Life's Complementariness

The first question:

LISA CHRISTENSON,

LOGIC IS NOT NECESSARILY EXISTENTIAL; it is intellectual. But existence has no obligation...

you see? Existence goes on its own way! It is not concerned with your question, it is not concerned with my answer. It is absolutely illogical.

Logic will see contradiction. If logic was all, then certainly there was difficulty. But logic is not all, just the way of the mind of looking at things. Mind divides in polar opposites; the division is not there in existence itself. Existence is undivided. The day and the night are one, the birth and death are one, the plus and the minus are one, the positive and the negative are one. But logically they are incompatibles. Existentially a totally different dimension opens up: they are not contradictory to each other but complementary.

This word has to be pondered over, meditated upon. Life is complementariness! The opposite is not really opposite; it helps, it supports its own so-called opposite. Without birth there is no possibility of death, and without death there can be no birth either. It is one phenomenon, two sides of the same coin.

Yes, I say, Lisa, that first you should be in the moment, totally one with whatsoever is happening, utterly one - and then watch it. Certainly, if you only think about it, the problem will arise: how one can do both these incompatibles together? If you think then the problem is there, but if you do the problem disappears. Rather than thinking, you try, give it a try.

And how it happens is simple: if you are not identified totally with anything you cannot be DISidentified with it totally either. If you are only half-heartedly in it you can be only half-heartedly out of it. You were never totally in it, how can you be totally out of it? You have to become utterly absorbed in it, and in that very moment you can slip out of it as totally as you had slipped in.

It is as simple as coming into the house and going out of the house. If somebody was just philosophically thinking, then that too will seem incompatible. How to go in the house and come out of the house? These are incompatibles! And you are doing thousand and one incompatibles every moment...

It is the same breath that goes in and comes out, and you never for a single moment feel worried that something incompatible is happening. To be logical, either take the breath in and don't allow it to go out - that will be logical - or if it is out then don't allow it to come in.

Logic is perfectly okay with dead things, with matter. That is the difference between the objective and the subjective world, with matter and with consciousness. Logic is absolutely adequate with the material phenomenon, but absolutely inadequate as far as the consciousness is concerned.

Consciousness is a synthesis of the polar opposites. Consciousness is where thesis and antithesis meet, mingle, merge and become one. Consciousness is a state of orgasmic oneness where man and woman disappear and become one, where life and death are no more separate, where they are in such deep accord that you cannot draw a line where life ends, where death begins.

Rather than thinking about it, go into it. What I am saying is something existential, not intellectual. If you just listen to my words and follow them you will be in trouble.

Heraclitus has a tremendously pregnant statement. He says life moves through one opposite to another. Through the opposite, through the tension of the opposite, everything lives and becomes deeper. This is the secret. This is the hidden harmony.

Heraclitus is one of the greatest Buddhas of the world. In western philosophy his name is not part of the mainstream. The mainstream consists of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore. Heraclitus is something like an outsider for the simple reason that he is one of the greatest mystics. What Aristotle only thinks, Heraclitus knows. What Wittgenstein only thinks, Heraclitus experiences.

And what I am doing here is not helping you to become great philosophers. My whole approach is anti-philosophical, anti-logical. My approach is existential. You have to experience; except experience there is no proof of what I am saying. Don't listen to my words, listen to the intervals.

Don't be too much obsessed with what I say, become more and more attuned with my silence. The moments when nothing is said are far more pregnant. My message is not in the words but beyond the words.

But I can understand, Lisa, your difficulty. That is the difficulty of all logical people - and the whole world is trained for logic.

Here we are doing just a totally different thing. We are trying to undo what the society, the college, the university has done to you. They have made you obsessed with language and logic. Language certainly divides things; that's why truth cannot be said, it can only be showed. I am only indicating the way; I am not really leading you, I am just pointing the way.

Henry Miller has these beautiful lines:

"The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way. Unless we become our own leaders, content to be what we are in the process of becoming, we shall always be servitors and idolaters."

