; it is not possible at all.

I have heard...

Up in the frozen Yukon, two trappers stopped at the last outpost to get supplies for the long dark winter. After they had loaded their sleds with flour, canned foods, kerosene, matches and ammunition, they were ready to mush off for six months in the wilds.

'Wait a minute, boys' the storekeeper called to them 'How about taking one of these?' And he showed them a large board curved like an hour glass.

'What is it?' asked one of the trappers.

The storekeeper winked. 'It's called a love board. You can hug it when you get lonely.'

'We'll take two!' exclaimed the men.

Six months later, one of the trappers, bearded and haggard, returned.

'Where's your buddy?' asked the storekeeper.

'Had to shoot him' muttered the trapper. 'Caught him messin' around with my love board!'

Jealousy has nothing to do with love. If you love your woman, how can you be jealous? If you love your man, how can you be jealous? If your woman is laughing with somebody else, how can you be jealous? You will be happy: it is your woman who is happy; her happiness is your happiness. How can you think against her happiness?

But look, watch. You laughed at this story but it is happening everywhere, in every family. The wife even becomes jealous of the newspaper if the husband goes on reading it too much. She comes and snatches it away: she becomes jealous. The newspaper is substituting for her. While she is present, how dare you read your newspaper? That is an insult! When she is there you have to be possessed by her totally not even a newspaper... The newspaper becomes a competitor.

So what to say about human beings? If the wife is present, and the husband starts talking to another woman and looks a little happy - which is natural: people get tired of each other; anything new and one feels a little thrilled - now the wife is angry. You can know well that if a couple is going by and the man looks sad, then he is the husband married to that woman. If he looks happy, he is not married to the woman. She is not HIS wife.

Once I was travelling in a train, and there was a woman in the.same compartment. At each station a man would come in. Sometimes he would bring bananas, sometimes he would bring tea, and ice cream, and this and that.

I asked her 'Who is this man?'

She said 'He's my husband.'

I said 'I can't trust that. I can't believe it. How long have you been married?'

She became a little disturbed. She said 'Now that you insist, we are not married. But how did you come to know?'

I said 'I have never seen any husband coming in at every station. Once the husband gets rid of the wife, he will come in at the last station hoping that she has dropped out somewhere in the middle.

Each station bringing things... this and that... and rushing again and again from his compartment?'

She said 'You are right, he's not my husband. He's my husband's friend.'

That's right - then there is no problem.

You are not really in love with your woman, or with your man, or with your friend. If you are in love, then his or her happiness is your happiness. If you are in love, then you will not create any possessiveness.

Love is capable of giving total freedom. ONLY love is capable of giving total freedom. And if freedom is not given, then it is something else, not love. It is a certain type of egoistic trip.

You have a beautiful woman. You want to show everybody, all around the town, that you have a beautiful woman - just like a possession. Just as when you have a car and you are into your car, you want everybody to know that nobody has such a beautiful car. The same is the case with your woman. You bring diamonds for her, but not out of love. She is a decoration for your ego. You carry her from one club to another, but she has to remain clinging to you and go on showing that she belongs to you. Any infringement of your right and you are angry - you can kill the woman... whom you think you love.

There is great ego working everywhere. We want people to be like things. We possess them like things, we reduce persons into things. The same is the attitude about things also.

I have heard...

A rabbi and a priest were neighbours, and there was a certain amount of 'needle' between them. If the Cohens had their drive done up, Father O'Flynn had his relaid, and so it went on.

One day the priest had a new Jaguar, so the rabbi bought a Bentley. When the rabbi looked out of his window it was to see the priest pouring water over the top of the car bonnet. He opened the window and shouted 'That's not the way to fill the radiator, you know.'

'Aha' said the priest 'I'm christening it with holy water, that's more than you can do to yours.'

A little while later the priest was taken aback to see the rabbi Lying in the road, hacksaw in hand, sawing the last inch of his car's exhaust pipe.

That is the mind - continuously in competition. Now he is doing circumcision; he has to do something. That is the way we are living: the way of the ego. The ego knows no love, the ego knows no friendship, the ego knows no compassion. The ego is aggression, violence.

And you ask: WHY DOES JEALOUSY ALWAYS FOLLOW LOVE AS A SHADOW?

Never.

Love makes no shadow at all. Love is so transparent that it makes no shadow. Love is not a solid thing, it is transparency. No shadow is created out of love. Love is the only phenomenon on the earth which creates no shadow.

Question 4:

Repression is to live a life that you were not meant to live.

Repression is to do things which you never wanted to do.

Repression is to be the fellow that you are not:

Repression is a way to destroy yourself.

