The Oasis Exists in Your Awareness

The first question:

Question 1:

Because of the larvae, the camels.

The camels need many methods. They can only trust in a method, they can only trust in technology.

They are almost like machines, robots. They cannot have the vision of the beyond, and their hearts are not functioning yet. With the heart functioning they will become lions, and with the soul functioning they will become the children.

It is like this: larvae or camels need many methods. Lions need only one method, either love or awareness. And the child needs no method at all. The child is already at home; he need not arrive, he need not go anywhere.

The Sufis are the people on the path of love. Love has no techniques, love is enough unto itself - but the heart has to function for it. And the camel has no heart. And the larva has no idea of what heart is, what feeling is, what love is. He has never dreamt about it. The larva has never dreamt about being a caterpillar, just as the caterpillar has not dreamt about being a butterfly.

Two caterpillars were crawling across the grass when suddenly a butterfly flew over them. They looked up, and one nudged the other one and said, "You could not get me up in one of those things for a million dollars."

The larva cannot trust that something is possible; nothing is possible. The larva lives in a closed world, behind the walls. Those walls have to be broken. Methods are needed to break those walls, to destroy that prison. The larva has almost to be dragged outside the prison, freedom has almost to be imposed upon it. It is afraid of freedom, it is afraid of wings, it is afraid of the sky. It keeps its eyes closed. It remains within itself, it does not relate, it does not believe that relationship is possible. And the world is full of larvae and camels.

Out of compassion, out of love, Sufis talk about other methods. If you understand, then there is no need for any method. Then either there is awareness or love. One who follows awareness needs no other method - one is enough. One who follows love needs no awareness - one is enough.

Awareness cleanses the mind, cleanses the thought process, cleanses your intelligence, and you arrive. Love cleanses your feelings, cleanses your heart, and you arrive.

The child needs no method at all. The child does not even need love or awareness; the child is love and awareness.

So it depends: if the Sufi is talking to a camel he will give methods; if the Sufi is talking to a lion he will give him awareness or love; and if the Sufi is talking to a child he will not say anything about what to do. There is no need for doing. Non-doing is enough, just being is enough.

The second question:

Question 2:

The question is from Vidya's mother, Sigrid. She must be worried about Vidya, about what is happening to Vidya here. And, deep down, she is nagging Vidya and trying to take back. It is natural, nothing is wrong in it; a mother, after all, is a mother. The mother loves, cares, and because you love and you care you become afraid also - what is happening to your child here? Hence the question, "What can a guru do for you?"

A guru can do two things: he can undo you and re-do you. He can destroy you and give you a new life. A guru is a cross and a resurrection.

Those who come here and remain outsiders will only see the cross of the guru, because the resurrection is an inner experience. The cross is an outside thing.

Have you not watched in the story of Jesus? - when he was crucified, thousands of people witnessed it. It was simple. There was no need for any inner insight to witness Jesus being crucified. Thousands of people, ordinary people who had never seen Jesus, who had just come out of curiosity, all witnessed the crucifixion. But when Jesus got resurrected NOT EVEN HIS OWN DISCIPLES could recognize him immediately. Mary Magdalene was the first to recognize. That is symbolic: that means you need a feminine heart, an intuitive heart, to recognize resurrection.

Then Jesus went to find his disciples. They had all escaped thinking, "Now all is finished!" They waited, hiding behind the crowds. They had waited for the moment because they were hoping that some miracle would happen. The miracle DID happen, but to see the miracle these ordinary eyes are not enough. These ordinary eyes can only see the UNdoing. To see the re-doing you will need another kind of eyes. The miracle DID happen, I say to you! - but nobody could see it because nobody was ready to see it, nobody was mature enough to see it.

Jesus went in search of his disciples after his resurrection. He found two disciples; they were going to another village. He walked with them for four miles, talked with them for four miles, and they did not recognize him. This seems to be so improbable, but it happened. He was walking with them, he was talking with them, and they could not see who had come. They thought he was a stranger.

In fact, Jesus remained a stranger to these people even when he was alive. Their recognition was superficial.

So those who come here just as outsiders will simply see demolishing, will simply see undoing, will simply see that people are being destroyed, mind-washed, hypnotized - and they will see all kinds of things, all kinds of negative things. They will not be able to see the positive. For the positive you will have to become part, a participant. You will have to fall en rapport with me. You will have to come within me and you will have to allow me within you; then you will be able to see what a Master can do.

If you really want to understand it, then become a disciple! Then come closer to a Master. And I am not saying to come closer to me, but any Master! Go and find your Master, but come closer.

Understanding one Master, you will have understood all Masters, past, present and future, because the work is the same. The work is to destroy the disciple so much so that the disciple disappears as a disciple and appears as a Master in his own right. That's what a Master can do: he can make you a Master.

The third question:

Question 3:

Ananda Buddha, this is a totally different kind of intoxication. It is so different that I can say to you that you are absolutely inexperienced about it.

Being intoxicated with me does not make you fall asleep, so you cannot wake up some day with a hangover. It makes you fall awake, so there is no question of waking up sometime with a hangover.

Being with me is the awakening. What other awakening are you talking about?

This intoxicant drowns you only as far as the ego is concerned, but not your consciousness. It drowns you only as far as the personality is concerned, but not the individuality. It helps you to wake up from the personality and to wake up in the individuality. Right now you are asleep about your individuality and you are awake in your personality.

