Freedom not licentiousness

ONE DAY, TANKA SAID TO THE MONKS WHO WERE WITH HIM, "YOU SHOULD ALL PROTECT YOUR ESSENTIAL THING, WHICH IS NOT MADE OR FORMED BY YOU. SO HOW CAN I TEACH YOU TO DO THIS OR NOT TO DO THIS?

"ONCE, WHEN I SAW SEKITO OSHO, HE TAUGHT ME THAT I SHOULD JUST PROTECT IT BY MYSELF. THIS THING CANNOT BE TALKED ABOUT. YOU ALL HAVE YOUR OWN ZAZEN MAT; OTHER THAN THAT, WHAT ZEN DO YOU TALK ABOUT?

"YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND THIS. THERE IS NOTHING WHICH IS TO BECOME BUDDHA.

DON'T JUST GO ON HEARING THE NAME OF BUDDHA; YOU, YOURSELVES, MUST SEE THAT THE GOOD DEVICES AND FOUR INFINITE VIRTUES ARE NOT FROM OUTSIDE; DON'T CARRY THEM IN YOUR MIND.

"WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO FOLLOW? DON'T USE SUTRAS. LEAVE THE EMPTINESS WITHOUT FALLING INTO IT.

"THE SEEKERS OF THE PRESENT DAY SEARCH FOR THE TAO CHAOTICALLY. HERE IN THIS PLACE, THERE IS NO WAY TO LEARN, NOR ANY DHARMA TO SHOW. EVEN A SINGLE SIP OR A SINGLE BITE HAS ITS OWN TRUTH.

"DON'T ENTERTAIN THOUGHTS AND SUSPICIONS. IN ANY PLACE, THE THING IS PRESENT.

IF YOU RECOGNIZE GAUTAM BUDDHA, AN ORDINARY OLD MAN IS THAT. YOU SHOULD ALL SEE, AND GET IT, BY YOURSELVES. DON'T LET A BLIND MAN LEAD A MASS OF BLIND PEOPLE INTO A FIRE CAVE.

"IF YOU PLAY A DICE GAME IN THE DARK NIGHT, HOW CAN YOU SEE THE NUMBERS ON THE DICE?"

Friends, Before I answer your questions, I have to talk about a letter by Sarjano.

The other night I talked about him. He has written a very beautiful and loving letter, but as you know Sarjano, he is lying. I have no objection to it - if you are lying, lie beautifully and totally. A life without lies will be very boring.

When I told you the remark Sarjano made to Neelam: "If I don't miss him, why does he miss me?" - he was not right, he was not true. He has been missing - he may not be aware of it.

Many of you are not aware of what you are missing. Many of you are not aware of what you have forgotten. But his case can be taken as an example.

He told Neelam, "I am not coming to the discourses because they are too long. I am watching the sky, sitting on my balcony."

Do you think the sky is smaller than my discourses?

And Sarjano was not on the balcony either. He was not even in Poona. I keep myself perfectly aware of where you are. Looking at Sarjano's eyes the other day, I saw that he has been with U.G.

Krishnamurti. And not only has he been with U.G. Krishnamurti, he has been taking other people there too.

There is nothing wrong in it; only one thing has to be remembered: when you are fragile in your growth, people like U.G. Krishnamurti can destroy you. These people have missed their life, and now they are living in frustration. And in frustration people start behaving like women. They start breaking things, throwing things. That's what U.G. Krishnamurti is doing.

But let him do what he wants to do. It is none of the business of anybody else to come in the way when he is throwing a disk. It is his disk. Why should you get unnecessary wounds? They are not your own.

It is a misery to say to you that many of you are carrying wounds of others, miseries of others, tragedies of others.

Have you ever looked at a simple fact - that you don't have to be miserable, it is by choice?

And if you, Sarjano, were going to U.G. Krishnamurti, you should have told Neelam without lying that you "are watching the sky." Now what has happened to the sky? The sky is still there, the balcony is still there, and what are you doing here? And particularly for you, I am going to make the discourse long. I care for my people.

Today he has written a letter in which he feels afraid that "perhaps the ghost of Rajneeshpuram will take possession of this commune also." Sarjano, it is not you speaking, it is U.G. Krishnamurti. He has never lived in a commune.

A commune gives certain responsibilities and certain freedoms. A commune is not necessarily destructive of the individual. In fact, that is the very purpose of the commune: to preserve the individual, his integrity.

A commune is not an organization, but when thousands of people are involved, somebody has to cook, and somebody has to watch on the door, and somebody has to do small things. There are people who start thinking that even doing these things is destroying their freedom. This is sheer nonsense.

A certain responsibility is not against freedom; in fact, freedom can only exist with responsible people. Somebody has to take care of the gardens, otherwise there will be no flowers.

Sarjano's trouble may be the trouble of a few other sannyasins. It has to be made clear that a commune is not dictatorial, but it is not democratic either. It gives respect to the individual. With the respect it gives the responsibility also, that you have to be aware not to trespass on anybody, and that you have to contribute to the commune.

If you are taking from the well of the commune, you have to contribute something - whatever you can do.

When you are working with friends there should be no discussion about anything, only dialogues.

There should be no need to impose anything on anybody. When intelligent people are there, they can see the reason themselves. They are not to be forced.

But there are a few people who think licentiousness is freedom. Sarjano, that is your attitude.

Licentiousness is not freedom.

We are sitting here - nobody is forcing you to be silent. It is according to your intelligence that you are silent, and this gives your individuality a tremendous grace.

One of my attorneys in America was puzzled. He was not a sannyasin, and he was employed just because he was an authority of law, a dean of the faculty of law in a California university. He must have seen students his whole life, but he had never seen a master.

So he took me aside one day, and asked, "I am puzzled. Even when the magistrate comes in, it has to be announced that 'the magistrate is coming, you all stand up.' But when you come, nobody announces it. Your people are there - we can understand why they stand up. But my puzzle is, that I myself feel like standing. And when I look at the people standing, only fifty percent are sannyasins, fifty percent are other people."

