On the Altar of the Real

The first question:

Question 1:

Bhagavato, nobody can exist without a center. Life is impossible without a center - you may not be aware of it, that's another matter. It has not to be created but only rediscovered. And remember, I am not saying 'discovered', I am saying 'rediscovered'.

The child in the mother's womb remains perfectly aware of the center. The child in the mother's womb is at the center, vibrates at the center, pulsates at the center. The child is the center in the mother's womb, he has no circumference yet. He is only essence, he has no personality yet.

Essence is the center, that which is your nature, that which is God-given. Personality is the circumference, that which is cultivated by society; it is not God-given. It is by nurture, not by nature.

As the child comes out of the womb, he comes for the first time in contact with something outside of himself. And that contact creates the circumference. Slowly slowly, the society initiates the child into its own way. The Christian society will make the child a Christian, and the Hindu, a Hindu, and so on and so forth. Then layer upon layer of conditioning is imposed on the child.

Basically, if you enter into a well-developed personality you will find these three things. First, a very thin positive layer - positive but phoney. That is the layer which goes on pretending; that is the layer where all your masks are contained. Fritz Perls used to call that layer the "Eric Berne layer". It is where you play all kinds of games.

You may be crying within, but on that layer you go on smiling. You may be full of rage, you may want to murder the other person, but you go on being sweet. And you say "How good of you to come. I am so happy, so glad to see you." Your face shows gladness; that is phoney.

But to exist in a phoney society you will need a phoney layer. Otherwise you will be in as much difficulty as Socrates was, Jesus was, I am. That phoney layer keeps you part of the phoney society; you don't fall apart. It is a false world, what in the East we have called 'maya'. It is illusory, it is all false and phoney.

The other person also is smiling as falsely as you are smiling. Nobody is really smiling. People are carrying wounds - but they have decorated their wounds with flowers, they are hiding their wounds behind flowers.

Parents are in a hurry to give this layer to the child. They are in a hurry because they know the child has to exist as a member of a false society. It will be difficult for the child to survive without it; it functions as a lubricating agent.

This is a very thin layer, skin-deep. Scratch anybody a little and suddenly you will find that the flowers have disappeared; and rage and hatred and all kinds of negative things are hidden behind it. That is the second layer - negative but still false.

The second layer is thicker than the first. The second layer is the layer where much work has to be done. That's where psycho-therapies come in. And because there is a great negative layer behind the positive, you are always afraid to go in, because to go in means you will have to cross that ugly phenomenon, that dirty rubbish that you have gathered, year in and year out, your whole life.

From where does the second layer come? The child is born as a pure center, as innocence, with no duality. He is one. He is in the state of UNIO MYSTICA: he does not yet know that he is separate from existence. He lives in unity; he has not known any separation, the ego has not arisen yet.

But immediately the society starts working on the child. It says, "Don't do this. This will not be acceptable to the society: repress it. Do this, because this is acceptable to the society and you will be respected, loved, appreciated.

So a duality is created in the child; on the circumference a duality arises. The first layer is the positive that you have to show to others, and the second layer is the negative that you have to hide within yourself.

The child is innocent. He is innocent in his love, he is innocent in his anger. He does not make a distinction. When he is in love he is in love, and he is totally in love. And when he is angry he is totally angry, he is just pure anger. Hence the beauty of the child. Even when he is angry he has a superb beauty, grace - even in his anger, because the totality is there. Grown-ups even when they are in love are not so beautiful, because the totality is missing.

We create a division in the child in each child. Our society has lived up to now in a kind of schizophrenia. The real humanity has not yet been born. The whole past has been a nightmare, because we divide the person into two: the positive and the negative, yes and no, love and hate.

We destroy his totality.

These two layers are our split. The first layer is positive and false, the second layer is negative and false. They are false because only the total can be real. The partial is always false, because the partial denies something, rejects something, and the denied part makes it false. Only in total acceptance does reality arise.

Bhagavato, the center is there in you, but you will have to go digging through these two layers, the positive-and-phoney and the negative-and-phoney. And then you will fall into that oceanic oneness, the total, the whole. Then suddenly great bliss arises: that is satori. It is not to be created, it is already there. It is not even to be discovered, it has only to be REdiscovered. You have known it before, hence the search - otherwise the search would be impossible.

Why do people go on searching for bliss? Because they must have known it. Somewhere deep down, the memory still persists of those sweet moments in the mother's womb when all was quiet and still, when all was one, when there was no worry, no responsibility, when there was no other. It as paradise.

It is the meaning of the symbol of the Garden of Eden. The womb is the Garden of Eden. But you cannot live in the womb for ever, sooner or later you have to come out of the womb. And the moment you come out of the womb, the society is bound to educate you. The society and its education is not yet human. it is neurotic, it is very primitive, because it does not help the child to grow in his center.

