The Last Alleluia

The first question:

Question 1:

CONSCIOUSNESS IS ONE. You cannot divide it in two. Consciousness is indivisible. You cannot say 'ordinary consciousness' and 'enlightened consciousness' - consciousness means enlightenment.

The ordinary person is not conscious, he is unconscious. He believes he is conscious - his very belief prevents him from becoming conscious. If an ill man believes he is healthy then there is no cure for him, no medicine, no remedy. If a man who knows nothing of love thinks he is a lover he will never know anything of love. The ordinary man lives in unconsciousness because he believes he is already conscious. He has be fooled himself, he has deceived himself.

Consciousness is always enlightenment. To be conscious means to be a Buddha. And the possibility exists in everybody. Yet people go on living in an unconscious way because they believe they are already conscious, so there is nothing to be done, there is nothing to be transformed to. They go on thinking this is all that they have. This is not even the beginning; the journey has not started. You are fast asleep. But you can have a dream-journey - you can go in your dream to the farthest corner of the earth, and you can go on believing that you are a traveler. And all the time you are asleep here now.

Here now you are asleep. That is what unconsciousness is. You may be conscious of the past - but the past is no more, so that consciousness is of absence. You may be conscious of the future, and the future is not yet. That consciousness is pseudo. The only consciousness is of here now, of this moment. If you are utterly here this moment, totally here this moment, then you are conscious. And in that very intensity you become a flame of light. A smokeless flame. That is what enlightenment is.

So please don't divide consciousness in two; it cannot be divided. Consciousness has one taste - of being aware. Consciousness knows no past, no future, no other time, no other world.

A great poet, Paul Eluard, has said: 'There is another world. But that other world is hidden in this.'

That's true, that's exactly what is the case. God is, but not somewhere else - hidden in this moment.

Jesus says to his disciples: 'Look at the lilies in the fled. They toil not, they think not of the morrow.'

Visualize lilies in the field, and Jesus talking to his disciples, indicating those lilies. And he says, 'Even Solomon in all his glory was not attired like one of these.' What is the beauty of a poor lily flower? And what is the richness of a poor lily flower? It is utterly here now - it knows no other time and no other space. It knows no other world. Its intensity, its totality, its wholeness, makes it more beautiful than Solomon in all his glory Yes, even your greatest emperors are poor before a flower of the lily. The lily exists in the moment.

The moment you exist in the moment, you are conscious. Consciousness is of the present; consciousness is a kind of presence. Otherwise you live like a robot, a machine. Obsessed with your habits, you go on repeating them again and again and again. And because they are mechanical they never satisfy you. So the wheel goes on moving. Unsatisfied, you desire a better future. Unsatisfied with the past, you project a future. But the future is projected out of the past - it is bound to be like it. Maybe a little bit different here and there, but not much. A modified thing, a little bit decorated, improved, but all the time in essence the same. Again you will be dissatisfied, and again you will project.

Man is in a deep discontent, and goes on projecting a paradise somewhere else. That paradise never comes; it cannot come. The paradise has already come, it is already here. Man has never left the Garden of Eden. What really happened when Adam ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he fell asleep. And he started dreaming that he has been expelled, that he has been thrown out of the Garden of Eden, that God is angry, that he has betrayed. He started feeling guilty, he started feeling a sinner. And he created his own nightmare.

Otherwise, in fact, Adam has never for a single moment left the Garden of Eden. Because where can he go? This whole is the Garden of Eden, paradise is all over the place. It is God's world - where can God expel Adam? Where? There is no other world, expulsion is impossible. This is the only existence there is.

So my understanding of the Biblical parable is that Adam has fallen asleep, he has become unconscious. Knowledge proved to be a kind of poison. It is - knowledge always makes people unconscious. Because knowledge becomes content in their consciousness, and the content surrounds their consciousness like dust surrounds a mirror. And the more knowledge, the more dust. And one day the mirror is completely lost - there are layers and layers of dust and it is very difficult to search for the mirror.

And you are that Adam and that Eve. It is not something that happened in the past; it is not history, it is already happening. It has always been happening and it will always be happening. Collect knowledge, eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and you become unconscious.

Then what is the way to become conscious? Drop contents, drop thoughts, drop knowledge.

Unburden yourself. Let your mind become empty, let your mind become no mind. And suddenly you will be surprised that you have never gone anywhere else, you have been in paradise.

That's what happened to Gautam Buddha. The day he became enlightened, do you know what were his first words he uttered? He said: 'Wonder! Wonder! I have always been this. Wonder! Wonder!

