You Can't Win 'em All

The first question:

Question 1:

Amrita, that is the right way. Poetry cannot be done, it can only be allowed. Poetry is not a technique, you cannot learn it. It is a happening - so is all art. Skill is not the central core of any art. Skill is of course needed, but that is secondary. And if the essential is there, one learns the skill easily, it comes. If the essential is not there, then you can become very skillful, you can know all the technique of it, and still you will never become an artist, you will remain a technician.

And there is NO need to become a technician. Poetry should not be there as a performance - it should be a sheer joy, a celebration of life. You need not bother whether somebody comes to know about your poetry or not.

The wild flower - nobody may come to know about it - still blooms! Be a wild flower. And don't think of exhibitions. Dance as the dance comes to you. There is NO need to be skillful about it. If the skill starts coming to you slowly, slowly, without any effort on your part, that's good; but there is no need to go in search of it.

You say: I AM NOT SKILLED IN ANY ART.

Then art is possible. The skilled person is a closed person. Have you ever heard of anybody becoming a poet by learning the art of poetry? In fact, the universities and the colleges put people off poetry. The more they teach, the more it becomes impossible for anybody to become a poet.

They destroy something rather than create something.

The moment you start thinking about poetry as a craft, as skill, as technique, you have missed the point.

Poetry is like love: you need not learn it. It is LOVE of life! When you are happy, it flows. When you are overflowing, it flows in many ways. Sometimes in colour - painting is poetry in colour.

Sometimes in dance - dance is poetry in movement. Sometimes in song... and then by and by it starts transforming your whole life. Then your whole life becomes poetry.

Buddha is poetry lived, so is Jesus.

You say: POETRY SOMETIMES HAPPENS.

Don't hanker and don't desire that it should happen at other times too. If you try for other times too, you will destroy the spontaneity of it. One has to wait. One has to be patient. One has to remain open... just like you wait for a guest: your doors open, you stand on the threshold and you go on looking down the road. Your heart is throbbing. But what else can you do? When the guest comes, the guest comes.

Poetry is a guest - become a host! But don't try to pull, don't try to manipulate - poetry cannot be manufactured. It is not man-made: it is God-made. All poetry has the signature of God; if it is true poetry then it is always God-made.

Yes, you can compose, you can manage to create an appearance of poetry, but it will be false, it will not have life in it, it will not have spirit in it. It will be dead, it will be soul-less.

Wait for those moments... they will be rare, once in a while. But it is good! Poetry is a rare phenomenon; it is not the ordinary rut. The dance will be rare, once in a while, but it HAS to be so!

Allow it. When it comes, go totally into it. When it is not coming, don't try to manage it. If you try to manage, you will start creating false things, pseudo things. And not only that: if you manage, those real moments of happening will stop. You will become closed to them.

All desiring is destructive.

And you say: DANCE HAPPENS THROUGH ME.

Right, you are on exactly the right track, Amrita. When dance happens through you, it is divine dance. When you dance, it is very ordinary, mundane; it has not the touch of the unknown in it; it has no inspiration. It is just gymnastics, a body exercise you have learnt a few steps and movements and you are twisting your body. You are not possessed by God!

When a dance comes to you, you are possessed, you are no more yourself. God has penetrated you. Then there is a totally different quality to it. Then you are not the dancer: you are being danced. And the difference is immense. There is no effort on your part. You are simply taken over.

You don't know what is happening. You are neither the doer nor the knower, and then something great happens - something which is not of this earth. Those are the religious moments.

A dancer can know God more easily than a thinker. And a painter can know God more easily than a businessman. And a poet is certainly closer to God than any politician. These are the people of God! The artist comes closest.

In a better world, with better understanding, the poet should be the only priest. Only he can be the priest - not the theologian, nor the trained priest, but a wild poet. That used to be so in primi-tive societies. It is still so in primitive societies. The madman is the priest, the poet is the priest - the inspired is the priest. He does not preach on his own; he simply lets himself go into the unknown.

He becomes possessed. He dances a wild dance, he sings a wild song - for hours - he goes on dancing and dancing. And then there comes a moment when the man disappears and God takes possession. Then his eyes change - they roll upwards. Then his body has a totally different energy.

It is felt by the people who are present there - the presence is felt, the transformation is felt. The man is meta-morphosed, the man is drunk with the divine, then he speaks - sometimes in a language that cannot be understood, sometimes in words which are not together, with no grammar, with no rules, he utters. But those few words that he utters can become the keys to the unknown, to God.

