Ecstatic All the Way

The first question:

ANIL BHARTI,

KAHLIL GIBRAN IS A POET, but not a mystic. A poet is a dreamer, a mystic is a visionary, and the difference is vast. The difference is not only of quantity but of quality. The poet looks not at the moon but at the reflection of the moon in the troubled waters of the lake. He gets few glimpses here and there, but they are only glimpses and very vague. His perception is not clear, cannot be, because he has not passed through the alchemical process of meditation.

The mind is there between him and the reality, and the mind always interprets; it is a constant commentator. It never allows the reality to reach to you as it is. It distorts it, it polishes it, it changes it. It makes it according to its own gestalt, its own pattern. It gives it the shape of its own ideas, it colors it. Of course something of the reality still lingers on, but it is only something fragmentary, as if the poet has seen a beautiful dream.

But the mystic knows it directly, immediately; there is no interpretation. Existence and the mystic are in deep communion. The poet is only once in a while in a sort of communication, but never of communion. In communication you remain separate, bridged for the moment but still separate. In communion you are no more, not only bridged for the moment - you are simply not there. It is not a question of creating a bridge; you are immersed, you are attuned. You are in a state of at-onement with reality.

Remember this before we start meditating on these beautiful words of Kahlil Gibran - they are beautiful. He is one of the most perceptive poets of this age, but he is a poet, not a mystic; he is not a Buddha, not a Christ. He has not seen reality, he has dreamed about it. His dreams are beautiful, psychedelic, but dreams are dreams; even if sometimes they reflect the reality, they only reflect it.

They are faraway echoes, or maybe echoes of the echoes of the echoes.

Kahlil Gibran says:

WHEN LOVE BECKONS TO YOU, FOLLOW HIM.

It is implied in the statement that as if love is some thing outside you and you have to follow it. In fact, when love is there you are not there; there is nobody to follow it. Love is overwhelming! Love is a dissolution of the ego. Who is there to follow? Who is there not to follow? If there is somebody still to follow or not to follow then it is not love, then it must be something else - maybe biology, chemistry, psychology, but not love. It must be instinctive; it must be lust parading as love, camouflaged as love. It must be something animal.

When love is there the lover is not; they can't exist together. That is impossible, that is not in the nature of things - they cannot coexist. If the lover is there, love is not; if love is there, you will not find the lover anywhere. Then who is to follow? Who is to hear the call of love and who has to go with love? If somebody is there to follow then something is missing - something very basic and fundamental is missing.

The statement is beautiful, but it has not come out of meditativeness. It is a faraway echo; he has dreamed about it.

If you ask the Buddha he will say: When love is there, you are not. And there is no way not to follow it, there is no way to go against it. You ARE IT! But then you have to understand the multidimensionality of the phenomenon of love.

The lowest dimension is animal; ninety-nine percent people never go beyond it. So when they hear words like this,"When love beckons to you, follow him," they interpret it according to themselves.

In all the languages of the world we have this expression "falling in love"; it is significant. Why "falling in love"? - because for ninety-nine percent people it is really a fall. They are going downwards to the world of instincts, biology, physiology. They are being dominated by the hormones, by the glands, by their body chemistry. It is happening in animals, it is happening in the trees - it is nothing special, it is nothing human.

I will not say, "When your biology beckons to you, follow it." I will say, "Watch, be aware, be alert,"

because if you are not aware you are bound to be taken over, dominated by the lowest element in you, by the most peripheral in you. You will be dominated and guided by unconscious natural forces.

That's what is happening: in the name of love people are simply behaving like animals. It is a fall!

But there are higher dimensions of love too...

The first kind of love appears as if it is coming from the outside. It really comes from the outside because it comes from the circumference and the center has to follow the circumference.

The circumference is the outermost thing in you; it is outside you. You are far away from the circumference at the deepest shrine of your being. When love calls you forth that means it is coming from the periphery, somewhere from the outside.

A man falls in love with a woman or a woman falls in love with a man, but it is nothing special to man, it is not part of the dignity of man. It is a fall and it will bring misery to you. And remember, it will be possessive. And also, if you carefully watch, you will see it will not only be possessive; deep down there will be a desire to be possessed too. You are already possessed by nature, now it will have other implications. The man will be possessed by the woman, the woman will be possessed by the man... and the whole conflict of the so-called love.

