Now is the Only Time for the Heart

The first question.

Question 1:

MATURITY is to know that nothing can be done. Maturity is acceptance of existence as it is: YATHA BHUTAM. Maturity is not to desire things otherwise. Maturity is relaxing with the whole. Immaturity is conflict, struggle. The part fighting with the whole is immaturity. The part come to be in tune with the whole, coming to a harmonious settlement with the whole - not in defeat but in understanding is maturity. Nothing can be done. To realize that is maturity.

And also: Nothing matters. You allow it deep into your heart that nothing matters. All is good as it is, is maturity. Otherwise people remain childish. When you are desiring you are childish. Every desire is a complaint against existence. Every desire is a discontent with the way you are, the being you are. And every desire brings frustration in its wake, because it cannot be fulfilled. Desire brings future in and disturbs the present. And desire creates the idea of 'I'. Otherwise there is no I. If you go withinwards you will not find anybody there, it is utter silence. That's what Buddha means when he says ANATTA, no-self. To know no-self is maturity.

Socrates says: Know thyself. And Buddha says: When you will know, you will not find thyself.

Thyself is found only in ignorance. If you don't know, you are. If you know, you disappear. The light of knowledge is enough to disperse the darkness of the ego.

Each desire strengthens the idea that 'I am. And I have to assert, and I have to show to the world who I am. I have to prove, I have to justify myself, I have to defend myself, I have to fight. And not only fight, I have to win. ' Ambition is immaturity.

It is very rare to find a mature person. If you can find a mature person you have found a Buddha.

Otherwise all are desiring in different ways. Somebody is desiring money and somebody is desiring moksha. Somebody is desiring power and somebody is desiring God. And somebody wants to prove in the outer world that 'I am somebody' and somebody wants to prove in the inner world that 'I am somebody'. The idea to evolve is immature.

Hakuin is right when he says, 'From the very beginning all beings are Buddhas.' To recognize this, to welcome this, is maturity. There is nothing to grow to, there is nowhere to go to, there is no goal. To think of goals is to think of toys. Spiritual growth, spiritual evolution, spiritual progress, all is just holy cow-dung. You are already there where you want to go, so you can never reach if you try to reach there. Because you are already there - the very effort is ridiculous, it is absurd. Hence so much misery in the world, because you are trying to reach somewhere where you are already.

Naturally you cannot reach. Not reaching, you become panicky. Not reaching, you become more and more frustrated. Not reaching, you become more and more ridden with anxiety and anguish.

Not reaching, you start creating a hell around yourself - that you are a failure, that you are nobody.

The more desperate you are, the more effort you make to reach. And you cannot reach where you already are. To recognize this is sudden enlightenment. Enlightenment is not gradual, it is sudden.

It is in a single moment of insight, it is a flash. But people go on working upon themselves. Either they work in the market or they work in the monastery, but they work all the same.

My teaching is: Drop the idea of work. Gurdjieff used to call his system 'The Work' and I call my system 'The Play'. The very idea of work is dangerous, it will give you more and more ego. And it is not accidental that many of Gurdjieff's followers went mad and died in agony. The reason was, he was trying to put the Eastern realization into Western terminology. And for the West, 'play' is a dirty word. The West has been work-oholic for long; it is intoxicated with work.

The word 'play' seems childish to the Western mind. Work seems to be more adultish - I don't call it mature, it is adultish. Gurdjieff was trying to transplant something from the East into the Western mind. Naturally he had to use Western concepts, words, language. And what turned out was really very fatal. Play became work.

If you understand me, even for a single moment, that will do - if even for a single moment the glimpse comes, that why are you rushing? why are you hurrying?

Relax in this moment, let this moment BE. And suddenly all starts exploding in you. In that moment you are mature. And that moment can become your very tacit understanding. Then you live as an ordinary man, but you live extraordinarily. Then you live in the marketplace but you are no more part of it. In a subtle way you have transcended it, and without any effort. Without striving you have transcended it. You can go on playing games, but they are all games, you are no more serious.

It is all a drama - it is good, enjoy it, but don't get engulfed by it. The moment you are serious you are possessed by the world. Seriousness is the indication that the world has possessed you.

Non-seriousness is the indication that the world is no more powerful over you.

The really enlightened person has a great sense of humour. It is said of Bodhidharma that when he became enlightened he laughed for many months, he would not stop - at the whole ridiculousness of it, that people are already there and trying to reach. In their very striving they go on missing.

