When Ignorance Becomes Luminous

The first question:

ANAND NADO,

THERE ARE MANY THINGS to be understood. The first is: the love between the Master and the disciple is not a relationship. In a relationship the two remain two, in a relationship the egos are not dissolved. A relationship simply is a relationship between two egos. The love between the Master and the disciple is a non-relationship in that sense, because there are no egos involved in it, there is nobody to relate.

The Master is already a zero, a nothingness, a tremendous emptiness, pure space. And the disciple, slowly slowly coming closer to this nothingness, starts disappearing, evaporating. A moment comes when these two spaces are not two any more. They have lost their boundaries, just like a dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf into the lake. Will you call it a relationship between the dewdrop and the lake? It cannot be called a relationship because the dewdrop has become the lake, the lake has become the dewdrop.

One of the great mystics, Kabir says:

HERAT HERAT HE SAKHI, RAHA KABIR HERAI - I was searching and searching and searching, and a miracle happened: the searcher disappeared, and that was the moment - when there was no seeker, no searcher - that it was found.

It is a far more profound and pregnant statement than Jesus' statement: Seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be given unto you, knock and the doors shall be thrown open to you. That is very primary.

Kabir's statement that "I was seeking and seeking, but because I was there as a seeker I was not finding it... I was the problem - not that it was far away, not that it was arduous. It was just in front of me! It was all around, it was everywhere. There was no need to seek and search, but because my eyes were closed by my ego - the seeker itself was the hindrance - that's why I was not finding it.

But a moment came when the seeker evaporated and it was there, in all its beauty and benediction."

There is another beautiful story about one strange mystic woman, Rabiya al Adaviya. She used to pass from the marketplace every day just to purchase some vegetables, some fruits for herself. Just in the middle of the marketplace was the mosque. She never went in, she never used to visit the mosque, she never participated in any kind of religious ritual, but she always saw a man who later on became a great friend and disciple of Rabiya - his name was Hasan - praying in front of the mosque every day, a very heartfelt prayer, tears rolling down from his eyes, hands raised towards the sky, and he was calling just like a lost small child for the mother. And always he was saying only one thing: "Open thy doors! How long you are going not to take any note of me? I am crying, I am calling! I am dying without you! I cannot live without you! Open thy doors!" Perhaps he was following Jesus' advice: Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.

Again and again Rabiya has heard this man Hasan crying, weeping, shouting. One day she came behind him, hit him on the head. Perhaps Hasan thought that God has come, but what kind of coming? - from the behind and hitting on the head? And he looked, and this strange woman was there. And he knew about this strange woman - everybody was aware of her strange ways.

And she shouted at Hasan and said, "Stop all this nonsense! The doors are always open. But you are a fool! You don't look at the open doors, you simply go on calling, 'Open the doors!' How he can open when the doors are already open? Just look!"

And it was a transformation. For half a moment Hasan was shocked. And sometimes the shock can become an opening, because when you are shocked your thinking stops. For a moment he forgot all his prayer, all his search. For a moment he was at a loss what to say.

And that very moment Rabiya laughed and said, "Do you see? It is already open! There is no need to cry and call for God to open it. He has never closed it."

Since then Hasan was not seen on the mosque door. Since then he disappeared in the communion of Rabiya. Finally he became a great mystic, a realized soul, a Buddha himself.

Lao Tzu also says: Seek and ye shall never find it; do not seek and right now you have found it.

Seeking implies the seeker, and the seeker is the ego, and the ego is the only barrier; the ego can never become the bridge.

Hence I say to you, the love that exists between a Master and a disciple is not a friendship, it is dissolution of all relationships. It is a totally different phenomenon. It is not part of the world of your so-called relationships: husband and wife, mother and child, brother and sister. You cannot reduce it to any definition, any defined relationship; it is a very diffused phenomenon.

It is like two candles burning in a room: their light will become one. You will not be able to draw a line, you will not be able to separate the two lights, you will not be able to say which light belongs to which candle. And in the love of a Master and the disciple they are not even two candles either. The light is there, penetrating each other; there are no candles either. It is simply an orgasmic merger of two lights.