Let us say it in this way: you have fallen asleep and you are seeing a dream. In the dream you are awake - you are going to the market to purchase a few things for shopping or something. In the dream you are awake. If in the dream you fall asleep, you will be REALLY awake. But in the dream you are awake; really you are fast asleep, you are snoring.

Your awakening right now, Buddha, is not real awakening. You are in a deep sleep, a slumber, and dreaming a thousand and one dreams. If you allow me to hit you you will wake up for the first time.

Your dreams will disappear, your sleep will be broken, and you will come to know for the first time who you are. Once you have tasted that awakening you cannot fall asleep again. That taste is such - it permeates your whole being, it pervades you, it overwhelms you, it encompasses you. This intoxication is just to help you to fall awake.

That's why I have given you the name Swami Ananda Buddha: blissful awareness, blissful awakening. You ARE asleep, and the potential is there - you can fall awake. And the first stirrings are felt by you.

Take the risk! In your dream-world nothing is secure, not even your so-called secure job. In your so-called world nothing is certain. The dream-world cannot be certain - it is a flux, everything is changing and moving. Today you are in a secure job, tomorrow you may not be in it. Today you are living with a woman, tomorrow she is gone. Today you have a beautiful child, tomorrow God has taken it back. What is secure here?

Except awakening, nothing is secure here. All is just... hallucination, all is just... deceiving yourself, creating newer and newer mirages. The oasis exists not! This world is a desert. The oasis exists in your awareness only. Create that oasis of awareness. And whatsoever is needed for it, do.

Whatsoever price has to be paid, pay. Whatsoever has to be risked, risk - because all else is going to be taken away from you anyway. Death will come, and your job and your wife and your children and your name and fame - all will be taken away. Before death comes search for awareness, because those who become aware in life, for them, death never comes. They become deathless.

They know what immortality is. Because in your awareness you come to know not the body, but the one who resides in it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

The question is from Reese Guth.

LSD is not false, LSD is as real as anything else. But the experience that is created by LSD is a FALSE samadhi. Remember the distinction that I am making: LSD is not false, but the experience that is created under the impact of LSD is a false experience.

You say, "I HAVE HAD ENLIGHTENING EXPERIENCES..."

They were not enlightening experiences. They may have been lightning experiences, but not enlightening - flashes; you are not enlightened through them, you don't become a Buddha through them. In fact you become more of a mess out of them. The LSD changes your body chemistry, as mushrooms do. It changes your body chemistry. It does not change you, it changes your body - just as food changes your body, air changes your body, climate changes your body, the moon, the full moon changes your body, but you are not being changed by it. All those changes happen in the body, all those changes are chemical changes - not alchemical but only chemical. What is an alchemical change? - when your consciousness changes. And the consciousness cannot be changed by ANYTHING that comes from the outside.

The consciousness cannot be changed by food, eating this food or that. The consciousness cannot be changed by non-eating, by fasting. Remember, there is not much difference between people who take LSD and the people who go on a long fast, no difference! Both are trying to change the body chemistry. The people who take mushrooms and other drugs are not doing anything different from the people who do yoga exercises, because in both ways the BODY is changed. The change is not happening in consciousness. Consciousness REMAINS BEYOND all chemicals.

If you fast long enough, naturally your body chemistry can't be the same. A few things disappear from your body chemistry and a few things accumulate too much. Your body has a different combination of chemicals.

After a one month long fast you will feel beautiful things, but those beautiful things are created by the chemical change. Start eating and those beautiful things will disappear. You do certain yoga postures continuously, for years, pressing your body structure at certain points, certain important points, pressing your body meridians at certain junctures continuously; it changes your body chemistry. Breathe in a certain way for years, always in a certain way - it changes your body chemistry, because the oxygen and the carbon dioxide balance will be changed by your breathing.

Have you not noticed it? - when you are angry you breathe in a different way? Why? That different way of breathing releases some chemicals in your body which are helpful to being angry. If you don't breathe in a different way you will not be able to be angry. Try it: breathe in the Buddhist way and you will not be able to go into anger, because the Buddhist way won't allow your body chemicals to be released which are needed for the anger.

You are afraid? You breathe in a different way. Different chemicals are needed, because a man who is frightened needs to escape fast, as fast as possible. He needs flight, certain chemicals are needed so he can flee fast. When you are in sexual passion your breathing changes. Continue to breathe normally and you will not be able to achieve orgasm. For the orgasm to be triggered a certain kind of breathing is needed.

But these changes are physical; these are not going to affect your consciousness. The consciousness is the witness to all changes. Just try to understand.

You are hungry, feeling hungry: the body is hungry, the consciousness simply notes the fact that the body is hungry. The consciousness is never hungry, cannot be hungry; it has no stomach. It can only be a witness. Consciousness is nothing but witnessing. Remember this formula: consciousness is witnessing. You are hungry? The consciousness reflects the hunger. It is like a mirror: it says "The body is hungry." When you have eaten and your body is satisfied, the consciousness says "The body is satisfied." The consciousness was not hungry and is not satisfied either. In both cases the consciousness was just witnessing - hunger/satisfaction, sexual passion/sexual contentment, anger/release of anger.

You take LSD or some other drug, and there are lightning experiences. Consciousness is simply waiting and watching. It simply says, "Look, beautiful things are happening," but they are not happening to consciousness.