And whenever anybody used to ask Bodhidharma about enlightenment, either he would hit him or he would laugh. What else can you do? This man deserves to be hit. When somebody asked Bodhidharma how to become a Buddha, he slapped him immediately. And the man said, 'What are you doing, Sir? I have come to become a Buddha.' He said, 'I am making you. If a Buddha comes and asks me how to become a Buddha, what am I supposed to do? I will hit him!'

Maybe that slap brings you back home. That's why Zen people have been throwing the disciples, beating them. And it has happened sometimes, it has happened. A master threw a disciple out of the window. And when the disciple fell on the ground with a broken back, he became enlightened.

Because in that pain, for the first time he was in the present. In that severe pain the future disappeared and the Buddhahood and all nonsense. In that severe pain, for a single moment there was no thought. He became thoughtless, and he understood the whole point.

And the master came running and looked at him, and he was laughing there - with a broken back!

And he bowed down to the master and touched his feet and said, 'I am so thankful to you. Less than that would not have done. You did it in the right time, I deserved it.'

Remember, God has made you perfect. God never makes anything imperfect. God CANNOT make anything imperfect. People say God is omnipotent, I say no. Because He cannot make anything imperfect. How can imperfection come out of perfection? That is impossible. Only perfection comes out of perfection. This world is a perfect world and you are a perfect being. Listen to Hakuin: 'From the very beginning all beings are Buddhas.' That's how it should be. That's how it is. And you are trying to become a Buddha, you are trying to become perfect. You create your own misery. Then you fail. And when you fail you are miserable.

There is no need to tail, just stop trying to succeed. And when I say stop trying to succeed. mind you, I am not saying strive to stop.

A Zen master used to play a small game with his disciples, particularly with new disciples. He would drop his handkerchief and he would say to the disciple, 'Try to pick it up. TRY to pick it up.' Naturally the disciple would simply pick it up and give it to him. And he would drop it again, and he would say, 'Try again! Try to pick it up.' And it would happen a few times, then the disciple would get the point - that how can you TRY to pick up? Either you pick up or you don't. How can you try to pick up? And that's what the master was saying - he was saying, 'Try to pick up.' And you will fail, because how can you try? Either you pick up or you don't pick up. TRYING to pick up?

And the master was indicating that that's what you are doing in your life. Either be a Buddha or don't be a Buddha. But TRYING to be a Buddha? It is just like that: Either be a Buddha or don't be a Buddha.

Concerned with this, the second question:

Question 2:

The question is from Pradeepa.

I can understand the old man's trouble. He is a beautiful man, but thirty years of Gurdjieff work are a heavy load. And now at the age of eighty-two it seems very very difficult to relax. It seems difficult to drop the work and be playful. It's very natural, it can be understood.

Here I am not giving you any structure for development, because I am not concerned with development at all. Now, he says it is opposed to the three-centered harmonious development of man. I am not interested in developing man, I am simply interested in awakening man - and remember the difference: not in developing. There is no need for any harmonious development, there is only a need to be awakened.

You can go on sleeping and you can go on working on yourself. All work is sleep, it is a dream.

You are dreaming to develop yourself; you are trying to pull yourself up by your shoelaces. But it is a dream. And people are very very ready to get into new dreams because they are naturally fed-up with the old dreams, repetitive dreams - the wife, the husband, the money, the power. Then somebody comes and says, 'What are you doing? Leave this to ordinary mortals. You are a spiritual being. Come, and I will tell you how to develop spiritually.' And naturally one is fed-up with the old games, finished with the old games - there comes a moment in everybody's life when one can see that it is a vicious circle, one has been in it long enough to know its meaninglessness - then somebody comes and gives hope again.

This hope brings future again; imagination again starts working. You again start fantasizing - now spiritual growth. And you are again back in the same rut.

I am not teaching any development. I am teaching you just to be awake. Just open your eyes! You are in the Garden of Eden - just open your eyes. I am not here to give you any other dream. If you want to dream, old dreams are perfectly good - and you are so much attuned with them, why change? Money will do, why a new dream of meditation? Old games are perfectly good. New games will give you a little trouble - you will have to turn and toss in your bed and then again settle, and again they will become old. Yes, the honeymoon will be there for a few days and then they will become old.

That's why people go on changing from one guru to another guru, from one school to another school, from one religion to another religion. It doesn't help, it is absolutely pointless. What is needed is not a new dream, not a new work, not a new desire, not a new ambition. But an awakening.