Hence, the first thing to be remembered: it is not a relationship, so how it can be established? That word "established" is ugly. Anything established becomes dead; anything established means now there is no opening, no growth possible; things have settled.

With a true Master things are never settled. It is always a beautiful chaos! The moment the disciple wants to settle, the Master immediately unsettles. The Master is always on the move... the new commune! And remember, even in the new commune I will go on talking about another new commune - it is not going to stop. We are not going to stop anywhere! So don't think even for a single moment that once the new commune is established you will be relieved, you will take a deep sigh of relief: "Finally it has happened!" No, with a real Master, anything finally is not possible, nothing happens finally. It is always happening, it goes on happening. It is a constant process. It is not an event, it is a process, it is a movement, so nothing is ever established.

The disciple would like it, hence the question of Anand Nado. The desire of the disciple is to come to a settlement, to an established relationship, as soon as possible, but the Master cannot allow it. The moment things are settled you are dead. And the communion that transpires between the Master and the disciple is always a growth. But our minds work in a totally different way, and it is not a mind phenomenon, what transpires between the disciple and the Master, it is a no-mind phenomenon.

The mind always wants establishment.

When Werner Erhard first started his EST it was E.S.T. - Erhard Seminars Training, that was its name. Soon he found that "est" has a beautiful meaning; it is a root word, it means "is", "isness", "existence". So he dropped E.S.T. and made it EST. Now I would suggest him that drop that meaning also. Now it is simply the short form for "establishment"; it has nothing to do with existence but with establishment.

He has been here. When he comes in the second round I am going to tell him that, "Now make it clear that it is just a short form of establishment. Now it is no n ore in any way rebellious; it is functioning in the service of the establishment."

Hence the way the EST training happens in California is totally different than the way it happens in Bombay and Delhi. In Bombay it happens according to Indian culture, Indian religion, Indian values.

If it happens exactly like it happens in California, the Hindus will be outraged. This is a compromise.

Any revolutionary cannot be ready for any compromise whatsoever, whatsoever the consequences.

Compromising with each society, with each pattern, simply means you are now more interested in business, less interested in revolution. That is the way of the mind: the mind always hankers for establishment.

And remember, the mysterious experience that happens between the Master and the disciple is never a mind phenomenon, hence there is no possibility of its ever becoming established. The Master won't allow it. If the Master allows it, the Master is not a Master at all; he is only a teacher of a certain tradition - Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish - but he is not a Master.

A Master belongs to no tradition. A Master is basically a rebel. A Master is non-compromising. A Master is ready to be crucified rather than to be crowned. He will not compromise on any grounds.

The teacher simply functions as an agent of the past, and because he functions for the establishment you can have an established relationship with a teacher. With a rabbi, with a priest, with an imam you can have an established relationship, but never with a Master.

The Master is always pushing you into the unknown; he never leaves you for a single moment to settle in the known. The known has to be constantly renounced for the unknown. And finally, when you have become courageous enough to move from the known to the unknown without the Master's push, on your own accord, then he pushes you from the unknown to the unknowable.

These are the two steps of this eternal pilgrimage: from the known to the unknown and from the unknown to the unknowable. The moment you take the plunge into the unknowable you disappear.

Then only God is or godliness is. The Master is no more found, the disciple is no more found, but godliness - just a fragrance, a fragrance which is of the beyond.

Anand Nado, you ask: WHAT MADE A LOVING DISCIPLE LIKE PETER, WHO STARTED FROM INNOCENCE, TURN INTO THE CUNNING FIRST POPE AND BECOME THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY?

Now the second thing has to be understood. That is, ignorance and innocence look very similar, and something is also overlapping between them, something is a common ground also. The ignorant has a certain innocence; he is not as cunning as the knowledgeable.

Knowledge basically is cunning. It is an effort to steal the secrets of existence, it is a detective work.

You are spying on existence, you are trying to find out how to control existence. Knowledge is power in that sense, because it makes you capable to know of certain secrets, and the moment you know the secret you become powerful. Knowledge is basically a power trip. And Lord Bacon is right when he says knowledge is power - the very search is for power.