Repression is suicide - very slow of course, but a very certain, slow poisoning.

Expression is life; repression is suicide.

This is the Tantra message: Don't live a repressed life, otherwise you live not at all. Live a life of expression, creativity, joy. Live the way God wanted you to live; live the natural way. And don't be afraid of the priests. Listen to your instincts, listen to your body, listen to your heart, listen to your intelligence. Depend on yourself, go wherever your spontaneity takes you, and you will never be at a loss. And going spontaneously with your natural life, one day you are bound to arrive at the doors of the divine.

Your nature is God within you. The pull of that nature is God's pull within you. Don't listen to the poisoners, listen to the pull of nature. Yes, nature is not enough - there is a higher nature too - but the higher comes through the lower. The lotus grows out of the mud. Through the body grows the soul. Through sex grows SAMADHI.

Remember, through food grows consciousness. In the East we have said: ANNAM BRAHM: food is God. What type of assertion is this that food is God? God grows out of food: the lowest is linked with the highest, the shallowest is linked with the deepest.

Now the priests have been teaching you to repress the lower. And they are very logical. Only they have forgotten one thing - that God is illogical. They are very logical and it appeals to you. That's why you have listened down the ages and followed them. It appeals to reason that if you want to attain to the higher, don't listen to the lower - it looks logical. If you want to go high, then you cannot go low; then don't go low, go high - it is very rational. The only trouble is that God is not rational.

Just the other day Dhruva was talking to me. In his Sahaj group sometimes he comes to some moments when the whole group falls silent - out of nowhere, out of the blue. And those few moments of silence are of tremendous beauty. And he was saying 'They are so mysterious, those moments. We are not managing them, we don't think about them, they simply come sometimes. But when they come, the whole group immediately feels the presence of something divine, of something higher, something greater than everybody else. And everybody IMMEDIATELY becomes aware that something IS present, something mysterious. And everybody falls silent in those moments.'

Now his logical mind thought 'It will be good if I can do the whole group in silence.' He must have started thinking 'If those few moments - far and few between - are so beautiful, then why not do the whole group in silence?' I said 'There you go - logical, and God is not logical. If you remain silent, those moments will never come again.'

There is a polarity in life. The whole day you work hard, you chop wood, then in the night you go into your deepest sleep. Now the logical thing is - you can think logically, it is mathematical - next morning you can think 'The whole day I worked so much and was tired, still I could come to such a deep sleep. If I practise rest the whole day, I will go into an even deeper sleep.' So the next day you simply lie down in your rest-chair: you practise rest. Do you think you are going to have a good sleep? You will lose even ordinary sleep. That's how rich people suffer from insomnia.

God is not logical. God gives sleep to the beggars who have been working the whole day, moving from one place to another in the hot summer, begging. God gives good sleep to labourers, to stonecutters, to woodcutters. The whole day they have been tired. Out of that tiredness, they fall into deep sleep.

This is the polarity. The more you are exhausted energy-wise, the more is your need for sleep because you can only get more energy from deep sleep. If you exhaust your energy, you create a situation in which you will fall into deep sleep. God has to give you deep sleep. If you don't work at all, then there is no need. You have not-used even the energy that was given you, so what is the point of giving you any more? Energy is given to those who use it.

Now Dhruva is logical. He thinks 'If we do the whole group in silence...' But, even those few moments will be missed. and the whole group will become very, very chattering inside. Of course, from the outside they will remain silent, but their minds will go crazy inside. Right now they are working hard, they are expressing their emotions, catharting, bringing everything up, throwing everything out; they become exhausted. There come a few moments when they are so exhausted that there is nothing else to throw out. In that moment, suddenly, there is a contact; silence descends.

Out of work is rest. Out of expression is silence. This is how God works. His ways are very irrational.

Now, if you really want to be secure, you will have to live a life of insecurity. If you really want to be alive, you will have to be ready to die at any moment. This is God's illogic! If you really want to be authentically true, then you will have to risk. Repression is a way to avoid the risk. For example, you have been taught never to be angry, and you think that a person who is never angry is bound to be very loving. You are wrong. A person who is never angry will not be able to love either. They go together, they come in the same package.

A man who really loves will sometimes be really angry. But his anger is beautiful - it is out of love. His energy is hot, and you will not feel hurt by his anger. In fact, you will feel grateful that he was angry. Have you watched it? If you love somebody and you do something, and the person is REALLY angry, frankly angry, you feel grateful because he loved you so much that he can afford anger. Otherwise why? When you don't want to afford anger, you remain polite. When you don't want to afford anything - you don't want to take any risks - you go on smiling. It doesn't matter.