The whole existence has become enlightened with me.' Two things he said: 'I am surprised! For what have I been seeking and searching? And I have been always that!' And the second thing, he was surprised that 'Everybody is seeking the same that I was seeking, and everybody is really enlightened.'

All beings are Buddhas from the very beginning. You had been a Buddha in the beginning, you are a Buddha in the middle, you will be a Buddha in the end. Buddhahood is essential. It is not something accidental that happens and then disappears, sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't happen. It is your inner nature. It is you.

You ask me: IS ENLIGHTENED CONSCIOUSNESS LESS SPICY THAN ORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS?

The first thing: There is no ordinary consciousness. Ordinary is unconsciousness. There is only one consciousness and that is enlightened consciousness. But to say 'enlightened consciousness' is repetitive, because both words mean the same - 'enlightened' and 'consciousness'. So there is no need to use two words, simply 'consciousness' is enough.

And certainly it is more spicy, because it is multi-dimensional. Unconsciousness is one- dimensional, unconsciousness is very narrow. Consciousness is openness, consciousness is wide.

Consciousness is like the sky, it knows no boundaries. Naturally it is more spicy - absolutely spicy.

Only a Buddha enjoys the world. Not you, you only dream about your enjoyment. Your enjoyment at the most is a kind of entertainment. You try to forget your miseries in your entertainments, and you call it enjoyment. Only Buddha knows what enjoyment is. It is not entertainment. Once you are aware, you see that you are blissful. Bliss comes as a shadow to awareness. Once you know who you are, you have all that you can dream, that you have ever dreamed. And more. Infinitely more.

Only those who have become awakened know the green of the trees and the red and the gold. And only those who have become awakened, they know the beauty of the oceans and the sand and the sun. Only those who have become awakened. they know the immense joy of love, of being related, of communication, of sharing. Only those who have become awakened know what benediction this existence is. They know. Others only search, seek, grope in the darkness of their being.

But the question is relevant, for a certain reason. Down the ages, many religions have existed on the earth - invented by man, invented in his unconsciousness, invented according to his misery, invented out of misery. And they have been trying to depict the ultimate in consciousness as if it is dull, dead, no spice at all in it, no joy in it. Christians say that Jesus never laughed. Just ridiculous.

If Jesus cannot laugh then who else? Do you think you can laugh? Yes, sometimes you laugh, but your laughter is shallow. It is at the most on the lips, or if it goes very deep it goes to the throat. It does not come from the heart, it does not come from your guts, it does not come from your core. It is just there. superficial, painted. It is shallow.

Only Jesus can laugh. And when Jesus laughs he is laughter - not that he laughs. When you laugh you laugh. When Jesus laughs he is laughter. When you dance you dance. When Jesus dances he is dance. When you love YOU love. When I love I am simply love. I don't exist apart from it, otherwise there will be a division, split. When you laugh you are standing aloof and laughing - laughing is an act, your total being is not involved in it.

And Christians say a very foolish thing, that Jesus never laughed. Why do they say it? Out of their miseries, out of their anguish, out of their meaninglessness, they have depicted Jesus sad, gloomy, serious, grave. And because of this your churches have become graveyards; the joy of life no more exists there. And because of this your scriptures have become like you find in museums - a snake in alcohol. It will live long. But a snake on the grass alive in the sun, on the rock, resting in the afternoon, taking a nap, a snake moving up on a tree or swinging with the branches of a tree, a snake ALICE. And a snake in the museum, in the hospital, in the science lab, in alcohol. The alcohol snake, or call it the alcoholic snake, will live long, because it is dead.

The real snake, the alive snake, will not live long, because it is alive - death will be coming. But for the alcoholic snake there is no death.

Jesus died. He was a flower - bloomed in the morning, by the evening gone. But the Christ invented by the Christians, lives. It is an alcoholic snake, bottled, a museum-piece. It can live for ever and for ever. Your scriptures are dead; they are like butterflies pinned. You can collect butterflies and go on pinning them - they look like butterflies, they are not. Because what is a butterfly if it cannot have freedom, if it is not alive, if it is not roaming from one flower to another, if it is not a vagabond on the wings - what is it? It is nothing. It is a corpse.

So are your Bibles, so are your Vedas and your Koran. They are invented things. Jesus, the real Jesus, is just an excuse. And you have imposed upon the real Jesus your own Jesus who never laughs. Jesus was a totally different kind of man. I cannot imagine that he will not laugh. He was moving with beautiful people. He was not moving with saints, remember, he was moving with beautiful people. Drunkards and gamblers and prostitutes too. He was moving with real people, authentic people. He was not moving with pseudo saints , he was moving with sinners.