He is right that it is difficult to change streams after thirty years of Gurdjieff. It IS difficult. But if you see the point, it is so simple. It is a flash. You have been working and working and what has happened? Has anything really happened? It is difficult to realize that too, that nothing has happened, because that goes against the ego. Thirty years working, and if nothing has happened people will think of you as a fool. Then what were you doing for thirty years? One or two years is okay - then you should have got out of it. What were you doing for thirty years wasting your whole life? That looks very difficult to accept. So one goes on thinking, 'Yes, something is happening, something has happened.' Something HAS to happen - thirty years? And one goes on convincing oneself and defending oneself and one thinks now it is too late to change.

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE! And I am not saying change. I am not saying change masters, I am not saying change schools, I am saying: Change from sleep to awakening. And it cannot be a development from sleep to awakening, remember. Either you are asleep or you are awake. There are no mid-stations between awakening and sleep. Either this or that. They are two gestalts, they can't exist together. So there cannot be degrees - you cannot say, 'This man is ten degrees awake and this man is twenty degrees awake and this man is thirty degrees awake.' One is awake or one is asleep. One knows or one does not know.

So I am not saying to change - I am not interested in changing your schools, because they will be new dreams. That's why I say it is never too late. If you had gone at the age of eighty-two to Gurdjieff, he would have certainly said it is too late - 'Now you go and vegetate and finish yourself, no-thing can be done.' And not only that you have missed THIS life - because Gurdjieff used to say you don't have any soul. So not only this life, you have missed for ever! 'Now get lost! Vegetate a few years more and be finished. You don't have any soul and it is too late.'

With me it is never too late, because it can happen in a single split moment. It can happen on the deathbed - a man is dying and the last breath, and it can happen and he can be completely transformed. Development cannot happen, development needs time, remember. Evolution needs time. Transformation is possible, because transformation needs no time! And that which happens in time is part of time. And that which happens in no time is part of eternity.

That's what I mean when I say it happens in a flash. Enlightenment is like lightning. It can happen any moment, at the very last breath. The last breath is leaving you and it will not come again, and it can happen. There is no need for time, because you are already that. So what is the point of time? Time is needed if you are not that and you have to become that. Then naturally, great effort, planning, training, search.

And he is right that the emphasis here is much on the heart, as opposed to the three-centered harmonious development of man. Heart simply means harmony. At least that is what I want it to mean, heart simply means harmony. When you are harmonious you are in the heart. When you are not harmonious you are not in the.heart, you are somewhere else. The heart is not a center here - we are not talking about centers really. The heart is a state of being harmonious. The heart is a state of maturity.

The head is always full of desires, the head lives in the future. The heart is herenow. Here is the only place and now is the only time for the heart. Whenever you are in the heart you are utterly here, radiantly here. All past has disappeared, all future has disappeared. Only this moment in its crystal purity exists. In its intensity, in its passion.

I am not using the word 'heart' the way Gurdjieff used to use it, as a center. It is not a center. When all your centers have disappeared into one unity, that unity I call the heart. That's how Buddha uses the word 'heart'. When Gurdjieff uses the word 'heart' he uses it in the same way as poets use the word 'heart' - the center of emotion and feeling. When I use the word 'heart' I use it as Buddhas have always used it. It has nothing to do with emotionality and sentiments and feelings - no, nothing at all. The heart is a state of being when you are harmonious, when all your fragments have disappeared.

And remember again, I am not saying that they have become integrated into one. That's what Gurdjieff says, that all your centers have to become integrated into one, they have to become crystallized. That crystallized thing will be a crystallized ego. When I say 'when all your fragments have disappeared' I simply mean when they are no more there and only pure absence is left. It is not a crystallization of the parts, the parts are no more there. They have simply dropped - that furniture has been removed from your being. Now your being is just an emptiness, a nothingness.

That nothingness, anatta, no-self - that pure space is what we have been calling 'heart' in the East.

It has nothing to do with the poets' use of the word.

But Lewis has been thinking in terms of Gurdjieff his whole life. He did not ever meet Gurdjieff, he missed that opportunity. He can miss this opportunity too.

Gurdjieff was a rare man. But he was working in a very very alien world. He had taken a great message from the East, particularly from the Sufis, to the West. And he was trying to translate it.

In that translation many things went wrong - it always happens. The higher the message, the more difficult is the translation of it. Mundane things can be translated very easily. And Gurdjieff was not the right man to translate it, either. He was not a very articulate man. His whole life he searched - from Middle Asia, from Iraq to Mongolia and to Tibet and to India, he was searching. His whole life was in search. And then when he arrived it was too late to develop the right language to be exactly accurate. He has simply stuttered his message, and others had to interpret it.

In fact, whatsoever is known about Gurdjieff is not about Gurdjieff, it is about P D Ouspensky.

