There is no power which is higher than love

Question 1:

The situation of the world has changed dramatically. Just three hundred years ago, the world was very big. Even if Gautam Buddha had wanted to approach all human beings, it would not have been possible; just the means of communication were not available. People were living in many worlds, almost isolated from each other. That has a simplicity.

Jesus had to face the Jews, not the whole world. It would not have been possible, sitting on his donkey, to go around the world. Even if he had managed to cover the small kingdom of Judea, that would have been too much. The education of people was very confined. They were not even aware of each other's existence.

Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu in China, Socrates in Athens - they were all contemporaries but they had no idea of each other.

That's why I say that before the scientific revolution in the means of communication and in the means of transportation, there were many worlds, sufficient unto themselves. They never thought of others, they had no idea even that others existed. As people became acquainted more and more with each other, the world became smaller. Now a Buddha will not be able to manage, nor Jesus nor Moses nor Confucius. They will all have very localized minds and very localized attitudes.

We are fortunate that the world is now so small that you cannot be local. In spite of yourself, you cannot be local; you have to be universal. You have to think of Confucius, you have to think of Krishna, you have to think of Socrates, you have to think of Bertrand Russell. Unless you think of the world as one single unit, and all the contributions of different geniuses, you will not be able to talk to the modern man. The gap will be so big - twenty-five centuries, twenty centuries... almost impossible to bridge it.

The only way to bridge it is that the person who has come to know should not stop at his own knowing, should not be contented to only give expression to what he has come to know. He has to make a tremendous effort to know all the languages. The work is vast, but it is exciting - the exploration into human genius from different dimensions.

And if you have within yourself the light of understanding, you can create, without any difficulty, a synthesis. And the synthesis is not only going to be of all the religious mystics - that will be partial.

The synthesis has to include all the artists - their insights - all the musicians, all the poets, all the dancers - their insights. All the creative people who have contributed to life, who have made humanity richer, have to be taken into account. And most important of all is scientific growth.

To bring scientific growth into a synthetic vision with heart and religion was not possible in the past.

In the first place there was no science - and it has changed a thousand and one things. Life can never be the same again.

And nobody has thought ever of the artistic people, that their contribution is also religious.

In my vision it is a triangle - science, religion, art.

And they are such different dimensions, they speak different languages, they contradict each other; they are not in agreement superficially - unless you have a deep insight in which they all can melt and become one.

My effort has been to do almost the impossible.

In my university days as a student, my professors were at a loss. I was a student of philosophy, and I was attending science classes - physics, chemistry and biology. Those professors were feeling very strange; "You are here in the university to study philosophy. Why are you wasting your time with chemistry?"

I said, "I have nothing to do with chemistry; I just want to have a clear insight into what chemistry has done, what physics has done. I don't want to go into details, I just want the essential contribution."

I was rarely in my classes, I was mostly in the library. My professors were continually saying, "What are you doing the whole day in the library? - because so many complaints have come from the librarian that you are the first to enter the library, and you have to be almost physically taken out of the library. The whole day you are there. And not only in the philosophical department, you are roaming around the library in all the departments which have nothing to do with you."

I said to them, "It is difficult for me to explain to you, but my effort in the future is going to be to bring everything that has some truth in it into a synthetic whole and create a way of life which is inclusive of all, which is not based on arguments and contradictions, which is based on a deep insight into the essential core of all the contributions that have been made to human knowledge, to human wisdom."

They thought I would go mad - the task I have chosen can lead anyone to madness, it is too vast.

But they were not aware that madness is impossible for me, that I have left the mind far behind; I am just a watcher.

And the mind is such a delicate and complicated computer. Man has made great computers but none is yet comparable to the human mind. Just a single human mind has the capacity to contain all the libraries of the world. And just a single library - the British Museum library - has books, which if you go on making them like a wall, one by one, they will go three times round the earth. And that is only one big library. Moscow has the same kind of library - perhaps bigger. Harvard has the same kind of library.

But a single human mind is capable of containing all that is written in all these books, of memorizing it. In a single brain there are more than a billion cells, and each single cell is capable of containing millions of pieces of information. Certainly one will go mad if one is not already standing out of the mind. If you have not reached the status of meditation, madness is sure. They were not wrong, but they were not aware of my efforts towards meditation.