Whenever you are possessed by somebody there is a dichotomy in you: you want to be possessed and yet you want to be free. There is a conflict within you: you want to be possessed because that makes you feel valuable, possessible. Somebody is paying respect to you, somebody is thinking of you as a treasure, so you feel good that you are possessed. But on the other hand, simultaneously you feel that you are being reduced into a commodity. It may be a treasure, but a treasure has no consciousness. You are becoming a thing, you are being reduced into the world of objects, you are becoming an object of possession. You are losing your subjectivity and the freedom of your subjectivity, hence the conflict.

And you will be in misery because whatsoever you do will only fulfill half the desire and the other half will remain frustrated. If you allow yourself to be possessed, your desire to be free remains unfulfilled, it fights; if you don't allow yourself to be possessed you are free, but something in you goes on insisting that nobody possesses you. Does it mean nobody values you? Does it mean nobody is bothered by you, nobody takes any note, that you are worthless?

At this level of love, misery is a natural consequence. Watch it, because through watchfulness you can rise above it. You can start rising in love rather than falling in love. Watchfulness becomes like a ladder from the lowest to the highest.

The second dimension is closer to what Kahlil Gibran says in his second statement:

LOVE POSSESSES NOT NOR WOULD IT BE POSSESSED, FOR LOVE IS SUFFICIENT UNTO LOVE.

But again he gives a wrong reasoning why love is not going to possess and is not going to be possessed. He says: because love is sufficient unto itself - that's not so. Love is not sufficient unto itself: love needs to be shared. There is an immense, overflowing energy which needs to be shared. The flower is not sufficient unto itself; it needs the winds and the sun so that it can release its hidden splendor, its fragrance, its perfume. If it is not allowed to release its perfume it will be in deep suffering.

Love suffers most when there is nobody to share it. The greatest suffering comes when you have to give and there is nobody to receive it. LOVE POSSESSES NOT - that is true - NOR WOULD IT BE POSSESSED - that is true. But the reason given for it by Kahlil Gibran is not right. It is poetic, but it has no insight into the reality of love.

Love is non-possessive because love's very essence is freedom. If you love a person you would like the person to be absolutely free. And if you love somebody you can love only if you have loved yourself before it; that is a precondition. You cannot love others if you are not in deep love with yourself. The first, the foremost love is love for oneself. When this flame starts burning in you - love for oneself...

It has not been told to you for centuries, in fact just the opposite has been taught: "Don't love yourself, it is selfish," they say. "Love others!" Even Christians who think they are following Christ have misinterpreted his tremendously significant statement. He says: "Love your enemies like yourself."

They have taken only half part of it; they say, "Love your enemies," but they have forgotten the basic condition. Jesus says, "Love your enemies like yourself ' but if you don't love yourself, in what way you are going to love your enemies? What will be the criterion? First you have to love yourself, then you can even love your enemies - what to say about friends? what to say about lovers?

The first love has to happen within yourself; it is something inner. It happens only when you become silent, aware, meditative, when you get out of the mind. Mind is possessive, mind is dictatorial, mind is a despot. It wants to dominate, because the center of the mind is the ego and the ego can ride on anything - any horse will do. Money will do, power will do, knowledge will do, asceticism will do, virtue will do, love will do - even love! Even the love will be converted into a horse and the ego can ride on it.

Love is non-possessive only when it is not of the mind, but Kahlil Gibran knows nothing of the no- mind. Meditation means the state of no-mind. Love should arise in a state of no-mind; you have to prepare the state of no-mind for love to happen. It does not come from the outside, it does not come from somewhere else. When you are silent it springs within yourself, it blooms within yourself.

Meditation functions like spring, and the flowers that have been waiting for the spring suddenly open up. Your inner being becomes so full of perfume, it is so fragrant, you are so overflowing with fragrance, you have to share it. And it is so much that you cannot be miserly about it.

An ancient Tibetan story is:

A Master denied his whole life to accept any disciple. The more he denied, the more he became famous. More and more people were coming and asking to be initiated, but he will refuse. His conditions were such that nobody was able to fulfill them.