That's how the Vedas were uttered. That's how the Upanishads were uttered. That's how Jesus is so beautiful! I have never come across a greater poet than Jesus, although nobody thinks about him as a poet - but he is one of the greatest poets that has ever walked on the earth. Just see the poetry of his sayings - the Sermon on the Mount. Each single word is so full of poetry. He must have been possessed in that moment when he delivered that sermon; God must have spoken through him. He must have been one with God in those moments. It is not HE who is speaking; he is just a vehicle, a passage, a medium, a messenger.

And that is the meaning of the word 'Christ', 'Messiah' - he brings the message. He allows the message to come to you; he becomes a bridge.

So when the poetry comes, let it come. Be thankful. When the dance comes, let it come. Be grateful.

But never try to bring it. And I know - the human mind is greedy; it continuously wants more and more. Once something has happened, you want it to be repeated again and again. You will destroy it - don't be greedy!

With greed, God disappears. God is possible only with a non-greedy mind. Hope and wait and pray, but don't be greedy.

And you ask: I FEEL NOW THERE IS SUCH A THING AS THE ART OF LIVING, OF LIFE TOO.

There is no separate art of life. If you know how to allow poetry, if you know how to allow dance, if you know how to allow love - if you know how to ALLOW, then you know the art of life. In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be - that is the only art of life.

And one has to learn through many many ways. Poetry is one way, song is another, dance still another. Learn allowing. Learn receptivity. Learn becoming a womb. Learn to be feminine. Don't be masculine. Don't be aggressive. Don't try to conquer God, life, love, truth! Don't go like a soldier:

go like a beloved, a woman.

Science is masculine, religion is feminine. That's why science has destroyed the whole earth - the technology of it has been destructive. The ecology has been disrupted so badly that there seems to be no possibility of putting it right again. The circuit is broken everywhere. And the reason is that science became too much and lost track of the feminine qualities in human consciousness. Man became un-balanced, lopsided.

Religion has to be brought back. And by 'religion' I mean the feminine; by 'religion' I mean receptivity - -not going to conquer, but waiting for the guest to come; not doing, but happening.

The second question:

Question 2:

BARKHA, SEX IS AS SACRED AS SAMADHI. The lowest and the highest are part of one continuum. The lowest rung is as much part of the ladder as the highest rung; they are nowhere divided. And if you deny the lower, you will never be able to reach to the higher.

Sex is nothing to feel guilty about! It is your life. It is where you ARE - how can you avoid it? If you avoid it, you will be pseudo, inauthentic, untrue. If you avoid it, if you repress it, you will not be able to move upwards because the energy will be repressed through it.

Right now, it is at the stage of sexuality that you are. When you listen to me, when you start feeling me, naturally your energy is stirred. And it can only be stirred WHERE it is. Listening to me, feeling me, being in love with me, your samadhi cannot bloom right now. But if your sexuality starts moving, that's a good sign. That shows you have been contacted, that something has stirred in you, that something has become a movement in you, that you are no more a stagnant pool, that you have started flowing towards the ocean.

Certainly, the ocean is far away. It will come in the very end. But if you stop this small muddy pool from flowing, you will never reach to the ocean. I know the mud of it, but it has to be accepted. You have to start flowing! Don't be worried about sexual fantasies; they are just natural.

The serpent and the saviour are not two - they are one. In fact, there is an ancient tradition that says that when God created Adam and Eve and told them that they should not go to the Tree of Knowledge, and they should not eat the fruit of it - then He became the serpent! coiled around the tree, and seduced Eve to eat the fruit of the tree. God Him-self became the serpent!

I love this story. Christians will be very much shocked. But only God can do such a thing - nobody else. From where can the serpent come? And without God's help, how can the serpent convince Eve? In fact, the whole thing was decided beforehand: God wanted man to go astray, because only by going astray does one become mature. God wanted man to commit sin, because only through sin does one one day arrive at sainthood. There is no other way.

That's why God said: "Don't eat the fruit of this tree!" This is simple psychology. What Christians say, if THEY are true, means that God is not even as much a psychologist as Freud is. This is simple psychology, that if you prevent somebody from some-thing, that something becomes more attractive, more magnetic.

If you say, "DON'T do this!" you can be sure it will be done. Every parent knows this, and God is the ultimate parent. Will He not know it?

There is a story: Freud had gone in a garden with his wife and child, and they walked around and it was a beautiful spring evening. They forgot about the child, and then it was time for the closing; the bell was ringing and everybody was to get out. The wife was very much disturbed and she said, "But where is the child? He has disappeared!" And it was a big park.

Freud said, "Tell me only one thing: did you prevent him from going somewhere?"

And she said, "Yes, I told him not to go to the fountain."

Then he said, "Let us go. If my insight is right, he will be there at the fountain."