So I was reading strange books, strange scriptures, from all over the world; yet I was only a watcher, because as far as I was concerned, I had come home. I had nothing to learn from all that reading; that reading was for a different purpose, and the purpose was to make my message universal, to make it free from local limitations.

And I am happy that I have succeeded in it completely. I don't have anything which is local. I don't have a land, a mother country. I don't have a house to live in. I don't have any place on this earth anywhere. This is a very strange situation.

I am a world citizen, but in the world I don't have even a space to stand, anywhere.

I can remain here only four or five days more; then I have to move. But perhaps that is good. What I have known through books, this way I am coming to know in reality.

I have become a universal gypsy.

Because you love me, you call me "master of masters." It is out of your love.

As far as I am concerned, I simply think of myself only an ordinary human being who was stubborn enough to remain independent, resisted all conditioning, never belonged to any religion, never belonged to any political party, never belonged to any organization, never belonged to any nation, any race.

I have tried in every possible way just to be myself, without any adjective; and that has given me so much integrity, individuality, authenticity, and the tremendous blissfulness of being fulfilled.

But it was the need of the time. After me, anybody trying to be a master will have to remember that he has to pass through all the things I have passed through; otherwise, he cannot be called a master. He will remain just localized - a Hindu teacher, a Christian missionary, a Mohammedan priest - but not a master of human beings as such.

After me it is going to be really difficult to be a master.

Question 2:

Avirbhava, that is our whole effort, to show to the whole world that there is no need of any war, no need of any fight, no need of jealousy, no need of hate. Life is so short and love is so precious. And when you can fill your life with love, with harmony, with joy, when you can make your life a poetry unto itself.... If you miss, only you are responsible for it, nobody else.

What can happen in a small group can happen in a bigger group, can happen all over the world. It is only a question of understanding; a simple insight is needed not to be dragged down by the forces of darkness, negativity, destructiveness. Just a little alertness is needed to devote oneself to creativity, to love, to sensitivity, and to make this small life just a series of songs... that you dance in your life and that your death will be your crescendo of dance; that you live totally and you die totally with no complaint, with gratitude, with thankfulness to existence.

I don't call the prayers that happen in synagogues and churches, and temples and mosques, real prayer. The real prayer is only one, and that is to live in such a way that you start feeling grateful towards existence, that existence has given you such an opportunity - which you had never asked for, which you never deserved. And yet you got it, and you blossomed into thousands of flowers, and you left the world with the fragrance of thankfulness.

Avirbhava, what is happening around me in different places - we want to make it a wildfire so that before the idiotic politicians of the world destroy life, we can make life so precious that nobody is ready to fight. The politicians can commit suicide with their own nuclear weapons if they want, but humanity is no longer interested in killing and being killed. And it is such a simple phenomenon, that once you have got the taste of it, you can never be the same person again.

And we are determined, against all powerful forces.... We don't have any power. Love is our only power, silence is our only force. But I say unto you that there is no power which is higher than love, and there is no force which can defeat silence. And it is through love and silence that one comes to know truth... which is the ultimate victory of life.

I repeat: we are determined to spread the message to all nooks and corners of the world, to every intelligent person who can understand. Except this, there is no way to save this beautiful planet.

And this planet is the blessed planet, because all other planets - and there are millions of planets in the universe - are simply dead, not even grass grows there. Nobody sits there silently doing nothing. It is all empty. Only this small earth is so fortunate that all kinds of life exist. In man it has become conscious, and in a few men it has become superconscious, and in every man it has the possibility of becoming superconsciousness. That means attaining, arriving at the very essence of truth, of immortality, of eternity.

We may not have a home, but we will go on wandering like gypsies around the world, making the whole world our home.

Home is where we are. Home is where there is love. Home is where there is harmony.

Question 3:

COULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS?

Firstly, people can see only aspects of you. They cannot see your real self because they have not seen their own real self. Neither have you seen your real self.

You simply feel that people are taking your aspects as your whole reality - and that is not true, because you know there are other aspects.

But you also are not aware of your real self. Even the sum total of all your aspects is not the real you - you are more than the sum total of all the aspects.

In fact, it has nothing to do with aspects.

Your real being is only a watcher, a seer, a witness.

All the aspects are of your mind, of your personality.

