Bon Voyage Baby!

The first question:

SANATAN,

I AM NOT FOR AVOIDING anything in life - not even materialism. Life has to be transformed, not avoided. if you avoid life you will remain immature. Life is a great blessing, an opportunity to grow, a challenge, a constant challenge that helps awareness, centering, grounding. Nothing has to be avoided. That is the ancientmost stupidity; man has been living under its shadow for so long that it has become almost part of his blood, his bones, his very marrow.

Materialism is perfectly good in its place. If there is matter, matter has to be absorbed in a total life view. It has not to be avoided; it has to be used as a steppingstone towards spirituality. There is

no contradiction between materialism and spiritualism, although it has been told again and again for thousands of years. You have been conditioned so much - the conditioning has gone deep - that nobody ever thinks about it again. It is one of the greatest calamities that has happened to humanity.

Matter is the outer side of spirit, spirit is the inner side of matter. They are not separate. The outside and the inside cannot be separate, they are inseparable, they are inevitably together. Hence, a right vision, a total vision of life will be a synthesis, a synchronicity between matter and consciousness.

Materialism has its own beauty, its own significance, just as spiritualism has its own beauty. But don't make "isms" out of them. Life is one - it is spiritual and material. In fact, to use the word "and"

between spiritual and the material is not right; but languages come from the past. Better will be to make one word out of the two: spiritmatter.

And they are existing together in perfect harmony. In you they are existing together - your body, your mind, your soul, they are all existing in deep at-onement, attunement. There is a subtle rhythm.

They are all part of one dance. The body is not against the soul - it is the temple of the soul.

But people like Lama Trungpa go on condemning materialism. And when they condemn, they create guilt in you; you start feeling that whatsoever you are doing is wrong. And the moment you feel that whatsoever you are doing is wrong, you are trapped, you are imprisoned in a dichotomy. If you follow the so-called gurus, lamas, et cetera, you will be constantly in trouble, in conflict, because you will be avoiding something which is unavoidable.

If you follow the body you will feel guilty; if you don't follow the body you will feel unnatural. Something in you will remain missing if you don't follow the body. If you don't nourish the body, if you don't respect the body, if you don't love the body, then something in you will remain like a wound, rejected, condemned. And it is part of you. You cannot throw it away, you cannot get rid of it; and it is going to be there, and it is going to be heavy on you because you have a deep condemnation for it.

And sooner or later the body will take revenge, the matter will take revenge. You have created an enmity, a conflict, an unnecessary struggle between yourself; you have created a deep tension.

Hence, the so-called religious people live in immense tension, in immense anxiety and anguish.

What is their anguish? - the shoulds and the should-nots.

But Lama Trungpa is not even living according to his own ideology. So, Sanatan, you need not be worried. He is one of the people who can be called absolute hypocrites. He condemns materialism, and is a drunkard. Perhaps he thinks alcohol is spirit, it is a spiritualism? The more you take of it the better...?

But these fools influence many people, because there is a long tradition supporting them. Don't be a hypocrite. Both are ugly - to feel guilty is bad, it is a state of sickness. But these are the only alternatives your religions leave for you: either feel guilty or be a hypocrite. The cunning ones amongst you will become hypocrites, and the simple, the innocent ones amongst you will become guilty. And the hypocrites will dominate the simple-hearted; the hypocrites become the priests, the leaders of people. They say one thing and they do exactly the opposite of it. They have masks, they are hiding behind their masks - they have double lives.

But they are cunning. They are simply befooling you, so there is no problem for them. Their only problem is that they should not be caught. If they are caught, then they are in difficulties. So it is only a question of how much cunning they are - the more cunning they are, the safer.

But many of them are bound to be caught sooner or later. You can deceive few people for few days, but you cannot deceive all the people forever. How can you deceive? Somebody is bound to know.

Somebody is bound to be aware of your dichotomy, aware of your double standards: that you use a different standard for people and a totally different standard for yourself.

You have two doors to your being - the front door is just a facade to receive the innocent ones, and to make them feel guilty; and you have a back door too, where you receive totally different people.

But those people you receive from the back door are bound to be aware of your duality, of your deceptiveness, of your cunningness.

So the only fear that the priests and the hypocrites and the mahatmas feel is that they may be caught. And they are caught. But the stupidity is such, the unconsciousness of humanity is such, that again and again they are caught and again and again we go on listening to the same kind of stupidities.