It does not help the child to grow remaining alert of the center. On the contrary, it tries in every way to make the child forget the center and become identified with a false personality that the society provides for him.

The society is not interested in the child, the society is interested in its own structure persisting.

The society is not interested in the individual; it is against the individual, it is all for the collective.

And the collective has been neurotic and ugly. But the society is past-oriented and the individual is future-oriented; the individual has to live in the future and the society knows only the past in which it has lived. The society has no future, the society consists of the past. And it goes on imposing that past on the child.

In my vision, in a real human society, nothing will be imposed on the child - nothing at all. Not that the child will be left all alone to himself. No, he will be helped but nothing will be imposed. He will be helped to remain whole, he will be helped to remain rooted in the essence. He will not be forced to shift his consciousness from the essence to the personality. The future education will not be an education in personality, it will be an education in essence.

And that is the meaning of a religious education. Up to now, there has been no religious education.

And whatsoever you call religious education is either Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan; that is indoctrination, not religious education. Religious education will help the child to remember what is already there in him, not to forget it.

The real education will make the child more meditative, so that he never loses contact with his inner being. There is every possibility of losing that contact, because he will be moving with others: he will start imitating others, he will have to learn many things from others. Let him learn, but let him become aware that he is not to become an imitator.

But that is just what is being done, and has been done, down through the ages. We teach children to become imitators: "Be like Jesus. Be like Socrates. Be like buddha." The child can only be truly himself and never anybody else. And whatsoever he tries to become will be false and phoney.

Bhagavato, you ask me: TODAY IN LECTURE I LOOKED AT YOU AND I FELT MYSELF SO SHALLOW AND PHONEY AND FALSE.

It is good. It is immensely beautiful that you felt it. This is the beginning. If you become aware of the phoney, you cannot remain unaware for long of that which is real - because to be aware of the phoney means that somewhere you have started becoming aware of the real. Maybe it is very vague, cloudy, not yet clear, not yet transparent, muddy. But the beginning has started.

To know the false as false is the beginning of knowing the real as real. This is a good beginning, an auspicious beginning.

You say: THERE DOES NOT SEEM TO BE ANYTHING DEEPER INSIDE ME.

To become aware of this, that "There is nothing deeper inside me" is the first step towards depth.

Millions of people go on thinking that their shallow personality is their soul. Their shallow personality has depth they think. They go on believing in it and believing in it they go on missing their reality.

My function here is to make you aware of the false and the phoney and the unreal and the superficial.

And when for the first time it dawns that you are phoney it hurts, because you have always believed the opposite. You have always remained with the idea that you are very very real and deep, that you have heights and depths. And you have nothing.

Right now as you exist, you don't have any depth, you don't have any height. You exist as persona; you are not yet aware of the essence. And only the essence can have heights and depths. But to become alert that "I am shallow" is good, tremendously important, significant. Don't forget it again:

remember it. It will hurt, it will become a pain in the heart, it will become a wound. It will be like an arrow going deeper and deeper, and it will become more and more painful.

That it is the journey that every seeker has to go through. That is the pain which is needed for your rebirth. Don't forget it, and don't start believing again in the old phoney personality.

You are not that which up to now you have been thinking you are. You are something totally different.

You are not this body: you are in the body but not the body. And you are not this mind either; the mind is there, but you are far beyond the mind. You are the witness.

Bhagavato, you say: I FELT MYSELF SO SHALLOW...

Who has felt it? Remember that. Shallowness itself cannot feel that it is shallow. It will have no idea of depth - how can it feel it is shallow? Misery itself cannot feel that it is misery. Somebody else is needed, somebody who has known states of bliss. Only such a one can become aware of misery.

Disease cannot feel itself as disease, only health can feel disease as disease. Remember that.

Who has become aware that "I am shallow, I am false and phoney and there seems to be no depth in me"? Who is this? This witness is you. This is your center; your center is arising out of the chaos of your personality. This is a great moment, a moment of great blessings: don't lose track of it. Howsoever painful the journey, one has to go through it, because the end is utterly blissful.

This is the sacrifice that each sannyasin has the make; the sacrifice of the phoney on the altar of the real.

The second question:

Question 2:

Pratito, it is difficult to be silent because in silence one disappears. You can exist as an ego only in noise. Noise is the food for you to exist as an ego; you live on it, you thrive on it. Hence the difficulty of becoming silent.

When people start thinking of becoming silent, they have the idea that when silence comes they will be there and they will enjoy the silence. That idea is utterly wrong; you don't have any notion of real things. When silence comes, you will not be there; you and silence cannot exist together. You are the noise. So when silence comes there is only silence.

There is nobody who is silent, there is nobody who can be there enjoying silence. Silence is not an experience, because there is no experiencer. It is utter silence; there is nobody.

Sufis call if fana: dissolution. Buddha has called it nirvana: extinguishing the candle. All is gone and there is only nothing, a kind of no-thing-ness.