And he was found at the fountain.

The wife was very much puzzled; she said, "How could you know?"

Freud said, "This is simple psychology. Every parent should know."

No, I cannot trust the Christian interpretation, because that makes God look very foolish. I would like Him to do what I am saying! He must have planned it, knowing perfectly well that if Adam is prevented from eating, is told, commanded, ordered, if an absolute order is given, "NEVER touch the fruit of that tree!" then it is absolutely certain that he will eat it.

But maybe... Adam was the first man and was not aware of the ways of man yet, was the first child and may have been an obedient child. There are obedient people also. And God must have waited for a few days and Adam had not gone to the tree; He must have become the serpent. Now He must have tried through the woman, because when you cannot do anything to the man, the right way is through the woman. He must have tried through the woman. He must have talked to Eve. He succeeded.

That's why I say the serpent and the saviour are one.

And in the East, the serpent has never been in the service of the Devil; it has always been in the service of God. In the East, this is our symbology: that the serpent is inside you, coiled at your sex centre; it is called KUNDALINI - coiled serpent. It is THERE, asleep, at the lowest rung. The tree of life is your spine - that holds your life, it is your trunk. It nourishes you, your shape runs through it, and the serpent is lying there.

When anything stirs you it will stir the serpent too - because that is your energy. That is WHERE your energy is. So, Barkha, don't be worried, don't feel guilty. That's my essential message to you:

Never feel guilty for anything! All that happens is good. THE BAD DOES NOT HAPPEN and cannot happen, because the world is SO full of God, how can the bad happen? The bad must be our interpretation.

So let me say to you: sex and samadhi are the same energy. The serpent and the saviour are not two. There is a link between the lowest and the highest. There is a sequence that leads from one to the other, a way of life, a way of love, natural and inevitable as the way of a growing tree.

Have you watched a tree growing, how it grows, how it goes on groping and growing? What method does it follow? From the seed, the sprout, and then slowly, slowly, it starts rising upwards. It comes from deep down in the earth, and then it starts rising into the sky. From root to trunk and branch and leaf and flower and fruit.... This is my message for your tree of life too.

There is no distinction between the sacred and the profane, no separation between God who is love and the human-animal four-lettered love. It is one continuity. Your love and God's love are two ends of the same phenomenon, of the same energy.

Your love is too muddy, true; too full of many other things - hatred, anger, jealousy, possessiveness true. But still it is gold - mixed with mud, but still it is gold. You have to pass through fire, and all that is not gold will be gone and only gold will remain.

And I am the fire! the Master is the fire. Pass through me - unafraid, unashamed. Pass through me fearlessly. I accept you as you are: you also accept yourself, because only through acceptance is the transformation possible, otherwise not. If you start feeling guilty, you will become repressive.

Have you gone to Khajuraho or Konarak? There you will see what I am saying to you. Those are Tantra temples, the MOST sacred temples that still exist on the earth; all other temples are ordinary, bourgeois. Only Khajuraho and Konarak, these two temples, have a different message which is not ordinary, which is extraordinary. Extraordinary because it is true.

What is their message?

If you have been to these temples, you will be surprised that on the outer sunlit walls there are ALL kinds of sexual postures - men and women making love in so many postures! conceivable and inconceivable, possible and impossible. All the walls are full of sex. One is shocked. One starts feeling: What obscenity! One wants to condemn, one wants to lower one's eyes. One wants to escape. But that is not because of the temple but because of the priest AND his poison inside you.

Go inside. As you start moving inside the temple, the figures are less and less, and love starts changing. On the outer walls it is pure sexuality; as you start entering inside, you will find sex is disappearing. Couples are still there, in deep love, looking into each other's eyes, holding hands, embracing each other, but sexuality is no more there. Go still deeper figures are even less. Couples are still there, but not even holding hands, not even touching. Go still deeper - and the couples have disappeared. Go still deeper....

At the innermost core of the temple what in the East we call the GHARBA, the womb - there is not a single figure. The crowd is gone, the many is gone. There is not even a window for the outside!

No light comes from the outside; it is utter darkness, silence, calm and quiet. And there is not even a figure of a god - it is emptiness, it is nothingness.

The innermost core is nothingness and the outermost core is a carnival. The innermost core is meditation, samadhi, and the outermost core is sexuality. This is the whole life of man depicted.

But remember: if you destroy the outer walls, you will destroy the inner shrine too - because the innermost silence and darkness cannot exist without the outer walls. The centre of the cyclone cannot exist without the cyclone. The centre cannot exist without the circumference. They are together!