Saints are pinned butterflies. Sinners are alive - a snake resting on the rock in the afternoon sun.

Sinners sometimes can become saints, but then their sainthood has a totally different quality to it.

They cannot belong to any church, they cannot belong to any sect. They cannot belong - how can a saint belong? The saint is like a fragrance, free, moving in the winds - he cannot belong. Jesus never belonged to anybody. That's why Jews were angry with him - they wanted him to belong.

Real saints will not be recognized as saints, no church will sanctify them as saints. And the saints that are sanctified by the church are really bogus, mumbo-jumbo, false, artificial, synthetic, plastic saints. Yes, they don't laugh, that's true. But Jesus is not that kind of saint. He laughs, he drinks, he eats well, he loves..He was a true man of the earth, very earthly, rooted in the earth.

And the earth is not against the sky. Observe the trees - the tree can go higher in the sky only if it goes deeper in the earth. And so is the rule, so is the law. A man who is deeply rooted in the earth can go deeply in God - not otherwise. A man who can laugh and enjoy and be merry, can pray. His roots in the earth will give him enough nourishment to pray. He will be grateful - only then he can pray.

God is significant only when it comes out of your gratefulness. But how can you be grateful if you cannot even laugh? Churches have become graveyards.

So your question is relevant. You may be afraid if you become enlightened your life will not be so spicy. I promise you, it will be more spicy. Right now you are only dreaming about joys. They are not really there, not really. Just in your fantasy they exist.

I promise you real joys, real love, authenticity. And whenever a man is authentic he is not just wise.

The just wise are not wise enough. The really wise man - I call him the 'other-wise' - the really wise man has always enough courage to be fool around a little bit, to fool around. The real wisdom has something of foolishness in it always. And so has the real fool something of wisdom in him. Because the real man is always a meeting of the opposites. The meeting of the earth and the sky, the meeting of summer and winter, the meeting of day and night, the meeting of wisdom and foolishness.

Foolishness is also not all wrong. It has something beautiful in it - it has playfulness in it, it has non seriousness in it. It is non-ambitious, it is innocent. So the real wise man has something of foolishness in him - it is always there, it makes his life spicy. The really silent man has a song to sing. Hence this Hakuin's Song of Meditation.

You don't join meditation and song together in your mind. SONG of meditation? Song of love is okay, but song of meditation? Solomon's song is okay, but song of meditation? Meditation seems to be non-singing, meditation seems to be serious, meditation seems to be silent. And song? Song is not silent, song is expressive, jubilant, dancing. But the real meditation always has a song to sing, a dance to dance. It is spicy.

That's why so many people are puzzled here. Particularly religious people, because they are the least religious - they are very much puzzled here. Meditation and dance, sannyas and love, all go together. I am trying to create a meeting of the opposites. And whenever two opposites meet, there is great bliss. When two opposites meet, only then there is bliss. A man meets a woman and there is orgasm and there is joy. And life meets death and there is great ecstasy, if you know how to allow it. The dying moment is the greatest ecstatic moment - if you know how to allow it, if you know how to relax into it, how to surrender to it.

Here, love will meet with renunciation. Here, meditation will meet with prayer. Here, silence and sound will be together.

Silence alone is poor, so is sound alone. Sound alone is noise, silence alone is death. When silence and sound meet, there is music. Music is the meeting of silence and sound. There is a rhythm between sound and silence, hence the music. The great music always contains silence in it and sound. And the great meditation also contains sound in it and silence.

Don't be afraid. I am not teaching you a religion which is life-negative. I am teaching a religion which is absolutely life-affirmative. Life is God.

The second question:

Question 2:

A simple reason. Because the public can forgive everything except genius.

The third question:

Question 3:

Yes, Vidya, they have to be totally different. When I talk about love it has the meaning of consciousness in it. When you talk about love it has the darkness of unconsciousness in it. They are two worlds apart.

I have to use the same words as you use. It is a shame, but what to do? I have to use the same words. Not that I cannot coin my own words - but then you won't understand what I am saying at all. Right now at least you have the feel that you are understanding - then even that will disappear, then I will look really a madman.

Always remember, your words are being used in a totally different meaning. So when you are listening to me, be alert of the fact. And don't jump immediately on the words and don't give them your color. It is a very mechanical habit. You hear the word 'love' and immediately you know what I mean. Now you need not listen, you can go into sleep, you can have a little sleep - because I am talking about love and you know already what love is.