Gurdjieff became known through P D Ouspensky - if P D Ouspensky had never been a disciple to Gurdjieff, he would not have been known at all. In one way it would have been very very unfortunate, in another way it would have been very very fortunate too. Because Ouspensky betrayed him.

Ouspensky was the right man to translate but he had no realization of his own. Gurdjieff had the realization but he had not the language to translate it. It was a meeting of a blind man and a lame man - they helped. It was almost like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Vivekananda had no realization, Ramakrishna had the realization. But Ramakrishna had no way to express it. And Vivekananda was very articulate, philosophical, very arrogant in his statements, very logical. He was a philosopher. Ramakrishna was a mystic. Ramakrishna has seen God, or truth. Vivekananda has not seen but he knows the language. So Vivekananda became the introduction of Ramakrishna to the world - a wrong introduction.

But sometimes it happens. It is very rare to find a man like Buddha, who has seen and who can himself help you to see - who is both together. Johnson and Boswell both together. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda both together. Socrates and Plato both together. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky both together. It is a very rare phenomenon. But when it happens, only then things go right.

Gurdjieff knew, and Ouspensky knew how to make it known to the world. Now, it is like a man who has eyes, but is dumb, helping a blind man to express what he knows about light. Using the blind man - who has no eyes, who has never seen the light - using his mouth as a vehicle. He has no mouth.

If you read Gurdjieff's own books they are very tiring and boring. I have never come across a man who has really read any book of his completely. One has to skip, one has to just go on. When for the first time his first book was published, it was a one-thousand-page book, but the pages were not cut - only the introduction pages were cut. And there was a notice on the book that 'If you can go into the introduction and you really want to read the book, then cut the other pages. Otherwise you can give it back to the publisher and take your money back.'

Even to go a hundred pages into that introduction is a very arduous journey. Unless you are a masochist it is difficult to go through - unless you enjoy misery, then it iS another thing. It is shocking.

To read those one thousand pages is almost as difficult as to reach to the moon. Very few people have ever tried. He was absolutely inarticulate. And the problem was that his whole life went into the schools with masters, in their presence. He was accumulating, accumulating, and then a moment came when he felt that 'Now I know. I have understood. And I should go to the West and introduce this great tradition, this great wisdom.'

Ouspensky became a vehicle - but Ouspensky betrayed him finally, he went against him. That is natural too. Because Ouspensky is a totally different type of man - a philosopher, a mathematician, a scientist, a logician. And by and by when he became articulate and he started saying things and his books became world-famous, he started thinking that he himself has now arrived - now there is no need for Gurdjieff. He betrayed Gurdjieff. That also happens, always.

Judas betrayed Christ because he was the most articulate, the most scholarly, the most educated person. Amongst all Jesus' disciples Judas was the most cultured, most sophisticated. Others were just villagers - farmers, woodcutters, fishermen. Judas betrayed, so did Ouspensky. And it has been a long history - it has always been done that way. Buddha was betrayed by his own cousin-brother, Devadatta, who was as sophisticated and cultured as Buddha himself. They had played together in their childhood, they were brought up in the same palace. He betrayed him. Mahavira was betrayed by his own son-in-law. He was the most important man among Mahavira's disciples; he betrayed.

The man of knowledge, the knowledgeable man, is a dangerous man. Because sooner or later he will get the idea that now I myself am the master.' The world knows Gurdjieff through Ouspensky who betrayed him. Gurdjieff could not deliver the message. And Lewis missed him. Now he is here, and I feel that he is very open. Just the idea that 'What can be done now? If it has not happened in thirty years how can it happen now?'

But I say to you that the happening need not have much time for it, it can happen in a split moment.

If you can unburden yourself, if you can put aside all that you have learned, all the knowledge that you have gathered, if you can again look at things with fresh eyes, it is still possible. It is always possible. You are never too late, nobody is.

In India we have a saying: If the man who got lost comes back even in the evening, he should not be thought to be lost. The whole day is gone, the sun is setting, in the morning he went astray and it is evening. Yes, it is Lewis' evening. Gurdjieff you missed. Don't miss this madman here. And Gurdjieff was going to give you a ladder which goes on and on and you have to develop and work....

I am not giving you any ladder, and I am not giving you any staircase, and I am not giving you a long way to be travelled by you.

I am simply giving you an insight. If you can receive it, in that very receiving, there will be an explosion.

And the third question is also related to it:

Question 3:

They are all enlightened people. I don't deal with unenlightened people at all. I have never come across any unenlightened person. Since I became enlightened I have been coming across enlightened people - enlightened men, enlightened women, enlightened dogs and donkeys.