You are simply a mirror which reflects anything that comes in front of it, but the moment it has moved away the mirror is again empty.

So the first thing to remember is; don't get angry, don't get disturbed that people are not seeing you in your reality. You yourself have not seen you in your reality. First try to see yourself in your reality.

The moment you see yourself in your reality you will not feel angry if somebody thinks a certain aspect is your whole; you will feel compassion for the person because his capacity to know is very limited. You will help the person to know your other aspects, and finally to know you - which is not an aspect, which is something beyond all aspects.

That is why with me you feel different.

I don't see your aspects. I am not concerned with them. I simply see you as a mirror, because I know everybody is just a mirror in their deepest core.

So I never judge a person because every judgment means you have taken certain aspects and you have made that aspect the person's whole being.

Somebody steals. That is only an aspect. Somebody murders; that is only an aspect - because the person who has murdered somebody, has also loved. Perhaps he has murdered because he loved too much, because he was a friend indeed to someone, that was... another aspect.

But our whole society is based on judgment. Even our so-called fair courts are all judgmental, prejudiced.

Just the other day I was looking at a judgment one court in America has given against my commune.

In the judgment the judge has made it clear that all the laws are in favor of my commune, but still he feels that the money - one hundred and forty thousand dollars - should be given to this man, from the commune's fund.

He says in his judgment "I assume" - that is a strange word in a judgment - "I assume that this man needs that money. All the laws are in favor of the commune. They are for the commune." And that man was a servant of the commune. He was receiving one thousand dollars per month. He managed, with the clerk who was giving the salaries, that rather than getting one thousand dollars per month he was getting one thousand dollars per week.

Now even the president of America, I don't think, gets one thousand dollars per week.

And his work was nothing.

Because we purchased the land and he was the caretaker of the land for the old owner, the old owner said that he will be helpful. The land is big - one hundred and twenty-six square miles. "He will be helpful to you to find places where cultivation is possible, where water is possible." So we had kept him.

And when we found out that he has been drawing four thousand dollars per month instead of one thousand dollars, naturally we had to put a case against him. That case has not been decided.

This is what prejudice is. That man put a case against the commune that because we put a case against him we have made his name notorious, we have condemned him as a thief. So he was asking for three million or four million dollars as a compensation.

The first case is not decided yet, and perhaps will never be decided, but the second has been decided, and the wording is simply amazing - that all the laws are in favor of the commune but still this man is to be paid one hundred and forty thousand dollars. He needs it. His name has been damaged.

His act has not been yet decided, whether he cheated the commune or not, but because we have put the case against him and published it in the paper, his name has been condemned, and he needs the money. And the judge himself feels that all the laws are in our favor, but still he "assumes".

Our whole society depends on aspects, judgmental.

Now this judge must have been feeling jealous of the commune and its standard of living, and this is a good chance - without showing any jealousy; otherwise, there is no reason. He should have at least waited for the first case to be decided. But his own jealousy must have been creating the prejudice.

In another case they were trying to find twelve jurors who were unprejudiced to me and to the commune. They interviewed at least fifty people, and putting their hand on the BIBLE they became afraid and they said, "We are prejudiced." So they were rejected as jurors; otherwise, they were going to sit as a jury.

Now these people were rejected - because we insisted that their interview should be taken and their oath. It was so difficult that even the judge said, "Your cases should be decided outside of the state of Oregon because in Oregon you cannot get justice. Everybody is prejudiced."

But outside also we have seen the same thing.

In North Carolina, for three days the U.S. government attorney tried hard to prove that my arrest was legal, and he himself had to accept in the end that "We have not been able to prove anything."

Now this is a simple thing, that the U.S. government attorney accepts that he has not been able to prove anything against me. Still the magistrate said, "You may not have been able to prove that his arrest was legal, but I am not going to give him bail."

Of all my friends who were arrested with me, without any arrest warrant, three were left without bail, three were left on bail. I was not given bail. The reason that was given was that I am extremely intelligent, that I have thousands of followers who can do anything for me, that I have unaccounted sources of money, that however big the bail is - five million dollars, ten million dollars - I can jump it and go out of America.

I have not committed any crime. My arrest is unjustified, but bail cannot be given because I am capable of getting out of America.

This raises two points. One, is America such a weak country, powerless? It is the most powerful country in the world - all the armies, all the police, all the nuclear weapons. A single man, and you are afraid that you cannot give him bail?