Hence the ignorant is more innocent than the knowledgeable, but his innocence is going to be lost, it is bound to be lost, it is inevitable that it will be lost, because it is unearned. The ignorant person and his innocence are not equivalent to the innocence of a Buddha. Each child is born ignorant and innocent, but each child will have to become corrupted, and the greatest corruption happens through knowledge.

Just the other day I was reading one article against me. The writer seems to be a historian and he says that "Rajneesh's knowledge of history is zero." That's absolutely true. Not only my knowledge of history is zero, as far as knowledge is concerned - it may be history, geography, chemistry, physics, and there are at least three hundred fifty subjects - I am zero about all.

Zero is only my possession, my only treasure, because to me to be zero is the uttermost of innocence. But it has to be earned. Who cares about your history, all that rubbish? I don't have any time for all that rubbish. I can make history, why should I know history? For what? I am making history! There are only two types of people: those who make history and those who read history.

I am certainly absolutely ignorant about history, I am ignorant about all directions of knowledge, all dimensions of knowledge. I know only one thing: I am acquainted with my innermost core - but that is not knowledge. That is knowing, that is wisdom, that is Buddhahood.

Each child is born ignorant, and of course his ignorance has a certain quality of innocence, but that is natural; he will lose it. He will become interested in thousand and one things - history and geography and chemistry and physics and mathematics and whatnot - he will become interested.

His ignorance also has great curiosity; that curiosity will lead him towards knowledge. He would like to know.

You can see, each child asks thousands of questions, he goes on asking; you cannot stop his asking.

He is very curious, he wants to know, because somewhere deep down that longing to be powerful is hidden. He can see his father is powerful because he knows more, the teacher is powerful because he knows more. The people who know more are powerful; the priest is powerful because he knows more. And if he wants to be powerful some day he has to accumulate knowledge.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely - and knowledge gives you great power.

The more knowledgeable you become the more power you have.

And the child is interested in becoming powerful. He will create power through knowledge, he will create his ego through power - these are natural phenomena - and he will lose his innocence which was part of his ignorance.

There is a totally different kind of innocence which happens only to the awakened ones. Certainly their innocence also has something of ignorance in it. Dionysius calls it "luminous ignorance", and he is right. You can see it: a knowledgeable person has no luminosity in him. He has gathered many facts, much information, he is well-informed, but all that information gathers like dust on him; he is loaded with it. He is a donkey carrying scriptures, great scriptures - the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, the Gita, the Vedas - but a donkey is a donkey. He can carry beautiful scriptures, but deep down he remains the same.

Knowledge never dispels ignorance, it only covers it up. It gives you a facade, it gives you a mask, it gives you pretensions - knowledgeable people are very pretentious - it makes you hypocrites. But if you dig deep there is ignorance, the same old ignorance, and that ignorance goes on goading you to accumulate more knowledge, more knowledge, more knowledge. There is no end to that "more", because deep down you know there is still ignorance; in fact, it is uncoverable. You can cover it from one side and the other side will remain uncovered, you cover it from that side and you will discover another territory which is still uncovered. Ignorance is as infinite as wisdom, and knowledge is finite.

So the finite cannot cover the infinite, only the infinite can dispel the infinite.

You can paint the outside - it will be just like a whitewashed grave. You can put roses on the grave, you can burn candles and incense on the grave, but that does not make the person alive. The dead inside the grave is still dead; the whitewash on the grave does not help in any way. All knowledge is just a whitewash; ignorance remains intact.

When somebody goes deep into meditation, when somebody moves deeper towards his innermost core, when somebody becomes absolutely silent and aware, then a light explodes inside. It is just like atomic explosion - not destructive - great creativity is born out of it, great life, abundant life is born out of it. And then your ignorance becomes luminous.

And when ignorance is luminous, when darkness is luminous, darkness is not there at all. How can darkness be luminous? And when through meditation, awareness, witnessing one's own being, a person comes to understand, to see, to have eyes, his ignorance is dissolved but his innocence is saved. This is earned innocence.

You cannot lose the earned innocence, but you are bound to lose the unearned. It is part of life's game that everything that you have got from nature will be lost and you will have to reclaim it. Only when you reclaim it, it will be yours, and it will be yours forever.