As sannyasins started standing, others were too, unknowingly, without any awareness - they found themselves also standing. They may not have been in favor of me - their agreement or disagreement is not the question.

Your silence is not democratic - you have not been asked to vote to be silent. It is not dictatorial - you have not been told that you have to be silent. This is the beauty and dignity of your silence: it is arising out of you. It is not imposed from outside; it is coming from within. And when something comes from within, it has a beauty and a grace, and a tremendous aliveness. This is not the silence of a graveyard; this is the silence of a garden. It is not dead; it is throbbing with life.

Sarjano, Zen teaches revolution in a graceful way. In the name of revolution much ugliness has happened in the world. Zen wants you to understand the implications of the inner revolution, and you have to go on your own way. Zen simply makes it clear that there is nothing to be found, that there is no truth which is hidden - it is only your eyes which are closed.

Do you see the shift? All other mystery schools in the world have been teaching that the truth is hidden. If it is only a way of saying it, it can be forgiven. But the reality is, truth is not hidden. Truth is all over the place, only our eyes are closed.

And when you are going through an operation, you have to behave. Don't think that asking a certain behavior of you is necessarily slavery. Freedom can exist only according to a certain behavior pattern which you have accepted consciously, knowing all its implications.

When "yes" comes from your own being, then only is it true. If it comes out of fear, it is untrue. If it comes out of greed, it is not true. When it comes only out of understanding, without fear, without greed, without punishment, then you act according to your inner truth.

It is a miracle that thousands of people can live here without any conflict, without any fight, without any violence. The whole world can live with such peace and silence if freedom is not misunderstood as licentiousness.

Freedom is a greater responsibility, it gives you dignity and pride. It makes you aware that you are living in a meaningful way. There is no other meaning to be found.

When I said to you yesterday there is no meaning in life, there is no ultimate goal, you can misunderstand me. What I was really saying is that there is no meaning in life; hence you are free to create it. There is no goal in life, no fixed fatality; then your hands are free to paint, to sculpt, to love, to live. But now you have to depend only on one thing, and that is your own inner light.

Zen is the awakening of the inner light. And in that awakening, all moralities follow on their own accord.

People have asked me, "Zen looks beautiful, but where is the morality?" Because all the religions of the world teach you morality, they have created an idea that unless a morality is taught, forced, disciplined, you are going to be immoral. Your immorality is taken for granted.

The truth is different. If you simply awaken into your consciousness and act according to that awareness, your life is going to be moral, virtuous. Without being dragged by religions, forced by people, without creating any guilt, Zen gives you a tremendous freedom. But the freedom is as great as is your responsibility - if you drop responsibility you also drop your freedom.

Most of the people in the world have lived in slavery because of a simple psychological fact: slavery is cozy, freedom is an open sky. Slavery is the security of the cage. The bird in the cage need not worry about food, need not worry about enemies, need not worry about changes of seasons, but he has sold his freedom for all this security.

Zen's effort is to take you out of your cages. Those cages have beautiful names: Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. The effort of Zen is - it does not matter what kind and what shape of cage you are living in, but don't live in a cage. And the whole universe is available to you. It has not to be searched for, it is already there throbbing in your heart. Just be more conscious of your interiority, and you will start growing up.

Very few people grow up, most people only grow old. Growing up makes one a buddha. And the lowest has the potential to become the buddha. But never become a Buddhist - that is a cage.

Never belong to any organization. Never belong to any system of belief or morality. Just belong only to your own freedom, and freedom certainly brings immense responsibility. For everything you do you are responsible. There is nobody else to take the responsibility. That's why people have agreed to believe in all kinds of lies.

God is a lie, but it helps people to make him responsible. He made the world - if he has made us the way we are, he is responsible. They have believed in prophets, in messiahs, just to give them their responsibility. And all your messiahs, your Christs, your Krishnas, ask you only one thing: "Believe in me and I will take care of your spiritual life."

There are millions of Christians, and they believe in Jesus and they believe in God, but their spirituality has not blossomed. Nor has it blossomed in other religions. Something is fundamentally wrong. Zen makes it a point to make you aware of that wrong. Giving up responsibility felt good - the burden is gone. But with the responsibility gone, your freedom has also disappeared. And a man who doesn't know freedom, knows nothing of life, knows nothing of love, knows nothing of creativity, knows nothing of this immense universe.

When I say there is no meaning, I mean you have to create meaning. It is not there ready-made, on sale. When I say there is no goal, I simply mean you have to learn to live without goals. A man lives only to the point, to the depth... who has no goals, no sources, who is alone in this vast universe, without any guidance.

All scriptures are unholy, because they all pretend to be your guidance, your guides. But you don't need guides. You need awareness, and every guide will want you to be blind. It is easier for the guide if people are blind, because they don't ask questions, they don't create doubt. They are ready to be slaves if security is given to them, and that's what all religions are giving you: security in afterlife, security in heaven.

Just the other day I was watching a film about Jesus, and I love the man. Unless I love anybody, I don't criticize him, I don't feel he is worth criticizing. Watching the film, there were a few points....

In one part, a rich man, a young man who had just inherited almost an empire, came to Jesus and asked him, "I would love to follow you, but what are the conditions?"

Jesus said to him, "The first thing to do is, go and distribute all that you possess to the poor."

The man said, "All?"

Jesus said, "Yes. Give everything and come to me."

The man was standing, he hesitated, and a giggle went through the crowd. And as the rich man disappeared into the crowd to hide his face, Jesus made his famous statement: "A camel may pass through the eye of the needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of God."

In this way, poverty has been praised. And when you praise poverty you destroy the art of creating wealth, the art of creating more comforts, and you console the poor in his misery and in his poverty.

And the man, the young man who has come, you ask too much of him too early. A master should not be in a hurry. He has just inherited an empire, and you ask him to distribute all...!

And he asked, "All? Do you mean all?"

If Jesus had said to him, "Distribute a part of it," and as he would have come closer, "Distribute a little more," as he would have become more intimate and more understanding, his whole empire would have been distributed. It is Jesus who is preventing him. He has come and he is ready, but asking too much when the time is not ripe shows a hurriedness.