It is time enough that we should get rid of this whole division between matter and spirit. They are not divided anywhere. They are not divided in you - your body and your soul are functioning totally together, in deep synchronicity. You can experience it: if your body is sick, your innermost core also becomes sad, and if your innermost core is joyous, your body also wants to dance.

Sanatan, I am not for any escapist attitude, I am not for any split in you. I want you to be one, I want you to be integrated. I want you to be totally natural, accepting, affirming. I teach you a materialist- spiritualist approach to life. It has never been done before - that's why I am so much condemned. I accept it. I don't feel any trouble with it because that is natural.

There have been materialists in the past: Epicurus in Greece, Charvakas in the East - they believed in materialism. They said: "All spiritualism is hocus-pocus, it is inventions of the crafty priests. It is just to exploit people. And man is nothing but body, there is no soul. So there is no question of knowing thyself, you are just matter.

That's what Karl Marx said again in the modern context: that "Consciousness is only a byproduct, an epiphenomenon - just some matter, some chemicals joined together, created. Once they are no more together it disappears, it evaporates. Nothing remains after death, there was nothing before birth. Life consists only of birth and death, and in between, so don't be bothered about the other world, and don't be bothered about hell and heaven."

And Karl Marx said, "This is the opium for the people." Priests have been dope-dealers! Perhaps that's why they are against all kinds of dope - they have their own specific dope to sell. They have to be against LSD, marijuana, hashish. They have to be against all other drugs, because if people are taking opium, hashish, marijuana, LSD, then who is going to be Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans? It is a simple question of competition. They had to push their own drugs in the market.

Epicurus, Charvakas, Karl Marx, have a certain truth in what they are saying, but it is half-truth. The other half has been told by the so-called spiritualists. The other half is that matter is illusory, that it does not exist at all, it is maya. The real existence is of the soul; matter has to be avoided.

What Lama Trungpa is saying is an ancient, very ancient and rotten ideology. He's a Tibetan, and Tibet is the most primitive country in the world, the most rotten - even more rotten than India. If India is two thousand years rotten, Tibet is five thousand years rotten. It is stinking. He represents that stinking tradition.

These so-called spiritualists have been saying the same thing as the materialists. The materialists say, "The soul does not exist, only matter exists." The spiritualists say, "The matter does not exist, only the soul exists." And my own observation is that both are right in part, and both are wrong in part. And remember one very fundamental truth: that half-truths are far more dangerous than lies, because half-truths have a certain truthfulness about them. That becomes deceptive. that keeps people deluded.

A lie is a lie - sooner or later you will discover, but a half-truth is very dangerous. You may not go to such depths to discover that it is only half, that the other half is missing.

The West has followed one half: the materialist approach to life. It has created great science and technology. Science and technology is enough proof that matter exists, that Shankaracharya is utterly wrong in saying that matter is illusory. The West has proved finally that matter is there, a reality; and it has to be understood, otherwise we cannot survive. But it is only half of the truth.

Even Albert Einstein before dying realized it, that it is only half of the truth. He knew so much about the universe, but he knew nothing about himself. The knower knows nothing about himself.

This is a very sad state of affairs.

The East has done the other half. They have proved, certainly they have proved that the soul is a reality, because thousands of mystics have lived in such profound silence, peace, bliss...

Their blissfulness, their silence, their tranquility, their unaffectedness in different situations - in life, in death, in success, in failure, they remain absolutely still, unaffected - that shows definitively that there is a center inside you, your interiority. And if it is explored you can attain to some transcendence, you can attain to the beyond. You can remain calm and quiet in failure, in death even. It is enough proof that the soul exists, that it is not illusory as the materialists say.

But the other part is missing, and the East has remained poor, starving. Its outside is ugly. It has found some inner secrets, but its outside is sick, its outside is almost not worth living. It has committed a suicide on the outside, just as the West had committed a suicide on the inside.

The West has enough technology, enough science, enough affluence, enough money, but something of the inner is missing. There is no peace, no silence, no joy, no bliss, no meditativeness, no experience of godliness. It is time we should see that up to now humanity has lived dividedly.

A new human being is needed on the earth, Sanatan, a new human being who accepts both, who is scientific and mystic, who is all for matter and all for the spirit. Only then we will be able to create a humanity which is rich on both the sides. And if it is possible to be rich on both the sides, why choose poverty in any way? - the outer poverty or the inner poverty.