I am here just to point the way. Don't start clinging to my fingers, look at the moon the fingers are pointing at. The fingers are irrelevant!

In an attractive little town just near Los Angeles, a group of the local intellectuals formed a club to study hypnosis, mesmerism, and the related sciences of the mind. The club took a definite place in the social life of the little city and many of the most prominent citizens were invited to join. The studio where the club meetings were held was most attractively decorated and there was a beautiful big crystal ball suspended from the ceiling in the very center of the room. The leader and teacher had a dynamic personality and he presided over the seances authoritatively and with great dignity.

One recent evening a seance was held, and the members took their seats in the large circle that had been formed as part of the seating arrangement. The lights were dimmed, and the crystal ball automatically began to swing back and forth as the professor mounted his little platform.

"Concentrate on what I am saying," began the leader. "Do exactly as I tell you to do. Keep your eye on the ball. Think about what I am saying. Follow my instructions faithfully. Do exactly what I tell you to do."

And then, with a terrific crash, the cord broke and the crystal ball fell and was smashed to pieces.

The leader shouted at the top of his voice, "Ah, shit!"

They say that it took over two weeks to clean up the studio.

Please remember, you are not to follow my words; you are to follow my silences, the pauses between the words, the gaps, the intervals. It is in those intervals that the communion happens, and then you will see the complementariness of the opposites. In those moments you will see there is no Master, no disciple. Something totally different takes place: a meeting, a merger, not unity but oneness. And the oneness is not mechanical either; it is organic, it is alive, throbbing.

In the East we have called these moments satsang, communion. Communion is not communication.

This is not a discourse, this is not even a talk - this is just a communion. Words are being used only to create silences, just as one uses a blackboard to write with white chalk on it. The blackboard is not the purpose; the purpose is the white writing. I am using words to create a blackboard so that I can write few moments of silences on it; that is the purpose.

If you become too much concerned with my words you will get into unnecessary trouble - and you are already in so much trouble! Get out of it, Lisa!

The second question:

ANANDO,

There are many reasons behind it. The most fundamental reason is: the man has always found himself a weaker sex - as far as sexuality is concerned - compared to the woman. His ego is hurt, and male ego is very aggressive. The feminine ego is totally different: it is non-aggressive, it is receptive. Everything in the feminine psychology is receptive and everything in the male psychology is aggressive.

That's why they complement each other, that's why they fit with each other, that's why they miss each other, that's why they feel only half without the other. That's why love is possible. Their chemistries, their physiologies, their psychologies, all are complementary - and of course logically opposites, existentially complementary.

Man is sexually weaker. Any woman can exhaust him very easily, and once a man is exhausted he will take at least twenty-four hours to be sexually potent again. That hurts. The woman is twenty-four hours sexually potent; man is only once in a while potent and the remaining time impotent. For one moment he is potent, then for twenty-four hours impotent; then again for one moment he is potent.

His impotence is far bigger than his potence, than his power, than his sexuality; that created a deep urge in him to create a certain other kind of power.

Celibacy was just an effort of the male chauvinist ego, because through celibacy he thought he could become very powerful. It is through sex that he becomes impotent; once his sexuality is released he is at a loss. Then he has to wait for time to heal. He becomes like a wound - empty. And he can see that the woman is never empty, she is always capable. Comparing always with the woman, he discovered celibacy. It is natural and logical conclusion: that sex makes you impotent; then celibacy, obviously, will make you omnipotent. And this is not something primitive; even today the same is the logic.

Even a man like Mahatma Gandhi was continuously concerned how to become omnipotent through celibacy; he was trying in every way to become powerful through celibacy. He was thinking that if he is really celibate he can defeat the British Empire - through celibacy! If he is really celibate then nobody can kill him.