Enlightened trees and rocks and stars. The whole existence EXISTS in enlightenment, that's its very rhythm.

So what are you talking about? SINCE YOUR PROGRAM BEGAN...And this is not a program. It is a very very mad chaotic phenomenon, it is not a program. It is chaos. Orange chaos I call it.

And you ask: WHAT RESULTS HAVE THERE BEEN WITH YOUR SANNYASINS? Hundred percent.

Whoever comes to me is enlightened - what more do you need? If they persist not to realize it, that is their joy. That is their freedom! This much freedom every enlightened person should have - that if he wants to behave in an unenlightened way, he has to be allowed. If even this freedom is lost, what type of enlightenment is this? A few people choose to behave unenlightenedly, perfectly good.

Sometimes they behave this way, sometimes that way - that too is good.

All is accepted here. And I am not result-oriented at all. 'Result' is a dirty word - even though it is not four-lettered, it is dirty all the same. It is result that has poisoned the whole humanity.

We live the moment; it has intrinsic beauty. It has not to be sacrificed for any other moment. When you are result-oriented you go on sacrificing the present for the future. And the future never comes - whenever it comes it is the present. You again invest it, again sacrifice it, for the future. You miss.

We are not result-oriented at all. Each moment has its own beauty, and the beauty is intrinsic. Each moment is an end unto itself, it is not a means to any other thing. So we are not result-oriented.

And we are not counting who has become enlightened and who has not become enlightened. Why bother? From the very beginning all beings are Buddhas.

But there are people who go on counting inside themselves.

It happened: Mulla Nasruddin was entertaining a guest. And he was bringing things and then he brought samosas. And he was forcing and forcing - 'Take one more, take one more.' And the guest said, 'I have already taken five, now it is enough.' Nasruddin said, 'Not five, you have taken nine, but who is counting?'

People go on counting deep inside, and they go on saying 'Who is counting?'

The person is new - Jack Vaught. I can understand his difficulty, he must be puzzled - who is enlightened? who is not enlightened? So many enlightened people, is it possible? So many Buddhas? Because in the West you have been very miserly - you say Jesus is the only begotten son of God. Has God gone impotent since then? You are so miserly that only one begotten son. And what has He been doing since then? Then Nietzsche is right when he says God is dead. Nothing is happening, He must be dead.

In the East we are not miserly. That's why we can say with joy: Since the very beginning all beings are Buddhas. Buddhahood is not something that has to be conferred upon you. That foolishness also exists in the Christian mind - even a saint has to be recognized by the church. Even the word 'saint' is ugly, it comes from 'sanction'. When the church sanctions and declares that 'This man has become a saint' then that man becomes a saint - as if it is a Ph.D. or D.Lit. degree. Mm? Some university confers it upon you and then you become a saint.

Here you can declare yourself enlightened. Nobody will prevent you. One woman, Oma, goes on informing me, 'I have become enlightened, Osho.' There is no problem - Oma can become enlightened, everybody can become enlightened, everybody IS enlightened. But I suspect - because her continuous effort to inform me creates suspicion. She needs sanction. Just the other day, Ananda Prem - Oma's disciple - she wrote a letter to me, that 'Oma says she has become enlightened: "You can go and ask Osho".' But why ask me? Who am I to declare you enlightened or not? If I am to declare you enlightened, that will not be much of an enlightenment. Who am I? If you have become, you have become. You have always been - that's what I am saying. Sanction is not needed at all. No order is needed to be issued, no formal declaration is needed.

And you need not ask. If you ask, you are suspicious about it. If you have become enlightened you have become enlightened. In the morning you don't go around the neighbourhood asking: 'Am I awake?' Otherwise people will think you are mad. You must be asleep!

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Very few people can. Very few people can afford to live without misery. Misery gives you a sense of being, misery defines you. Misery gives you the ego, the self-identity. Misery gives you something to hold on to, you can cling to it.

Bliss is very elusive. You can possess misery, you cannot possess bliss - on the contrary, bliss possesses you. You can control misery, you cannot control bliss. In bliss you have to disappear, the controller has to disappear. Very few people can afford that much, they are so afraid to go into the unknown. Misery is known; well-acquainted you are, well-introduced you are. A thousand and one times you have suffered the same thing, the same nauseous thing. But by and by you have become accustomed to it. A kind of familiarity has grown between you and the misery.

You ask: Why can I not live without misery?

The 'I' cannot exist without misery, that's why. You will not be there without misery. Once misery is missing, you will be missing.