The spiritual growth is the growth of this witnessing! The spiritual growth has nothing to do with particular experiences. The spiritual growth is not a search for novel experiences. Spirituality has nothing to do with experiences as such. In fact to say any experience is 'spiritual experience' is utterly wrong, because all experiences are non-spiritual. THE EXPERIENCER IS THE SPIRIT. The witness is the only spiritual phenomenon. When all experiences have disappeared - of hunger, of satiety, of anger, of release, of love, of hate, of kundalini arising in you, chakras opening in you, lotuses opening in you, lights showering in you; celestial music is heard, you feel great space, you feel joy, you feel bliss, but these are all experiences - the real spiritual point is when there is NO experience, and the experiencer is left alone, utterly alone. There is no object to experience, but only this witness is there, silently witnessing nothing. Then you have arrived. This is SAMADHI.

Witnessing nothing is SAMADHI. That's why Buddha calls it NIRVANA, nothingness, emptiness.

Your question is meaningful. And the question is not only concerned with psychedelic experiences, it is concerned with all kinds of experiences. Experiences AS SUCH are non-spiritual. When all experiences have gone and you don't feel ANYTHING AT ALL, and you have not fallen asleep either.... In sleep also those experiences disappear. In deep sleep, what Patanjali calls SUSHUPTI, where dreams are no more, all experiences disappear, but the experiencer is also absent. Patanjali says SUSHUPTI and SAMADHI are similar and yet very different, diametrically opposite. What is their similarity? The similarity is that in both, experiences are not found. And what is their difference?

In SUSHUPTI, in deep sleep, the experiencer is also not found. In SAMADHI experiences are gone but the experiencer is sitting there silently watching nothing, witnessing nothing. This is enlightenment! Experiences can be lightning experiences, can be beautiful experiences, can give you great joy, but still they are not enlightenment.

Enlightenment is when the light is there and it falls on nothing. The light fills nothingness, no object is seen in that light - this is liberation. To be liberated from experiences is to be liberated from the world. 'The world' means ALL kinds of experiences, what the Chinese call 'the ten thousand experiences' - that's what the world consists of.

You say, "EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING, I HAVE HAD ENLIGHTENING EXPERIENCES THROUGH THE USE OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS. I KNOW THAT LSD IS FALSE BUT WHAT IS, IF ANY, THE TRUTH ABOUT MUSHROOMS?"

The truth is they can give you beautiful trips, and ugly trips too. They can give you golden dreams, and nightmares too. It all depends on you.

The drug only triggers a process. Whatsoever dream is ready to explode in you will be exploded, hence contradictory experiences have been reported.

Aldous Huxley reports that he experienced heaven, and Karl Rahner reports he experienced hell.

Now Karl Rahner is against drugs and Aldous Huxley is all for the drugs. If you are all for the drugs your very prejudice will help you to create beautiful experiences. You will be waiting and hoping for something beautiful to happen, your belief will do the magic. If you are against from the very beginning, suspicious, doubtful, afraid, and you know that you are going to have some hellish experience through it, it will be created.

An ancient Sufi saying says: Hell is preserved for those who believe in it. And heaven is also preserved for those who believe in it. But it's all just make-believe. There is no hell, no heaven; you create your hell, you create your heaven. If you are in a kind of negative mood then take LSD and it will give you nightmares. If you are in a positive mood, flowing, loving, it will take you to paradise.

The ancient-most drug takers have been in India. India knows more about drugs than any other country. At least for ten thousand years ninety-nine percent of Indian sannyasins have been taking drugs, from the RIG-VEDAS till today, from SOMA to LSD. India knows much, India has created technologies, techniques, methodologies of how to take a drug. The drug trip should be a very guided trip; it needs a guide. The guide creates the atmosphere, he creates the idea. Slowly, slowly he goes on hypnotizing you about what is happening. And in a drug state a person becomes very suggestible, absolutely suggestible; all reason is lost. The dream faculty starts functioning, imagination is let loose. Now, imagination can do both - either it can create hell or heaven. You need a guide. The guide slowly, slowly guides you towards heaven, heavenly experiences. He creates a beautiful dream, a poetic dream around you; and you are in a suggestible state, you simply fall a victim.

But guided or unguided, a drug experience or a fasting experience - all are false. EXPERIENCE IS FALSE.

SAMADHI is when the witness has remained alone, witnessing nothing. That is the TRUE spiritual experience, if you will allow me to call it experience. It is not experience, because in experience you need three things: the experiencer, the experienced and the experience. There are not three things left at all. There is only one witness, witnessing utter nothingness, SHUNYA, emptiness. That is true experience.

The true experience is a 'no-experience'. And when you attain to a no-experience, only then believe that it is enlightening. Otherwise lightning experiences will come and go, flashes of the mind, dream- stuff.

The fifth question:

IS TO BE A SANNYASIN A MOMENT OR A PROCESS? IS A GURU REALLY NEEDED TO BE a SANNYASIN? IF A GURU LIVES IN SOMEBODY'S HEART ALL THE TIME, THEN WHAT IS THE NECESSITY OF WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA ALL THE TIME? WAS EKLAVYA NOT A REAL DISCIPLE?

The question is from Kartik. The question is from some Indian mind, some Indian. Many things have to be understood.

First you ask, "IS TO BE A SANNYASIN A MOMENT OR A PROCESS?"