I would not have asked him for anything. If he had come, he would have been welcome, and by and by, you would have helped him to disperse his empire.

In fact, before a person becomes alert and aware, you should not ask such impossible things. But all the religions have been asking impossible, unnatural things. That man must have gone with a guilt, with a feeling of inferiority that he did not have the guts. Now you have created a wound in him.

Who is going to heal him?

People have looked at Jesus as if he is a healer. I say unto you, he has created more wounds in humanity than any other man. But those wounds are very psychological; they are not on your body, they are on your mind. And all the religions have done that.

All the religions have condemned women because they have the body of a woman. Nobody has bothered that without a woman's body there would be no possibility of procreation. Even the so- called God had to use a woman. Strange! Why did he have to make poor Mary pregnant? And both were condemned: the husband, the wife. The name of Jesus' father is not mentioned much at all. But as I was watching the whole story, he seems to have been far more human, far more understanding than even your God. God at least could have managed nine months; there was no need to create this scandal of Jesus not being the son of his own father. The same God gives the commandment: "You should not commit adultery" - and he himself commits it. Jesus is the proof of God's adultery.

But these fictions are consoling - a God who comes when it is needed. Strange... that he was needed in Judea, in Israel, and he was not needed anywhere else. And Judea is a small place... nothing beautiful about it. God chooses a poor carpenter's wife - and he is thought to be omnipotent... he knows all. So he must have known that this boy was going to be crucified at the age of thirty-three.

Knowing all this, still all the religions have been condemning women. And all their tirthankaras, and all their avataras, incarnations... all are born of women. And still, the mother of all your godmen is condemned. In the trinity of Christianity there is no place for the woman. In fact, around the world the woman has been treated as if she is just a commodity to be used.

But why have women accepted it? For the same reason you have accepted other kinds of slaveries:

security; the husband will take care. Ancient Indian scriptures say, "When a woman is a child, the father should take care; when a woman is young, the husband should take care; when a woman is old, the son should take care." But because of this security and care, you are destroying the woman's freedom. And the woman has agreed - just as other people have agreed - to all kinds of slavery.

The reason simply is, their consciousness is missing.

The whole effort of Zen is to bring you to your own consciousness, and then there is no need of any scripture, and there is no need of any guide. You have your own light and you can live accordingly, intensely, joyfully, dancingly. But people go on trying to find some guide.

For what has Sarjano been going to U.G. Krishnamurti? Perhaps he may give him the truth.

Nobody can give you the truth.

Truth is already enshrined in you.

You have to discover it.

Question 1:

The first question one of the sannyasins has asked:

Whenever you are reading a book, remember the man who is writing it, because those words are not coming from the sky, they are coming from an individual mind.

Alan Watts was a trained Christian missionary. That training continues to affect his effort to understand Zen. And finally, when he came a little closer to Zen, the Christian church expelled him. That brought a crisis in that man's life. He was not yet a man of Zen, and he had lost his credibility as a Christian. Under this stress he started drinking wine, became an alcoholic and died because of alcoholism. If you know this man you will understand why he is saying what he is saying.

His statement that "One must not forget the social context of Zen," is simply saying something about himself - that if he had not forgotten the social context and remained a docile Christian, things would have been better. His interest in Zen, rather than bringing him freedom, brought him catastrophe.

But Zen is not responsible for it; he could not go the whole way.

He tried somehow to make a Christian context for Zen. Neither did Christians like it, nor the men of Zen. They don't need any Christian context, they don't need any social context. It is an individual rebellion. Whether you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian does not matter. Whatever load you are carrying, drop it. Whatever the name of the load, just drop it.

Zen is a deprogramming.

You are all programmed - as a Christian, as a Catholic, as a Hindu, as a Mohammedan... everybody is programmed. Zen is a deprogramming. So it does not matter what kind of program you bring; what kind of cage you have lived in does not matter. The cage has to be broken and the bird has to be released. There is no social context of Zen. Zen is the most intimate and the most individualistic rebellion against the collective mass and its pressure.

Alan Watts is not right. His understanding of Zen is absolutely intellectual. He says, "It is primarily a way of liberation for those who have mastered the discipline of social convention." All nonsense. It has nothing to do with social convention. There is no need to master something which you have to drop finally. There is no point in wasting time. In other words, he is saying, "First, get into a cage, become a slave of a certain conventionality, a certain religion, a certain belief system, and then try to be free of it."

He is simply showing his mind, unconsciously. He was encaged, and for years trained as a Christian priest. You can expel a Christian, but it is very difficult for the Christian to expel the Christianity that has gone deep into his bones, into his blood. He could not expel it, hence his advice for others who may follow: "It is primarily a way of liberation for those who have mastered the discipline of social convention, of the conditioning of the individual by the group." Absolutely no.

It does not matter whether you are conditioned this way or that way. Conditioned fifty percent, sixty percent, or one hundred percent - it does not matter. From any point freedom is available. And you will have to drop it, so the less you are conditioned the better, because you will be dropping a small load. It is better if your cage is very small. But if you have a palace and an empire, then it is very difficult to drop it.

When Jesus asked the fishermen to drop their jobs and "come follow me," they really dropped. There was nothing much to be dropped - just a fisherman's net, a rotten net. A good bargain: dropping this net and following this man, you will enter into the kingdom of God. But when he asked the rich young man to drop everything and "come and follow me," the rich man hesitated and disappeared into the crowd. The less you have, as far as conditioning is concerned, the easier it is to drop it.

And he is asking that first you should be conditioned by the group, and master the discipline of social convention. Strange... Do you have to become first a soldier just to get retired from the army? If you don't want to fight, you don't have to become a soldier. Why not be fresh? But he was not fresh.

He was contaminated by Christianity, and he hopes - according to his programming - that everybody first should be conditioned, chained, handcuffed, put into a jail, so that he can enjoy freedom one day. A strange way of experiencing freedom!

When you are free there is no need of being conditioned by any group, by any belief. There is no need. As you are, you are already too conditioned. Society does not allow their children to grow like the lilies in the field, pure, uncontaminated. They pollute them with all their conditionings, centuries old. The older the conditioning, the more precious it is thought to be.