You must have heard Descartes' famous statement: Cogito ergo sum - 'I think, therefore I am.' Yes, he is true in a sense - not in the sense he means, but in a totally different sense he is true. The moment thinking ceases, you will cease - in that sense it is true: I think, therefore I am. So you cannot afford to lose thinking.

In bliss, thinking disappears. In bliss there is no thought. Bliss is not a thought at all. Even when you recognize that you are blissful it is only later on when the bliss has gone, when the moment has disappeared. When the bird has again flown back into the unknown and you are left in your misery - then you remember; you recapitulate. It is always a memory. Yes, you say 'I was blissful.' You never know 'I AM blissful.' No, nobody has ever known that 'I am blissful.' Because when bliss is, I am not.

Bliss is so vast it simply throws you away. The flood comes and you are gone. If you are ready to die, if you are ready to disappear, if you are ready to lose yourself - only then will you be able to drop misery. Misery works, it has some utility for you. You have much investment in it. And because it works you go on clinging to it. For example, just watch your misery and see the investments.

Everybody goes on saying 'I don't want to be miserable' - but he has some indirect investments in it and he is not ready to lose those investments.

For example, if you are miserable it is easy to have people's sympathy. Now, that is an investment.

If you are ill everybody pays attention to you, everybody takes care of you. Once that has happened it becomes very difficult to be healthy again. Because once you are healthy the care, the attention, the sympathy, that yoU were getting will disappear also. Naturally - it was not given to you, it was given to your disease. Now the disease has a subtle attraction - then why not remain in it? Your wife has never been so loving as she has been since the heart attack. Now again to be healthy and 'going', seems to be taking a risk. And you know your wife - so knowing her, knowing your whole life, she has never been so careful about you, so attentive to you, so caring about your needs. Now suddenly she is so caring; all care she is. How can you afford to lose your illness? You can only hope for heart failure now, nothing else. You can pray to God: 'Now give me heart failure. The heart attack has been so good.'

You cling to misery because it has some investment somewhere, it works.

A guide was conducting a party of tourists around Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury If you look up to your left,' he said, 'You'll see a large bay window, the third one along from the end. That is the Archbishop's study.'

'Oh,' said one of the sightseers, 'I do wish we could catch a glimpse of the Archbishop himself.'

'Right,' said the guide, and stooping down, he picked up a large stone and hurled it through the window. Immediately, a face appeared behind the broken glass, red with anger and shouting incoherently.

'There you are!' said the guide. 'That always gets the old boy!'

Now once you know it works, 'it always gets the old boy', you have stumbled upon a key. Now you will go on using that key. That's why you are miserable. When you are miserable the whole world is sympathetic towards you. When you are happy everybody is jealous of you. When you are happy nobody can forgive you. When you are unhappy everybody is so polite to you, everybody is so friendly, everybody is so generous. When you are happy everybody becomes the enemy. For a blissful mall the whole world turns to be an enemy. That's why Jesus is crucified - he is crucified for daring to be blissful. Socrates is poisoned - he is poisoned for daring to be happy. Mansoor is killed, murdered, butchered - what is his crime? A simple crime, that he was ecstatic.

These miserable people all around, they cannot forgive an ecstatic person. Because that ecstatic person reminds them of their failure. Jesus walking by your side, suddenly reminds you that you have failed. A Mansoor singing a song of joy, suddenly makes you feel guilty - what are you doing here? You have sold yourself for mundane things, and here is this man full of God, full of joy, full of light. You cannot tolerate this man. This man is a thorn, it hurts. If it is possible to Mansoor and to Christ and to Socrates, why is it not possible to you? Destroy this man and rest at ease. Then you know 'Everybody is just like me, even worse than me.' That makes you feel good.

That's why people like to know about wrong things about people, what wrong is going on. If you start talking about somebody and you say that he is a saint and he is pure and he is holy, immediately the other person will start criticizing. If you say he is the greatest sinner, the other will say 'I know. You are right. I have never said it but I have always known.' No proof is needed. But if you say somebody is holy, no proof is enough; nobody is going to believe it.

Jesus is not killed by Jews, Jesus is killed by miserable people. He would have been killed anywhere.

Jews should be completely forgotten in regard to it, they have not killed him. He would have been killed by Greeks, he would have been killed by Indians. He would have been killed - it doesn't matter where, he would have been killed anywhere.

That's why you cling to misery. And once you have tasted the joys of misery, once you have got hooked to the joy of misery, it is very difficult.

A woman was applying for a maintenance order against her husband, who was said to have deserted her for seven years and to have made no provision for her or his children.