Anand Nado, you ask me: WHAT MADE A LOVING DISCIPLE LIKE PETER, WHO STARTED FROM INNOCENCE...?

He started from ignorance, not from innocence. Of course, a part of ignorance is innocent, but it is unearned. Peter has not earned it; he was not enlightened, he was not awakened. It is so clear.

Jesus is one of the most unfortunate Masters in the whole history of humanity: he could not help any of his disciples to become enlightened. It is not his fault, just he was working in adverse conditions.

The Judaic tradition has known prophets, it has never known Buddhas, and a Buddha and a prophet are basically different. The Buddha is also rebellious, the prophet is also rebellious, but the prophet's rebellion is more political than religious, than spiritual. The Buddha's rebellion is spiritual; you cannot call Buddha a prophet.

Judaic tradition and the two offshoots of Judaic tradition, Christianity and Islam, all have prophets, hence politics remained part of religion. The church was powerful in both the ways, spiritually and politically. The high priest of the Jews was in both ways powerful, politically and spiritually.

Mohammed, the Mohammedan prophet, fought his whole life hundreds of wars, always with a sword in his hand. You cannot conceive Buddha having a sword in his hand and fighting wars. This is something special to Judaic tradition: the prophet. Nothing like a prophet has happened in the East; East has a totally different dimension.

The Buddha is only a simple, innocent, silent, peaceful, enlightened being. He shares his being and if people are ready to share, if people are ready to become attuned with his being, they will become enlightened.

Jesus was working in a very adverse condition. He came to the East, he lived in Egypt, in India, in Tibet. For eighteen years he worked in the East, particularly in Buddhist monasteries. His whole message is a synthesis between Buddhist message and the Judaic tradition, so he is a cross between the prophet and the Buddha, and that created trouble.

He talks the language of the old prophets of the Old Testament; that language is political. For example, "the kingdom of God" Buddha has never used such expression, Mahavira has never used such expression, Lao Tzu has never used such expression. It was impossible. "The kingdom of God" - it stinks of politics! Jesus had to speak the language that Jews could understand. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew. That was the only language Jews would have understood - and that was the only language that they misunderstood too. If he had spoken just like a Buddha he would not have been crucified because Jews would not have bothered much, but once he started talking about the kingdom of God, and "the day of judgment is very near, close at hand:' he created much political fever - unknowingly, or unintentionally.

His message is purely that of Buddha: the message consists of awareness. He shouts again and again, "Beware!" And remember, the word "beware" consists of two words: "be aware". He says again and again, "Remain awake!" but he has to translate it into Jewish metaphors.

And the people who gathered around him had gathered around him thinking that he is a prophet - Peter and others. They had not come to him thinking him as an enlightened person. There was not even a word for the enlightened person in the Aramaic or the Hebrew; there is no equivalent word for Buddha in the Judaic tradition. Hence the people came to him thinking him as one of the prophets declared by the Old Testament who will come one day to deliver you. Now, this is absolutely anti-Buddha, this whole approach.

Buddha says nobody can deliver you. You have created the mess, you have to sort it out. Nobody has created it, so nobody can deliver you either. Your bondage is created by you, so only you can come out of it. Hence his last statement on the earth was: Be a light unto yourself. This is a totally different dimension: Be a light unto yourself. The Buddhas only show the way, but you have to work upon your being; you have to work hard to discover your innermost core.

But the Jewish tradition was that a prophet comeS and delivers you, and they were waiting - they are still waiting... Jesus tried just to become relevant to the Jewish context, that "I am the person you have been waiting for." This is only a device, this is a pure lie - of course pure, because a man like Jesus never uses anything impure! This is unadulterated lie, but he had to do it, otherwise in the Jewish context there was no possibility of his being ever heard by anybody. He has to say that he belongs to the family of David, that he is the one prophesied by the Old Testament, that "You have been waiting for me."

This worked in two ways. Few ignorant people gathered around him thinking, "He is the prophet and he has come to deliver us." Peter belongs to those ignorant few. All those twelve apostles, except one - Judas - all were ignorant, uneducated people. Only Judas was a little educated, little sophisticated, hence he was never so much surrendered as the others - obviously. He could find many things in Jesus' statements as wrong - he was knowledgeable. He was trying to improve upon Jesus, he was continuously advising him, "Do this, don't do that. This is not right, this should not be done, this will be a wrong precedent."