He had only a young man to look after him; he was also not a disciple, because he never initiated anybody. The Master was getting old so he had allowed this young man... The young man wanted to serve the Master. He said, "If you are not going to initiate me, okay, don't initiate me, but let me be here to serve you, to look after your physical needs. You are getting old." And he allowed the young man.

The day he was dying he called the young man and told him, "Run to the village and tell to people, whosoever wants to be initiated can come immediately."

The young man could not believe. He said, "But what about your conditions? Your conditions are so impossible that nobody has been able up to now to fulfill them."

The Master laughed and he said, "Now I can tell you the truth! The real thing is, all those conditions were just a strategy not to say to people that 'I have not yet reached; that I don't have it, so how I can give it to you?' I never wanted to say that I have not yet become the awakened one, the blessed one, so I had found this strategy: that 'You are not yet worthy to be initiated.' But now I have attained - this morning it has happened! - and I am so burdened that I want to be relieved.

"So there is no condition at all. You simply go, and whosoever wants to be initiated, gather them and tell them that this is my last day. As the sun will be setting I will also disappear from this world, so only few hours are there. Gather as many people as you can!"

The young man could not believe, but the Master was saying so he rushed. The villagers could not believe; they thought that it must be some kind of joke. The man has been so stubborn about his conditions and conditions were so impossible - only Superman can fulfill his conditions!

Those poor villagers said, "But we are not worthy!"

The young man said, "Now he is not asking for any readiness on your part. Anybody who wants to be initiated, who wants to share the truth, he is ready to give."

Few people were curious: "What is the matter?" - so just out of curiosity, knowing perfectly that old man for many years, without believing but just out of curiosity followed. Somebody's wife had died and he was feeling a little miserable so he said, "Okay, it will be good just to go to the old man for some consolation, and if he wants to give some advice or some wisdom, why not take it?" A young man was unemployed, he was thrown out from his job, and he was just sitting idle so he said, "Okay, I am also coming." Even a small child seeing a crowd going towards the hermitage followed. He had not gone to the school that day and it was good excuse that he had gone to the saint, so he also went there.

The young man looked at the crowd. He could not believe his eyes, because he has seen very wise people coming, the purest, the most innocent, the virtuous, the puritans, the ascetics, and they were all refused. And this motley crowd! He laughed himself: "What is going to happen? The whole thing seems to be simply crazy! And what this small child is going to get? And the reasons they are coming are absurd: somebody's wife has died, somebody is unemployed, somebody's off day, the child has not gone to the school."

He went with this crowd. The Master did not even ask, "Why you want to be initiated?" He simply started calling single individuals, initiating them. The young man said, "I cannot believe my eyes! I had never imagined that this will ever happen!"

The Master said, "It is very simple. Now I have it and I have to give it; then I didn't, there was nothing to give. And what was the point to show one's emptiness to people? So I pretended that 'I have it, but you are not ready.' Now, whether you are ready or not, who cares? I am unburdening myself."

That has always been the way of the Masters. When the raincloud is full of rainwater it does not bother whether it is showering on the rocks or on a good soil, whether the soil is fertile or not. It simply showers! It showers without any conditions.

So is the truth about love: when you love yourself, when your love has exploded, when it has become a reality within you, you share it! It is not sufficient unto itself, it needs sharing. Even truth needs sharing, Buddhahood needs sharing, Christ-consciousness needs sharing. It is irresistible, it has to be shared; there is no way to avoid it.

Otherwise, why in his old age, when Buddha was eighty-two, he was still traveling and talking to people and saying to people? He was ill, he was old, he was getting every day weaker, but he was still traveling. His disciples were saying that, "Now you please stop!" And he will say, "I cannot, I have to give. To the last of my breath I have to give." And actually that's what happened.

When he was dying, the last day has come, he has declared that now he is going to leave his body:

"Has anybody something to ask?"

Ten thousand sannyasins had gathered, his disciples they were crying. They said, "You have answered everything! You have been answering for forty-two years continuously, morning, afternoon, evening. You have said everything that we would have ever thought or asked or enquired - in fact thousand times more you have said. There is nothing to ask."

It was Buddha's way to ask everything thrice. He again asked, "Have you got any questions?" They refused. He again asked. "Maybe somebody has a question and is not asking just not to bother me in this last moment of my life. Don't be worried, ask it! Till my last breath I want to share, I have to share."