It is both, because it is a beginning of a great pilgrimage - so it is an event, a moment, and also a process. By becoming a sannyasin you have not arrived, you have only started arriving. It is a great moment because it is a quantum leap from your ordinary mundane world, from the search for power, prestige. You have moved to seek and search for truth. From moving outwards, into the world, you have taken a decision to move inwards. From the external your being is turning towards the internal.

It is a great moment, because interiority is born in it! It is a great change in your pattern of life, in your style of life: you will never be the same again. It is a drastic change, it is a discontinuity - the past is dropped and you start creating yourself anew - but it is also a process because this is just a beginning. You have started moving inwards, but you will have to go on moving.

Lao Tzu says, "The journey of ten thousand miles starts in the first step." The first step is a great moment. Just thing: the larva becomes the caterpillar... a great moment, because the larva was static, and the caterpillar moves, crawls. The caterpillar is not yet a butterfly. It knows nothing of flying, it knows nothing of flowers, it is not yet a winged thing, but the journey has started. The journey of ten thousand miles - the first step has been taken. it has started crawling. If crawling is possible, then one day flying will also be possible.

The larva cannot become the butterfly, only the caterpillar can become the butterfly. The worldly man cannot arrive in his being, only a sannyasin can arrive. The sannyasin is between the larva and the butterfly, the link.

So a sannyasin is both the beginning of a journey and a process; it is a moment and a process.

You ask, "IS A GURU REALLY NEEDED TO BE A SANNYASIN?"

You need me even to ask this question! You can't answer it yourself. How are you going to answer greater questions? - because this is a very silly and stupid question, not of any worth. If I am answering it, it is just to respect you, to respect a camel.

If you cannot answer a silly, ordinary question like this yourself, how are you going to become a sannyasin on your own?

The caterpillar will need a butterfly. Seeing the butterfly flying around, enjoying flowers and the honey and enjoying the sunshine will be needed, is a must. That will create a desire, a longing, a thirst in the caterpillar. It will create a dream, a dream which can become a reality. Unless the caterpillar starts dreaming, there is no possibility. How will you start dreaming about unknown things? You have not known them! You can dream only about that which you have known. You can think about a thing which you have experienced in the past: how will you think about God, about truth, about NIRVANA, about SAMADHI? These are empty words for you, utterly empty of any meaning, meaningless jargon. You will have to come in contact with a person in whom SAMADHI IS alive, throbbing, beating, breathing. You will have to come in close contact with a person in whom truth is born, in whom you can have a glimpse of God; that's all that is needed. You will have to come in contact with someone where the disease called God can become infectious. You will have to move with a drunkard. Seeing his joy, seeing his blissfulness and his silence and his calm and his cool, you may become thirsty, thirsty for something you have never tasted before.

That's what a Master is all about. If you can do it on your own, it is so kind of you. Do it. Read American books, 'do it' books - do it yourself. But you will create more mess than you are in already.

Out of your confusion, whatsoever you will do, more confusion will come.

You are already a crowd, falling apart. You cannot put yourself together. And I am not saying that it does not happen sometimes; it happens sometimes: there have been people who have put themselves together. But those people are exceptional, and they don't come here to ask questions like this.

Once a young man came to me and asked, "What do you say, Osho, about marriage? Should I get married or not? I am a seeker, a searcher for truth." I told him, "You please get married." But he said, "But this is very unexpected! Why didn't you get married? I have come to you because I knew you would say, 'No, don't get married.' Why didn't you get married?" I said, "Because I never went to ask anybody, that has not been my way. I have never asked any question of anybody."

You are tricky. You want to have the answer, you want guidance, and yet you don't want to commit yourself. You want all guidance cheaply.

I have never asked a single question of anybody. That's why when I was in the university my professors were very angry with me - because I was always answering them, not questioning.

Very angry, naturally! If you answer a professor he becomes angry. I was turned out from many colleges, expelled, and the only crime that I had committed was that I was answering. Even if I was asking, the question was such that it was really an answer, not a question. The professors were angry. They wanted questions so that they could answer, because answers they knew.

If you are searching for truth, if you have moved into the search, you will need a Master. And remember, I repeat again: it is not that it cannot happen alone. It has happened to me alone, so how can I say that it cannot happen alone? Lao Tzu says, "You need not go out of your house, you need not even open your windows and doors, and all can be found there sitting inside your room."

And he is right, but it happens very rarely.

You are being cunning: you want the guidance, and you don't want to bow down to a Master.

You ask me, "IF A GURU LIVES IN SOMEBODY'S HEART ALL THE TIME,, THEN WHAT IS THE NECESSITY OF WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA ALL THE TIME?"

Then there is no necessity. Then there is no necessity even to ask this question! If a guru lives for twenty-four hours in your heart, you have become a Buddha Even to remember your guru for twenty-four seconds continuously is impossible. What are you talking about? - twenty-four hours?

Try to remember me for twenty-four seconds. Just keep a wristwatch in front of you and try to remember me for twenty-four seconds, and twenty-four thousand times you will miss. A second will pass and you will start thinking of your girlfriend, or what movie to go to today. And then you will have to pull back. Again you will remember, "What am I doing? - five seconds have passed. And for one second you may be able just to remember, so-so, lukewarm, and again it is lost. Just try for twenty-four seconds. If you can remember me continuously for twenty-four seconds, without a single distraction, you need not have any orange, any mala I declare you a sannyasin.

