Donkeys carrying great scriptures

Question 1:

There will be a New Year's day. The forces of darkness may be great but they can't stand even a small flame of a candle. Their greatness is only an appearance, because basically darkness has no existence of its own. It is only the absence of light.

Light has its own existence, and to have one's own existence is the true power.

The dawn is bound to come. The night may be long. The agony may be great. The darkness may be becoming more and more dark but nothing can prevent the new man arising on the horizon.

In a way, he has already come, he has just to be recognized.

One thing has always to be remembered, that whatsoever is destructive is impotent, only creativity has potentiality, is potent.

Hate, anger, jealousy, despair - they may overwhelm you for a moment, and you may think that all is lost, but all these things are impotent. They cannot destroy the eternal being in you. In fact, the situation today is more destructive than it was ever before.

But as I see it, it may prove a blessing in disguise.

Nuclear weapons have made war itself out of date. It is meaningless. There cannot be a third world war, and the whole credit goes to nuclear weapons - because now there is no point having a war.

Nobody is going to be victorious, nobody is going to be defeated, all are going to be destroyed. The third world war will be a global suicide, and life is not ready to commit suicide. Life wants more life.

Love wants more love.

All that is beautiful and real in existence has an inner urge to expand.

So I can say it with absolute certainty that the third world war is never going to happen.

But it has created a great opportunity, a pressure on the consciousness of man, that if you remain as sleepy as you are it is dangerous. Something has to be done to bring more consciousness, to bring more love, to bring more light.

The nuclear weapons are serving in two ways. First, they have stopped the possibility of the third world war, and secondly they have awakened man towards growing into a better consciousness, into a more harmonious existence.

As far as I can see, everything is just going fine.

Question 2:

It is true that the masters of the past have not only been cool, they have been really cold. They had to be, according to their own standpoint. Love was the most dangerous thing in their view. The whole past of man is dominated by religions which are against life, against love, against joyfulness, against celebration.

In fact, in the eyes of so-called religions life is a curse, it is a sin.

According to the Western religions, man is born out of sin and life is a punishment - because Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

This is such an irrelevant idea, what Adam and Eve did. Thousands of generations have passed, but every man still carries the same sin, and life is a punishment. Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden as a punishment, that's how life began; and unless you go backwards renouncing life, its joys - even renouncing the fruits of the tree of knowledge - you will not be able to enter into the garden of God again. You can enter again only when you have renounced everything that life gives to you.

In the Eastern religions there is a different interpretation, but pointing to the same thing. You are born because of your past lives' evil acts, and you are born to suffer the consequences of them as a punishment, and you will continue to be born again and again until the moment you have cleaned yourself totally. It may take thousands of lives, and only then you will be accepted back into the divine, into the truth.

So one thing is certain, that all the religions - whether Eastern or Western - agree on one point, that life is not something to be proud of, it is something to be ashamed of. And these masters of the past were part of the milieu in which they were born.

They managed to rebel against many things, but this is very fundamental, the whole religiousness has depended on it, that man has to cut himself completely from any love, any intimacy towards the other. He has to be absolutely independent and alone.

Naturally they were afraid, and they were cold.

And this is one of the reasons that all the religions are against me, because I am taking their very foundation stone away.

To me religiousness means warmth, to me religiousness means lovingness. To me religion does not mean that you have to be a stone - make your heart a stone. To me it means that you have to melt into thousands of intimacies, that you have to disappear, and just a lovingness remains.

All the religions will condemn me. I can understand their condemnation, because if I am right then their whole past and their so-called masters prove to be wrong. They have to be against me, because too much is at risk. But they are not going to win finally, because coldness is inhuman - and who cares about the Garden of Eden, and what will you do there? Adam and Eve, before they disobeyed God, were just animals. Their disobedience was the first signature of man becoming independent of animalhood, their disobedience was the first act of intelligence.

I have all the respect for Adam and Eve and no respect for the God who expelled them. He is just an ugly dictator, to prevent his own children from becoming wise, from eating the fruit that will make them eternally alive. What kind of father who does not want his children... two things - knowing, and eternal life. Then what does he want? That they just go on grazing the grass in the Garden of Eden? If Adam and Eve had not disobeyed, you would not have been sitting here, you would be in the Garden of Eden - but not like human beings.