If your child is going to jump into the abyss, will you remain unangry'? Will you not shout? Will you not be a boiling energy? Will you go on smiling? It is not possible.

There is a story:

Once it happened in Solomon's court that two women came fighting for one child. Both were claiming that the child belonged to them. It was very difficult. How to decide? The child was so small that he could not say anything.

Solomon looked, and he said 'One thing I will do - I will cut the child in two and divide the child.

That is the only way possible. I have to be just and fair. There is no proof either way that the child belongs to A or to B. So I, as the king, have decided: cut the child in two and give half and half.

The woman who was holding the child continued to smile, she was happy. But the other woman became simply mad, as if she would kill the king! She said 'What are you saying? Have you gone mad?' She was in a rage. She was no longer an ordinary woman: she was anger incarnate, she was fire! And the woman. said 'If this is justice, then I leave aside my claim. Let the child remain with the other woman. The child belongs to her, he is not my child!' Angry, yet tears flowing down her face.

And the king said 'The child belongs to you. You take it. The other woman is just bogus, false.'

She could not afford anything - and the child was being killed! In fact, she continued to smile. It did not matter to her.

When you love, you can be angry. When you love you can afford it. If you love yourself - and that is a must in life, otherwise you will miss your life - you will never be repressive, you will be expressive of whatsoever life gives. You will be expressing it - its joys, its sadness, its peaks, its lows, its days, its nights.

But you have been brought up to become bogus, you have been brought up in such a way as to become hypocrites. When you feel angry, you go on smiling a painted smile. When you are in a rage, you repress the rage. When you feel sexuality, you repress that, and you go on chanting your mantra. You are never true to what is within you.

It happened...

Joe and his little daughter, Midge, took a trip to an amusement park. En route they stopped for a huge meal. At the park they came to a hotdog stand, and Midge explained 'Daddy, I want...' Joe cut her short and stuffed her with popcorn.

When they came to the ice-cream vendor, little Midge once more shouted 'Daddy, I want...' Joe stopped her again, but this time said 'You want, you want! I know what you want - icecream?'

'No, Daddy' she pleaded 'I want to vomit.'

That's what she was wanting from the very beginning. But who listens?

Repression is not listening to your nature. Repression is a trick to destroy you.

Twelve skin-heads, bubbleboys, walk into a pub with their Levi jackets on and all their equipment.

And they walk up to the landlord and say 'Thirteen pints of bitter, please.'

'But there are only twelve of you.'

'Look, we want thirteen pints of bitter.'

So he gives them the beer and they all sit down. And there's a little old fellow sitting in a corner and the skin-head leader walks over to him and says 'Here you are, dad, here's a pint of beer for you.'

The little fellow says 'Thank you, thank you, you are generous, son.'

'It's all right, we don't mind helping cripples.'

'But I'm not a cripple.'

'You will be if you don't buy the next round.'

That's what repression is: it is a trick to cripple you. It is a trick to destroy you, it is a trick to weaken you. It is a trick to put you against yourself. It is a way of creating conflict within you, and whenever a man is in conflict with himself, of course he is very weak.

The society has played a great game - it has put everybody against himself. So you are continuously fighting within yourself. You don't have any energy to do anything else. Can't you observe it happening in you? Continuously fighting. The society has divided you into a split person: it has made you schizophrenic and it has confused you. You have become driftwood. You don't know who you are, you don't know where you are going, you don't know what you are doing here. You don't know why you are here in the first place. It has really confused you.

And out of this confusion are born great leaders: Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-tung, Josef Stalin. And out of this confusion arises the Vatican Pope, and out of this confusion a thousand and one things arise.

But YOU are destroyed.

Tantra says: Be expressive. But remember, expression does not mean irresponsibility. Tantra says:

Be expressive intelligently, and no harm will happen to anybody from you. A man who cannot harm himself will never harm anybody. And a man who harms himself is a dangerous man in a way. If he is not even in love with himself, he is dangerous; he can harm anybody. In fact, he WILL harm.

When you are sad, when you are depressed, you will create other people around you who are sad and depressed. When you are happy, you would like to create a happy society, because happiness can exist only in a happy world. If you are living joyfully, you would like everybody to be joyful - that is true religion. Out of your own joy, you bless the whole existence.

But repression makes you false. It is not by repression that anger, sex, greed are destroyed, no.

They are there - just the labels are changed. They go into the unconscious, they start working from there: they go underground. And, of course, when they are underground, they are more powerful.

The whole psychoanalytic movement tries to bring what is underground to the surface. Once is becomes conscious, you can be freed of it.