You don't know what love is. Your life does not prove that you know. If you know love you have known all that is worth knowing; then there is nothing left. If you have known love you have known God, you have known Buddhahood. You have known the essential body, the truth body. Love exists in these three bodies. The physical love you know, it is sex - the infatuation of the body. It has no depth, it is as deep as the physical body. That's what you call love, that's what you call falling in love.

Yes, it is a fall.

Then there is a second kind of love, the love of the bliss body. You don't know about it It is not a fall. It is a stillness, it is a rest. You don't fall - rather, you become rooted, grounded. You lose all wavering, you lose all waves, you become a silent pool. That's what should be meant by love.

And there is a third kind of love that comes from the essential body. That love should be called prayer. You rise in it, you never fall in it. The first love is a fall. The second love is a stabilizer, a grounding, a centering. And the third love is a rising into the sky - it gives you wings.

When I am talking about love I mean both the second and the third. Because for the third to happen the second will be needed. But I am not against the first, I am not against the physical love - because unless you fall many times you will not be able to be grounded. Hence I am all for it. Fall as many times as you can, so that you can learn how not to fall. That's the only way to learn - one learns through errors and mistakes. A child starts learning walking, he falls many times. If the mother is very much against falling, the child will never be able to walk on his own, he will remain a cripple his whole life.

That's how millions of people have remained crippled. Because the society and the priests and the parents go on insisting that the physical love has something of sin in it: Avoid it! Then of course you don't fall - but a man who cannot fall will not know how to stand without falling. A child that cannot afford to fall sometimes, will not be able to walk at all - will remain crippled, will have to use crutches.

Marriage is a crutch - cripples are using it all over the world. Because they cannot fall in love, so they settle for something synthetic, plastic. Fall as many times as you can, and enjoy falling, and learn the art of falling - because only through that will you be able one day to learn how to stand on your own without falling.

Out of the first love the second has to be found. And out of the second the third has to be found when you have started standing on your own, rooted deep in the earth, in the soil. This earth is beautiful.

This earth is an opportunity, a great opportunity to experiment. Your being here is experimental - you should experiment as much as possible, you should not waste any opportunity to experiment.

And each experiment will bring a little bit of wisdom to you. It comes the hard way. A man who tries to remain always secure, safe, will not learn anything, will not learn ever.

I have heard: A general had come to visit the army in Poona. He asked some soldiers, 'How do you manage with the Poona water?' They said, 'First we boil it. Then we purify it. And then just to be safe we drink beer.'

Then why bother? People are trying to be safe, people are trying to remain always in security. They don't explore, they don't go beyond the boundary. And the boundary has been fixed by the priests and the politicians - by the enemies, by the poisoners. Naturally your life has no flavor to it, no tone.

It is placid, it is flat, it has no blood, no bones, it is pale. You are like a candle dying. Your life is nothing but a long process of slow death. You never live.

I am all for these three loves. Learn the ways of the first, the ways of the body. And then go beyond, because there is much more. Don't remain confined to it. It is a passage to reach to the second body, the bliss body. And yes, sometimes when you are deeply in physical love, then too some bliss spills over you from the second body. Making love to a woman or a man, when suddenly you feel ecstatic it is not coming from the woman, remember, it is not coming from the man, remember. The woman has nothing to give to you, neither has the man anything to give to you. All that is possible between a man and woman is a kind of absorbent into each other. They forget themselves for a moment. The self consciousness disappears, the ego disappears, that's all.

In that disappearance something from the second body, which is within you, starts flowing, because the ego is no more hindering it. Because you are so absorbed by the woman or by the man, in the woman, in the man, that you have forgotten yourself, that you are in a kind of a drunk state. You are not a self in that moment, not an ego - something spills from the second body. That's why you feel blissful, that's what is known as sexual orgasm. It has nothing to do with sex, actually. Once you have understood the process of it you can have as much of it without having any sex. You can simply sit and sway and it starts spilling.

You can attain to that orgasm without searching for a woman or a man. But you have to learn through the man and through the woman. I am not against it, I am all for it. It's beautiful and it is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. You have to go beyond it. You have to find the real source of bliss, from where it comes. It does not come from the woman, it does not come from the other, it comes from your innermost core. But the misconception is natural, because you are so absorbed in the woman you think it is coming from the woman. And because the woman is so absorbed in you she thinks it is coming from her man.

It is not coming from the other at all, it is coming from your innermost core. But you are not conscious of that core. Become more and more conscious. While making love become conscious of from where the bliss is coming, from what direction, and move into that direction. And lovemaking can become one of the greatest meditations. Hence Tantra - the whole approach of Tantra is that.