A woman came - Mary Magdalene came - and poured very precious oil, perfume, on Jesus' feet.

Judas said to Jesus, "Stop this woman! This perfume is so costly that we can feed the whole village for three days. And people are poor - why waste such a precious thing? We can sell it and the poor can be fed."

Now this looks very relevant and logical, rational - socialist, communist, democratic: serve the poor!

But Jesus says, "The poor will be always there, don't be worried. You can serve them later on. Right now, while the bridegroom is with you, rejoice!"

Judas was not convinced. All other eleven apostles were convinced, except Judas. Reluctantly he kept silent, but deep down there was doubt. And you have to forgive Judas - if you were in his place you would have also doubted. He was the only knowledgeable person; knowledge brings doubts.

All others were ignorant; they simply were faithful.

But this faithfulness was not of luminous ignorance, it was not of enlightened innocence. It was just of those people who don't know how to argue, how to doubt, who have never used their minds - farmers, fishermen, woodcutters, carpenters - very down-to-earth, but nothing to do with the head; heartful, but as unconscious as those who live in the heads.

That is the reason why Peter could turn into a cunning pope, the first pope. He was ignorant, but he believed, and whenever an ignorant person becomes a believer he becomes a fanatic. He cannot doubt, he cannot allow anybody else to doubt; and he knows only one way, and that is belief. He has not experienced; he simply believes that what Jesus says is true, has to be true because it is said by Jesus: "And Jesus is the prophet we have been waiting for. He has come to deliver humanity."

One thing is certain: that humanity is not yet delivered. Two thousand years have passed, the misery is the same, in fact it has grown far deeper. Man is more miserable than ever, more in anxiety and anguish than ever, feeling more meaningless than ever, standing just on the verge to commit a global suicide And two thousand years have passed, and Jesus was saying, "The kingdom of God is just to happen..." He was saying, "In our lives you will see the judgment day," and it has not happened yet. Two thousand years have passed . ..

Those ignorant people believed and the knowledgeable people doubted. Remember, this is how it works: the ignorant believe and the knowledgeable doubt. Doubt and belief are not very different.

When you are innocent - innocent not just like a child but innocent like a sage, innocent through meditation, innocent through a rebirth, a resurrection, innocent because you have reached to your center, you are grounded there - then you neither believe nor doubt. Doubt and belief are two sides of the same coin. Doubt comes from the head, belief comes from the heart, but they are two sides of the same coin. One is rational, another is emotional, but both are bondages.

The enlightened person goes beyond the head and the heart both; he reaches to his being. He lives from being - he lives from that awareness which is beyond the heart and the head, beyond reason, beyond emotion. His insight is clear, unclouded. He never believes, he never doubts; he simply knows, he understands.

Peter could become the first pope, could become the founder of Christianity, because his innocence is not an earned innocence.

The colored parson of a little church in Mississippi stood before his congregation and asked the head usher to come forward. Holding his nose with displeasure, he gave some instructions, saying "Please go through the church and see if some stray dog done stole in, stooled, and then stole out again."

The usher immediately began his inspection, and after some minutes came back to the pulpit and made his report. "No sir, Mr. Parson:' he said. "I don't see where some stray dog done stole in, stooled, and stole out again. But I does see some very positive signs where some creeping cat crept in, crapped, and crept out again."

This type of ignorant people had gathered around Jesus - they created Christianity. It is the most ignorant religion on the earth; its whole tradition is ignorant.

A truck driver was trying to change a tire along the side of a busy road. He hammered away with all his might, cursing with each unrewarding blow, until the village parson who was passing that way decided to go to his aid. He finally quieted the driver and proceeded to give him a little lecture about the necessity of offering a prayer instead of curses when confronted with trouble.

Finally the truck driver said that he was willing to try anything just to get the tire off the wheel, so they both kneeled beside the truck and prayed. When the driver went back to work, resuming his hammering with great force, the tire almost leaped off the wheel to the roadside.

The parson in his amazement just shouted, "Well, I'm a son of a bitch!"