But they refused. They said, "We don't have any question."

Then he said, "Goodbye. I can close my eyes, I can start disappearing." He said. "First I will disappear from the body, then from the mind, then from the heart, and then from my soul. As if a candle is extinguished... the flame disappears... you cannot find it anywhere because now it is everywhere."

Just when he had closed his eyes and was disappearing from the body and the mind and reaching to the third stage, a man came running. For thirty years he had been waiting to ask something, but always something or other came and he could not ask. In fact, he had not seen Buddha for thirty years. He had always wanted to visit him, but sometimes the customers were there, sometimes some guests had arrived, sometimes the wife was ill, sometimes some other problem, and he always postponed. The ordinary way of humanity: postponement, tomorrow... "Next time when Buddha comes by I will ask."

Suddenly he heard in the village the rumor that "This is the last day, Buddha will not be there tomorrow." So he closed his shop. Even the customers were still there and they said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Enough is enough! - now I cannot wait!"

The wife said, "I am feeling very ill" - they are always feeling ill - "I have a headache!" And when you are going to a Buddha, the wife will always have a headache! "Where are you going?"

He said, "You get lost! I have no time even to answer!"

He rushed. The wife followed, the customers followed. "What is the matter? He has gone suddenly mad...? Such a calculating man, a businessman!"

He reached and he asked the disciples that, "I want to ask a question!"

They said, "It is too late. He had asked thrice, we had refused. And where you have been? For thirty years he has been passing from your village, almost every year he has passed. Where you have been?"

He said, "I am sorry, but I always postponed, believing that there will be a tomorrow. Now I cannot postpone. And I don't know whether in my future life I will ever come across a man like Gautam Buddha. Who knows? I cannot miss this opportunity!"

A quarrel started. He was saying that, " I will ask him!" And they were saying, "Now it is not possible!"

And Buddha opened his eyes. He said, "This is not right. I am still alive - let him ask! To the last of my breath, if I am alive I would not like it to be told about me that 'Buddha was alive and a man has come to enquire, and he was refused.' Let him ask."

And he was ready to answer. He answered...

Love, truth, bliss - there is an intrinsic core in them: they need to be shared; they are not sufficient unto themselves. Sharing is part, but they are not possessive. The reason is totally different. The reason is that love basically gives freedom: it gives freedom to oneself, it gives freedom to others. A love that becomes a bondage is not love; it is lust, it is animal, it is not human. Love gives freedom, then it becomes human. But still it is a kind of relatedness.

There is one more dimension to love. In the first, love is a biological need; in the second it is a psychological sharing; in the third you are love. In the first it is a relationship, a possessiveness; in the second it is a relatedness, a friendship, a friendliness; in the third you are love itself. Your very being is love, you radiate love! Only then love has come to its crescendo - it has achieved the ultimate, the last - you can call it God.

Jesus exactly says, "God is love." I would like to change the statement just a little bit, the same words but a different arrangement. I would like to say: Love is God - because when you say God is love it simply means love is one of the attributes of God; there may be many others. I say to you: Love is God - God itself is nothing but an attribute of love - it is godliness.

And the third statement of Kahlil Gibran is:

LOVE HAS NO DESIRE BUT TO FULFILL ITSELF.

A beautiful statement, but only apparently. Deep down something is missing - it is bound to be missing. It is not a fault of Kahlil Gibran: he is only a poet, he can be forgiven. He says:

LOVE HAS NO DESIRE BUT TO FULFILL ITSELF.

No, even that desire is not there, because love itself is a fulfillment. There is no question of any future fulfillment - there is no future in love. Love knows only one time and that is this moment, now.

Love is the means and the end. It is fulfillment, it is contentment, and out of this fulfillment is the fragrance.

So to a certain extent he is right when he says: LOVE HAS NO DESIRE... But the second part of the statement, BUT TO FULFILL ITSELF, he commits a mistake. That too is a desire: TO FULFILL ITSELF Even that desire is not there. Love has no desire, in fact love happens only when you have reached to the point of desirelessness.