Secondly, if this is the case then in America anybody who is rich enough should not be given bail.

You can arrest any Rockefeller for no reason, there is no need to prove anything. Bail can be refused because he has so much money he may manage to get out of America. Then no rich man should be given bail. But for me a special reasoning has been found: the real thing has been put aside, that I have been arrested illegally without any arrest warrant, without any reason for arrest; and a secondary thing, which is absolutely illogical, has been used. That means only poor people can get bail, the very poor who cannot escape, who cannot purchase a ticket from one place to another place, who don't have any friends - only these people can get bail. Anybody who has friends, who has money, who has sources, cannot be given bail.

And the real reason... when I came back to the jail, the jailer was very much shocked. The old man's eyes had tears. He told me, "This is sheer injustice as I have never seen in my life. They could not prove - with three days continually arguing - they could not prove anything. And still they refused bail. This I have never seen or heard in my whole life." He had come perfectly prepared to release me from the court. And he said, "This is simple injustice, and the reason is that the woman magistrate is hoping to become a federal judge. The post is vacant, and it is in the hands of the politicians who are pressurizing her, saying, 'If you give bail to this man you will never become a federal judge, remember. So use any reason, that is up to you; but bail has not to be given.' "

I said to that old man, "If this is the reason, then there is no harm. Let that woman become the federal judge. At least I have come to be of some use to somebody; otherwise, I am good for nothing!"

The whole society is based on judging. It takes one aspect - because you cannot see the whole person. The whole person is a big thing. If I put a small stone in your hand, you cannot see the whole stone; you will see only one side of it, and when you will see the other side then the first side will not be seen. You cannot manage to see it in one glance in its totality.

What to say about human personality, which is a multi-dimensional phenomenon?

So don't be angry with anyone. They see a certain aspect.

It is as if you take out from a novel a page and you read the page and you decide about the novel.

A single aspect, a single act, is just like that.

But this is the way people have lived, judged; and the reason is because they themselves are not aware of their wholeness. Once they become aware of their wholeness then they cannot judge anybody by any small aspect. They know that the man is far bigger. In its wholeness this small thing will be lost, like a dewdrop in the ocean. It doesn't matter.

But to come to such compassion, to such non-judgmental seeing, you need first to realize your own wholeness.

So it is not a question about others.

It is a question about you.

With me you will feel good - because I never judge anybody. I have no prejudice against anybody, and I know that anything that comes in front is only a small part - which may be deceptive, the whole may just be different. And this small part taken separately may have a different meaning; in the whole it may have a different meaning because the whole will give a context which is not possible taking things out of context.

So do two things. One, make every effort to be watchful of your own life so that slowly, slowly you simply remain watchfulness. That is your reality. Secondly, don't judge others.

You cannot prevent others, of course, judging you - that is not possible; but you can stop judging others. Perhaps that may help. Others may start thinking about you as a man who never judges, and they should be more compassionate towards you.

And there is no need to feel hurt because whatsoever they are doing, in their sleep, in their unconsciousness they can only do that.

So remember to forgive people, to forget people. Otherwise you will start having a prejudice against the person, that he judged you wrong; and then any moment, any situation, you will take revenge.

This game goes on in society.

At least from your side, stop it, let the other person play the football alone. Soon he will be tired.

Nobody can play football alone for long. You don't give juice to him. Ignore. But this is possible only as a realization of your inner being, not as a determination by the mind. Then it is so simple that I don't think there is anything simpler than this - not to judge people.

Otherwise people judge every moment; everybody - whether it is their concern or not it is not the question, it is just a mechanical habit.

I was traveling in a car from Nagpur to Gandhi's ashram in Wardha, with a very rich woman follower of Gandhi. She had come to take me. On the way, one tire got punctured so I told her that I would rather sit out under the tree, as it was a beautiful evening. So I went out and sat under a tree, the driver also went. She was alone in the car. And the driver was sitting by my side smoking a cigarette.

When I came back and entered the car, I was sitting in the back seat with the lady - some smoke of the cigarette must have caught either on my hair or on my clothes - that woman just looked at me and said, "I hate smoking. You have been smoking outside!"

I said, "You should at least be graceful enough first to enquire."