'I understand,' said the magistrate, 'that you have three children, aged respectively, two, four, and six. How exactly do you square this with your allegation that your husband has deserted you for seven years?'

'Well, your worship,' replied the woman, 'he keeps coming back to apologize.'

Once you get hooked you go on falling back. It becomes a rut. A groove is created in your being, and whenever you have nothing to do you start moving to that groove. There you can always trust you will have some occupation.

You are miserable because you have decided to be miserable - maybe the decision is unconscious.

And you have to be conscious about the decision, only then can it be dropped. Because nothing can be dropped from the unconscious. The unconscious is a great preserver, it preserves everything.

Once you make anything unconscious it will be preserved for ever and ever unless you make it conscious again and throw it. Your unconscious is a basement where you never go, and you always go on throwing things in the basement. Whenever you are miserable you repress it. Your eyes may be full of tears but you try to smile - you throw those tears into the unconscious. You may be boiling with anger but you go on repressing the anger, the sexuality, the greed.

You go on throwing all this into the basement, and there all these things are creating a great chemistry. All these things meeting together, melting into each other - it is almost a lab of an alchemist. Just in the reverse order - the alchemists transform the baser metal into gold and you transform the gold into baser metal, but still you are an alchemist.

You have to bring your misery into the conscious. You have to face it. And you have to see what your investments are with it. And then if you decide that those investments are worth it then it is perfectly okay. Then be miserable but don't make a fuss about it. If you think that misery is not worth those investments, it is foolish, then just seeing the foolishness of it is the cessation of it. To see anything totally, to recognize its absurdity, is to drop it. There is no need to drop it then - in that very seeing, it drops. Seeing is transformation. IHI PASSIKA, says Buddha: Come and see.

The sixth question:

Question 5:

It is from Anand Anshumali. So have it your own way. Joy is good, I am all for joy. If you feel joy only when you are unhappy, then have it - have as much of it as possible.

But this is a morbid kind of joy, a perversion. See the perversion of it, it is masochism. There are people who feel happy only when they hurt themselves, when it really hurts like hell. Then they know they ARE. Then they know they are, they exist. Pain makes them a little alert of themselves.

But this is getting into a wrong track. These tracks are available. There are people who feel joy only when they are unhappy - this is only one part. There are people who feel very unhappy when they have joy - that is another part of the same perversion. If Anshumali goes on growing in the direction of his choice, the second will be coming soon.

But remember, what are you doing to yourself? Joy is available without any unhappiness, uncorrupted by unhappiness, unpolluted by any misery. Why not have that? When pure and fresh air is available why go on living in a slum? Why go on searching for dirty air? But people can become accustomed to dirty air.

I have heard about a man who came out of his house one early morning - it was five o'clock, the beautiful, the most beautiful, moment of the day. But in his whole life he had never been out in that moment. He was a drunkard. He used to be awake almost the whole night and then he would fall asleep. It was just accidental, there was some noise outside. At four o'clock he had just gone to sleep and there was some noise, some house was on fire or something, and he was disturbed in his sleep so he went out. He asked his watchman, 'What type of smell is this?' It was just the fresh smell of the morning, the fresh smell of the soil and the air and the sun getting ready to rise and the birds and the trees. It was the fragrance of the morning. And he asked the watchman, 'What kind of smell is this?' He knew only one smell, that of alcohol. This was so new and so strange, unfamiliar.

He really didn't like it.

The watchman said, 'Sir, it is nothing but fresh air.'

You can become too much accustomed to your misery. So whenever it comes you feel relaxed - the old guest has come, you know it well. But this is getting into a perversion. And nobody can pull you out of it unless you see the point. And I am not saying that you have to come out of it, I never interfere into anybody's life. If you are feeling good then this is how it should be. With all my blessings, you can have as much misery as you like.

But if you understand me, if misery can be so joyful, how much will joy be joyful. Just think of that. If illness can be joyful, how much will be health. Just think of that.

The seventh question:

Question 6:

I don't know exactly. Because I never wanted to, so I am utterly inexperienced. You should not ask me such difficult questions. But I guess - these are just guesses - I guess because people like to live in institutions, in prisons. People don't want to live an open life, they want to live a closed life.

That's why they want to get married.

I guess people don't love, that's why they want to get married. The love is not enough, so the law is needed to help. If love is enough there is no point in getting married. If you trust your love, that's enough; no other thing is needed to keep you together. Marriage is finding ways to keep you together. Because you cannot trust that your love is enough to keep you together. People who don't love, they want to get married. Although people are very cunning - they say, 'We want to get married because we love.' But why should one want to get married if one loves? Love is more than enough - how can marriage help? It can destroy, it cannot enhance.