You will not be able to find yourself as a self. Hence the difficulty. You will have to die to become silent - wand who wants to die? We want silence also as a decoration, as a medal, so we can brag that "Not only have I got money, I have also got meditation." So that we can brag that "Not only am I rich outwardly, I am rich inwardly too.". The first interest in searching for silence arises out of the ego. And the ego itself is the barrier.

So when you come in contact with a master or with an energy-field, with a school where things are being done - really being done, not only thought about - then the fear arises. Then you become aware of the phenomenon that with the noise disappearing you will also disappear. Are you ready to risk that much?

You say, Pratito: WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO BE SILENT?

Because you are invested in noise.

MY WORDS, you say, ARE SO MECHANICAL AND USED, A CONTINUOUS REPETITION OF HISTORIES, THE SAME OLD PAST WHICH DOESN'T EXIST ANY MORE.

Mind is nothing but the past. It is just the records of the past; it is a recording mechanism. It is your history, it is that which is no more, it is memory. But that memory keeps you alive as an ego. And you have to go on repeating that memory again and again; that helps, that supports the ego. You have to go into your past again and again to revive your ego: this is the way you nourish it.

If you drop your past completely.... Just think for a moment: if by a magic wand your past is dropped completely, this moment, who will you be? Will you be able to say 'I'?. With the past disappearing, the 'I' will have disappeared with it. You will be, but you will not be able to say 'I'. You will be just a silence, and empty canvas, a meditation. A peacefulness, a stillness, but there will be no 'I'.

Just think: slowly slowly, in a minute, drop your past. Drop your past and then think: what remains?

Nothing remains. Or, only nothing remains. That nothing is you. That nothing is your reality, your essence.

So this is a mechanism to keep the ego going. You will have to repeat it: you will have to go again through the same words and the same memories and the nostalgia, again and again. And you will improve and polish on those memories. You will invent things which have never been; you will make your past look very beautiful and golden, which it was not. You will drop all that is ugly and you will go on and on projecting.

People go on inventing their past too. They make it as beautiful and rich as possible, because that is where their ego exists.

Everybody thinks that their childhood was very beautiful. The childhood was beautiful, but that childhood you don't remember at all. The womb was beautiful, but that you don't remember at all.

And after birth, the first two or three years were beautiful, but that too you don't remember at all.

The childhood that you remember is after the fourth year, and that was not beautiful at all. That was one of the most difficult times in your life, because you were being forced, pulled and pushed into the social structure. You were cut this way and that, you were being adjusted to the machine. You were almost destroyed. You were manipulated. No child likes it.

Every child resists, becomes angry, rebels, but is helpless. And finally the parents win and the society wins.

Those days were ugly, remember again. There is nothing golden in them. But later on, everybody thinks those days were beautiful. That is your invention. People not only project the future, they project the past too: they go on coloring it, polishing it, retouching it again and again. And, slowly slowly, they make a fairyland of their past. And then they feel very good; the ego is supported by their beautiful past. The ego becomes beautiful through a beautiful past.

Just look into the autobiographies that people write. In autobiographies you will not find anything truthful. Or if sometimes you find something truthful it will be about others, not about the person who has written the autobiography. It will be about others but not about himself.

All autobiographies are a species of fiction. People invent them. Autobiographies should be counted as fiction, nothing else, because you write about your childhood later on. That childhood is just an invention: with all your experiences, with all your knowledge, with your whole life lived, you create a childhood. The childhood you would have liked to live, you create it. It is a beautiful fiction.

And one has to repeat it, remember one thing. Lies have to be repeated again and again, otherwise you will forget them. That's why it is said that if you want to lie you need a good memory. A man who speak the truth need not have a good memory. There is no need; the truth is the truth. The person who is constantly lying will really need a good memory. Lies have to be repeated, only then can they live; otherwise they disappear.

You ask me, Pratito, "Why do I go on mechanically into the same past again and again, repeating old habits? " Because this is the way you can keep it alive. Otherwise it will disappear on its own.

And this is something to be understood. If you stop participating with your past - if when the past repeats like a mechanical habit you watch it, you don't cooperate with it - you will see, you have taken the energy out of it. Slowly slowly, watching it, it starts dropping. Once your watching has become total, the past disappears.

And the disappearance of the past is satori. Because in the past exists your personality, your I, your ego, your self. With the past they all disappear and you are thrown back into the very center of your being. Again you are innocent, again you are a child.

That's what Jesus means when he say, "Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God."

What kingdom is he talking about? He is talking about the kingdom that is within you: the center, the essence, or you can call it whatever you want. A rose is a rose is a rose, it doesn't matter by what name you call it.

The childhood can be regained, rediscovered. That innocence, that beautiful innocence, can be yours again. And it will be far richer than it was, because now you will be fully alert of it. You will be conscious too. To be consciously a child is to be a saint.