I teach you richness: richness of the body, richness of the soul, richness of this world and that world.

And both are possible, there is no problem at all. What I am saying, I am living. And I don't see there is any conflict. I can be as meditative in my Rolls Royce... in fact, more meditative than in a bullock-cart. I have been in a bullock-cart, I have been on a camel, I have used all kinds of vehicles - and to be meditative on a camel is really difficult. Camels don't like meditation at all. They are very non-meditative animals. And in a bullock-cart on an Indian road...

I don't see any point of dividing the outer and the inner. I have been poor, I have lived in utter poverty, I have lived in richness. And believe me, richness is far better than poverty. I am a man of very simple interests: I am utterly satisfied with the best of anything, I don't ask for more.

Sanatan, don't be unnecessarily tortured by these people like Lama Trungpa.

Abe cornered Rabbi Levin behind a bunker at the fourteenth green. "l caught you kissing my wife last night," said Abe. "I know you are the playboy of the country club, and it is about time somebody taught you a lesson. That kiss will cost you ten dollars."

"Ah, all right," said Rabbi Levin. "Here is a hundred."

"A hundred dollars?" exclaimed Abe.

"Sure," smiled Rabbi Levin. "The rest is for what you did not catch me doing!"

"Come over for a couple of beers, Rabbi Levin."

"Cannot today. MacDowell is playing in the club tournament."

Next week: "Come over for a few beers, Rabbi."

"Can't make it this week either. MacDowell won at the club and is playing in the All-Island."

The following week: "How about some beers today, Rabbi?"

"No good. MacDowell has moved up to the State open."

"Hey, Rabbi your game used to be soccer. How come this sudden interest in golf, always watching MacDowell?"

"I don't watch MacDowell. Whenever he plays, I screw his wife!"

Beware of all these lamas and rabbis and Ayatollah Khomaniacs - beware! These are the people who have caused so much misery for humanity that it is incalculable. Either they have created cUnningness or they have created guilt, and both are ill states. One should neither be cunning nor guilty. In fact both are related together, they have a deep connection.

The people who create guilt are bound to be cunning. They are cunning, that's why they create guilt.

Once they have created guilt in you, you can be exploited, you are vulnerable. It is to exploit you that they create guilt. We have to put a full stop to all this nonsense. Enough is enough.

Be simple, be natural, be spontaneous. Follow your own light. Don't be bothered by others - shoulds and should-nots. That's the freedom a sannyasin has to live.

My sannyasins have not to be cunning, and they have not to be guilty either. The moment you are free of guilt and cunningness, you have the door of the divine open for you. You are welcomed by existence itself. To me that is true religiousness.

The second question:

SAMADA,

It is impossible here to fall asleep more and more. In fact, when you come here you are already as much you can be - you come here snoring. You cannot fall asleep more than that; there is a limit to everything.

Talbot was teeing off at the golf club. As he swung he did something funny with his left thumb, and the drive went slicing off into the trees and out onto a nearby freeway. The ball smashed through the windshield of a bus, blinding the driver. The bus struck a truck filled with chickens, causing both vehicles to tumble into a deep ditch.

Talbot rushed to the scene and soon a state policeman arrived. "Hey," he exclaimed. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Well," replied the golfer, "I think I did something funny - like this - with my thumb."

That, he thinks, is the cause of the whole thing that has happened - he did something funny with his left thumb. It is not the cause. It may have triggered a process in many sleepy people moving around. And why he did that something funny with his left thumb? He himself cannot explain it - he will shrug his shoulders, he will say, "I don't know."

What you are doing you are not aware of at all. You are simply living some unconscious instincts.

The big-mouthed frog went to a photographer to have his photo taken. The photographer put the frog on a stool and adjusted his camera. Then he discovered that the frog's mouth was too wide for the camera frame. The photographer suggested that the frog should go home, purse his lips, and repeat the word "pussy" for several days in order to make his gaping mouth narrower.

A week later the frog returned. The photographer adjusted his camera and then shouted, "Now say the word!"

Losing all control, the frog cried, "Cat!"

Samada, it is not very different with a man either.

In a county courthouse in upper Vermont, a youth went on trial charged with raping the daughter of one of the local families. The victim, who was being questioned in the witness chair, was very shy, and the judge was trying very hard to be patient with her as he asked the necessary questions.

Most of the time she just hung her head in embarrassment and refused to reply.