In England there are thirty thousand people now who are worshippers of the devil - because they say either God is dead, because nothing has been heard about him since he created existence, or he has abandoned existence and does not care what is happening here. And you cannot deny their arguments, they have a certain sincerity. World wars go on happening, and God has no concern - and he was so much concerned that Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and he is not concerned at all that Adolf Hitler should kill six million people.

So these devil worshippers - they call themselves satanists - they have brought a very new idea, that the devil is the son of God - a rebellious son, just the generation gap. So either God has gone senile, has abandoned the world or has died. But they don't have one significant argument that I would suggest for them, that it was the devil who suggested Eve to revolt, to disobey; otherwise she will remain an animal.

The whole of humanity and progress would not have been possible without the devil. They have not added that argument. They should add it, because that is the most potential, that whatever we are, the whole credit of our evolution goes to the devil.

I am not telling you to become devil worshippers. To me God and the devil are both just fictions.

None of them exist.

But one thing is certain, that man's whole progress has depended on disobeying, on doubting, on being skeptical; not on being naive, or on being believers, or on being faithful, but asking questions and finding the answers. Very few people have contributed to the whole progress of man.

These masters who were very cold have also contributed. They could have done much more, but their coldness deprived humanity of many more things. They were all male chauvinists, and they all thought that the woman is the way to hell, so the woman has to be avoided.

And the woman is the source of warmth. Her love, her devotion, if combined with man's intelligence, her heart if combined with man's head - then miracles are possible. And that's what my basic contribution is: I want man and woman to be together growing in a symphony, in a deep intimacy and harmony.

We can create a totally different world.

Right now it is so miserable. It is in our hands to make it happier, full of laughter. And I don't see that there is any reason that people who are happy, blissful, singing, dancing, celebrating, are in any way harming existence. They are enhancing existence, they are making it more alive.

And if the whole humanity lives in love and warmth, spiritual growth will become very easy. It will not be so arduous and so long a journey. It was arduous and long because it was cold.

You can reach to the ultimate, dancing all the way, singing all the way. There is no contradiction in being blissful, in being loving, in being warm, and being spiritual. In fact, you cannot be spiritual if you are not able to share your love, if you are not able to share your heart.

Question 3:

The truth is that there is a difference of type. Everybody cannot be a disciple. I have missed, myself, being a disciple. For lives I have been searching but I could not manage to be a disciple.

I came in contact with many masters, but to be a disciple simply was not in my very nature. I had to go alone, I had to find the way myself. There was no question of ego, there was no question that I don't want to learn from others - I was completely willing, but something was not in my very type.

Everybody cannot be a disciple, and everybody cannot be a master either.

It seems to be a difference of personality type - not only a difference of consciousness.

There have been many disciples who attained enlightenment but never became masters.

In this life I used to know a certain very remarkable man, Masto. The word means 'drunk with the divine' - and he was drunk with the divine, a man of the highest caliber, but not a master. He remained a disciple even after he became enlightened.

And I used to talk to him again and again - because he loved me very much, and I said, "Now your master is dead, and you have to spread his word, his message."

He said, "I have thought about it, but it simply does not ring any bell in my heart. I am perfectly happy just to be a disciple. It does not matter that my master is dead; my discipleship is not dead, I am still alive."

And there is no question of hierarchy either, that the master is higher than the disciple. All that nonsense is not part of the spiritual world. The disciple can reach to the same level of consciousness as the master, but even if the master encourages him to become a master now, it is just not possible.

It is not in his nature. It is not in his blood and bones and marrow.

So the question is not that somebody is higher and somebody is lower. The difference is just like man and woman - nobody is higher, nobody is lower.

But a man cannot be pregnant with a child. He cannot become a mother. A woman cannot become a man.

This kind of effort is being made, and it creates only idiots. There are men, particularly in California...

California is simply the human zoo. Anything that is stupid, nonsense, absurd, will find a way towards California.

Because I used to receive letters from California that a few men wanted to become sannyasins but they wanted my permission to dress as women. We have enough women here already - men are in shortage! The situation has become so difficult that women are chasing men. Whenever something is in shortage naturally... otherwise the woman is not a chaser. She loves to be chased, that is natural to her. But in the commune how long can you wait for nature - because nobody is coming to chase you. And sannyasins were writing letters to me, "What should we do?"

I said, "There is nothing to do. Just start chasing! Forget about nature. Perhaps we have come to a point where we have to transcend nature."