There is a story of the little boy of six years of age together with his girlfriend of five year of age who approach his mother with the news that they are going to get married.

"And what are you going to do for money?" the mother asked.

"Well," said the little boy, "I get ten cents a week allowance and Mary gets five cents a week allowance."

"And where will you and she live?"

"Well, we thought that one week we would live at our house and the next week we would live at Mary's."

"What," asked the mother, "are you going to do when you have children?"

"Well," the little boy replied, "touch wood - so far we have been very lucky!"

That innocence is still somewhere in you. That totality, that beautiful ignorance, is still somewhere in you, hidden behind so many layers of the personality. And those layers go on repeating themselves.

Watch the repetitiveness of your mind. Even if sometimes it changes words, it goes on repeating the same thing. Even if sometimes it changes habits - you may stop smoking, then you start chewing gum. It is the same thing, the same game played with different toy. Watch the utterly unoriginal nature of your mind. Consciousness is original, mind is always repetitive and unoriginal.

A telegram arrived at the army barracks. Corporal Jones' mother had died. That evening on the parade ground the sergeant-major bellowed at the men, "Attention! Jones, your mother is dead.

Okay, men dismissed."

Poor Corporal Jones collapsed, distraught. Next morning the commanding officer called the sergeant-major to his office. "Now, Sergeant-major, a word about death. When one of the men's parents passes on, goes beyond to meet his maker as it were, I think it would be better for morale if you broke the news with a little more kindness. Be a bit more subtle - know what I mean? different approach - know what I mean? There's a good chap, off you go now.

Now it happened that one month later, poor Jones' father also passed away. The sergeant-major, remembering what his officer had said, thought, "Right, now - different approach, subtle, bit of kindness!"

That evening he called to the men, "Attention! All those with father take one pace forward. Jones, where the hell do you think you are going?"

It does not make much difference. Mind is repetitive, mind is just an old gramophone record. You can change words, you can change habits, it remains the same. The worldly man becomes the other-worldly, but it remains the same.

I have watched so many of your saints, and I have not seen any difference at all. They are still in the marketplace, although they live in the monastery. They have only changed forms, superficial forms, but their mind is exactly the same with no difference at all. They are playing the same games with new names, and they are utterly satisfied.

I have always felt deep compassion for your so-called saints; they are really pitiable. Whenever I see a so-called saint, deep down I say "Poor man" - because he is thinking he is a changed being. He is not. First he was running after money, now he is running from money, but the running continues. First he was continuously hankering for this woman and that, now he is continuously afraid of women.

But he remains obsessed with the same idea; for or against makes no difference. He is focussed on the same target. First he was in lust, now he is anti-lust, but the object of lust or anti-lust is the same.

So whether you desire the world or you renounce the world will not make much difference, unless you understand the ways of your mind, how it functions repetitively. Watch. Nothing else has to be done: just watch. Watch all the subtle ways how the mind moves into old grooves; just go on watching. Slowly slowly, the watcher arises, the watcher on the hills. And the mind is left far behind.

Deep down in the valley it continues; it goes on playing the tape. But you are no more it, you are no more in it. You can use it whenever it is needed, and you can forget all about it whenever you don't need it.

Talking to you, I have to use the mind; there is no other way. But the moment I have gone into my room I put it off. It is just a question of putting it on and off. It is a good mechanism, it can be used beneficially. The problem arises only when it becomes the master and it starts using you.

And that's what is happening, Pratito. The mind has become the master, and consciousness is completely lost. Regain your consciousness, become more alert and attentive. And the best thing to be attentive of is your own mind. Just watch its subtle and delicate methods, how it goes on playing games.

And I am not saying to change those games - because if you become interested in changing, you will forget watching. That's why I don't say to my sannyasins, "Leave the world." I say, "Live wherever you are." Sometimes it even looks very strange...

Just a few months ago, there was a french prostitute here. She wanted to take sannyas but she was also afraid - she was afraid that if I came to know that she was a prostitute I might not give her initiation. But she was really a sincere soul, she could not hide it. And that's what I call saintliness.

She said, "I should not hide it from you, I have to tell you that I am a prostitute. Can you still initiate me into sannyas?"

I said, "I might have rejected you before, but now I cannot reject you. Your innocence, your sincerity - nobody was asking you, you have told it on your own. This is beautiful. I will initiate you."

Then another problem arose in her mind. When after a few months she was going back, she asked, "Now what am I supposed to do? I am a prostitute and that is the only profession I know. Now what am I going to do? Will you give me some indication?" I said, "Who am I to give you any indication?

Just go, and go on doing whatsoever you have been doing. Just be watchful from now onwards."