In his ashram this was a usual phenomenon: somebody will do something wrong... nothing much in it, but his idea was too puritanistic. Even drinking tea was a sin! Now you can think - every man becomes a sinner. If even drinking tea is a sin, then it is very difficult to find a saint. The whole ashram was continuously watching each other that who is committing sins. Somebody smoking, somebody drinking tea, somebody falling in love... all are great sins!

And whenever somebody will be caught, Mahatma Gandhi will think that because his celibacy is not yet perfect, that's why in his ashram a person could commit a sin. That was his logic. He will not say anything to the person; he will go in a self-torture. He will fast - to purify himself. He must be impure that's why somebody could commit a sin, could drink tea, could smoke, could fall in love with a woman.

When his own secretary fell in love with a woman, that was too much. His own secretary! - that simply means his celibacy, his purity, is not yet up to the point where just his presence will transform people.

And he was continuously thinking in this way. This is really very egoistic way of thinking - as if everybody has to be dominated by you. You see the inner desire to dominate others in the name of purity, morality, virtue? Now somebody falling in love, and Mahatma Gandhi thinks he is at fault.

As if he is the center of the world! As if everything depends on him! As if the whole world has to be according to him! If something is not according to him, that simply proves that his power is not omnipotent yet.

This is the way of a power seeker, although he pretended to be most humble. He tried hard to be simple, but if you look deep down, in his simplicity, in his poverty, in his so-called humbleness, you will find nothing but pure ambition to dominate.

When there was danger that he may be killed by some Hindu fanatic, the government asked him can they be allowed to protect? Can some arrangement be made so that he is continuously guarded and protected?

He said, "No! Absolutely no! If my purity is enough, if my celibacy is true, then nobody can kill me."

You see the logic! Everything depends on his purity. But a brahmin from Poona killed him - his purity was greater! His celibacy seems to be greater - he was far more potent. If Mahatma Gandhi's logic is correct, then Nathuram Godse, the man who killed him, seems to be more virtuous. And there are in Poona people who worship Nathuram Godse as a mahatma. In fact, he has proved that he is a mahatma - otherwise the bullet would not have killed Mahatma Gandhi. The bullet could kill him; that simply proves that he was not yet a real sage.

Now, this whole logic is stupid, but this has been for thousands of years there. Man has always thought in becoming powerful through controlling sexual energy, the idea that sex takes your energy out, that it is a leakage, your energy leaks out and leaves you empty. Accumulate energy! This is sheer stupidity. It is absolutely unscientific. It is not that you can accumulate sexual energy - in fact, the more you accumulate it, the less you have it; if you use it more, the more you have it. So if a person goes on making love late in his life he may be able even to make love at the age ninety, ninety-five, hundred.

In fact, in Russia there are people whose age is near about hundred twenty, hundred thirty, few people have even come close to hundred fifty. And they are all sexually potent, still sexually potent, because Russia is not a religious country. In a religious country like India even young men become impotent! Impotence is something religious; it is a byproduct of your religiousness.

I am all for transcendence of sex, but I am not for repressiveness. And I don't say that by transcending sex you will become powerful, that you will be omnipotent, that everything will happen according to you, that you cannot be killed. This is all sheer bullshit! In fact, you will become more fragile, more flower-like, more vulnerable. You will be just like a rose flower which can be easily crushed between two rocks - not that rocks are more powerful, but more gross. The rose flower is a higher expression; the higher expression is always fragile, delicate.

You ask me, Anando: WHY IN THE FIRST PLACE RELIGIONS DEVELOPED THE IDEA OF CELIBACY IF IT IS UNNATURAL?

BECAUSE it is unnatural. The ego always enjoys everything that is unnatural, because the natural cannot fulfill your ego. Everybody is doing the natural; there is nothing exceptional in being natural - it is ordinary.

That's why I say I am a very ordinary person - because I am just natural. I have no pretensions of being special; I am absolutely ordinary, because to me that's how everybody should be. To me that's what Buddhahood is: to be utterly ordinary with no pretensions of being special. To me that is the experience of godliness. It is not a question of becoming powerful, otherwise it is the same trip. Somebody is becoming powerful through money, somebody else is becoming powerful through politics, somebody else is becoming powerful through celibacy, somebody is becoming powerful through prayer, God-realization, arousal of the kundalini - but the basic desire, the ambition is to be powerful.