I have to refuse those people; we have a shortage, and they will create even more trouble.

Why should men want to dress like women? Why should women want to dress like men? Why can't you be just yourself? Because we have created hierarchies - which are all man-created.

At least in the world of spirituality there is no hierarchy, the master is not higher than the disciple.

The master is master and the disciple is disciple. Both together are doing something which is miraculous. Neither the master alone can manage it nor the disciple alone can manage it, so they are complementary. They are archetypes.

And once we know what type you are, things become very simple. Then you stop trying to be somebody else. You simply follow your own type and don't waste your life and time, and put your whole energy into your own type. And then there is every possibility you will come to flowering.

Question 4:

I also know this is not a question, but I will have to answer it! Geeta... you can laugh! There is no need to worry. I can wait as long as it is needed by you.

Waiting, for me, is not a problem. I am becoming accustomed, because for years now I have been somehow hanging around, but now I have become an expert in hanging around. So you need not worry. You can take your time.

Just remember that whatever I am saying to you I will make my best effort to keep my promise, but it is not within my hands totally. I am in the hands of existence; as long as it allows I will be here to go on knocking at your doors.

But don't take it for granted, because it cannot be continued forever.

Question 5:

No. If you listen to me or read my words without bringing your own prejudices, without bringing in your own knowledge, your own so-called experience of life, then you will instantly recognize whether it is true or not.

So the first thing; you recognized it, not because you are much more experienced, much more knowledgeable, much more prejudiced, but simply because you are more innocent, and innocence has a clarity.

The others who seem to know more have simply lost their innocence, they know nothing, just garbage that they have collected from experience or from books or from universities. Their heads are full and heavy, and it is very difficult to penetrate their heads - they are really thick.

In the world they will be respected as wise people. The truth is they are otherwise people.

But the masses are impressed by their knowledge, but knowledge is not knowing - knowledge is simply repeating somebody else's words. Knowing is your own.

So it happened to you, because you are not knowledgeable, you are not full of rubbish gathered from all kinds of sources.

Your question is significant, "When I don't know what is truth and what is not truth, how was it instantly recognized that this man is speaking the truth?"

You are not aware that truth is not something far away from you, it is something within you. You may not be aware of it, but if you read something or hear something which is even just an echo that reminds you of the truth that is hidden behind you, in your own innermost core, there will be recognition, immediate recognition. It is not a question of knowing truth or not knowing truth. You have the truth. Your being is the truth.

How do you recognize when you see your face in a mirror that it is your face? You have never seen your face - as far as I know! Nobody has known his own face, but before a mirror you recognize that this is your face because the function of the mirror is to reflect.

Listening to me is just being available to a mirror. Reading me is just being available to a mirror. And what you will recognize as the truth in those words is simply a reflection of your own.

And the knowledgeable people are in difficulty, because they are not clean, so whatsoever you say to them or whatever they read they interpret it. Their mind is constantly making commentary on it.

So what they see in the mirror is not my words but their own commentaries - which have nothing to do with truth.

So, first, it will be difficult for them to recognize.

Secondly, the people who have respectability as knowers - people who have wisdom, people who are saints, sages - to them my words will be a challenge, and they would like to crush those words, to put them aside immediately because there is danger. Their whole respectability is in danger. If I am right, then their whole life and their whole experience is wrong - and very few people are so sincere that they will risk everything for truth. They will risk truth for anything.

But respectability is a great thing.

It happened that one Jewish scholar - and a professor in the university of Jerusalem - was interested in the words of Jesus, particularly in the authority that he was saying them with.

He has heard many people, but this man has a way of his own. No man he has known speaks with such authority.

He was a great scholar, so he could not go to listen to him while he was giving talks, because people will see, and they will think, "You are such a great scholar, and he is just a carpenter's son - uneducated, cannot read, cannot write - and you have come to listen to him?" That was against his ego.

So one night when everybody had gone to sleep he went to Jesus. He woke him up and said, "Please forgive me. I am a professor in the university, and I am a great scholar of religious matters.

I am a rabbi but I have certainly been impressed by the way you say things, no man has said things like that. But I had listened to you only by passing on the road, moving slowly so that I can hear a little more, but I cannot come to listen to you, because my whole respectability is at stake. Jews will not forgive me, the university will not forgive me."

Jesus said to him, "In this life nothing is possible. You will have to be reborn."