You can be just on the surface something else and deep down just the opposite of it.

Peter is faithful but utterly ignorant, hence the Christianity that has come into being through Peter and his successors... and now it has fallen to the rock bottom - now a Polack pope! It cannot go further below - there is no further below. Peter has ended up with a Polack pope! The whole succession of these popes is basically ignorant; not even a single pope has been an enlightened man. Of course they are chosen by votes; it is a political phenomenon. A certain college of bishops chooses the popes - no Master has ever been chosen. Who can choose a Master? A Master has to declare himself; he has to declare himself as the sun declares in the morning... The Polack pope!

In India also we have Polack popes!

Mahatma Gandhi had a statue with him always on his table; he loved that statue. Somebody has presented him; it was an ancient Chinese and Japanese symbol: three monkeys. One monkey tightly closing his eyes; the way he is holding his hands and covering his eyes shows definitely that he wants to see. The very tightness, the forced effort to keep his eyes closed... he is afraid - just a little opportunity and he will see. The old metaphor is that don't see anything evil.

But it is a beautiful statue. It is beautiful because it was carved by Taoists, by the followers of Lao Tzu, and they have made it very clear that if you repress something the deep desire will be to do the against. So both are there: the monkey is repressing his desire to see and yet you can see on his face a tremendous desire to look at what is happening. The other monkey is closing his ears - forcibly - not to hear anything evil. The third monkey is forcing his hands upon his mouth not to say anything evil.

When I went to see Mahatma Gandhi's ashram and I saw this statue, the man who was showing me around, Mahatma Gandhi's son, Ramdas... I told him - Mahatma Gandhi was dead by that time - I told his son that "One statue is missing. Originally the Taoist statues were four."

He said, "Nobody said it, nobody ever mentioned."

I said "Either the fourth monkey has escaped - every possibility - or Gandhi must have cut the fourth monkey: it will not suit in the Indian context. The fourth monkey was very representative of the Indian mind: he was holding his genitals tightly - repressed - brahmacharya, celibacy.

After that. when I saw Morarji Desai, I immediately recognized - this is the fourth monkey! I told him, "You are the fourth!" He thought I am talking about the turiya, the fourth state of consciousness; he was very happy. And the people who had gone with me to see him, they could not believe, because I always joke about him and I am telling him, "You have reached the fourth. you are the fourth."

He came to see me off outside his bungalow - he was very happy, immensely happy. The moment he left me, the people who had come with me, they asked, "You said to him that 'you are the fourth'?"

I then told them the whole story, that "This is the fourth monkey! Don't misunderstand by turiya the fourth state of consciousness; that has nothing to do with it. This man escaped!"

The fourth monkey is really significant, but if you see the fourth monkey you will see a really religious person - tightly repressing himself in every possible way. Now, these four monkeys are not really four; these are four faces of one monkey - one religious monkey. Of course you don't have eight hands so they had to make four statues, but a religious person has to do this miracle. He has to keep his eyes closed, ears closed, his mouth closed, his genitals closed - everything closed. He has to live a dead life. This is how the Christians for two thousand years have lived - a repressed life.

In the West what is happening now is just the movement of the pendulum to the other extreme:

indulgence. It is a byproduct of Christianity; the people who are responsible are from Peter to Polack the pope. These are the people who have created the whole indulgence of the West. The prostitutes the playboys, the Hollywood, everything that is ugly in the West, the real founders of it are from Peter to Polack the pope. These are the responsible criminals! It is bound to happen: if you repress something sooner or later some intelligent generation will revolt against it. And this is a far more intelligent age in that way; man has become more mature.

One Saturday morning at Cape Kennedy, a young mechanic went to the headquarters of one of the scientists to repair a radio. While he was working he spotted a whiskey bottle on a shelf. As he was alone in the room he just reached up and took a big swig out of the bottle. When he had completed his repair job he took another big drink but before he replaced the bottle he decided to see what kind of whiskey he had been so generously snitching.

He examined the bottle carefully and nearly collapsed when he read "Missile Fluid" on the inscribed label. Panic-stricken, he rushed home and called his family doctor on the phone, reporting that he had just drunk missile fluid by mistake.