The truly religious person is just ordinary, natural. Celibacy became important because it is unnatural; everything unnatural became important. Fasting is unnatural, standing on your head is unnatural. Everything unnatural became significant, because only very few stupid people can manage to do it. Any intelligent person will see the point, that why bother standing on your head? If nature had wanted you to stand on your head, nature would have created you that way!

Don't try to improve upon God, don't try to be more intelligent than God himself. That's what people are trying to do. If nature wanted you to fast there was no need to create the stomach at all! If nature wanted you to be celibate, then you would not have been human beings but amoebas - because as far as I know, except amoebas nobody is really celibate. They are the real BRAHMACHARINS! They don't have any sexual life at all, they reproduce non-sexually. They are great mahatmas! Maybe all the mahatmas are born as amoebas! Perhaps that's why in India there are so many amoebas - because the life of an amoeba is absolutely non-sexual. Its way of reproduction is really religious!

One amoeba goes on becoming bigger and bigger and then splits in two, goes on eating, then a point comes when the balloon bursts. Then the amoeba becomes two amoebas and then they both start eating and growing. Then they become four, and this is their way of multiplication. That's why within hours they can reproduce so many amoebas. They can defeat anybody! Their reproduction is just the limit, the very climax of reproduction. Nobody can surpass them.

And the amoeba is also religious in another way: the amoeba is eternal, because when there is no birth there is no death. That's why it is so difficult to kill the amoebas! Our doctors are trying hard, but it is very difficult, almost impossible to kill them, for the simple reason because death is possible only if there has been birth. But they have never been born! In the first place, because they are not born you cannot kill them. At the most you can dope them, drug them. Sooner or later they wake up again. Just few days you don't take the medicine and they are again awake. They become Buddhas again and again and again! The amoeba has the longest life in the world; it is almost immortal.

Nature has not made you amoebas. Nature has not made you to stand on your head. Nature has not intended you to be celibate. But that's why ego takes these forms - the ego enjoys to do something exceptional.

A devout and devoted couple decided to give up sex during Lent. It was a very difficult sacrifice for them to make, but they were successful until Good Friday when they went to the supermarket together to do some household shopping.

When the wife was leaning over a tray of apples, he got a good look at her chest and nearly went mad. A few minutes later he saw her thigh when her dress got entangled in another customer's pushcart. In the confusion he lost all control of himself, forgetting his vow completely.

A few days after Easter he went to confession and told his priest that he had broken his vow. The father confessor tried to console him by saying that he was sure that after all the days and nights of privation, God and the church would forgive him.

"I am not worried about God and the church," replied the troubled confessor, "but my wife and I both feel terrible because they won't let us back in the supermarket!"

That has been the ultimate result of all religious repressiveness: everybody has become utterly guilty in his own eyes. That has helped the priests immensely. If you can make somebody feel guilty, he becomes submissive because he becomes afraid. If you can make somebody feel guilty, he is so much afraid of punishment that he is bound to follow whatsoever the priest says. Any nonsense, any stupid ritual, and he will be ready to do it just to get rid of the fear.

Religions have exploited fear. And the best way to make people afraid is to tell them to do something unnatural, because you can be sure they will not be able to do it. If you say them to do something natural then you cannot make them feel guilty.

For example, in my commune nobody can feel guilty - it is impossible to feel guilty. I am not creating any guilt in you. My whole effort is to erase all guilt from you so that you can feel at ease with yourself - but the moment you are at ease with yourself you are beyond the clutches of religious exploitation. Then no church, no temple, no priest, nobody can exploit you, oppress you. But if you are afraid... and the best way to make you afraid is to tell you to be celibate, and you will not be able. The more you will try, the more you will feel a failure, and the more you feel a failure the more guilt-ridden, condemned in your own eyes you will become.