And contradictorily... the second statement he makes: "Zen is a medicine for the ill effects of this conditioning."

Zen is not a medicine. Zen is the explosion of health. Medicine is needed only by sick people, but health is needed by everyone - more health, a more juicy life. Zen is not a medicine, Zen is the inner explosion of your wholeness, your health, your ultimate immortality.

The questioner has said, "Beloved Master, first, I don't see any need to master social conventions to be ready for the way of Zen" - you are right. "On the contrary, trying to master dead, old rules shows stupidity" - you are again right. "Why not drop them immediately?" That's what Zen is asking you: "Why not drop it immediately? Why go part by part?"

I have told you a story in Ramakrishna's life....

A man had gathered ten thousand golden rupees. And at that time, the rupee was really gold; the word 'rupee' simply means gold. And this was his desire - that one day when they were ten thousand, he would offer them to Ramakrishna, of course, to gain virtue in the other life. When small donations are given and people are getting great virtues... for ten thousand gold pieces you can purchase even God's own house!

He went, dropped his bags of golden coins, and told Ramakrishna, "I want to offer them to you.

Please accept them."

Ramakrishna was a strange man. Ordinarily, a traditional sannyasin would not have accepted.

He would have said, "I have renounced the world, I cannot accept." But Ramakrishna was not a conventional type. He said, "Okay, I accept. Now do me a favor."

The man said, "I am at your feet. Whatever you want."

"Take all these coins to the Ganges" - which was just behind the temple where Ramakrishna lived - "and drop all the coins into the Ganges."

The man could not believe it. "What kind of... ten thousand gold pieces?" But now he cannot say that this is not right, he has already lost possession of them. Now they belong to Ramakrishna, and Ramakrishna is saying, "Go and drop them. Just do me a favor."

Hesitantly, reluctantly, the man went. Hours passed. Ramakrishna said, "What happened to that man? He should have come back within five minutes."

So Ramakrishna sent a sannyasin to look for him....

The man had gathered a big crowd. He was first checking each golden coin on a stone, and then he would throw them one by one. And people were jumping into the Ganges and collecting, and it had become a great show, and the man was enjoying.

When informed, Ramakrishna said, "That man is an idiot. Just tell him: when you are collecting something you can count them, but when you are throwing, what is the point of wasting time? Just drop the whole load."

Ramakrishna was, in a simple way, indicating that when you are dropping your conditioning, your mental conceptions, your beliefs, don't drop by and by. They are all interconnected; drop them all. If you cannot drop them all in a single moment, you will not be able to drop them at all. Either now, or never.

Secondly, the questioner has asked, "Do you see Zen as a medicine for the ill effect of conditioning?"

I don't see Zen as a medicine, because a medicine sooner or later becomes useless. When your cold is over, you don't go carrying on with the Greek aspirin!

Mukta keeps them for everybody; she has taken the responsibility. By being Greek she has to carry Greek aspirins. And everybody knows, so whenever somebody needs one, they look for Mukta.

If Zen is a medicine, when you are cured, what will you do with Zen? You will have to throw it away, or give it to the Lions Club. But Zen cannot be thrown away, nor can it be given to the Lions Club. In the first place, there is not a single lion.

Zen is your very nature; there is no way of throwing it away. All that you can do with Zen is two things: you can remember, or you can forget. This is the only possibility. If you forget your nature, your buddhahood... this is the only sin in the world of Zen: forgetfulness.

Gautam Buddha's last words on the earth have to be remembered: sammasati. Sammasati means right remembrance. His whole life is condensed into a single word, remembrance, as if on dying, he is condensing all his teachings, all his scriptures into a single word. Nobody has uttered a more significant word when dying. His last message, his whole message: sammasati, remember. And when you remember, there is no way to throw your consciousness away.

Zen is not a meditation. Zen is exactly sammasati - remembrance of your ultimateness, remembrance of your immortality, remembrance of your divineness, of your sacredness.

Remembering it, and rejoicing it, and dancing out of joy that you are rooted, so deeply rooted in existence that there is no way for you to be worried, to be concerned.

Existence is within you and without you - it is one whole.

Question 2:

The second question:

It is just unfortunate that all the religions found a simple way of enslaving people, and that was celibacy. Either you become a celibate and go into the monastery or if you don't become celibate, guilt is created in you. You know that you are not doing what is expected of you. And it is not much different inside the monastery either; they are suffering from the same trouble.

Sexuality is a natural phenomenon. If religions had accepted sexuality as a natural phenomenon as you accept breathing, the world would have been totally different; the woman would have been respected just as the man is. Because of this question of celibacy, all the religions have created a thick background against women. First, the celibate has to be afraid of the woman. That does not change his sexuality, he simply becomes homosexual.

Just now, one of the bishops of England who is third in the hierarchy... There is a possibility he may become the archbishop soon; there is only one man in between him and the archbishop. He has come with a declaration that celibacy only means that you should not make love to women, it does not include homosexuality. A great idea. But it is not that he is the pioneer founder of a new truth - homosexuality was born in the monasteries of all the religions. It was bound to happen if you keep men and women apart. Then women become lesbians, and men become homosexuals.

Now even a few countries allow homosexual marriages, lesbian marriages. They think it is a very progressive step. There are thousands of lesbian couples married by the church, but only in America. This year there is going to be a new kind of man born in America: through artificial insemination, because those women couples, howsoever they love each other, howsoever they eat each other, they cannot produce a child. But hospitals are available - and a man is nothing but an injection...!

There are idiots, also, who are trying to find some way to have a child born through a man. Because if this goes on, and lesbian couples go on and they can have children, what about homosexuals?

Those poor fellows...! Some artificial womb has to be invented - it is already invented - then homosexuals can also have children. Then the heterosexuals will look very traditional, out of date.

Progressive people...!