At last, the judge, obviously losing patience with her, said, "You must tell the court exactly what happened. Did he insert his organ into you?"

Finally she raised her head and rather timidly whispered, "Well, your honor, it looked more like a flute."

Samada, you are not falling more asleep. What really is happening is just the opposite: you are becoming aware of your asleepiness, you are becoming aware how deep asleep you are. And that is something of immense importance - becoming aware of one's own sleepiness, of one's own unconsciousness. This is the beginning of the day, the dawn... then the night is already over.

The moment you start becoming aware how asleep you are, something new has happened, something in you has already become awakened. The one who is aware of sleepiness is not asleep. That part in you... of course it is a very small part yet, a very small fragment of you - but that's enough. That will function like a catalytic agent, it will transform many more things in you.

It will go on widening, it will go on becoming bigger and bigger.

It is like a seed: it contains Buddhahood in it.

Of course, when you see a seed you cannot see the flowers which are hidden in it. But the seed contains the whole potential - the tree, the branches, the leaves, the foliage, the flowers, the fruits.

A single seed can make the whole earth green. Or why say the whole earth? - it can make the whole universe green, because a single seed can create millions of seeds, and then each single seed can go on creating millions of seeds.

The first seed, Samada, has happened in you. Rejoice! You are not falling asleep, you are becoming aware of your sleepiness - you were not aware before - and, of course, when one becomes aware, it hurts. When one becomes aware that how unconscious one is, one always has been, one feels very sad, one feels in great turmoil. One cannot believe that, "This is the way I have existed up to now!" One feels absurd, ridiculous.

But you are looking at the wrong side, at the negative side. You are simply looking at the sleepiness that has surrounded you up to now. You are not looking at the small candle of light that has started growing in you, which is becoming aware of the surrounding night, of the darkness all around.

That small flame will function as a seed. Help it to grow. Become more aware of your sleepiness.

That's the only way to go beyond it. That is the only way to disperse it, that is the only way to transform it.

The day is not far away, the night is over. The day has to come, and it is the moment of transmission, the moment of transformation. If you look back, it is all night - and of course you can only look back

because that is what your mind contains, your past memories. You cannot look ahead, you cannot understand what is going to happen the next moment, but I can see it. That's the function of the Master: to help the disciple to remain aware not only of the past but of the future possibility.

The disciple can only see the past, the Master can also see the future. The disciple can see only one's stupidity, the Master can also see your Buddhahood, your awakenedness. It is a moment of transformation, a transitory period, a bridge. Don't look at the back - forget all that night and the darkness and the sleepiness. You are finished with it - finished in a way that the first ray of light has come in. It is because of that ray of light that you are becoming aware of your sleep, of your darkness. Now help - pour all your energy into that ray of light. Make it as powerful as possible.

Concentratedly become one with it. Get rooted in it. Risk everything for its growth. And then the day is not far away - it is very close by, it is just by the corner.

The third question:

KRISHNA DEVA,

A sannyasin stays a sannyasin.

The fourth question:

NARAYANA,

The difference is immense. It is not only of quantity and degree: it is a qualitative difference.

Pleasure is dependent on something outside you. Because it is dependent on something or on somebody, it brings a bondage. Bliss is your intrinsic nature, your flowering, your one-thousand- petaled-lotus opening, it is your own fragrance. Because it is your own, it brings freedom.

Pleasure always imprisons you, and bliss always liberates you.

A young girl arrived home about four o'clock in the morning and awakened her mother to tell her this sad story:

"I met a charming young fellow in a bar, and after a few rounds of drinks he took me to his apartment where we had some more drinks. Finally I passed out cold. Then while I was completely unconscious he raped me!"

"What a pity," murmured the mother in a most consoling tone. "You missed the best part!"

As the family was gathering for the evening meal, the father, the head of the house, asked his eighteen-year-old son what kind of a day he had had.

"Wonderful," answered the youth. "I met a couple of very good-looking girls in the park, and made love to both of them, very satisfactorily."

Then the youth asked his father if he had had a good day.

"My day was fine also," came the reply. "I turned a couple of good deals in the stock market and I am very pleased with the results."

Then they both turned to grandpa and asked him how he had passed the day.

Grandpa, beaming with delight, announced, "My day was absolutely tremendous - my bowels moved twice!"