And you are saying 'for twenty-four hours' "If a guru LIVES IN SOMEBODY'S HEART ALL THE TIME, THEN WHAT IS THE NECESSITY OF WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA ALL THE TIME?"

But if the guru that lives in your heart says "Wear orange", what will you do then? Will you listen to the guru or not? What do you think about the people who are wearing orange here? Are they very willingly wearing orange? But the guru says so! What to do? And they have fallen in love with the guru Now the guru is mad and he says, "Wear orange!" The guru is eccentric. First you fall in love with the guru, and then the guru starts playing tricks on you. He says, "Wear orange, wear a mala, and look like a fool! And go into the world and let people laugh!"

But if the guru lives for twenty-four hours in your heart, you will be ready to commit suicide if he says to!

And then you ask, "WAS EKLAVYA NOT A REAL DISCIPLE?"

I will have to tell you the story first; only then will you be able to understand it.

You know of the Bhagavad-Gita, of Krishna the Master and his disciple Arjuna. When Arjuna was learning with Drona.... In his student days, he was with a master archer, Drona. He was the greatest master archer in those days. Arjuna belonged to a royal family, so all the children from the royal family were learning with Drona, and Arjuna was the best disciple.

Drona was a brahmin. Eklavya came; Eklavya was an untouchable, and Eklavya wanted to become a disciple also. Drona refused. A brahmin? How can he accept an untouchable, a sudra? That has been one of the greatest pathologies of the Hindu mind. The Hindu mind has been ill and unhealthy because of that. Notwithstanding so many great things that they have done, that one thing has undone all their great things. They have condemned human beings so utterly that never before, anywhere in the world, have human beings been condemned so badly. And that is done by so- called religious people who claim that they are the greatest religious people of the world. And they have been doing something which is so ugly - millions of people have been debarred from being human beings. Eklavya belonged to those downtrodden, oppressed people. But he had a beautiful body, and Drona could see - because he was a great teacher - he could see that he could become one of the most famous archers in the world. He could see directly: the way he walked, the way he talked, his one-pointed mind, his concentrated being - Drona could see that this young man could become the best archer of that age. "But then what will happen to my disciple, Arjuna? And he's going to be the king"... now, the vested interest. He refused. He refused for two reasons: one. "You are a sudra and I am a brahmin; I cannot accept you. Even the shadow of a sudra is unacceptable."

Brahmins have been taking baths if the shadow of a sudra would fall on them. The shadow! He need not have touched anyone. And these are spiritual people! And the shadow is non-existential.

If you are sitting and a sudra passes by and his shadow touches you, you have to take a a bath. You have been polluted by his being.

And these sudras are not sinners. They are simply poor people, exploited people, the proletariat.

"First, you are a sudra so I cannot accept," said Drona. In saying that, he also said that he was not a spiritual man at all. He may have been a great master archer, but he was not a spiritual Master, he was not a guru. In denying Eklavya, he proved that he was not a guru, because a guru cannot deny anybody. Even if a sinner comes, the guru cannot deny. That is what he exists for.

Sometimes people come to me and they say, "We are not worthy. We are sinners. We have done this wrong and that. Osho, will you accept us?" And I say, "For whom do I exist here?" If the doctor says to the patient, "I cannot accept you because you have so many illnesses," then what is the point of that doctor? Why is he there if he accepts only healthy men?

Drona was not a guru, not a spiritual Master. He must have been a very ugly politician. It was on the surface that he said, "I cannot accept because you are a sudra", but deep down this was the reasoning: that if this Eklavya were accepted and he became a great archer, what would happen to his favorite disciple? "And the favorite disciple is going to become the king, not Eklavya. With the favorite disciple my whole future is involved. If Arjuna becomes the king then I will be the master of the king, and naturally powerful, even more powerful than the king. The king will touch my feet, and my order will be THE order." He wanted Arjuna to remain the greatest archer; Eklavya was denied.

Eklavya went into the forest, but his love for archery was such that he created a statue of Drona and started practicing before the statue. Soon rumors started coming to Drona's school that Eklavya was attaining... alone, without any guidance from Drona. But his totality was such that even the statue was enough.

And one day the news came that Arjuna was no longer a competent archer before Eklavya. Drona went to see Eklavya, and he committed one thing which can never be forgiven. He went there and he asked Eklavya to show him, and he saw, and it was absolutely certain that Arjuna was no longer a comparison to Eklavya. Eklavya had far transcended Arjuna and all his disciples; in fact, had far transcended Drona himself. Now he said, "You have learned through me by making my statue. You will have to give me some present, DAKSHINA." When a disciple has learned all from the Master, just in gratitude he gives some gift to the Master, any symbolic gift. Eklavya started crying and weeping. He said, "But I have nothing! You can ask anything!" And Drona asked for his thumb, his right-hand thumb. He cut off his thumb immediately and gave it to Drona. He asked the right-hand thumb because without it he would never be an archer again.

Now this fellow, Drona, is an ugly spot on Hindu consciousness. He was not a spiritual Master at all. He was a very, very low politician, a diplomat. He may have been a good archer but that doesn't make anybody spiritual. First he had denied Eklavya, and now he went... what CHUTZPAH! now he went and asked that something be given to him as a gift: "I am your Master." He had denied his being a disciple, and now he went and said that "I am your Master."