And once you have learned how to reach to orgasm through your own bliss body, you are freed from the other I your dependence is no more there. And when you are no more dependent on the woman or on the man, your love becomes non-possessive. Only then, your love is no more political. You don't reduce the woman to a thing; freedom remains intact. In sex, freedom cannot remain intact.

The more you go into sex, the more you become dependent on the other, because you think the source of joy is the other. Now you are afraid somebody may take the source of joy - the woman may go away or the man may go away, or he may turn his back. Fear. And because of fear you start possessing, because of fear you become jealous. Sexual love cannot go beyond jealousy, jealousy is ingrained in it.

Once you know that bliss is coming from your own core, Possessiveness disappears. Then you love and you don't demand, then you love and there are no conditions in it.

And when you have become rooted in the second, and the falling and stumbling in love has stopped, you are coming closer to my meaning of love. Once you have become established, rooted, and you have started enjoying your own bliss body, then one day you suddenly see something else, far more a blessing than bliss itself, is reaching to you. Rays of something, which are more blissful than bliss itself, are reaching to you. And they are coming from your innermost, your very inner shrine. Then you start searching for those, and you start rising. The fall disappears and the tree starts growing towards the sky.

And when you reach to the source of your being - the essential body, the Buddha body, the truth body - love is fulfilled. My word 'love' has the ultimate meaning of that experience.

But it is natural, Vidya, that you will understand in your own way. Just keep a little space for me too, just a little space. Ninety-nine percent you understand your way, I accept that: just leave one percent space for me. And soon you will see that that one percent has defeated your ninety nine percent. But right now it is natural.

A man walked into a bar in a fiercely Catholic district of Northern Ireland. In his lapel he was wearing a small Union Jack, the emblem of Protestant extremists. Attached by a chain to his left hand was a large, vicious-looking crocodile. Silence fell in the bar as the man approached the counter.

'Do you serve Protestants in this bar?' he asked the bar man.

'Yes sir, yes sir,' stuttered the bar man nervously, gazing into the crocodile's yawning mouth.

'Well then, I'LL have a pint of beer for myself and two Protestants for my crocodile.'

People have different meanings....

A bus driver in the southern United States was letting some people on to his bus. He asked a black man what color he was. The man answered, 'Black.' The bus driver replied, 'No, you are green.

Everyone on my bus is green. I don't believe in black and white.'

Then he asked a white woman what color she was. She answered. 'White.' The bus driver said again. 'No. you are green. Everyone on my bus is green. I believe in one color; the whole humanity is one color.'

Then he shouted down the bus, 'Has everyone got that? Everyone on this bus is green. Now, all you dark green people to the back and all you light green people to the front.'

Just by changing words nothing is changed. You can replace my words in the place of your words, that won't make much difference. The meaning will go on the same.

So I am not saying change words. I am saying become a little more alert, so you can allow me a little space in you. And that's the meaning of sannyas. You allow a little space in you for me, you become a host and you allow me as a guest in you. And soon, the guest is such, the host will disappear and the guest will possess the home.

The third question:

Question 4:

Good, Anand Geet. Dying is always easy, living is difficult. To become a martyr is very easy, any stupid person can do that. In fact only stupid become martyrs. Otherwise who wants to become a martyr? But it is easier to die, because it happens in a single moment. And once you are dead you are dead, there is no more to it. But to live is the real problem, because life is long.

You say: I WILL DIE FOR YOU, I THINK.

And I know you cannot die even, because that 'I think' is not reliable. Thinking is never reliable, only feeling is reliable. Thinking is deceptive. People come to me and they say, 'Osho, I love you, I THINK.' How can love come out of thinking? There is no possibility. It is like trying to squeeze oil out of sand. Thoughts don't have any love. Thoughts can have much hatred, can have much anger, rage, but they don't have any love; you cannot take love out of them.

And when you say, 'I think I love,' you are deceived by the mind. Love is a feeling. And when you say, 'I will die for you, I think,' what you are actually saying is that you love me and you are ready to die for me. But through thinking that is not possible. At the last moment the thinking will say, 'What are you doing? It is your life.' And really you don't mean it.

And you say: I DON'T BELIEVE A SINGLE WORD YOU SAY, NOT A SINGLE WORD.

Because if you believe what I say you will have to live it. And I am not here to sacrifice you on any altar, because ALL altars have to be destroyed and all temples razed to the ground. All altars have been dangerous to man - because man has been killed on many altars, Hindu and Christian and Mohammedan, but man has always been killed.