A Frenchman was staying in England, and a friend asked him how he was getting on. He said he was doing very well, except for one thing. 'When I go to a party, the hostess, she does not tell me where is the 'pissoir"...'

'Ah, Georges, you mean she does not tell you where the toilet is? That's just our English prudery.

Actually, she will say "Do you want to wash your hands?" and that means the same thing.'

The Frenchman made a mental note of this, and the next time he went to a party, with the hostess waiting for him, the guests standing around heard 'Good evening, Mr. Du Pont, do you want to wash your hands?'

'No, thank you, Madame, I have just washed them up against the tree in the front garden.'

That's what happens; just the names change. You become confused, you don't know what is what.

Everything is there - just the labels change, and that creates a sort of insane humanity.

Your parents, your society have destroyed you, you are destroying your children. Now, this is a vicious circle. Somebody has to come out of the vicious circle.

If you understand me rightly, then my sannyas is an effort to bring you out of the vicious circle.

Don't be angry at your parents - they could not do better than they have done. But now become more conscious, and don't do the same thing to your children. Make them more expressive, teach them more expression. Help them, so that they become more authentic, so that they can bring out whatsoever is inside them. And they will be tremendously grateful forever, because there will be no conflict within them. They will be in one piece; they will not be in fragments. And they will never be confused, they will always know what they want.

And when you know exactly what you want, you can work for it. When you don't know what you really want, how can you work for it? Then anybody who takes hold of you, anybody who gives you any ideas... and you start following him. Any leader comes - anybody can convince you argumentatively, and you start following him. You have followed many people, and they have all destroyed.

Follow your nature.

Each generation destroys the other. Unless somebody becomes very alert, aware, the destruction is bound to happen.

Question 5:

How am I supposed to know why you got married to a woman YOU hate and who hates you? Maybe - this is just a guess - you got married because you hate each other.

There are two types of marriages: love marriages and hate marriages. Love marriages are very rare; in fact, they don't happen. The so-called marriages are hate marriages. At least about women it is very true. If they want to torture you, they will marry you, because there is no surer way to torture you - that is the best way.

I have heard...

Mulla Nasruddin had gotten himself in a very awkward situation. He had been carrying on with no less than three women at the same time, promising each one that he would marry her. Lately, they'd been pressing him to make good his vow. At his wits' end, he consulted his lawyer.

'I suggest' said the lawyer 'that you let me notify all the newspapers that you have committed suicide.

After that, we'll hold a mock funeral. That should take care of your troubles.'

They went into action immediately. While the lawyer phoned the newspapers, Mulla made the necessary arrangements with the undertaker.

It was a very impressive funeral. At the proper time everyone filed solemnly around the coffin to bid a last farewell to the deceased. And then his three girl friends entered.

'Poor Nasruddin' sighed the first girl as she gazed down at the body. 'He was a louse, but I'll sure miss him.'

'Good-bye, Nasruddin' wept the second girl 'too bad things didn't work out better.'

But the third girl was enraged. 'You dirty rat! - dying on me after you promised we'd be married. For that I'm gonna shoot you myself even though you are dead! At least I'll have that satisfaction!'

She then pulled a revolver out of her purse and levelled it at the prone figure. 'Hold it! Don't get so excited!' cried the corpse sitting up. 'You, I'll marry!'

I don't know why you got married to a woman who hates you, and whom you hate. But watch out.

You must be in a very deep mess - but everybody is, so don't feel worried - this is the natural, usual condition of humanity.

Everybody is in a mess. Nobody knows why one is going to do a certain thing. Sometimes you get married to a woman because her face is appealing. But what has marriage to do with the face?

After two or three days, the honeymoon will be over and you will never look at the face again. And you never married the real woman - you only married a face, a certain figure, and the figure has nothing to do with it.

Or maybe you liked the voice of the woman, the singsong voice, and you got married. People get married for foolish reasons. Now the singsong voice has nothing to do with it: the singsong voice will not prepare your food, it will not make your bed. After a few days, you will forget the voice. The reality you will have to live with has nothing to do with these things.

A certain woman has a certain figure, a certain curve - but what has a curve to do with life? A certain woman has a certain way of walking and it appeals to you. But can you waste your life, your married life, on such filmy things? It is not possible.

Life needs more realistic approaches, more realistic foundations.

But you go on doing superficial things like this. The reason is that you are not aware. It is not only a question of marriage - it is a question of your whole life. That's what you go on doing. You go on doing things on the spur of the moment - not seeing deeply that life needs more awareness, more responsibility, more understanding, more intelligence.

Start being more intelligent, and you will be less and less in trouble. Be more watchful, become a witness.