Pleasure, it depends... bliss is independent A child may have pleasure with the toys, a young man may have different toys, an old man still different toys. But bliss is the same whether a child attains it, or a young man or an old man. It is our eternity. Pleasure is momentary, temporal: bliss is eternal, timeless. Bliss is part of our immortal being.

I am not against pleasure; there is nothing wrong for a child to have pleasure with toys, and there is nothing wrong for an old man to have tremendous pleasure when his bowels move twice. Perfectly good! But if your life consists only of toys and bowel movements, then it is not much of a life; something more is needed. And then something more cannot be found on the outside; for that you have to dig within. That's what meditation is all about.

The fifth question:

PRADEEP,

Only silence can be heard and understood. Words can be heard but only superficially, and can be understood - but only intellectually. Silence is heard existentially and is understood from your innermost being. It is a total understanding.

I can see why you have asked the question, because ordinarily we understand only words. We are prepared to understand only words, not silence. We are educated to understand language and all its

complexities. Nobody helps us to go beyond language, to go beyond words, to reach the wordless space within us.

The society is against it, because if you can hear silence you will not be a part of the crowd mind, of the collective mind. You will become an individual immediately. And an individual is a danger to the state, to the church, to the society. An individual is always dangerous, because an individual is nothing but rebellion. His very presence is a risk for all the vested interests, for the establishment. The establishment wants you to be obedient: he wants you to understand the orders.

The establishment wants you to be slaves, servants - efficient, of course, but not too intelligent; just intellectual, not intelligent.

Silence is the explosion of intelligence. Silence means: inside you, you are just spaciousness, uncluttered spaciousness. Silence means you have put aside the whole furniture of the mind - the thoughts, the desires, the memories, the fantasies, the dreams, you have all pushed aside. You are just looking into existence directly, immediately. You are in contact with existence without anything in between you and existence. That is silence.

And to be in tune with existence even for a single moment - is enough to make you aware of many things. One is that you, are deathless, and the person who is deathless cannot be forced to be a slave. He would rather like to die than to become a slave. He would rather like to risk everything than to risk his freedom because death means nothing to him.

When Socrates was given the opportunity that he can choose either death or remaining alive but not preaching his message to the people... If he remains alive, he can remain alive only on one condition: that he will not talk about his truth. Socrates laughed and rejected the whole thing immediately. He said, "There is no need for me to be alive then. If I cannot say my truth, if I cannot live my truth, if I cannot convey my message, then what is the need for me to live? Then I would rather choose death."

The magistrate was surprised, he could not believe. He said, "You need not answer right now. You can have time, you can think over it. Don't be in such a hurry! Life is precious - how can you be so easily ready to die?"

Socrates said, "There are only two possibilities. If I die, then these are the two possibilities: either I die completely or only the body is left behind and something of my essential core still lives. Both are perfectly good. If I die completely, there is nobody left to be afraid, to suffer, to be miserable. So why I should be afraid if I die completely as the materialists say...? Perhaps they are right. But then there is no fear, because I will not be here, so who is there to be afraid? Or, the second alternative is as the spiritualists say: that I will not die - then why be worried about death? Only the non-essential will be gone, the essential will be still alive. It is worth risking the non-essential for the truth."

Socrates is a very rational being, hence, he gave these two alternatives. He knows perfectly well that he will not die. but his expression was always rational. His expression was not mystic, his expression was philosophical. And of course the magistrate had to agree with him. These are the only two alternatives: either you die or you don't die. In both the ways Socrates is right.

My own feeling is Socrates knows perfectly well that he's not going to die. It is impossible that he

should not have known - such a tremendous intelligence, such an individuality, such purity, such penetrating insight - it is not possible that he would not have known the non-temporal, the timeless.

The moment you understand that you are eternal, all fear disappears. And the society exists through exploiting your fear; hence, it teaches you from the school to the university, it devotes almost one- third of your life in learning words, language, logic. It is not concerned at all that you should understand, Pradeep, silence. That's the function of a Master: to undo all that the society has done to you, to help you to go beyond words.

And you can experience it happening here - you can hear the silence. And when you hear it, there is immediate understanding. Understanding comes like a shadow following silence.

To understand words and to hear words is very simple. Anybody can do it; just a little education about language is needed, nothing much. But a tremendous transformation is needed to hear silence and to understand silence... Silence is the basic requirement of understanding God, the basic requirement to know truth.

Father Ryan and Anderson, one of his parishioners, were playing a friendly round together. The priest had been having trouble all day. At the seventeenth hole, his ball fell into a deep sandtrap.