I don't teach you that you have to offer yourself. No - I teach you life, not death. And if you know life you will know death too, because death is the culmination of life. It is not against life, it is the crescendo of the song of life. It is the last alleluia.

I teach you life. But if you trust me then you will be getting into trouble. You will have to transform yourself, you will have to go through many many mutations. That's why your mind says, 'I don't believe a word you say, although I am ready to die for you.' You are not ready to allow a single word of mine to become a seed in your heart, and you are ready to die for me? You are not ready to accept me as a guest in you, and you are ready to die for me?

In the first place, I don't want you to die, I want you to live. And live authentically. Death will come in its own time. When the time is ripe, death is beautiful. When the fruit is ripe it falls on its own accord.

When you have lived your life totally, death is a joy, because it is a relaxation into the universe again.

The wave disappears in the ocean again to rest - for another life sometime, for another wave to rise.

It is like, the whole day you lived, and the night comes. Night is so beautiful. You can go into bed and forget all - the turmoil, the anxiety, the work, the tiredness. You drop into a small death every night. And blessed are those who really drop into death every night, because in the morning they are resurrected. They are reborn. They are again fresh, they are again ready to do many things that life requires to be done. They are no more exhausted, their heart is again dancing, they are fresh.

And they are ready to jump into the turmoil of life and to live another day.

Just like that, you will die in this body and you will rest into the earth and you will rest into the sky and you will rest for a time-being. And when you will be ready to be born again - another day, another resurrection, another body, you will be back again. This will go on and on till you finish the job that has been given to you, till you fulfill your destiny. Till you come to realize that the physical body is not you. That not even the bliss body is you. That you are a Buddha.

The day you recognize that - not verbally, not intellectually, not that 'I think' but totally, wholly, the recognition is absolute, there is no doubt about it, no uncertainty about it, it is not a logical conclusion but an experience, an existential experience, you are a witness to it - then you disappear. Then you will not be coming back on this earth in a bodily form. Then you will be born into God, without body.

Then you will become God. Then you will float into the eternity. Then you will be a lotus flower, invisible to ordinary eyes. Then you will be a pure fragrance for ever and for ever.

But till that is attained, each death is a new birth. And remember, I am here to teach you how to live THIS moment, THIS day. If you die right now you will be unripe, and death will be a pain and death will be a suffering. And death will be meaningless. People live meaninglessly and die meaninglessly.

And because people live meaninglessly, they can be exploited. Because your life is so meaningless anybody can come and can give you a meaningful death. He earl say 'Die for Islam' or 'Die for Christianity', or for Christ's sake or for Buddha's sake, die! And he gives you a meaning. And you are meaningless and you say, 'Okay. Life is meaningless, let me try this. Maybe this makes me meaningful.' This is a kind of suicide. And Islam and Buddha and Christ are just rationalizations for the suicide. You are committing suicide, with beautiful words around you.

No, I don't want to be an altar for you. Nobody has to die for me. My sannyasins have to live for me.

And life and living is arduous. Because it cannot be a momentary impulse; it is not impulsive. If I say 'Die!' you can jump from a mountain - it happens in an impulsive moment. And once you have taken the jump you cannot take it back. Finished. But when you have to live, a thousand times you can take your steps back. And you wit take your steps back, a million times. Because life cannot be impulsive.

And I don't teach you impulsiveness, I teach you transformation. So please, nobody has to die for me. Never. If you love me, live for me, love for me. Let your life be a song, a joy, a celebration.

When you are happy you are with me, when you are dancing you are with me, when you are loving you are with me. That is my work, that is my mission.

But in another sense I understand. It is very difficult to believe in my words. Almost impossible. I say 'almost' because there are people who trust. That's why I say 'almost' - it is possible, but it is arduous, hard. Because what I am saying is of another world. I bring you the message, the gospel, of another world. Although that world is hidden in THIS world, but still it is another for you. It is a separate reality. You have not known it, you have not seen it, how can you trust? In that sense I can understand. How can you believe? But I am not saying to believe either, because belief will not be of any help. All beliefs are harmful, belief as such is poison.

I am not saying believe in me. I am simply saying: Look at me, feel me, and if a desire to experiment arises, experiment with me. IHI PASSIKA: Come and see. Exactly that I would like to say to you as Buddha said to his disciples: IHI PASSIKA. I don't say come and believe, I say come and see. It has already happened here. The rose has bloomed - you come close to me and your nostrils will be full of the fragrance of it. Come and see!