That's what I call going beyond the mind. Mind has desires; when you slip out of the mind you are a no-mind. There are no desires, no memories, no imagination, no fantasies, no future, no past. You exist now and here.

This very body the Buddha. This very space the lotus paradise.

The second question:

JOSEPH,

My God! Are you a German or something? Can't you understand a simple joke? God does not exist at all, so how I can be really a God? Don't take me seriously - I am not a serious person at all - this is just a joke! But you must be a German, and perhaps also a Jew.

A German has no humor - he only laughs when told to.

A German never thinks - that's what his boss does for him.

A German loves variety - provided it never changes.

A German never makes a mistake - if he does, he does it correctly.

A German loves foreign customs - as long as they are German.

A German is orderly - even chaos is strictly organized.

I have nothing to do with God. I don't take the responsibility of making this world... and doing this whole job in six days. it was absolutely destined to be a mess! And the man who has never done anything like it before did it in six days, and since then he has disappeared, nothing has been heard about him. He must have freaked out, seeing what he has done!

But you are much concerned about my being really a God. A Jewish concern! If I am really a God, then Joseph will think of becoming a sannyasin, but first he has to check, double-check: "Is this man really a God?"

A young man went to the legal firm of Goldberg and Weinstein. "Can I see Mr. Goldberg?" he asked the secretary.

"I am sorry, Mr. Goldberg is out of town."

"Then can I see Mr. Weinstein?"

"I am sorry," she answered, "Mr. Weinstein is tied up."

A week later he returned. "Can I see Mr. Goldberg?" he asked the secretary again.

"I am sorry," she replied, "Mr. Goldberg is out of town."

"Then how about Mr. Weinstein?"

"I am sorry, Mr. Weinstein is tied up."

In another week he returned. "Can I see Mr. Goldberg?" he asked.

"I am sorry, Mr. Goldberg is out of town."

"Well then, let me see Mr. Weinstein."

"I am sorry, Mr. Weinstein is tied up."

"Look," he said to the secretary indignantly, "I have been here three times, and each time you tell me that Mr. Goldberg is out of town, and Mr. Weinstein is tied up. What is going on here?"

"Is not it awful?" she replied. "Each time Mr. Goldberg goes out of town he ties up Mr. Weinstein!"

Jews have their own ways of thinking: everything has to be done in a business way.

I am neither a real God nor an unreal God. And why you are worried about me? You should think about yourself!

This word "bhagwan" has been of immense use to me. I saw many godmen in India: Satya Sai Baba, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Muktananda, and many "et ceteranandas". I tried to fight them from the outside, but it was difficult. Then I thought it is better to be an insider and then fight, sol declared myself a Bhagwan, I became an insider - and now I am giving them a hard time! It is as simple as that.

But you must have come with your prejudices, ideas about God, and you must be a seriously religious person, hence the question. Here you have to put aside all your prejudices. That's why I am so outrageous - this is part of my work.

A successful lawyer was married to a woman who nagged him incessantly. She nagged him about his appearance, about how much he drank, about how little he loved her, about the state of the garden, and so on. The lawyer started staying later at his office to avoid her.

One day, after weeks defending a certain William Wright who was accused of murder, he came home very depressed. He had lost the case and Wright was to be executed that night unless the State Governor granted a stay of execution.

As he entered the house, his wife began, "Where have you been? It is after ten o'clock!"

"Ah, nag, nag, nag!" he said in disgust, and went to pour himself a drink.

"The minute you come home you start to drink, not even a hello for me!"

"Ah, nag, nag, nag!" he sighed. Then he went upstairs to take a bath, saying to his wife that he was expecting a call from the Governor.

While he was in the tub the call came - Wright was reprieved. The lawyer's wife decided to give him the good news herself. As she entered the bathroom he was standing naked, bending over the tub to wipe it clean. "They are not hanging Wright tonight," she said.

"Ah, nag, nag, nag!" the lawyer snarled.

When you have preconceptions you are bound to be in a difficulty. You will misunderstand everything.

Here, everything is a joke, nothing is serious. Neither my being Bhagwan is serious nor your being sannyasins is serious. We are just playing a game. I have decided to be the Master and you have decided to be the disciples. Sometimes we can even change the roles: you can be the Master and I can be the disciple! Just you will have to dig a hole sol can sit there and you all sitting on the platform, that's all! And we can have a good laugh! One thing you have to remember: I will still be talking and you will still be hearing!