She said, "Do you mean that I can continue to be a prostitute?" I said, "That is not the point, whether to continue as a prostitute or not to continue as a prostitute. Even if you leave and you become a nun, your mind will be the same as that of the prostitute. It is not a question of where you are - in a monastery as a nun, or in the marketplace as a prostitute. That is not the point at all. The point, the whole point, consists of one thing, and that is: wherever you are, watch your mind. Now become alert. Let this light of watching always be there. And if some transformation happens through that watching, that is another thing."

And it did happen. But that is not renunciation, that is not renouncing anything. Something simply withers away, something becomes utterly stupid and drops. Something simply falls; you cannot hold it any more because it is so stupid.

My sannyasins have to remain in the world as they are. All that I teach is: become more alert, aware, watchful. And if something happens out of that watchfulness, it is good. It is not your choice, it happens choicelessly.

Pratito, you say: WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO BE SILENT?

Because you are still clinging to your ego, afraid to die.

You say: MY WORDS ARE SO MECHANICAL AND USED.

Everybody's words are mechanical and used.

You say: A CONTINUOUS REPETITION OF HISTORIES, THE SAME OLD PAST WHICH DOESN'T EXIST ANY MORE.

Yes, that is the case with everybody. Don't be worried about it, you are not suffering from anything special. It is just the ordinary disease of man, the ordinary disease called 'mind'; very ordinary and normal.

You say: HOW AM I STILL NOT TIRED OF IT?

Because you are still inventing it. How can you be tired? You go o improving upon it. You go on painting it here and there, decorating and refining it a little bit more. You are still working on it; this is your creation. The painting is not finished yet, it is on the way. That's why you are not bored with it. And you will not be bored if you continue working on it, improving o it, refining it, making it more and more delicate and beautiful' you will never be bored.

Stop cooperating with it. And the way to stop cooperation is to become alert - then immediately cooperation disappears.

Just try. There is anger: become aware of the anger. I am not saying to stop anger, drop anger; just become aware. See that the anger is there and watch that it is arising, that you are surrounded by it, that it is clamoring all around like a cloud and you are suffocated by it. Go on watching, without doing a thing.

The moment you do something you have lost your watchfulness. Doing means you become engaged, doing means you become cooperative. And there are two types of cooperation: you can either be for, or you can be against. Both are cooperative. In both ways you become entangled.

Avoid being for or against. Don't be for anger, don't be against anger. It is there, a fact. Just watch without any judgement and you will be surprised: soon you will have found a golden key. Watching, slowly it disappears. And it disappears without leaving a trace on you. Then you have the key; then use it for all kinds of thoughts.

One day you have become alert to the secret process of watching, that watching destroys the mind, disconnects you from the mind. Watching puts the mind off. And once you have risen above the mind like a Himalayan peak, you are the master.

That is the goal of being a sannyasin.

The third question:

Question 3:

Sir, the proof of the pudding is in its tasting. Become a sannyasin: there is no other way. It is an experience; you have to know it through your own experience. And it is such an interior experience that nothing can be said about it from the outside. And it is of such depth that no word is capable of expressing it.

It is as if you have a pain in the heart: only you know. Or you have a headache: only you know. You may have come across people who have no experience of headaches...

I know one person. He is sixty years old and he has never had a headache. It is impossible to explain to him what a headache is. The more you explain to him, the more he seems puzzled. he has never had any experience - how can you convey it?

Sannyas is a very deep experience. It goes to your very roots. it shakes you out of your sleep, it starts transforming you from within. It is not something on the outside. The orange clothes and the mala and the new name - that is not sannyas. That is just an indication, a gesture; that is just a beginning, the first step. And everything else that happens then is very interior.

And you say: HOW IS ONE TO KNOW THAT SANNYAS IS GOOD?

The mother ran into the nursery when she heard her five-year-old son howling. His baby sister had been pulling his hair.

"Don't mind the baby," his mother said. "She doesn't know that it hurts you."

A few minutes later, the mother ran back to the nursery. This time it was the baby doing the screaming.

"What's the matter with the baby?" the mother asked.

"Nothing much," her five-year-old son replied. "But now she knows."

But that is the only way to know. So please let me pull your hair! Become a sannyasin and you will know: it is good. It is immensely good, there is nothing like it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Satyananda, they are right, but they are right in a totally different sense of which they are not aware.

Once can escape from reality, one can also escape to reality.

And the second is the case. When you move into meditation or into sannyas it is escaping to reality, not from reality. Because the most real thing in you is your own center. The farther away you are from your center, the farther away you are from reality.

And the struggle that they are continuing AGAINST ATOMIC POWER, DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT, THE DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS, ETCETERA is not going to succeed in their way - it is not possible to succeed that way.

We are not struggling against anything like that here, because we are cutting the very roots. They are struggling only against the leaves. From where does atomic power come? Who has created it, and why? From where does war come, and why? Who has destroyed the environment, and why?

From where does all this destructiveness come?

Why is there no democracy in the world? Why is there no individual freedom in the world? Who has done all this? Do you think you can make some party, some class, some section of the society, responsible for it? Then you will be utterly wrong.