Your outermost life is full of sexuality - per-fectly good and perfectly beautiful! Khajuraho simply depicts you. It is the human story in stone; it is the human dance in stone - from the lowest to the highest rung, from the many to one, from love to meditation, from the other to one's own emptiness and aloneness.

Courageous were the people who created these temples. And they had a vision that is my approach too. Tantra is my approach. The still point is shown together with the turning world.

The way of Tantra is not one of blind sensuality - and not only of spirituality either. It is of both/and.

Tantra does not believe in the philosophy of either/or: it believes in the philosophy of both/and. It does not reject anything - it transforms everything. Only cowards reject. And if you reject something you will be that much poorer - because something has been left untransformed. A part of you will remain ungrown; a part of you will remain childish. Your maturity will never be total. It will be like your one leg remains on the first rung and your hand has reached to the last rung: you will be stretched along this polarity and you will be in anguish, in agony; your life will not be of ecstasy.

That's why I say I preach Epicurus and Buddha together to you. Epicurus remains with the outer wall of the Khajuraho temple; he is right as far as he goes, but he does not go far enough. He simply takes a walk around the temple and goes home; he is not aware that he has missed the very point of the temple Those outer walls are only outer walls; they exist for the inner shrine.

Buddha goes into the inner shrine, sits there. In that silence he remains, but he forgets about the outer wall. And without the outer wall there is no inner shrine.

To me, both are lopsided, half-half. Something has been rejected and something has been chosen - they have not been choiceless. I say to you: Accept all! the outer and the inner, the without and the within, and you will be the richest sannyasins upon the earth.

Drop guilt!

Tantra is the whole way - neither obsession with the world, nor withdrawal from it. It is being in the world lightly, with a little smile. It is playful-ness. It doesn't take things seriously. It is light of heart, it laughs. It is unashamedly earthly and infinitely other-earthly. The earth and the sky meet in Tantra; it is the meeting of polar opposites.

SO, BARKHA, YOU NEED NOT BE WORRIED about a sudden stirring of your sexual energy. It is how it should be!

You say: TODAY AFTER LECTURE, AS I WAS KNEELING BEFORE YOUR PLATFORM, SEXUAL FANTASIES CONCERNING YOU FILLED MY HEAD. ON THE ONE HAND, MY BODY WAS FILLED WITH ENERGY AND IT FELT GOOD...

Listen to the body. The body is wiser than your so-called mind. The body knows much more, and the body is ninety-nine percent of your energy; mind is a small fragment - making too much fuss.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I BEGAN TO FEEL GUILTY...

The priest came in; the Christian started speak-ing, the church. You have to be aware. You are not to allow the church to go on victimizing you forever. You have to drop the church, not your sexuality!

because the sexuality will become the outer wall of your temple, and the church will never allow you growth.

AND ON THE OTHER HAND I BEGAN TO FEEL GUILTY, THAT IT WAS WRONG TO HAVE SUCH THOUGHTS ABOUT YOU AND I SHOULDN'T ALLOW THEM TO CONTINUE. THEN MY STOMACH BEGAN CRAMPING AND I HAD TO RUN TO THE BATHROOM WITH DIARRHOEA.

WHAT IS HAPPENING? AND IS IT OKAY TO HAVE SUCH FANTASIES?

The diarrhoea came because you crushed your rising energy, you repressed. The priest poisoned your stomach. Now, if you go to the priest he will say it is because of your sexuality that you got disturbed. He will use it again to give you new guilt. He will say, "Look: it is your sexuality that has disturbed you." It is NOT your sexuality that has disturbed you: it is your idea of guilt that has disturbed you. Sexuality was innocent and pure. The idea of guilt is impure, calculating, cunning.

Drop such ideas! Listen to the body and go with the body. And soon you will see... sexuality is changing into spirituality.

I have heard:

The sculptor, Bernini, made the moment of orgasm his model for St. Teresa's experience of union with God.

He searched for a model. He wanted to make a statue of St. Teresa in the state of samadhi. He searched for the model - he could not find... except a woman in orgasm.

I love the story. Yes, that is true - I agree with Bernini absolutely. You cannot find anything else which can depict ecstasy, which can symbolize ecstasy. For the moment, a woman in orgasm IS in samadhi - although for the moment only. Soon the moment will be gone and she will plunge into deep darkness.

And the woman's orgasm is deeper than the man's, because the man's orgasm has become very local. It is confined to his genitalia; his whole body remains unaffected. But if a woman goes into orgasm, if she goes, then her whole body goes into it. She is more total, more rounded, more of a whole. And when her whole body is throbbing with joy, is moving in a timeless moment, is no more part of a thinking process, all thoughts have dis-appeared, and there is great silence - yes, only that can depict....