She said, "What is there to enquire? I can smell."

I said, "You can smell. I can smell also. I could have said, 'In the car there is a smell of cigarettes.

you must have been smoking - because you were alone here.' I didn't say that." And I said, "You seem to be a snobbish type. What business is it of yours if I have been smoking? Who are you?

Have I made any conditions that I will not smoke? You have just come to receive me from the ashram. I don't even know you. You may be rich. You may have your influence in the ashram. I don't care about all these things."

The driver was listening. He stopped the car and he said, "This is wrong," to the lady. "I have been smoking and I know how ashram people are. In Gandhi's ashram smoking is a sin. I was afraid that this man may stop me, but he didn't say anything. And even now he has not mentioned that I was smoking."

I said, "You don't come into the picture. I am trying to tell the lady that if she doesn't like smoking she can go and sit in front. And judging just by the smoke, and I have not been smoking! Still, just the smell and you just... and not only your condemnation, the way you told me, the way you looked at me."

I refused to go in that car. I got out. I said, "Tell the ashram to send another car. This lady smells too much of smoke."

The driver said, "I will be in trouble because you were not smoking and this woman is dangerous.

She gives money, so she has great hold in the ashram."

I said, "Either she gets out or I am out. Just bring my luggage out and leave me here under the tree. And tell to Ramdas, Gandhi's son" - Gandhi had died, but his son was my friend - "Tell him what happened. If he can manage to send another car, good, otherwise I will find my way back to Nagpur."

Seeing the situation, the lady became aware that she was wrong, she should have asked. I was not smoking. The driver was smoking, and she simply jumped on me. And I am not an ashramite, I am not a Gandhian. I am against Gandhi on each and every single point. And Ramdas will be very angry if I am left here. So she came out, and said, "I am sorry."

I said, "This will not do. You will have to change your attitude. You must be doing it to everybody."

I was staying in another Gandhi ashram, where one of his chief disciples, Balkova Bhave, was the teacher of the ashramites. Every morning he would go and look into the rooms and he would look even into their bathrooms - whether they are clean or not. I said, "This is insulting." And I said, "All these people go on suffering this torture. It is to be made clear that things should be clean, but that does not mean that every day - EVERY DAY...." And he would find something or other, and that would be enough to condemn the man. I said, "It seems it is just an excuse to find something to condemn."

The same was the situation in other Gandhi ashrams in India - you cannot drink tea, you cannot drink coffee, you cannot smoke cigarettes, you cannot play cards. It is okay if you prevent gambling, but just playing cards is innocent, there is nothing in it, no harm. You cannot use even mosquito nets because it is luxury.

And in Wardha there are such big mosquitoes that you cannot sleep, and the whole night the mosquitoes will suck your blood.

So Gandhi has found a way, kerosene oil. Everybody has to paint his face with kerosene oil - and his hands or anything that remains out of the clothes.

I said to Ramdas, "Up to evening I can be here, but not in the night. I don't think a mosquito net is a luxury; it is nonsense, whoever says that a mosquito net is a luxury."

Mahatma Gandhi must have been a mosquito in his past life! Otherwise from where he can get this idea?

"I cannot stay here. And painting your hands and face with kerosene oil, you can simply see that even mosquitoes don't come close and how can you sleep? The whole night you are smelling the kerosene oil. Even mosquitoes are intelligent enough, they are not coming. How can you sleep?"

I said, "I can stay only up to the evening; then I go back."

But these things were judged.

If you start judging people, then you can condemn everybody in the whole world, and the ultimate result will be that you will be living in a world of condemned people so you will be in misery because everybody is condemned all around you.

I live in a world with beautiful people because I never condemn anybody for anything. To me, everybody is intelligent enough to take care of his life.

This is because Avirbhava could not find, in two months, any quarrel, any fight, any tension, any disharmony. She must have been puzzled, thirty people living in a house in great harmony. The only way is that they are not judging each other. That is not proper, that is inhuman.

Start from yourself. Don't judge others. Don't take their aspects as their whole personality, and find out your wholeness. And slowly, slowly you may be able to see better, and you will not feel hurt if somebody judges - that is his problem.

Question 4:

Just wait and you will start getting drunk with empty glasses. When you start getting drunk with an empty glass, just remind me. You're coming closer!

That's how I get drunk.