All this nonsense happened because of a single ill idea, sick idea: celibacy. So religions became afraid of women, and the monks who followed, they became afraid. Even a man of the courage of Gautam Buddha, for twenty years continuously, did not allow any woman to be initiated. And when finally he allowed - he had to allow, because the woman who came to ask him to be initiated was no ordinary woman.

Gautam Buddha's mother died immediately after giving birth to him. This woman was Gautam Buddha's mother's younger sister. She did not get married, just to be able to take care of this small child. Now that woman was standing in front of him, asking him to be initiated. He had rejected her for twenty years continuously. That day he hesitated. This woman had sacrificed her whole life...

without her he would not have been alive. She was more than a mother to him and he could not refuse.

So under such compulsion, he initiated the first woman, but with a very sad announcement. He said to the ten thousand monks who always moved with him, "My religion was going to last five thousand years. Now that I have started initiating women, it will last only five hundred years."

Such fear - that the woman is going to destroy, that the women and the men together are going to forget all about meditation. Once in a while... and it is very natural....

Meditation is not natural. Meditation is something which only a very evolved consciousness can manage. But reproduction, all kinds of animals are doing perfectly well without any guidance. Only man needs guidance. Now there are great discussions all over the world about how to teach children sex. Strange, no bird teaches sex, no animals have any classes, guidelines.

I have heard about a small boy who found a book, HOW TO MAKE LOVE. He was standing on the head of a small girl and reading the instructions, because it said, "You should be on top of the girl" - so he stood on the head of the girl. And he said, "Now it does not say anything, and I don't enjoy it very much."

And the girl said, "Neither do I enjoy it. Get down, I'm getting a headache!"

Only man needs to be taught sex. This is what religions have done - they have made sex something sinister. They have created a China Wall against knowing it. And even a man like Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or other Zen masters remained content with the cultural programming. The cultural programming was: celibacy is a must.

Nobody is celibate; nobody has ever been. Because to be celibate you need to change your whole biology, your whole physiology. How can you change? You don't even know that sex does not exist in your genitals, it exists in your head. The triggering point is in your brain. Unless that point is operated on, you cannot be celibate. However long you stand on your head, that is not going to change. It simply makes it stronger. So the fear that the woman may attract people and may distract them from their meditation, from their discipline, condemned the woman.

And why was she not accepted? Because she could not manage. Her sexuality is more open than man's sexuality. Every month she has to go through a certain period, the menstrual period. Now she cannot hide it. That shows that she cannot be celibate.

Only recently, scientists have come to the conclusion that just as women have their monthly periods, men also have them. If you want to check it, you should make a diary, and just go on writing.

Whenever you feel sexual, make a note, a dot. And you will be surprised that there are a few days in every month when you are more sexual than other days. And they are the same days every month - that is your menstrual period. But your menstrual period is not so visible, it is just cerebral; the mind gives more signals.

If you take note you can find it yourself. There are a few days you are not interested in sex at all, in fact, you are disgusted with it. And if every man and woman keeps a diary, it will be very helpful.

Don't approach a woman on certain days. Don't approach your husband on certain days - those days he is disgusted. Those days you can send him free to any holiday spot... don't be worried!

Those days he is not going to be interested in any woman. In fact, these disgusting days have created all your religions. All your religious philosophers must have had more menstrual periods in a month than ordinary, normal people have. They seem to be so much concerned with sex. Ordinary people are not so much concerned.

And as one grows up, my own understanding is, just as at the age of fourteen one becomes interested in sex, if he is allowed - without guilt, without inhibition - to live his sex intensely, he will be spent out by the age of forty-two. But it does not happen. People are not spent out even in their grave. They are still thinking about women.

Do you think about what people do in the graves? If you are compassionate, make holes in graves and always put a PLAYBOY magazine, or a PLAYGIRL magazine, and the dead will be so happy.

That is what they are doing all the time.

It has been counted that in every three minutes a man thinks once about sex. In every three minutes?

You can make a diary... and you may be surprised that you are not the average. You may think four times, five times - but this is the average. Every woman thinks one time in seven minutes. That disparity creates all the trouble. When you are thinking of sex, she is not thinking of sex.

In an intelligent society people simply should make a mark on the board - "I am ready." If the other is ready, he will come. If he is not ready, he makes a cross - "This is not the right time for me." There is no need for any fight, there is no need for pretending that you have a headache, that you are too tired, that the office is too much. Just be plain - that there are moments you are interested, and there are moments you are not interested. Nothing can be done about it; there is no way to change this process.

But these people found a clue. In condemning sex you can make the whole of humanity enslaved.

Everybody becomes a sinner, everybody becomes guilty. Everybody thinks that he is not the right person. And according to me, I have not come across any wrong person; everybody is right. Maybe in that moment that is his right to be miserable, to throw things, to shout. And you know... every day in gibberish... From where does that gibberish come? Do you think it comes from outside? Suddenly you burst, you allow it. It has been roaming inside you; you allow it freedom. Just remember one thing: throw out your gibberish and keep your hands up so nobody else's gibberish falls on you.

The woman has not been accepted because she cannot pretend to be celibate. Unless sex is accepted as natural, women will never be liberated. Liberation of womankind is the acceptance of sex as a natural phenomenon. Man is not superior in any way, nor is the woman inferior; both are natural beings. Both are different, and they should be different. They should assert their own individuality. They should not imitate man. But you see, the man allows himself to imitate women, but he does not allow women to imitate him.

Would you like your wife to grow a beard? a mustache? Just think... your wife with a mustache, My God...! Without a mustache she is so beautiful. With a mustache, you will not be able to stand her anymore.

But why are you shaving your mustache? You are imitating women. A man without a mustache is just like a man without a nose. I cannot conceive how you go on imitating.

Now women are trying to imitate. They dress in the same clothes as men - in blue jeans - and they smoke the cigarette in the same way, and make spirals of smoke. And they think this is liberation!

This is not liberation; this is stupidity.

The right point has not been discussed by the intelligentsia, whether they are men or women. The right thing to discuss is: treat sex as a natural phenomenon; accept it. Don't make much fuss about celibacy. All celibacy is fraud. And don't make celibacy a stepping-stone to meditation; it is not.