A bishop visiting an insane asylum was told by his guide that one of the inmates insisted he was God. The bishop expressed interest in meeting the man, who proved to be a venerable and dignified figure with a flowing white beard.

"I understand that you are God," said the bishop.

"That's correct," replied the old man with a gentle bow.

"Well, there is one thing I would like very much to know. When you speak in the Bible of creating the world in six days, do you mean this literally or metaphorically? Do you mean six days of twenty-four hours each, or do you mean aeons or ages?"

"I am sorry," replied the old fellow, "but I make it a practice never to talk shop."

The third question:

ANAND NIRUP,

Don't take it literally, because I know my people are dangerous people! He is talking metaphorically!

But George Gurdjieff's statement is not complete; it has to be made complete so you don't misunderstand it.

Start loving yourself; that has to be the beginning and that is also going to be the end. Then the circle is complete: you begin by loving yourself, because you are the closest to yourself. Of course, when you begin to love yourself your love is from the circumference towards the center, because you exist on the circumference. You turn in: you stand on the door which connects your inside and the outside. You look inwards - you are still standing on the circumference - and you fall in love with your center. This is the beginning. And the end will be that you have reached the center and you stand at the center and look at your circumference. That will be the completion of the journey.

But between these two, the beginning and the end, there are seven steps. Gurdjieff's statement belongs only to one step, and it is absolutely right. Animals are far more sensitive because they are not logical, not rational. But to begin with animals is not good; you have to go a little further back.

The first step has to be stars, sun, moon. The farther they are the better, because if you can love the farthest it will be easier to love those who are closer to you. And stars have also a tremendous sensitivity; it is far more primitive than the animals.

Prem Volodya, the Russian sannyasin, has sent me a beautiful joke:

Brezhnev gets up in the morning and goes out onto his balcony to stretch his body. The sun is rising.

"Good morning, red sun!" he exclaims.

"Long live Leonid Illich Brezhnev!" the sun answers back.

Very happy with this, Brezhnev goes about his business. After a busy morning he goes out onto his balcony again and sees the sun at its height.

"Good afternoon, sun!" he shouts out.

"Long live Comrade Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union!"

comes the reply.

Very pleased, Brezhnev returns to his work. Once more in the evening after a hard day he comes out onto his favorite place. He sees the sun setting and with a knowing smile cries out, "Good evening, my little red sun!"

"Fuck you!" comes the answer. "I am in the West now!"

Stars, sun, moon - start with them, and they will answer you, remember! And be ready, because they are not very gentlemanly either! They will say you the exact truth, whatsoever it is.

Then move to rocks, mountains. Feel the rocks, their texture, love them. Then move to rivers, wind, rain; they are more alive, livelier than anything. Dance in the rain, in the wind. Swim in the river, let go, flow with it. Don't fight against the river, don't push the river, don't go upstream. Go with the river, totally one with it.

This is how you will be able to learn many ways of love, many qualities of love. Then trees, bushes, flowers, fruits... move very slowly towards life. Now trees are more alive, flowers are more closer, far more closer than the stars and the rocks and the rivers. Then move to birds - and only then Gurdjieff's statement is correct - to the animals.

And when you have been able to love all these different expressions of existence you will be able to love man and woman, because man and woman are the highest expression and they imply the stars, the mountains, the rivers, the winds, the rain, the trees, the birds, the animals; they imply all these. We are made of all these! Something of us belongs to the stars, something of us belongs to the rivers, mountains, something of us belongs to the trees, flowers, something of us belongs to the birds.

It is not accidental that you dream of flying, it is not accidental that man invented airplanes, it is not accidental that man is immensely attracted towards stars - for thousands of years. It may have been astrology, then astronomy, and now the immense attraction to reach to the moon, to the Mars, and then to the stars. There is something magnetic that is pulling us.

It is not accidental that when you go to the sea something in you feels in tune with the sea, because eighty percent of your body is made of seawater. Man was born as a fish in the beginning; from the fish he has grown up towards man. In fact, each child in the mother's womb is a fish for few days.

He has to pass through all the stages in nine months that the whole humanity has passed in millions of years. Something in you always remains fishy!