Eklavya is really rare. Such a great soul; Drona is not even worthy enough to touch his feet. He didn't say anything. He could have said,"You have denied me", but he didn't say that. That idea never arose in his mind. He had trusted him as the Master even if he had been denied. He had loved him and he was ready to give anything. He gave his right-hand thumb, became a cripple forever and was no longer heard of. Since that moment nothing is known about Eklavya, about what happened. He must have gone to the forest, must have lived in his tribe, sweeping streets. He must have forgotten all about archery - a great archer destroyed.

Now this is the story.

Kartik has asked, "WAS EKLAVYA NOT A REAL DISCIPLE?"

Eklavya was a real disciple, Drona was not a real guru.

But you should not ask this question, because you simply want to avoid the mala and orange. And Eklavya, even if denied by the Master, although rejected by the Master, went into the forest and created an image of the Master. You should not bring Eklavya's name into it. You are just the opposite!

What is the mala? - an image.

There the Master had denied, here the Master is ready to accept you. Even though denied by the Master, Eklavya created an image of the Master and through that image attained. You should not bring Eklavya in with your question. It is contradictory, it contradicts you. It does not prove that you are right, it simply proves you are UTTERLY wrong. Even a man like Eklavya could not do without the image! It was needed, it helped, it created a certain milieu, it created an atmosphere, a climate.

And if love is total then the mala is not dead. Then it is not wood, it is your heart. Then the image in the mala is not just a picture. It depends on your love: how much love you pour into it, that much life it will have. And it is needed. It creates a climate around you, and only in a certain climate will you be able to bloom.

The sixth question:

Question 5:

There is a criterion to judge it: if your sexuality disappears and you become more loving, then it is not just old age. If with sexuality your loving quality also disappears, then it is old age.

Have you not observed it? - old people become unloving, nagging, always angry, rude, oppressing, always finding excuses to torture, condemn. What happens? The moment one becomes less sexual, juices start drying up. Once the magic of desire fades, people become desert-like. All their greenness is of their sexuality and sensuality. All their flowering is that of:sex and nothing else.

So once sex becomes less and less important, their greenery starts disappearing. They become non-communicative, they are always angry, and they are very much in their egos.

Nobody likes older people, even their own children. The reason is not old age, the reason is: once the magic of desire is gone they become rock-like. And once their own desire is gone, they become very jealous of others' desires. An old person cannot tolerate you being in love. He's always there with condemning eyes, because he says he knows it is all nonsense, because he says "I have lived it and I know it is all futile." This happens to old people, this happens to old countries too.

If in Poona you find that you are condemned if you are moving hand in hand with your woman and people look with condemning eyes, that is just because the country has gone stale and old. It is a very old country, its magic of desire has died. It has no magic. It is dominated by the old people, it is non-accepting of the young. The old cannot accept the youth and the joy of youth - it hurts.

So this is the criterion: if you are simply becoming old you will not only become non-sexual, you will become dry, dull, dead, and you will start condemning other people who are still young. That's a kind of revenge. Deep down it is jealousy: "How come my own desire is gone and people are still desiring? I am dying and you are loving? Death is coming closer every moment and you are still searching for a woman or a man, still singing and dancing?" It is unacceptable to the old people.

But if old age is not just aging but wisdom too, then there will be a totally different thing. The older person will feel very, very happy with people loving each other. He will have a blessing, a benediction always flowing through him. Whenever he will see somebody in love, his eyes will have a joy. He will bless them, because he knows each desire has its own time, and one learns only through experience. Yes, now he is disillusioned, and he knows perfectly well that when he was young his father was also disillusioned but he never listened. Now he knows, "My son is also not going to listen. And it is good that he should not listen, because if he listens he will never be able to live his youth." And youth unlived penetrates old age. And when youth penetrates old age, the old age becomes dirty, ugly; it is impotent. Now you cannot live those experiences but they go on hammering inside your mind. They go on coming as dreams, desires. The body is no longer able to go into them but the mind continues. Sex becomes cerebral. And that is the most perverted state of sex, when it becomes cerebral. It should be genital, not cerebral - but the sexual mechanism is no longer functioning and the whole energy has moved into the head.

If a man has lived his childhood perfectly he will come out of it a grown-up man. If a man has lived his youth perfectly he will come out of it a grown-up old man - wise, happy, silent, calm, quiet, loving.

With the disappearance of sex, love will not disappear. In fact, love will become more, because the energy that was involved in sex is no longer involved in sex; all that energy has become available for love. An old man can be as loving as NO young man can ever be, because the young have other interests.

Love is really secondary for a young man; his whole interest is sex. When a young man is telling a girl, "I love you", he's just planning how to hop into the bed. All this is nonsense, he knows, but it has to be done, it is part of the game. If you ask a woman suddenly, "How about it?" she may scream or call the police; it is so unexpected. You have to persuade. And she is also thinking - if you go on persuading long enough, she becomes bored. If you go on saying, "I love you, I love you," and there is no sign of hopping into the bed, she becomes fed-up. The introduction should not be too long. It should not be like George Bernard Shaw where the book consists of only a hundred pages and the introduction is two hundred pages. Who waits for the book then? An introduction is an introduction; it makes things easy.

The young man's interest is sex, is not love. Love is an excuse, love is politeness, love is culture, sophistication, but his real interest is sex. Love is like sugar that we coat on bitter pills - that's how the young man is interested. His real love is sex.

It is not incidental that the young people all over the world have started calling sex 'making love'.