It is the human mind that is responsible. The way the human mind has existed up to now is somehow wrong. The human mind has not yet learned how to be creative, hence there is destruction. And there will be destruction, unless we change the very foundation of the human mind.

Struggling against war is not going to help, because that is again another war. Have you not seen the pacifists and their processions, and how they howl and scream and how angry they are? And they are pacifists. And every pacifist procession ends in destruction: they start looting the shops and burning the buses and throwing stones at the police. And they had come to propagate peace.

This is an old stupidity. All wars are fought in the name of peace, all the wars have always been fought in the name of peace. Can't you see he point? Man wants to fight, any excuse will do. And peace is a beautiful excuse.

All politicians talk about peace and prepare for war. And if you ask them why, they will say "how can we protect peace? We have to be strong, otherwise peace will be destroyed. So we have to prepare for war in order to have a peaceful world." And when the preparation has gone on for long then you have to do something, because otherwise the preparation becomes heavy.

For example, a person has been continuously exercising and preparing himself, just in order to be ready to fight. Then one day he is ready. Now he hankers to fight; now his whole preparation forces him to fight. And he was not exercising alone: the neighbor was also going to the gym, and also getting muscular, and also becoming a Muhammad Ali. And both walk before each other's house in a very aggressive way, and both are afraid of each other. And then finally somebody has to begin to fight.

Machiavelli said the best way to defend is to be offensive, the best means of defence is to be offensive. Then somebody has to start it, because it becomes heavy. it becomes a tension, and the tension has to be released.

Now, when you go on piling up arms and bombs, how long can you go on piling them up? One day you have to start selling them; it is dangerous to go on accumulating them. Then, somewhere or other, there has to be a war: it becomes an economic necessity.

Big world wars are fought once in a while, and between two big wars small wars go on - sometimes in Israel, sometimes in Korea, sometimes in Vietnam, sometimes Bangladesh, Kashmir... they go on. Because the great powers are creating bombs and and the Pakistanis will fight; they will become the market. Then the Israelis and the Arabs will fight, and they will become the market.

Just see the whole point. If Israel gets arms from America, then the Arabs will get arms from Russia:

both need a market. If India gets arms from Russia, then Pakistan gets arms from America: they both are in need. And they are improving their arms every day - so what to do with out-of-date arms? They are useless. You can destroy them, dump them in the ocean, but then all that you have put into them is lost.

Sell them to backward countries. For them they are great things. For Russia and America they are out of date, useless, but for India and Pakistan they are just the last word. They are primitive as far as American technology and Russian technology are concerned; they are of no use. If Russia dn America go to war they will not be of any use; there is no point in keeping them.

So this whole game continues. We go on talking of peace, and we go on creating war.

We have to understand the human mind; the human mind has to be changed from the roots. If the human mind remains ambitious then there is no possibility of a world without war: ambition is war. If the human mind remains sectarian - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan - there is no possibility of any peace. Because those sects will divide people, and any division is the beginning of war.

Satyananda, you have not escaped from reality, you have escaped to reality. We are not talking about peace; there is no point in talking about it. We are creating the foundation of it. We are not pacifists and we are not marching on the streets and going on a long walk - to the capital - a pacifist procession with slogans and shouting. We are not doing all that nonsense, it is pointless! It simply helps a few people to throw out and cathart their destructiveness, that's all. They enjoy it.

I know those people, they are always in every protest march. I lived in Jabalpur for many years, and I was watching every kind of thing that went around. So whenever there was a protest march or anything, I would go and watch. I was surprised: I found one man in all protest marches, all kinds - -communist, socialist, jansanghi, hinduites, arya samajis, anybody! He was always there. I was puzzled: he is congressee, he is a communist, he is a socialist, he is a jansanghi....

One day I caught hold of him and I asked him, "You puzzle me very much. I see you in every procession, every protest, and you shout the best!"

He said, "I am also puzzled, because I see you always watching, and you never participate! How do you manage it? And I was afraid that one day or other you were going to ask me," he said, "because you see me in every protest. I enjoy shouting. I don't care for whom I am shouting or against whom I am shouting. I enjoy shouting! It is such good exercise, and I feel so thrilled and excited, and it always gives me a good appetite. And it brings some excitement; otherwise life is a boredom."

If you don't believe me, you can ask Astha. Her father and mother have both been of this type their whole life, just protesting. It does not matter against whom - who cares? Those are just excuses.

We are not doing anything like that here. So those who are doing such things will think that this is an escape from reality, because they think what they are doing is reality. It is not.

And naturally, sitting silently here - meditating, dancing, with closed eyes doing vipassana, watching, being alert - certainly, for them it is an escape. It is an escape, but in a different sense.

You are going, Satyananda, to the very root of all diseases. And we are trying to cut that very root.