It is not very strange that when you love a woman you start calling her cat, pussy; there is something in it. Every woman has a cat inside her being, every man has a dog. Hence you can see husband and wives always in a dog-cat fight!

If you want to love man and woman you will have to love many more things. Just jumping in love with a woman you will be in trouble, because you will not know many of her dimensions. You will not know the dimensions of the man you are in love. Something in him is rock; unless you know the texture of rock and you can love rock you will not be able to love a Peter. A Peter means a rock!

You have to experience love in all possible ways, then only... because man and woman are the culmination of many things; much has passed. They have a tremendous past; this is implied in their being. It is there and very alive. If you cannot love trees, if you cannot love the wind, if you have no joy in having a dance when it is raining, you will not be able to love a woman or a man; something in your love will be missing. It will not have the perfection, it will not have that exquisite grace that it can have, that it should have.

Gurdjieff is right, but you have to move slowly. Begin with yourself and then move to the farthest away stars, and then from those stars start moving again towards yourself. Those stars make your circumference, and only then you can come to a point, again you can rediscover your center. That is the moment a person becomes enlightened, a Buddha, a Christ. That is the moment when he has come home, he has done the whole pilgrimage. It is a love pilgrimage.

A young couple met on vacation, fell in love, and decided to get married. The only minister in the area was a resident of the local nudist colony.

They enquired and found that the minister and the members of the colony would perform the marriage ceremony if the two would disrobe and join their group. They were happy to do this, and the minister performed the ceremony outside under the trees. The nudists lined up with the men on one side and the women on the other.

When the minister said to the lady, "Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

she looked first at the groom and then down the line of handsome, naked men and said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I believe I would rather have that guy at the end of the line!"

You have to know love in all its expressions! Don't get hooked too soon. Move freely with the whole existence. Love many men, love many women. Then only, slowly slowly, you can discover the person with whom your heart feels a synchronicity. It is not an easy job. No astrologer can do it for you, no father, no mother can do it for you. There is no other way to do it; the only way is by trial and error.

Don't be repressive of anything in you, be expressive. All the old religions up to now have been repressive; they have made the whole humanity sad.

Krishna Prem has asked me: OSHO, I LOOK AROUND AND I DON'T SEE ANY ECSTATIC MEN, INCLUDING ME, BUT I SEE ECSTATIC WOMEN. WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT FOR MEN TO LET THEMSELVES GO?

It is simple. All the religions have been created by men; there is not a single religion which has been created by women. And why men created all these religions? And all these religions have been repressive - repressive particularly of sex. Few things have to be understood: man is afraid deep down of sex, because as far as sex is concerned he is far weaker than the woman. The woman is capable of having multiple orgasms, man is not capable of that. He is immensely afraid of the woman.

Hence all the human societies, particularly the so-called civilized societies, have destroyed the very possibility of women knowing - even knowing - that they are orgasmic. It is only just within these twenty, thirty years that it has been discovered that the woman has not only the orgasmic capacity, she has the capacity of multiple orgasms. But man must have known from the very beginning that no single man can satisfy a woman if she has the multiple-orgasmic capacity. Man can have only one orgasm; with one orgasm he is finished. And the woman is still on the way; may not even have started!

The second trouble is: she is slow, and she is slow for a basic reason. Her sexuality is not local, her sexuality is total. Her whole body has a sexual quality. Man's sexuality is local, it is genital. Woman's sexuality is not local, it is not focused; it is diffused, it is all over her body. So unless she can go in a sexual dance while making love she will not be able to have orgasm.

But if she goes in a sexual dance while making love, shrieks, screams, sings, shouts, says "Alleluia!"

the man will become so much afraid... because whatsoever she will be saying will be gibberish, it will not make any sense. It will be sensuous but not sensible! She will be speaking a divine language; it will be just coming. Even she will be surprised what is coming up. What she is saying and why, for what? It is nothing to do with expressing any particular thing; she is just so excited, ecstatic.

Her whole being is in a dance; she is in a temporary state of madness, and this can freak out the man - the poor fellow may even forget about his one orgasm! He may become concerned about the neighbors and the police and the fire brigade and whatnot!