And if you can see my rose you will attain to a great trust in your own rose. It will not be a trust in my rose, because that is of no use. Seeing that a man just like you - as fragile as you, made of body, bones and blood just like you, as vulnerable to death as you - a man just like you has bloomed, will give you a trust into yourself. Then why can it not happen to you? That's my work, to bring you close.

Sannyas is nothing but an invitation to come a little closer - a little more, so you can see, so that you can feel. And through that seeing, a trust is bound to arise. Not in me, but in yourself - that this can happen to you too. That's what Buddha calls 'SHRADDHA'. That word cannot be translated.

It has been translated as 'faith' as 'belief' as 'trust' - but all translations miss the point. Buddha's word SHRADDHA means confidence - not just trust, not just belief, not just faith, but confidence.

Confidence in whom? Confidence in your own being - that if it can happen to one man it can happen to all. Seeing that it can happen to one, a trust, a confidence, arises in you that 'It can happen to me too.'

Only then will you understand what I am saying. Before that it is difficult. If you can avoid misunderstanding, that's all I can expect of you. Understanding I don't expect - just avoid misunderstanding. Just listen to me as you listen to pure music. What do you do when you listen to pure music? You simply listen. You don't try to understand, you don't try to figure out what it is, what the meaning is. You don't bother about the meaning, you listen to it. What do you do when you listen to a bird calling in the mowing, early morning? You simply listen. You are thrilled with it, you feel the joy of it.

Here I am also a bird calling in the morning. Listen to me as you listen to music. Or wind passing through the pine trees. Just listen like that. In that listening you will be tuned to me. First, misunderstandings will disappear. And when misunderstandings have become impossible, then arises understanding on its own accord. You need not bring it, you cannot bring it. It comes, it descends on you.

Otherwise there is bound to be misunderstanding. I have heard:

A great film director and his wife were on safari in the African jungle when, just as they were walking along a narrow path in the thickest part of the bush, a huge lion leapt out at them, grabbed his wife in its massive jaws, and began to drag her off. 'Shoot, John!' she yelled to her husband. 'Shoot!'

'I can't,' he yelled back. 'I've run out of film!'

Now a film director is a film director.

A man and his wife on a visit to London were feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. One of the pigeons settled on the husband's head and relieved itself and flew away. 'Well, don't you just stand there doing nothing,' said the husband angrily to the wife. 'Give me some paper. Give me some paper!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' said the wife. 'That pigeon will be miles away by now.'

You get it? And the last:

For Mother's Day, the teacher gave the class a topic for composition: 'There is only one mother.'

That was the topic. One kid wrote: 'Yesterday I fell off a tree and hurt my knee. My mother heard me crying, and came and gave me a big kiss. The pain was gone! There is only one mother!'

Another kid wrote: 'Yesterday my friends were beating me up. I came home crying. Mother gave me a big kiss and told me she loved me. There is only one mother!'

And little John wrote: 'Yesterday I came home very hungry. My mother said, "Go to the kitchen. On the table there are two bananas." And I said, "There is only one, mother!" '

The fifth question:

Question 5:

The question is from Swami Prem Prasadam. His name means 'gift, grace'. Grace cannot be produced, cannot be manufactured. It comes, it happens, you have only to be receptive to it. It is a kind of non-doing; it is when you are passive, inactive. In fact when you are not, when you are absent - the PRASADAM, the grace, the gift. When you exist only like a hollow bamboo then God starts playing you as a flute. But only when you are a hollow bamboo. God comes only as a gift, never otherwise.

And Prasadam has been in big business, so he has the idea that one has to 'concentrate single- mindedly, continu-ously, on the goal - totally, and work as hard as possible to achieve the goal.'

Now, I can understand his problem. In the world, searching for trivia, the business attitude is perfectly right. Money will not come as a gift. If you simply sit under a Bodhi tree, sitting silently and watching for when money will be coming from all directions and will shower on you, it doesn't happen. It will never come. Sitting under the Bodhi tree, nobody will approach and tell you: 'Please come and become the president of the United States.' That is not going to happen either.

In the worldly things, which are trivia, you have to work hard. That is the law of the world, because in the world you have to compete. And there are millions of people rushing for money and power and prestige - you are not alone, it is a competitive world. You have to be concentratedly, madly rushing. Violently. Legally or illegally, that doesn't matter. If you succeed, all that you did will be thought legal. If you fail, all that you did will be thought illegal. If you succeed then everything is okay. Success brings sanctity. Remember only one thing: Don't fail. And if you don't want to fail, be absolutely mad - the madder you are, the better. Then you can defeat other people who are not so mad.