That's what their love is. Depth they cannot know. The young man is bound to remain shallow.

Sex is shallow, so a young man is shallow. Youth cannot have depth, and youth cannot have calm understanding. Youth is feverish, it is a tumultuous time. Good! I'm not saying it is wrong: it creates the possibility to grow. You have to pass through many experiences, sweet and bitter. You have to pass through many stages of feverishness, of ecstasy, of excitement; only then a moment comes when you start understanding. Those experiences prepare you, they cleanse you. You have to pass through the fire of youth to become the pure gold of old age. A really old man is wise, he has some light in him. He has lived his life, he has become ripe. He knows what life is: he knows its joys, its sorrows, its ups and downs, he knows its hells and its heavens. He has seen all. Seeing all, a great understanding has arisen in him, and a compassion and a love.

So this has to be the criterion: if with the disappearance of sex, at the same time, simultaneously, comes the appearance of love, compassion and understanding, then it is not just that you are growing old. You are Coming closer to enlightenment. But if it is not so, then you are simply growing old. Growing old is not a great qualification - everybody does it in his own time, it happens - but growing in wisdom is a qualification, certainly a qualification.

I have heard....

A most attractive young girl was being interviewed by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

"While you were on earth," he asked, "did you indulge in promiscuity, smoking, dancing, or any other forms of wickedness?"

"Never, never!" protested the girl.

"Well, then why have you not reported sooner?" asked St. Peter. "You have been dead for years!"

Remember, don't die before your death! Remain alive.

I have also heard...

An anthropologist in Java came across a little-known tribe with a strange funeral rite. When a man died, they buried him for sixty days and then dug him up. He was placed in a dark room on a cool slab, and twenty of the tribe's most beautiful maidens danced erotic dances entirely in the nude around the corpse for three hours.

"Why do you do this?" the anthropologist asked the chief of the tribe, who replied, "If he does not get up we are sure he is dead."

Don't think that by becoming more and more dead you will be coming closer to enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not a quality of death, it is a quality of RIPE LIFE, it is a quality of rich life. One who has lived his life in many, many ways, good and bad, as the sinner and the saint, one who has the experience of the varieties, of all possibilities, becomes ripe; and in that ripeness is richness, is glory.

Let this be the criterion, always judge through this criterion: if love is growing, compassion is coming, understanding is growing, then you are on the right track. If with your sexuality love is dying, understanding is dying, compassion dying, then you are on the wrong track.

The last question:

Question 6:

The question is significant. You will have to be very, very understanding, because it is subtle and complex too.

When I said that love is commitment, what do I mean by it? I don't mean that you have to promise for tomorrow, but the promise is there. You don't have to promise, but the promise is there. This is the complexity and the subtleness of it. You don't say, "I will love you tomorrow too", but in the moment of love that promise is there, utterly present. It needs no expression.

When you love a person you CAN'T think otherwise. You CAN'T think that you will not love this person some day; that is impossible, that is not part of love. And I am not saying that you may not be able to get out of this love-affair; you may be, you may not be. That is not the point. But when you are in the love moment, when the energy is flowing between two persons, there is a bridge, a golden bridge, and they are bridged through it. It simply does not happen: the mind cannot conceive and comprehend that there will be a time when you will not be with this person and this person will not be with you. This is commitment. Not that you say so much, not that you go to a court and make a formal statement: "I will remain forever with you." In fact to make that formal statement simply shows there is no love; you need a legal arrangement. If the commitment is there, there is no need for any legal arrangement.

Marriage is needed because love is missing. If love is there profoundly, marriage will not be needed.

What is the point of marriage? - that is like putting legs on a snake, or painting a red rose red. It is unnecessary. Why go to the court? There must be some fear inside you... the love is not total.

Even while in deep love you are thinking of the possibility that tomorrow you may desert this woman.

The woman is thinking, "Who knows? Tomorrow this man may desert me. It is better to go to the court. First let it become legal, then one can depend." But what does it show? - it simply shows that love is not total. Otherwise, total love has that quality of commitment on its own accord. It has not to be brought to it, it is its intrinsic quality.

And when you are in love it comes naturally to you, not that you plan. This feeling comes naturally and sometimes in words too: "I will love you forever." This is THIS moment's depth. It doesn't say anything about tomorrow, remember. It is not a promise. It is just that the depth and the totality of love is such that it comes automatically to you to say, "I will love you forever and ever. Even death will not be able to part us." This is the feeling of total love.

And let me repeat again - that does not mean that tomorrow you will be together. Who knows? That is not the point at all. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Tomorrow never enters into the mind which is in love. Tomorrow is not conceived at all, future disappears, this moment becomes eternity. This is commitment.

And when tomorrow... it is possible you may not be together, but you are not betraying. You are not deceiving, You are not cheating. You will feel sad about it, you will feel sorry about it, but you have to depart. And I'm not saying that it has to happen; it may not happen. It depends on a thousand and one things.

Life does not depend only on your love. If it were to depend only on your love then you would live for ever and ever. But life depends on a thousand and one things. Love has the feeling that "We will live together forever", but love is not the whole of life. When it is there it is so intense, one is drunk with it. But then there are a thousand and one things, sometimes small things.