We are trying to create a new kind of human being - without ego, without ambition, without any desire to succeed in the world. We are trying to create a human being who wants to dance, sing, love, who wants to celebrate life. We are trying to create a creative human mind.

And remember, only a no-mind is a creative mind. When the so-called mind disappears and there is just pure emptiness, virgin emptiness, out of that virgin emptiness arises creativity. A thousand and one flowers bloom in that emptiness.

That is the garden Hakim Sanai is talking about: the hadiqa, the garden. We are trying to create that garden. We will make our bodies a compost, we will make our minds a compost, so that the golden flower can bloom in us.

This is not an escape from reality, this is escaping into reality.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

Chaitanya Bodhisatva, understanding is not something that knows any 'when'. It is not of time, so it is not predictable. I cannot say 'today' or 'tomorrow' or 'the day after tomorrow'. It can happen right this moment, it may not happen for lives together. It is unpredictable. It is unpredictable because it cannot be caused. It happens when it happens; understanding comes to you. All that you can do is not to create it - you cannot create it. And the understanding that is created by you will not be much of an understanding, either. So don't ask 'how'; there is no 'how' to it.

'How' means some technique, some method, so that we can create understanding. Understanding is not a thing that can be manufactured. Then what is it? It is already the case. You understand, but the understanding goes against your investments. Whatsoever I am saying is so simple that it is impossible not to understand it. I am not talking about difficult things, I am not talking about philosophy. I am making simple statements, just like "two plus two is four": you need not be a great genius to understand it.

And you understand it perfectly well. It is not that you don't understand it; it is a question of something else. You don't want to understand it. You understand it, but you don't want to understand it. You want to avoid it, you want to postpone it, hence you ask "When? How?" Those are tricks, strategies, to postpone until tomorrow.

I say: Now! Don't ask when. And don't ask how, because 'how' brings the future in. Then you say "I will practise; it can't happen just now. I will practise tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and slowly slowly, gradually, one day it will happen.": And meanwhile you remain the same. It is a trick.

What I am saying is so obvious, but it goes against your investments. You have invested too much in your ignorance. Your whole life up to now has been lived by an utterly wrong kind of mind, and you have invested all that you had, your whole life. Now suddenly you see the point: you become afraid.

Seeing it means that you have been a fool up to now. Seeing it means that up to now all has been futile, that up to now you have not really lived. This is too much, you cannot swallow it. You create a new trick: you say "I will try to understand."

Bodhisatva, you have understood. It is already there. Now please, don't play games. and remember, if you cannot live this understanding that is happening to you today, you will not be able to live it tomorrow either, because tomorrow the investment will have become even more. One day more you will have invested in your wrong attitudes, wrong structures; it will become more and more difficult.

That's why it becomes difficult. The older you are, the more difficult it becomes.

Why do you see so many young people coming to me? The reason is, their investment is not so big. They can still hope to change their life and LIVE. When old persons come, their investment is too big. Unless they are very courageous and really young inside, they will not be able to take the jump. Their whole life they have lived in one way; now suddenly I am showing them a different path to be followed. It is so new: it will be uncomfortable, inconvenient, insecure. And now not much is left - they are getting old, death is coming. To risk in such a moment becomes difficult. They understand perfectly well, but they don't want to understand. They want to go on dreaming, they want to continue the dream.

Mulla Nasrudin one night dreamt that Khidr, the Sufi hidden master, was standing before him and asked him, "What do you want, Nasrudin?"

Poor Nasrudin could not ask much. That's how people are. If God suddenly appears and asks you, "What do you want?" - just think, what comes to your mind? A house, a car, a bank balance... you cannot even ask for something worthwhile.

Mulla said, "A hundred-rupee note." Poor man, that was the best thing that he could imagine. But Khidr is also something; he said, "I will give you one rupee. Two."

Mulla said, "No, a hundred!"

"Three."

And this way it continued, this haggling continued, in the dream. It came to ninety-nine, and Khidr was very adamant. He said, "I will not give a single pai more. Ninety-nine? Take it or leave it!"

And Mulla said, "I will take a hundred! And how miserly you are! Just for one rupee? Why not make it a hundred?"

And the fight became so hot that Mulla woke himself up. He opened his eyes, Khidr disappeared, the notes disappeared. The wife was sitting by his side, because he was talking so loudly that she had become awake and was listening. Great haggling was going on and talk about money, and she was also interested. And she did not want to disturb him; something great was happening.

"Eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two..." and it went on "... ninety-nine." And Mulla said, "Ninety-nine, no! A hundred! I will take only a hundred."

And then suddenly he opened his eyes, and the wife said, "What is happening?" And Mulla said, "You keep quiet!"

He closed his eyes again and said, "Okay, give me ninety-nine." But now the dream is gone; now there is no Khidr, nobody.