In fact, love can be a stepping-stone to meditation. And that is where I differ from the whole human past.

I want love and meditation to merge.

I want men and women both to be enlightened, to be awakened. There is no difference in the consciousness. All the differences are in the skin, in the bones, not in your awareness. There is no feminine awareness, and there is no masculine awareness. And it is awareness that makes a man or a woman enlightened.

I am opening the doors which have been closed for centuries.

The sutra:

ONE DAY, TANKA SAID TO THE MONKS WHO WERE WITH HIM, "YOU SHOULD ALL PROTECT YOUR ESSENTIAL THING, WHICH IS NOT MADE OR FORMED BY YOU. SO HOW CAN I TEACH YOU TO DO THIS OR NOT TO DO THIS?"

Zen takes tremendous leaps into the unknown. Now this statement means: "How can anybody decide what is right and what is wrong? How can anybody decide what is moral and what is immoral?"

It is all social convenience.

It is moral for everybody in the world to eat in the night - it is immoral for the Jainas. It is all social convenience.

What Tanka is saying is, "I would not say anything non-essential, and all that is made by you or decided by you is non-essential. Only one thing in you is essential which is not made by you or formed by you - that is your very being. You should all protect your essential being." Protect from whom? - from all those who are forcing non-essential things on you. "You are a Christian, you are a Hindu, you have to do this, you have to do that."

Protect your essential being. And the definition of the essential being is: that part of you which is not made by you. Just go inside and look at the center of your being from where radiates all your life. It is not made by you, and it is not made by anyone else. It exists in its own right. This essence is Zen. Everything else is commentary.

He must have been asked about what is real, what is unreal, what is right, what is wrong. And he must have been answering, "How can I teach you to do this or not to do this? Only remember one thing: the essential being is not manufactured by anyone. And if you can remember it, and you can live in the light of it, then whatever you do is right. There is no need to decide what is right and what is wrong. No morality is needed at all."

Zen is absolutely amoral. It leaves you absolutely free to live according to your own awareness.

Whatever your insight feels is right, do it - even if the whole world says it is wrong, it is not wrong.

Live according to your own light, not according to the lights of others.

There are many who would like to sell you a lamp. They are all around. All kinds of lamps are being sold, but nobody bothers that you are blind, the lamp is not of much use. The only real thing is to bring your light from its dormancy into activity. Only that light will decide your life, your actions.

And once you have found that light you are not worried about anything. You don't feel guilty about anything. You don't think about choosing to do this, or not to do this; you simply do whatever seems right. The right response comes out of a right awareness; hence Zen has no morality, but it has a far higher sense of consciousness. It does not need morality.

A blind man needs a staff to find his way. But if your eyes are right, you don't need a staff, it will be an unnecessary burden.

Zen gives you eyes and takes away all staffs. It gives you your inner awakening and takes away all moral concepts. Hence, I call it the greatest rebellion in the world. It makes you for the first time free from the society, from the collective, from the masses, from the religions; you simply are.

And existence looks far more green when your eyes are open; looks more light, looks more miraculous, more majestic, when your inner light starts spreading around the cosmos.

"ONCE, WHEN I SAW SEKITO OSHO, HE TAUGHT ME THAT I SHOULD JUST PROTECT IT BY MYSELF."

Tanka is remembering the moment when Sekito threw him from the window of a two-story house, and jumped upon him. He had many many fractures, but Tanka was not concerned. He was sitting on his chest and asking, "Have you got it?" And it seems Tanka got it, because since then he never asked any question. Since then he himself started a small monastery, teaching the same as Sekito.

He says, "ONCE, WHEN I SAW SEKITO OSHO, HE TAUGHT ME THAT I SHOULD JUST PROTECT IT BY MYSELF." There is no need for anybody to protect it, there is no need for anybody to guide it, to indicate it. You are enough unto yourself.

Let this be the declaration of the Zen Manifesto:

You are enough unto yourself.

You are the whole universe.

"THIS THING CANNOT BE TALKED ABOUT. YOU ALL HAVE YOUR ZAZEN MAT; OTHER THAN THAT, WHAT ZEN DO YOU TALK ABOUT?"

The Zazen mat is the mat given to every Zen disciple to sit upon. And Zazen simply means sitting and doing nothing. Just sitting and doing nothing, slowly slowly, the traffic in the mind disappears.

Slowly slowly, all turmoil within you settles down. At that moment the disciple gives the mat back to the master, bows down. Nothing is said.

When you go to a Zen master, he simply gives you a mat to sit on, and - "Don't bother me because there is nothing to say. Just sitting silently you will find it. And when you have found, please don't forget to return the mat, because other disciples will be coming."

Once it happened when Rinzai became enlightened.... And rather than returning the mat, he folded it and started to sneak out of the door. The master said, "Hey! Rinzai! Bring that mat back. It does not look right for an enlightened man to steal a mat from a poor master."

Rinzai said, "I thought now that I have become enlightened, somebody will come to me and I would have to supply a mat. So to begin with... but you are such a particular guy, you will not leave me even the mat..."

Rinzai had to give the mat back and touch the feet of the master. And then the master gave him many mats.

He said, "Don't be worried, but don't steal. That does not look right. When you have become a buddha then stealing is not right. Before you have become a buddha you can do anything."

So I want you to be aware. Whatever you want to do, do it quickly, because soon you will become buddhas. And then don't harass me - "I forgot to do this, now what to do?" I don't take any responsibility.

I don't even have mats. You have to bring your own mat. So even if you take it away, there is no problem.

"THIS THING CANNOT BE TALKED ABOUT. YOU ALL HAVE YOUR OWN ZAZEN MAT; OTHER THAN THAT, WHAT ZEN DO YOU TALK ABOUT?"

Zazen is Zen. Sitting silently, doing nothing, an explosion comes to you. Your own nature blossoms, your buddhahood comes to its ultimate peak.

"YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND THIS. THERE IS NOTHING WHICH IS TO BECOME BUDDHA.