The doctor was very puzzled by the situation, and after assuring the mechanic that he had never heard of a similar case, advised the fellow to go right to bed and to remain there, but to phone him again promptly if there were any developments.

About an hour later the doctor's phone rang and the mechanic was on the line. The doctor asked if there had been any repercussions.

"Yes," said the mechanic, "I farted twice!"

"Don't bother me with such trivial matters," cautioned the doctor.

"But, doctor," said the mechanic, "you don't understand, I'm calling from Shanghai!"

The fools can believe anything! Now he has drunk something that he thinks is going to create trouble - the missile fluid. Of course, then two farts are enough and you will reach to Shanghai!

The people who had gathered around Jesus were very ordinary fools. I am sorry to say that, but what can I do? When I see a fool I have to call him a fool. Jesus was between two kinds of people:

on the one side were his followers who were just fools, and on the other side were the rabbis, the knowledgeable. He was crushed between these two.

Jesus has been crucified twice: one by the knowledgeable, the rabbis - and that was of a short duration - and the other crucifixion has continued for two thousand years - now the Polack pope is doing it. It will go on and on. Jesus was misunderstood by the knowledgeable, he was misunderstood by the ignorant, because both can only misunderstand.

Understanding is possible only through meditation, and nothing like meditation has existed in the Judaic tradition, at least not up to the time of Jesus. Only later on, when Hassidism came into existence, meditation started entering into the Judaic tradition.

Up to Mohammed nothing like meditation has existed in Mohammedanism, in the Arabic world. It was only later on when the Sufis developed mystery schools that meditation entered there.

Meditation is the contribution of the East to the whole world. Wherever you will find it, it has reached there in some way or other, directly or indirectly, from the East. The West has only known prayer, not meditation at all, and prayer is not transformation. It is only meditation which is the alchemy of inner transformation, which changes your darkness into light, which changes your ignorance into innocence which changes your whole vision.

The last question:

DEVA MONICA,

To be serious is not only not to be alive, it is worse than death. Have you ever seen a dead person serious? Impossible! Seriousness is worse than death. Laughter is life, is love, is light. Laughter in its purest form is a dance of all your energies.

In a real deep laughter the mind disappears. It is not a part of mind or of the heart. When a real laughter happens - a belly laughter, as it is called - then it comes from your very core; from your very center ripples start spreading towards your circumference. Just as you throw a rock into a silent lake and ripples arise and they start moving towards the source, in the same way real laughter arises from your center and moves towards your circumference. It is almost like an earthquake!

Each single cell of your body, each fiber dances in tune.

Laughter has never been used as a meditation. I may be the first person who is using laughter as a meditation. Jokes have never been used as part of a spiritual transformation - I may be the first person! - but they can be used; they are tremendously refreshing.

You say: THERE IS MUCH PAIN IN ME, AND A DEEP LAUGHTER IS SO HELPFUL.

Then I will tell you few jokes!

To celebrate their golden wedding anniversary a couple decided to go back to the hotel in the Mediterranean area where they had spent their honeymoon. They got the same room that they had occupied and tried in every way to relive their first great matrimonial experience.

At breakfast the next morning the wife had this to say: "Fifty years ago, when we had finished the wonderful wedding dinner, we came up here to prepare for bed. Being bashful and sort of nervous, you went into the bathroom and undressed. I was terribly excited, and when you came out naked I exclaimed over and over again that you looked exactly like a Greek god! Well, I hate to tell you this, but last night when you came out of the bathroom naked you looked just like a goddamned Greek!"

Morarji Desai dies and goes to hell. The devil ushers him in, and Morarji is very surprised. Instead of the eternal fires he had always expected there is only a big pool full of shit.

The devil explains, "The more evil you were on earth, the more you are covered with shit here."

And, indeed, Morarji looks around and sees many former friends and colleagues. One scene catches his eye: in a far comer there is a short, black-haired man who has a tiny moustache and whose right arm is raised to the sky in salute, and the shit only comes up to his ankles.

Morarji calls to the devil and asks, "What about this man? He was very evil on earth. Why is he only covered in shit up to his ankles?"

The devil shouts, "Adolf, when will you learn to stand on your own feet instead of always standing on the pope's head?"