He could not understand. He said, "What do you mean?"

Jesus said, "What I mean is that you will have to drop all your respectability, all your knowledge, if you want to understand me. And this is no way of being a disciple, to come in the middle of the night like a thief. This simply shows your impotence and weakness. So just get lost! Come in the day.

Have some self-respect. Why should you depend on respect from other people? Only people who do not have self-respect depend on other people's respect."

So the people who know more, knowing nothing much, they are just like donkeys who are carrying great scriptures - but that does not mean that the donkey becomes a rabbi. The donkeys remain donkeys. That load of scriptures is not going to help.

One of the greatest problems in the world is these so-called knowledgeable people. They have the most difficulty to recognize any truth because recognizing any truth means losing much respectability, scholarship, knowledge.

Socrates has two categories. One category he calls knowledge that is ignorant, and the other category he calls ignorance which knows. Beautiful, clear-cut conception. "Ignorance which knows"

means innocence, nothing to lose, nothing to risk - you can open your heart, you can sink deeply into the waters of life without any fear.

And the knowledgeable, those who are ignorant, will not come close to anything that will expose them.

Against truth, the greatest enemy in the world is the knowledgeable person. And the greatest friend is he who knows that he does not know.

Question 6:

One should try to understand that every thing is not to be decided by discussion or argument. There are a few things which depend on people's types, their likings.

Before you enter into a discussion, you have already accepted one fact - that you both are of the same type and your likings are the same, which almost always is not the case.

If somebody likes Chinese food, and somebody does not like it, there is no question of discussion.

It is simply a question of liking or not liking.

Somebody likes roses, somebody likes some other flower.

This, too, is a question of type and liking. Don't make it a point of discussion. You will never come to any conclusion.

If you like coziness, a relaxed stable atmosphere, then a constant changing atmosphere will not suit you.

But there are people who would like constant change. They cannot remain in one place more than few days. They cannot love one person more than few months. Their life is geared in a totally different way.

Now, arguments are not going to change this. And in this case, it is really a little strange that the man likes coziness, and the woman would like to be a gypsy - which is really a very rare phenomenon.

Man is basically a gypsy. It was because of women that you see in the world houses; otherwise, at the most tents. It was the woman who forced the man to live in one place, make a beautiful home and not be a vagabond.

But from the very beginning man has been a hunter. The woman was staying at home, and the man was hunting far and wide, traveling miles; and sometimes the hunting place was no more giving food, they had to move. Hunters had to keep on moving, because the hunted animals went on moving farther from the hunters. It was the woman who invented agriculture - not man. Now you cannot go on dragging your agriculture farm from one place to another place; you are stuck, now you have to be there.

And the woman has reasons to remain in a stabilized place. She is going to become a mother.

Those nine months she is carrying a child, she cannot go on moving from here and there. She is already in trouble.

I don't think any man would be able to carry a baby in his belly for nine months. He will commit suicide, absolutely certain.

The woman cannot eat well while the child is in the womb; she vomits, she is constantly sick in bed.

And when the child is born, the child is too small - moving from one climate to another, from one place to another, is not going to be good for the child.

So agriculture versus hunting was the basic question, and agriculture won over hunting.

And hunting was ugly, too.

The woman is kinder, more compassionate. Hunting was something ugly, insensitive. The woman is a mother, and she knows that if you have killed a mother, a deer, what will happen to her children?

You have killed a lioness, what will happen to her cubs? The woman has been against hunting.

And when hunting became scarce and difficult, and there were days that you have to starve and then get food, man finally decided for cultivation. But with the cultivation everything changed. Now tents were useless. Houses are more permanent.

And with it, the whole civilization started growing. Then the schools were possible, then the hospitals were possible. Then other productions - manufacturing, everything became possible with cultivation.

But man deep down has remained a hunter. He has not forgotten the joys of hunting. He still wants to be a gypsy.

But in your question it seems the man wants to be cozy and feels in coziness there will be enlightenment more easily; and the woman wants to be a gypsy, jet-set speed, and she thinks in such a constant whirlwind enlightenment will be easy. No one is wrong, no one is right. It all depends on your personal feeling, type, choice.

Never waste your time arguing upon things which are likings. Simply accept, "That is your liking and this is my liking, and unfortunately our likings are different." And close the subject rather than discussing.

And start becoming enlightened!

Right, Geeta?