Several times he whacked away; sand flew, but each time the ball rolled back into the hazard.

Still silent, but with his lips compressed and his eyes burning with frustration, Father Ryan stared at the ball for a long time.

"Father," said Anderson, "that's the most profane silence I have ever heard."

Silence can be profane too. Silence can be sacred too. Silence has as many nuances, as many dimensions as your being has. It is multidimensional, and it is tremendously pregnant.

Pradeep, being here with me, being a sannyasin, can be defined very simply as learning to be silent - sitting in silence with me. I am using so many words for the simple reason so that words can give you the gaps. I can simply sit here... one day I am going to do that, when I will be just sitting with you.

It is really a torture for me to talk. I would like as quickly as possible just to sit silently with you. But if you are not ready to understand it, you will fall asleep: you will start dreaming, you will start dozing away. You will not be able to understand it.

My words keep you awake, and just between the words I give you gaps. And those are the real, essential things. Waiting for another word, you have to listen to silence. I tell you one joke, that wakes you up, then just searching for another joke . .. Not that I have to search for it - I know where it is. And it does not matter much, any joke will do, I can manage - but just searching for another joke, you are awaiting breathlessly, utterly silent . .. even though sometimes Monkeyjibhai Desai comes with his colleagues on the roof and they start doing their thing. But you are not distracted; in fact, those monkeys help you to become more silent, more alert, so that you cannot miss any word that I am going to say to you.

All this situation is being used to hand over to you few pieces of silence. It will look very strange to the newcomers that I am talking just to make you able to hear silence and to understand silence.

But that has been always the way of the Buddhas.

The day you are ready... and slowly slowly many people are getting ready. The day is not far away when I will have enough people ready; a certain quantity is needed. Just as at a certain temperature, a hundred degrees, water evaporates, there is a certain quantity which is needed for silence. And when so many people are here, then anybody who wants to fall asleep when I am sitting silent will not be able to fall asleep either. The silence all around will go on goading him to keep alert. The silence all around will not in any way allow him to fall asleep. Silence has its own tremendous force, its own power.

So I am waiting for the right quantity - and people are coming. The moment I see that my commune has enough silent people and I can sit silently, and the newcomers will be transformed by the silent people - just sitting amongst them will be enough for them to have a taste, they will be drowned in your silence - then there will be no need for me to talk at all.

Few people have fallen asleep... for them:

The sweet young thing was telling her mother about the great time she had at the mountain resort.

"I met a man in the recreation hall and we played ping-pong all afternoon," she said. "What fun, mother!"

"Why, dear," said the mother, "I never knew you enjoyed ping-pong."

"I do now," the daughter said. "I would hit the ball the wrong way, and we would both go under the table after it. Then he would hit the ball the wrong way, and we would both go after it under the table.

We played all afternoon. It was wonderful!"

"But I don't understand," said the mother "where does the fun come in?"

"Under the table, silly!"

Finley was flipped over golf. It became his only topic of conversation. Mrs. Finley was slowly going bananas with the constant discussion of birdies, drivers and sand traps, of his golf clubs, his caddies and his scores.

Finally, at dinner she snapped, "I am tired of you talking about golf twenty-four hours a day! I don't want to hear about it at this meal!"

"But what about... What shall I talk about then?"

"About anything," said his wife. "Talk about sex for goodness' sake!"

"Okay," said Finley, "I wonder who my caddy is screwing these days?"

The two old maids lived their lonely lives together until, rather unexpectedly, a stranger arrived on the scene and whisked one of them away in matrimony.

After the honeymoon the new bride visited her unmarried friend and painted an ecstatic picture of married life.

"Our honeymoon," she said, "was like a cruise down the Mediterranean, a sail into a glorious sunset.

It was wonderful!"

The second old maid was very much impressed and determined to get a man for herself. She showed her bank book around town and eventually nailed a local gigolo. They were married at once and began their honeymoon.

They climbed into their wedding bed, and in a short time the husband was flushed with excitement.

The bride, however, was cool as a cucumber and decidedly unaffected by the proceedings.

"I simply don't understand it," she said rather indignantly. "My friend told me that marriage was a cruise down the Mediterranean, like a sail into glorious sunset."

"Oh, she did, eh?" said the guy, now trembling his uncontrollable excitement. "Well, bon voyage, baby - I'm sailing without you!"