If you want to create fear in people tell them to fast, tell them to stop their breath, tell them to stand on their head. Sooner or later they will get tired, and when they will stand on their legs they will feel guilty - they are doing something which should not be done!

Flannery was not much of a churchgoer, for he played with the same foursome every Sunday. Father Reardan, the parish priest, admonished him.

"Father," murmured Flannery, "I just want to know if there are any golf-courses in heaven."

"I don't know," replied the priest. "I will check with the pope."

The next day Father Reardan reported to Flannery, "My son, I have got good news and bad news.

Here is the good news: there are plenty of courses in heaven, beautiful fairways, greens smooth as silk, and it never gets dark so you can play twenty-four hours a day."

"That's wonderful!" exclaimed Flannery. "And what's the bad news?"

"You've got a tee-off time tomorrow morning at nine-fifteen!"

Fear has to be created. The hell creates the fear. The hell has been painted in as ugly ways as possible, just to make you tremble, just to make you ready to fall in the feet of the priest and to listen to whatsoever he is saying, and to believe, because only the believers will be saved. And every religion tries to convince you. The Christians will say only Christians will be saved and the Hindus say only Hindus will be saved. And those who will not be saved will fall into hell for eternity, into hellfire. And those who will be saved will enjoy all kinds of pleasure.

A strange logic! Here every pleasure is condemned, and there in heaven every pleasure will be supplied thousandfold. Here you have to renounce women and there you will get beautiful women who remain always young, who never become old, who don't perspire. Here you are told to fast and there you will be supplied with delicious food. Everything that is condemned here will be made available there.

This is an ancient strategy of religions, and sex has been used as the fundamental to exploit, to make human beings tremble, afraid, worried, anxious. This is a way to create anxiety and anguish.

And when you are in anguish you have to go the priest for help; without his help you cannot be saved.

The third question:

PREMANANDA,

This is not a miracle. You must be something of an esoteric - that is a condemned word here. Get rid of your esotericness! It is just a coincidence, nothing much in it.

A man dropped into a corner bar and ordered a triple martini. "What a coincidence!" announced the bartender. "Just an hour or two ago I was saying that nobody ever orders a triple martini any more."

As he was churning up the drink, a nice-looking young woman dashed up to the bar and asked for a triple martini. The bartender and the gentleman customer looked at each other in amazement.

They could scarcely wait before beginning their explanation that these happenings really constituted a coincidence and that they had just that minute been discussing it.

"Well," said the young lady, "I am celebrating a very special event. My husband and I have been married for nine years and we have wanted children very badly. Just today I have learned that I am pregnant."

Then the man spoke up, explaining that he also was celebrating a very special event. "I have been breeding fancy chickens for years, trying to produce a blue-eyed hen, and just today I have learned that I have been successful."

"How do you account for your success?" asked the young lady.

He replied most casually, "Just changed cocks."

"Well," said the young woman, "that really makes it a coincidence!"

The last question:

YOGA MANIK,

These are the three steps. The first step is to ignore the truth. If it does not succeed, the second step is to crucify it. If even that does not succeed, then the third step is to glorify it.

Jesus was ignored first as just a crazy young man, but they could not ignore him long enough, because truth cannot be ignored.

You are right, Yoga Manik: truth cannot be ignored. You can try, but you are bound to fail. Truth is very persistent, truth goes on shattering your lies. How can you ignore it? It goes on pulling the very earth underneath your feet. How can you ignore it? It goes on sabotaging your very world, your society, your church, your state, all your consolations, securities safeties - truth goes on cutting them. Truth is a sword and it cuts things mercilessly. You cannot ignore it long enough - yes, in the beginning you can try...

When you cannot ignore then comes the second step - then crucify it. But the moment you crucify truth you have accepted defeat. You have accepted that, "It cannot be ignored so we have to remove it, we have to destroy it, we have to kill it." But truth cannot be killed either; if you kill it, it resurrects.