And he said, "Okay, ninety-nine I say! Where are you? Ninety-eight! Ninety-seven!" And he started coming down but now there was nobody and not even one rupee. And he was very angry and said, "How foolish I am! I should have accepted ninety-nine. Just for one rupee.... This Khidr is a miser.

And I am also a foolish man; now I cannot find him."

That's the situation. If you understand me, the dream will be broken. And you are always nearabout ninety-nine. It is just going to happen tomorrow - one more day, a little more effort.... And the hundred-rupee note is just hanging there in front of you like a carrot.

You say to me, "Wait, Osho. Just let try a little more. And you can go on telling me, you can go on teaching me, but tell me when and how." And you go on working hard to get this hundred-rupee note which is always there around the corner but is never in your hands. It will never be in your hands.

And you are not ready to awaken from your sweet dream.

It is not a question of understanding; it is so simple. But you have lived a certain life, your habits have become fixed, your structure has become frozen. Even when you understand, your mind is cunning enough to distort it, to create meanings in it which are not there. It can project its own ideas into it.

What I am saying is simple, utterly simple. Anybody with an innocent mind can understand it. But the problem is you have prejudices, you have your own ideas. You would like to understand it accordingly, according to your own prejudices.

The good Father came upon Pat, the town disgrace, in a highly inebriated condition, tacking skillfully from telephone post to gate, and back again.

"Pat, Pat, drunk again?"

"Are ye? So'm I, Father."

"Tut, tut, this is no time for levity. You in this beastly condition, Pat, after faithfully promisin' me, two weeks ago, that you would never more drink again - an' after takin' the pledge. It's a burning shame to you, an' a sin against God an' the Church, and sorry I am to be obliged to say so."

"Father Daly," said Pat, in a tone half tipsy, half laughing, "do ye say ye are sorry to see me so?"

"Yis, indade I am."

"Are you sure y're very sorry?"

"Yis, very very sorry."

"Well, thin, Father Daly, if you're very very sorry, I'll forgive you."

This is how it goes on. I say one thing, you manage to make it mean something else. And you are doing it, and you know that you are doing it. It is not a question of when and how: either now or never.

A young Scotsman of good family and good social position had a great fondness for drink. His family and his friends had done almost everything to break him of the habit, with no success. A friend suggested that they try giving him a severe shock. As a means to this end, they procured a coffin, and the next time he came home under the influence, they dressed him like a corpse, darkened the room, placed a few lighted candles around the coffin, and put a friend there to watch him.

He awoke shortly and appeared greatly puzzled by the surroundings, when, catching sight of somebody in the room, he remarked, "Whaur am I?"

"Ye're deed," was the solemn reply.

"Deed?" he exclaimed. "Hoo lang ha'e I been deed?"

"Three days."

"Weel, weel," he mused. "Are ye deed as weel?"

"Aye, I'm deed as weel," said his companion.

"That funny. Hoo lang ha'e ye been deed?"

"Three weeks," replied the other sadly.

The bibulous one brightened up considerably and said, "Weel, if ye've been deed three weeks, and I've nad I've only been deed three days, ye must know the place better than I dae: whaur can we gang an' get a drink?"

The old mind, the old structure, the old habits, they go on persisting. They will follow you even in your death. That's exactly what happens: you only change your body, your mind continues. Your mind enters into another womb, with all its rotten past. And again you start living the same repetitive life.

Don't ask me when you are going to understand me: you have understood me. Now please don't postpone it any more. It has already happened! It is such a simple thing; I am not giving you puzzles, I am giving you bare, naked truths. And there is no question of how.

Listening to me, not interfering with what I am saying, not distorting what I am saying, the understanding will arise on its own - it is arising. But it is going to be against your investments, that is true. And unless you dare, you will not be able to come out of your old past, you will not be able to come out of your old ego.

Great daring is needed; not understanding - understanding is already happening - but courage.

And what is courage? Courage simply means a readiness to risk the known for the unknown. If the known has not given you anything, why be afraid of the unknown? Let us try it. You are not going to lose anything, because you don't have anything. Why not try it? Either you get something or you don't lose anything; any way you are not going to be a loser.

But people think they have something. They think they have lived a tremendously beautiful life, a life of richness. These are just your beliefs. You have been only dragging along. Your life has been drab and flat; no poetry has ever happened in it, no dance. You have not known anything of the beauty and the grandeur of existence. You have not even for a moment touched the divinity of this beautiful universe.

You have not known anything of God, and only that matters. Only that gives richness, only that means life. If you have not touched the divine, if you have not been touched by the divine, if you have not been moved by the divine, if you have not been penetrated by the divine, if you have not allowed God to happen to you, all that has happened is just a dream.

Seeing it, one jumps out of the dream. This is courage, to jump out of the known dream into the unknown. It is a risk. Who knows what is going to happen in the unknown? But one thing is certain; by changing from the known to the unknown you will have grown, you will have become richer.

The last question:

Question 6:

Ashok, I will resign immediately.