DON'T JUST GO ON HEARING THE NAME OF BUDDHA; YOU, YOURSELVES, MUST SEE THAT THE GOOD DEVICES AND FOUR INFINITE VIRTUES ARE NOT FROM OUTSIDE; DON'T CARRY THEM IN YOUR MIND.

"WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO FOLLOW? DON'T USE SUTRAS. LEAVE THE EMPTINESS WITHOUT FALLING INTO IT.

"THE SEEKERS OF THE PRESENT DAY SEARCH FOR THE TAO CHAOTICALLY. HERE IN THIS PLACE, THERE IS NO WAY TO LEARN, NOR ANY DHARMA TO SHOW."

Tanka is one of the most significant Zen masters. He will not bother about any essentials - what to say about the non-essentials. No sutras, no philosophies, just the Zazen mat. In that Zazen mat everything is contained. Just sit down and look inside. You don't have to follow anybody, you don't have to recite any sutra. You don't even have to remember anything outside you. Just be a pillar of remembrance: sammasati.

You are not going to become buddhas; you are buddhas, you simply don't accept it... once in a while you accept.

People write me letters, "When in front of you, it seems to be that really I am a buddha. But when I go out and see the rickshaw wallahs, I forget all about the buddha, and I start haggling about the price."

"In your presence," people have been writing to me, "we feel perfect." You are perfect. Just in my presence you become aware of it. Because I go on beating on your head that you are a buddha, finally, just being tired, you accept - "Okay, I am a buddha." But outside the gate you think it is still time, you can go to a movie.

Buddhas don't go to a movie.

It happened once....

One friend was driving me in Bombay, and just as a joke he stopped his car and he asked me, "Would you like to come into the bistro?"

I said, "Perfectly right."

He was not really expecting that... he became afraid. He said, "No, no, I was just..."

I said, "No. Just come on behind me." The poor fellow had to come. And when they saw me, many people recognized me. The naked girl who was dancing, touched my feet. I said, "Don't stop the dance."

The manager came with a special seat for me to sit. He said, "What can I do?"

I said, "Why make so much fuss about it? I am just an ordinary buddha. Just bring ice cream."

My friend was perspiring in the air-conditioned place. When we went out, he said, "I am never going to drive you anywhere."

I said, "I did not start the joke. You asked me, and when I do anything I do it completely."

Later on he said to me that everybody condemned him for taking me into such places. I said, "Are there more such places? Once in a while take me to such places, because buddhas have not been visiting... so it has become conventional. We have to drop the convention."

My buddhas are going to visit bistros, and discos, and they are going to do every kind of thing. And you need not be worried. That is your worry: that you cannot do both things, you cannot dance in a disco and be a buddha.

I tell you, whether you dance or not, you are a buddha. You can dance joyfully in a disco, and still you don't lose your buddhahood. You cannot lose it; there is no way of losing it.

Tanka is right. To a man of awareness the whole existence is dharma, the whole existence - "EVEN A SINGLE SIP OR A SINGLE BITE HAS ITS OWN TRUTH."

The man who has come home is not to be a beggar. This has been the past. I want to change it completely.

Zen has taken a few steps, but hesitantly. I tell you, whether you want it or not, you are a buddha, you are not going to become a buddha. It is your very essentiality. And once this is recognized, the whole life becomes sacred, nothing is denied. This is the new man I want to introduce into the world - the new buddha. This manifesto is for the new buddhas.

Uko wrote a small haiku, but let it sink deep in you.

SILENCING THE GLITTER

OF THE STARS -

NIGHT RAIN.

He must have been sitting in his small hut looking at the night stars glittering, and then suddenly...

the night rain silencing all the glitter of the stars. Why has he written this?

In this is contained the whole manifesto.

The stars are there, they are shining; the rain comes, the clouds come, and the stars disappear, but they are still there. The clouds or the rain cannot take them away.

Your buddhahood is just your inner glitter, your inner luminosity. Rain comes, and clouds come, but they all pass away. Your interiority remains untouched. Your glitter is not the glitter of the stars that can be taken away, or that can be erased even for a moment. Your glitter and your silence is so deeply rooted in you that there is no way to avoid it.

You have been avoiding. Everybody has been trying to avoid the buddha, but you will not succeed, I promise you. Sooner or later you will get tired of hiding, of running away from yourself. Sooner or later you will sit down - a Zazen mat or no mat - silently, peacefully, and suddenly the explosion.

And this is what you have been looking for all your many lives.

Question 3:

Maneesha's question:

Maneesha, there is no truth in it. Alan Watts is one of the important people who have introduced Zen to the West. But they carried it intellectually, they themselves were not men of Zen.

It is absurd. Zen is a revolt against Confucianism. There is no need to think of it in the context of Confucianism.

Confucianism is an intellectual approach towards the world, a logical approach. Confucius is the same to the East as Aristotle is to the West, but Zen is against logic. Zen contains contradictions.

Zen has to be experienced on its own. No context is needed.

CONVERSELY, ALAN WATTS SAYS AGAIN, "ZEN MIGHT BE VERY DANGEROUS MEDICINE IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT WHERE CONVENTION IS WEAK, OR, AT THE OTHER EXTREME, WHERE THERE IS A SPIRIT OF OPEN REVOLT AGAINST CONVENTION READY TO EXPLOIT ZEN FOR DESTRUCTIVE PURPOSES."

As I have told you already, Alan Watts remains a Christian. And from the Christian point of view he goes on thinking about Zen: "What will be the consequences of it if the social order is very fragile in some place? Zen can be destructive."

He is afraid. First the social order should be consolidated. Zen is, according to him, for very mature people, otherwise it may lead to licentiousness. But his fear is his own; he himself became a licentious person.

It is not true. If Zen reveals your liberation, you cannot fall into irresponsibility; that is impossible, even if your social order is fragile, not strong enough. He is worried that it may be a "dangerous medicine in a social context where convention is weak." No, it is not a medicine at all. And secondly, where convention is weak, it is easier for Zen to blossom. It is the solid convention which prevents Zen, like a rock.

He is also afraid - "at the other extreme, where there is a spirit of open revolt against convention ready to exploit Zen for destructive purposes."