The very idea of marriage is the beginning of divorce. The moment you think to get married you should beware - you have already started planning for divorce. The fear is coming, the fear of divorce is coming - and before it takes possession of you, you want to get married. So there will be the law and the police and the court and the society to prevent you escaping from this woman or to prevent this woman escaping from you.

Love is enough, more than enough. And if love cannot keep you together then nothing can keep you together. And nothing should keep you together.

People like to get married because they cannot bear happiness. They want some misery. Whenever you see a couple, a man and woman, thoroughly unhappy you can trust they are married - but they have to be thoroughly un happy. It is very difficult to see a married couple happy, whatsoever their pretensions. They may show happiness but that is not the truth. You should see them when they are not pretending, when they are not wearing their public face. They are always quarrelling, always fighting, always at each other's necks.

People can't bear happiness. Love is such a joy, it is unbearable. It is so unbearable you want to crush it. And marriage is the sure way to crush it. All marriages are destructive to love. The very idea is destructive. Love should be your only trust.

I guess men marry because they think they are too tired, women because they are curious. Both are disappointed. Men want to get married because they are so much afraid of women. When you are married you have to be afraid of only one woman, that is the safety in it. If you are not married all the women make you afraid. Once married, your wife protects you, she becomes a great protection around you. Then you are no more open; then she protects you against yourself.

Women want to get married because down the ages men have made them so helpless economically that they are always hankering for economic security. Once the helplessness of women is gone and the woman is as economically independent as the man, I don't think marriage is going to survive; nobody would like it. And it is good if marriage disappears from the world. It is one of the greatest calamities.

And I am not saying that being together in intimate love and living together for your whole life is wrong. I am not saying that. But it should be only for love, and for nothing else. It should not have any economic motive, it should not have any security motive. It should not have anything else in it, it should be pure love. Yes, love brings many dangers - but that's how love lives, through dangers. Love remains alive through dangers. Dangers are not bad, they keep things flowing and love remains all adventure. It is courageous to love, it is cowardly to get married.

And if the question is a personal question, if the question is your question - because you have asked: WHY DOES ONE WANT TO MARRY? If that 'one' is you, then my suggestion is Never get married And live always in love If you want to live always in love never get married, otherwise you will start living in hatred Because nobody can love one's own prisoner And nobody can love one's own jailer either When you are married you become that - one becomes the jailer, one becomes the prisoner And both start hating each other Then life has friction and no grace.

And the last question:

Question 7:

Then why do you believe? You don't know. If you know, there is no need to believe. All belief is out of ignorance Belief MEANS ignorance. Buddha knows, he does not believe. I know, I don't believe at all. But why do you believe? From where comes your belief? It is not coming from your experience - then from where is it coming? It can come only from two sources, which are basically the same source - either fear or greed. Either you are afraid or you are greedy. And these are the two aspects of the same coin, fear and greed.

Greed is out of fear, and out of greed more fear arises. They go together. So either you are afraid of hell or you are greedy for heaven. Otherwise why do you believe in God? How can you believe in God? Your very belief simply says that alone you are afraid; you need a protection. You need a father, you need somebody to control the destiny, you need somebody to look up to.

And all belief is based in fear, and your gods are nothing but your fears personified. Your gods don't say anything about the God, they simply say something about your pathology, about your mind.

A very religious man, deep asleep, had a dream. In his dream, God appeared and said to him: 'I have news for you - bad news and good news. Which would you like to hear first?'

'The good news,' said the man.

'Well, the good news is that when you die you will be going to Heaven.'

The man, very happy, said, 'And what is the bad news?'

Said God: 'The bad news is that you are expected there by tomorrow.'

Even about Heaven you are afraid. You are afraid to die.

One alpinist fell down from a steep rock, and when he was falling he took a hold of a branch and kept suspended.

'Help me, help me!' he shouted. 'Is there anybody above me?'

Suddenly a strong and deep voice echoed over the abyss: 'I'm going to help you, my son. But first I need your faith and you have to trust me.'

The man answered, 'Sure, I'll do everything you want, my Lord. I trust you, I believe you.'

'Then,' replied the voice, 'let loose the branch.'

A deep silence followed and the man shouted again: 'Hey! Is there another one above me?'

Even if God comes to you and says: 'Let go! Die! Disappear!' you will turn your back towards Him.

You will start searching for another god.

All beliefs are rooted in fear. And a really religious person is born only when all fears and all beliefs are burned, and the scriptures and the idols destroyed. When you are free of belief you are ready for truth.