That's the whole meaning in the story of Jesus' resurrection. It is not historical; it does not say anything about Jesus the person, it simply says about the truth that was contained in Jesus. Jesus is only a container, a vehicle. Jesus was crucified... and there is no resurrection of the body, the body dies. The body is part of matter, it cannot resurrect. But truth cannot be killed, truth is eternal.

In fact, the day they crucified Jesus they accepted their defeat.

And whenever you crucify truth, later on you start feeling that you have done something wrong, something utterly wrong. You start feeling guilty - hence the Christianity. Then glorification comes in, then you have to compensate. It is the law of simple compensation: you have crucified Jesus, now you feel guilty that you have done something utterly wrong. You have crucified an innocent man for no reason at all. His only crime was that he was telling truth, his only crime was that he was trying to help you towards truth - and it is not a crime.

But people realize things only very slowly. They are lazy in recognizing, very lousy in seeing things.

They are always late, they always miss the train. When the train has left the platform they come running, but then the platform is empty, the train has left. And they know they could have come a little earlier, they know that it is their responsibility that they did not recognize; on the contrary, they destroyed. Now they feel guilty and out of guilt they glorify.

Yoga Manik, you are absolutely right about one thing - that truth cannot be ignored - but about its glorification you are not right.

You say: TRUTH IS GLORIFIED BY THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT.

No. Truth is glorified by the same people who first ignore it, then crucify it, then glorify it. The Christians and the people who crucified Jesus are not different people, remember it. They are the same people, exactly the same people - reincarnations of the same fools! First they crucified, now they are glorifying - they are compensating. Of course, the same people will compensate - why anybody else should compensate?

I don't glorify Jesus. I never ignored him in the first place, I never crucified him in the second place, why should I glorify him? I love him! Glorification is not love, it is compensation. It is just trying to cover up your guilt. The people who understand love, they don't glorify.

My sannyasins don't glorify me, they love me. They love me totally, but there is no glorification. Love knows nothing of glorification - it is hate that glorifies. It is a little difficult to understand because ordinarily we think the people who are glorifying Mahavira are the lovers of Mahavira, and the people who are glorifying Buddha are the lovers of Buddha. That is not so. These are the same people who first tried to ignore, then tried to kill, and now they are glorifying. The people who understood, loved at the first sight!

When you see the truth, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, if you have a heart to feel, immediately you fall in love. It is instant! There is no way of going back. And love is not a glorification.

Love is a meeting, a merger, a melting. The disciple becomes one with the Master, attuned, in a deep accord. His heart beats in the same rhythm, he breathes in the same rhythm. He forgets who is the Master and who is the disciple. The oneness becomes so absolute, how can he glorify? There is no separation! For glorification you have to be separate.

You say, Yoga Manik: Truth is GLORIFIED BY THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT.

No. Those who are able to understand it simply love it.

And you say: IT IS CRUCIFIED BY FOOLS.

That too is not true. It is crucified by learned people, not by fools. It is crucified by the rabbis, by the pundits, by the ayatollahs, by the imams, by the shankaracharyas; it is not crucified by the fools. In fact, the fool is simple, he cannot crucify. The fool is childlike, he is not so cunning, And the fool is not afraid of the truth - why he should crucify? It is the learned person whose learning is at stake, whose scholarship is at risk, whose priesthood is in danger...

Truth is crucified by the knowledgeable, not by the fools. The fools know that they know not, so how they can say what is right and what is wrong? The fool has more potential to understand Jesus than the rabbi.

In fact, you can see it: the twelve apostles of Jesus are all fools in a way - simple people, uneducated, fishermen, woodcutters, farmers, gardeners, simple people. Not a single rabbi! And the people who crucified are all rabbis; the people who crucified are the priests. The highest priest of the temple of the Jews, he is the cause of crucifixion. The Roman governor-general, Pontius Pilate, is a learned man, very scholarly, well-educated. Pontius Pilate and the high priest of the great temple of Jerusalem, these two persons conspired to crucify Jesus. His followers are simple people, very simple people. You can call them fools, they are so innocent.