There is no possibility of exploiting Zen, because Zen is not only revolt, basically it is silence, basically it is stillness. Essentially it is opening of your consciousness. In this opening of your hidden, dormant buddhahood, there is no danger that you will become dangerous to the society, that you may become a curse to the society. It is not possible, simply because Zen stills you, calms you down.

It is a very different revolution. Alan Watts cannot think about it. He is worried that a communist who is against society may use Zen, but it is not easy to use Zen. The communist, by learning Zen, will become silent; his revolution will become responsible, it will have more dimensions and more integrity, and will add more blissfulness to the society. Zen cannot be exploited in any possible way.

But the fear is that of a Christian. All the religions will be afraid in the same way. But Zen, wherever it has existed, has always brought peace, love, joy. That cannot be said about Christianity, although Jesus talks about love.

I told Anando, who was sitting by my side watching a film on Jesus where he says, "Don't think that I bring peace to the world, I bring the sword." That sword has been used by Christianity. More people have been killed by Christians than by any other religion. And Alan Watts does not seem to be aware of the crimes of Christianity. Zen, in not a single situation, has been a curse to man. It has always been a blessing because it is coming out of your blissfulness, it is coming out of your laughter.

It brings me to Sardar Gurudayal Singh's moment....

At two o'clock on a Sunday morning, on the little Greek island of Crete, the phone rings at the bedside of Doctor Siffolis.

"Ah, Doctor!" croaks the voice of old Mrs. Helluvamess. "I am sick! And I have to go to Bishop Kretin's church service today. Can you give me something for a headache?" Doctor Siffolis clambers out of his bed and walks over to the house nextdoor to give the old lady an aspirin.

"Now, shut up and go to sleep - you old hypochondriac!" shouts Doctor Siffolis, and he goes back to bed.

An hour later, the phone rings again. "Ah! Doctor!" wheezes Mrs. Helluvamess. "Can you give me something for stomachache?"

Siffolis drags himself out of bed and takes the old lady a bottle of prune juice. "Now go to sleep!"

says the doctor - "and leave me alone!"

But half an hour later, there is a pounding on his very helpful. Don't approach from a lady. "Can you give me something for my bladder?"

"Go away - you pest!" shouts Siffolis. "Just let me get some peace!"

There is a muffled groan at the door, a loud thump, and then silence. Worried by the silence, Doctor Siffolis gets up and goes to investigate. Sure enough, there on the doorstep, as dead as a dodo, lies the body of old Mrs. Helluvamess. But as the doctor reaches down to drag her body inside, he has a heart attack and collapses, dead as a dodo.

Two days later, Bishop Kretin leads a double funeral at the little cemetery of the Holy Orthodox Church of the Blessed Bleeding Virgin. With old Mrs. Metaxa, the last remaining member of his faithful flock, Kretin buries the bodies of old Mrs. Helluvamess and Doctor Siffolis, side by side.

That night, six feet beneath the ground in the churchyard, there is a sudden knock on the side of Doctor Siffolis's coffin. "Ah, Doctor!" comes a ghastly voice. "Holy shit!" cries the doctor. "What is it now?"

"Ah, Doctor!" croaks the old woman. "Can you give me something for worms?"

Little Albert is cruising around the house in his pajamas looking for some excitement, so he decides to go to his six-year-old sister's room.

"Hey, Susie!" shouts Albert, knocking on her bedroom door, "what is happening, Baby?"

"You cannot come in!" cries Susie. "I am in my nightgown, and Mommie says it is naughty for boys to see girls in their nighties."

"Okay," says Little Albert, as he walks away. "Have it your way."

A few seconds later, Susie calls out, "You can come in now. I have taken it off."

Father Famine, the Christian Catholic, is making a missionary tour of all his stations in Africa. He arrives at the small outpost at Ogaboga where Chief Bonga, the village leader very proudly shows the old missionary around.

"Tell me," asks Father Famine, "do you think that our Catholic Christian religion has made any progress here in your village?"

"I am completely certain it has," replies Chief Bonga enthusiastically. "These days we eat only fishermen on Fridays."

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Be silent...

Close your eyes... and feel your bodies to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to enter inwards.

Gather all your energies, your total consciousness, and rush towards your center of being, which is exactly two inches below the navel, inside you.

A deep urgency is needed to reach - as if this is your last moment.

Faster and faster...

Deeper and deeper...

As you start coming closer to the center of your being, a great silence descends over you, and a great light fills your whole being - a light without source. You are this light. Another name for this light is buddha.

Relax into this light, witnessing three things: first, you are not the body; second, you are not the mind; third, you are only this witnessing consciousness.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax... Let go... Melt, just as ice melts into the ocean.

A pure consciousness fills Gautama the Buddha Auditorium.

All separations are lost. You are at ease with existence.

This at-easeness with existence goes on growing to the moment when it becomes a constant awareness twenty-four hours, waking or asleep.

Flowers are showering on you, blessings from the whole existence.

Existence always rejoices in the meditator, because the meditator brings existence to its ultimate expression, and to its ultimate beauty.

At this moment you are the buddha - you have always been. These are the three steps that will help you to remember.

The first step is: the buddha comes as a shadow to you, following you.

The second step: you become the shadow following the buddha.

And the third step: even as a shadow you disappear into the buddha. You become just a pure light, an awareness, infinite and eternal.

You have always been this, just you had forgotten. Remember - sammasati.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back, but come back with the awareness.

Come back followed by the buddha.

Sit for a few moments, silently, just to remember to what space you have been, what beauty you have experienced, what silence, what splendor, because this is your essential being.

Except this, everything will be taken away from you. But your essential being cannot be taken away even by death.

And we are here only to learn that which cannot be destroyed even by death - the immortal, the eternal.

It is only a question of remembrance, a forgotten language remembered again.

And keep on remembering all the day along. Act the way a conscious person acts. Doing ordinary things: chopping wood or carrying water from the well, do it as if the buddha is doing it himself.

And what I am saying to you is not a philosophical statement, it is the experience of thousands of buddhas.

To find the essential in you is the Manifesto of Zen.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.