So from the very beginning man has been repressive - repress the woman, make her feel guilty.

Nice ladies don't even move! They have to lie down almost dead, cold, unmoving, only then they are ladies. What a strange definition of ladies - the true definition should be "a good lay"! But what kind of good lay is this lady? She is just dead!

A man was caught making love to a dead woman on the seabeach. The magistrate asked, "Are you mad or something? What you were doing? You were making love to a dead woman?"

The man said, "I thought she is English!"

Krishna Prem, in my community, in my commune, it is going to be difficult for men. The women will be ecstatic because for the first time they have a chance to be as orgasmic as possible, and men are going to be constantly afraid. And you can see them, always walking, tail inside their legs, afraid, watching here and there. Any women can jump and catch hold of them: "Where are you going, Krishna Prem? WHEN LOVE BECKONS, FOLLOW IT!" But how long you can follow?

A yogi's lament... it is not a lament of any of my sannyasin, it cannot be. It is an old yogi's lament:

Sitting silently, doing nothing, A woman comes, and it springs up by itself!

It is perfectly okay with an old yogi, repressive, but with my sannyasins it does not spring at all! A woman comes by and the sannyasin escapes - that "I have to do other things too..."

Krishna Prem, you can be ecstatic only if you forget all about sex. I am the only ecstatic man around here! If you remain sexual you cannot be ecstatic; you will be continuously drained out, walking dead, dull. You can be ecstatic only if you go beyond sex. The old way was, repress the woman; that is ugly. Why repress the woman? That is not right, that is not human. Let the woman be expressive, but if you feel that sex is a drain on you, a drag on you - and soon one feels - then you go beyond it. But don't be repressive, just transcend. Transcendence comes by itself, slowly slowly.

It takes a little time to understand, to see the point.

Women also will get tired, but they will take a little longer time. They are slow; they are not so efficient, so quick. First men will transcend, and the women will go on helping men to transcend, because new men will be coming and they have to help. When they have helped many then they will start thinking, "How long I am going to help others? It is time I should be enlightened myself!"

In my commune this is going to be the way: men can be ecstatic only when they have transcended sex; women will have a far better time. They will be ecstatic while they are in sex and they will be ecstatic when they have transcended sex. My commune is going to be matriarchal. And you can see it; the whole show is run by women! I trust women more because they are going to be ecstatic all the way. Man will be ecstatic only at the very end of the journey; he can be trusted only after that.

Women can be trusted. I trust ecstasy! I trust blissfulness!

And why man started this repressive business? First was to save his ego; second was to keep control and possession of the woman, to reduce woman into property. And then he has great intellectuality. The women are emotional, they are heart people; men are head people. They are intellectual, so they rationalize their repressiveness. They made much fuss about repression; they started making so much noise that they made even women feel guilty - that something is wrong if they are happy in their sexual life. In fact, happiness itself became a sin. To remain sad and serious became a necessary condition to be respectable, to be known as a saint or a sage.

A man whose pet parrot had died wanted to replace him and went to the pet shop to buy a new one.

The pet-shop-owner showed him his selection of parrots.

"I want one that can talk," said the man. "You see, I like to chat with my bird."

"Ah," said the pet-shop-owner, "I have just the bird for you. It can speak five languages too. Here he is. I must mention one thing though, sir. I'm afraid he lost both his legs in a fight with a cat."

"Impossible!" said the man. "If he has got no legs, how come he is standing on his perch?"

"He is not standing, sir," said the owner. "He is holding on with his prick. Luckily he has got quite a long one - and what is more, he is a great ascetic, almost a saint, and his control over himself is immense, almost absolute."

"Unbelievable!" muttered the man, and he looked down under the perch, and sure enough the bird had his cock wrapped around the perch.

"I will take it!" he said.

The next day he went to work, and when he returned in the evening the parrot called him over: "Hi!

I have been waiting to talk with you," the parrot said. "After you went to work this morning, a young man came in and sat on the sofa with your wife."

"No!" said the man.

"Yes!" said the bird. "Then he opened your wife's blouse and put his hand inside."

"What? The bastard! What next?"

"Well, he put his other hand up your wife's skirt!"

"The fucker! What then?"

"Well, I don't know," said the bird. "I lost my self-control and fell off my perch!"