You may fall in love with a man, and in that moment you are ready to go to hell with him, and you can say so, and you are not cheating. You are utterly true and honest and you say, "If I have to go to hell with you I will go!" - and I say again, you are true, you are not saying anything false. But tomorrow, living with that man, small things - a dirty bathroom may disturb your affair. Hell is too far away, there is no need to go that far - a dirty bathroom! Or just a small habit: the man snores in the night and drives you crazy! And you were ready to go to hell, and that was true. It was authentic in that moment, it was not false, you had no other idea - but the man snores in the night; or his perspiration smells like hell, or he has bad breath and when he kisses you, you feel you are tortured. Just small things, very small things; one never thinks of them when one is in love. Who bothers about a bathroom, and who thinks about snoring? But when you live together with a person, a thousand and one things are involved, and any small thing can become a rock and can destroy the flower of love.

So I'm not saying that the commitment has any promise in it. I'm simply saying that the moment of love is a moment of commitment. You are utterly in it, it is so decisive. And naturally, out of this moment will come the next, so there is every possibility that you may be together. Out of today tomorrow will be born. It will not be coming from the blue, it will grow out of today. If today has been of great love, tomorrow will also carry the same love. It will be a continuity. So there is every possibility that you may love, but it is always a perhaps. And love understands that.

And if one day you leave your woman or your woman leaves you, you will not start shouting at her, "What do you mean now? You had told me one day that 'I will live always and always with you.' Now what? Why are you going?" If you loved, if you had known love, you will understand. Love has that quality of commitment.

Love is a mystery. When it is there, everything looks heavenly. When it is gone, everything looks simply stale, meaningless. You could not have lived without this woman, and now you cannot live with this woman. And both are authentic states.

You ask, "YOU REALLY CONFUSED ME WHEN YOU TALKED ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND LIKING. YOU SAID LOVE IS COMMITTED, BUT I THOUGHT COMMITMENTS WERE ANOTHER KIND OF ATTACHMENT."

My meaning of commitment and your meaning of commitment are different. Your meaning is legal, my meaning is not legal. I was simply describing to you the quality of love, what happens when you are encompassed in it: the commitment happens.

Now my sannyasins are in a deep commitment, but that deep commitment does not create love, love creates it. Love is first, commitment follows it. If one day love disappears that commitment will also disappear; it was the shadow. When love is gone, don't talk about commitment; then you are being foolish. It was a shadow of love. It always comes with love. And if love is no more, it goes, it disappears. You don't go on harping on that commitment: "What about the commitment?" There is no more commitment if love is not there. Love is commitment! Love gone, all commitment is gone:

this is my meaning.

And I understand your meaning. Your meaning is: when love is gone, what about the commitment?

That is your meaning. You want the commitment to continue when the love is gone and love is no more. Your meaning of commitment is legal.

Always remember: listening to me, try to follow my meaning. It is difficult, but you have to try. In that very trying you will get out of your meanings. Slowly, slowly a window will open and you will be able to see what I mean. Otherwise, there is going to be confusion: I say something, you hear something else.

Listen to this small anecdote:

A want ad appeared in a newspaper: "WHITE MALE NEEDED TO SERVICE BABOON IN SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT - 1000.

Finally, after weeks, a man answered the ad, but he made three conditions. First there was to be no foreplay, second the kids had to be raised Catholic, third it would take him a while to raise the 1000.

What you understand by a certain thing depends on you. The meaning comes from your past, you supply the meaning.

Remember it - listening to me, avoid supplying meaning to it. Try to listen to my meaning too. Don't only listen to my words but try to find out my meaning too. Then there will be no confusion at all.

Otherwise words are mine, meanings are yours - there is going to be a great confusion in your minds.

Being with me is a love-affair. Being with me is creating a kind of energy which I cannot create alone, by myself, and you cannot create alone, by yourself. That energy happens only when two persons are in deep love; both contribute to it. The atmosphere that is being created here cannot be created without me and cannot be created without you. You have to contribute MUCH to it. The disciple is not just there to be a passive phenomenon, he has to be actively in love. When the Master and the disciple both are active, actively moving towards each other, something of the beyond penetrates into the ordinary world.

A Buddha alone is one thing. A Buddha with his SANGHA, with his commune, is another thing.

Buddha alone is a beautiful flower but almost unrelated to existence, will sooner or later disappear, fade away and will become a myth, and people will wonder whether he ever existed or not.

A Buddha with a commune is a very, very concrete reality - not just a flower, more rooted in the earth. The Master finds roots into the earth through the disciples. The Master belongs to the sky - he can fly, he has wings, but he has no more roots. He can get roots only through you. And when a Master has roots in the earth something of immense value happens to the earth. An atmosphere, a soil is created. A new psychology is created. In that psychology many many flowers will bloom.

Love is a miracle. It is alchemy.

In THE LITTLE PRINCE this small story comes up.

He was with the fox. "I cannot play with you," the fox said, "I am not tamed."

"Oh! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But after some thought he added, "What does that mean, 'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"To establish ties?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me.

To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.... "

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince.

Between the Master and the disciple, the greatest tie of love happens, the greatest taming happens.

If you are not a disciple, I am just one man amongst millions of men. To you, I don't mean much.

Once you are a disciple then I am unique to you, then there is nobody who can be compared to me.

Once you are a disciple you are unique to me, ties are established. I start growing roots through you... the meeting of the sky and the earth. In that meeting all is possible, even the impossible is possible.

Listening to me, don't only listen to my words. Words are needed. They are the container but not the content. And to know the difference between the container and the content is the beginning of wisdom.