Truth is loved by those who understand; truth is crucified by those whose vested interests are in difficulty. And there are many people who are living on lies. They exploit, they thrive on comfortable lies; they manufacture more and more comfortable lies for people. They supply whatsoever people demand. They are the persons who crucify, and surprisingly, they are the same people - the same rabbis and the same governor-generals - who will become the people finally to worship, to glorify.

It is a strange concidence that Jesus was killed by a Roman governor, and finally Rome became his citadel, Vatican became the capital of the Catholic church. The Romans, the Italians, became the most deeply Catholic - and they were the cause, their forefathers had crucified! It is strange that Rome will become the citadel of Christianity.

And Jews, who had conspired in crucifixion, they turned into Christians - who else? In the beginning it was the Jews who turned into Christians, then the Romans, and then the disease started spreading; then it became contagious.

Truth cannot be ignored, Yoga Manik, about that you are absolutely true. And this woman writer who says, "Bhagwan Rajneesh need not be crucified nor glorified, only ignored," is simply saying that "Start the process." But it is a strange way of ignoring me - by writing an article. This is real ignorance, authentic ignorance - by writing an article! The article has not yet appeared, just the advertisement I have seen. The article is going to appear in March. These are the words from the advertisement.

And the advertisement also says that the article will be well-illustrated with colored pictures. Great way of ignoring me! Go on this way ignoring me as much as you can - you are on the right track!

Crucifixion will come later on, but first illustration, colored pictures! I love the idea - a good beginning!

And finally it will end, remember, in glorification, and I will not be responsible for it.

If you understand me there is no need to glorify, but then you have to stop the process from the very beginning, you have to destroy the seed. Don't ignore me, otherwise glorification is bound to happen! It is a logical consequence, it is inevitable.

The woman comes often to the ashram. Not only that she comes, she brings many people to the ashram. Really ignoring me! She is a famous journalist, so not only she brings journalists, she brings very important people, visitors from all over the world. She lives in Bombay and she is a well- known journalist, so she comes in contact with western novelists, poets, musicians, other creative people, and she brings them here. This is good!

And she writes also... few other articles she has written. And I say, with my blessings go on, go on ignoring me! Of course she must be thinking that she is doing a great job. People have their own understanding...

An old farmer asked a lawyer to help him get a divorce.

"Do you have grounds?" asked the lawyer.

"Sure do, son. I got me five acres up in them hills."

"Does she beat you up?" asked the lawyer.

"Sure does. She gets up at five and I get up at six."

The lawyer persisted, "Is she a nagger?"

"Of course not, son. She is a little old white woman."

This is what goes on between Jesus Christ and the people who ignore him and crucify him and glorify him, and this is what is going on between me and the people who want to ignore me and will crucify me and will glorify me.

A Chinese laundryman in Santa Barbara opened a savings account in one of the city's leading banks and went faithfully every week to deposit his profits.

After some months he had accumulated a very substantial amount so he decided to close the account. He arrived at the bank teller's window and announced that he wanted to withdraw all his money.

The young teller was taken by surprise so he asked him if something had gone wrong. The Chinaman explained very carefully that he was going to get married and go on his honeymoon.

Then the teller said, "Just take what you need for your immediate requirements."

When the man insisted on closing the account, the teller summoned the manager who tried to influence the man into changing his mind. He explained to him two or three times that if he took out all his money he would lose the interest. But the laundryman was not to be talked out of his plan and he finally walked out of the bank with all he had on deposit.

A few weeks later the bank manager chanced upon the laundryman in the street. After a most casual greeting the manager asked about the honeymoon and the married life.

The fellow had only this to say: "No good. Honeymoon and married life just like banking: put in, take out, lose interest!"