Only the mad people succeed in politics, in money, in the world of power. Violent people succeed.

But what is their success? They succeed, but what exactly is their success? When they succeed they come to know only that their whole life has failed. You have heard the proverb 'Nothing succeeds like success'? That is utterly nonsense. I say: Nothing fails like success. Because when you have succeeded, then you know that there is nothing. You have been running after shadows. You have become the prime minister or the president - now what? And you have wasted your whole life. Ask Morarji Desai - eighty-two years wasted, and now he has become the prime minister. So what?

What is attained? Nothing is attained. The success is just the climax of his whole life's failure. Now he has utterly failed.

In the world, success only seems to be successful. It is a way to distract yourself from your inner search. It is a way to avoid yourself, to escape from yourself. And in the end you will be a loser.

If you want to move towards God, action is not needed, madness is not needed, concentration is not needed. What is needed? Only one thing: surrender is needed. A passivity is needed, you have to become feminine. You have to become a womb - a receptivity, a pure receptivity. And when you are utterly receptive - so much so that you are not even desiring God, because in the desire also there is action; so much so that you are not even expecting God, because in expectation also there is action - when all desiring and all expectation has disappeared, when you are there just silent, not even waiting for God, He comes.

In fact to say 'He comes' is not right - He arises in you. Even that is not exactly right - you suddenly find in that waiting that you are it. TATTVAMASI - that art thou.

Prasadam's mind is goal-oriented, that is his whole life's training. Naturally he is very confused. He has come into a very strange world and has become a sannyasin. Now I am teaching surrender and he knows only fight, how to fight. He is a warrior - he knows the whole strategy and the technology of fighting, of warring. And he is in a difficulty. This small world, this my world, is run on a totally different line. No strategy, no technique, no fight. I am trying to create an alternate world - a small world, but for people who are ready to surrender, efface themselves. Who are ready to become nobodies and can work out of their nobodiness.

Then God will come to you. Goal and God cannot exist together. God cannot become your goal.

Remember, that is the fear - that Prasadam will make God the goal. Then there comes a synthesis - then he will be using whatsoever he knows from his past experience. But then you have missed the point. God can never be the goal! And no goal can ever give you God. The goal-oriented mind is a non-religious mind, the worldly mind. The religious mind knows no goal.

Look at the lilies in the field: they toil not, they spin not, they reap not, they don't think of the morrow.

And even Solomon was not like one of these, in all his glory was not attired like one of these. The lily knows the way to God.

Prasadam, become a lily.

Goals arise to avoid that which is. To avoid life, to avoid love, to avoid death. Their sole purpose is to avoid. They are distractions. They are refusals to see, to hear, to be. When you are finished with goals and the ideologies that perpetuate them, then there is no need of God, nirvana or truth. Then all that you need is porridge for the breakfast, a roof against the rain, and the present moment. It is in refusing the fact, in the lie of living, that you need God as a goal, truth as a goal, nirvana as a goal. They are not goals, they are gifts. When you are present, they happen.

And the last question:

Question 6:

It is simple. Because you don't really live. That's why you want to repeat. If you really live, there will be no need to repeat. If you have loved, and known what love is, there will be no need to repeat; you will be finished with it. Whenever something has been known totally, you are finished with it.

When something remains unknown, you hanker. Natural it is, you go on desiring. You have not loved in this life, you will desire another life. You have not loved THIS woman, you will desire another woman. You have not loved THIS man, you will desire another man, in some other world, in some other planet.

You have not been able to see and recognize and realize who you are in THIS life - you will hanker for another. The incomplete hankers to be completed, that's why.

And then you can understand my standpoint. That's why I say: Live totally! Live utterly! Whatsoever you want to do, do it! Don't avoid and don't repress, otherwise you will have to come again. And come again, and come again.

Meditate over this beauty:

Alone, and visiting London for the first time, the businessman hailed a taxi and told the cabbies to take him somewhere where he could forget his loneliness. Upon being dropped off, the visitor rang the doorbell of the house indicated by the cabbies. An eye-level viewing-window slid open and a distinctly sexy female voice asked what the man wanted.

'I want to get screwed,' replied the visitor.

'Okay mister,' said the woman, 'but as this is a private club, you'll have to slip a twenty-pound introduction fee through the letter box.'

The visitor did as instructed, the window closed, and he waited. Time passed but nothing happened.

After five minutes he began to pound on the door and again the panel opened. 'I want to get screwed,' said the man.

'What, again?' said the voice.