And that has been the insight of all the saints who have attained. Whenever they have talked about God and the experience of God's meeting, they have always brought the metaphor from sex. It has to be orgasm - it is the ULTIMATE orgasm, it is the TOTAL orgasm, it is the ETERNAL orgasm. But where can you find the right expression for it? You can find it only in the moment, the momentary orgasm, that sex makes possible for humanity to attain.

If you go to Khajuraho, you will see that: on every lover's face that is sculpted on the outer walls, great ecstasy. So many people go to Khajuraho and Konarka, but they only look at the lower half of these figures; they become concentrated on the genitalia. Very few people have been able to see the whole figures. And, certainly, rarely has somebody been able to see the faces of the figures - because you are so much obsessed with sexuality, for or against, that you remain confined to the lower.

If you go and see Khajuraho, don't miss the FACES of the lovers - they have the real message.

Those faces are so blissful, so calm, so meditative, that you will not find such faces sculpted anywhere else. Such great ecstasy! Even the stone has bloomed in those faces; those faces have transformed the stone into roseflowers, into lotuses. Seeing those faces you will be able to see that these lovers are no more part of time and space; they have gone beyond.

The figures are sexually active, but they are not obsessed with sex - neither for nor against. Both are obsessions - for and against simply means things are no longer natural. When things are natural, you are neither for nor against.

Are you for sleep or against sleep? If you are for, you have become unnatural; if you are against, you have become unnatural. One is not for or against sleep! It is just a natural thing so is sex. And when sex is accepted naturally, it starts growing higher. Then one day, the bud spontaneously becomes a flower. Not that you have to DO something - just let the energy move! let the sap flow and the bud WILL become the flower.

Those faces are utterly at ease, in a state of let-go. They are in the world, but not of it. And they are not doing anything; they are just like small children playing on the sea beach. They are playful. But sexually obsessed people have been very much against Khajuraho. Mahatma Gandhi wanted it to be covered with mud so that only once in a while, when some special guest came from the West or from the East it could be uncovered for him. It should be closed for ordinary people.

Mahatma Gandhi represents the mediocre mind - he is the mahatma of the mediocres. He repre- sents the sexual obsession. His whole life he was obsessed against sex. Now, if Mahatma Gandhi goes to see Khajuraho, I don't think he will be able to see the faces of the figures; I don't think he will be able to go inside the temple - the outer will be enough to prevent him. And I don't think he will be able to watch even the outer; he will be so angry, he will feel so guilty, he will feel so ashamed!

If you talk to the so-called educated Indians about Khajuraho, you will see they feel ashamed. They will say to you, "We are sorry, but these temples don't represent our mainstream. They are not represen-tative of our culture. They are AGAINST our culture. They are freak events in our culture - they don't represent us. We are very sorry that they exist."

But they represent one of the most wholistic attitudes towards life - all is accepted, because all is divine.

So, Barkha, allow your sexual energies to move. Go with them. Don't fight with them; they are your energies. Float with them and they will take you to the ocean. They INEVITABLY take you! You just have to be capable of letting go.

To me, the final stage of a human being is not the sage, not the Buddha, but Shiva Nataraj - Shiva the Dancer. Buddha has gone very deep, but the outer wall is missing, the outer wall is denied.

Shiva contains all, contains all contradictions - contains the whole of God choicelessly. He lives in the innermost core of the shrine and dances on the outer walls too.

Unless the sage can dance, something is missing.

Life is a dance. You have to participate in it. And the more silent you become, the deeper your participation. Never withdraw from life. Never renounce life, because in renouncing life you will be renouncing God Himself. Be true to life, be committed to life. Be utterly for life.

It happens when you have reached to the innermost core of the temple... there is no reason for you to dance; you can remain there silent. Just as Buddha says: When you have attained enlightenment, then there are two paths open for you - either you can become an ARHAT, YOU can go to the other shore, or you can become a BODHISATTVA, YOU can remain on this shore. In fact, there is no reason to be on this shore when you have become enlightened. But Buddha says for the sake of others, for com-passion's sake, create great compassion in yourself so that you can linger a little longer and help people.

In the same way I would like to say to you: When you become enlightened, two possibilities open - either you can remain inside the temple, in the womb of the temple... dark, windowless, not going out at all, not even a light penetrates; no sound from the outside, nothing of the marketplace. You sit silently there, in absolute silence, in timeless silence. There is NO reason why you should come out and have a dance, but still I would like you to come back, although there is no reason. You can stop there; your journey is complete - but something is still missing. You have learnt how to be silent, now you have to show whether you can be silent in sound. You have learnt how to be alone, now you have to show whether you can be alone and love too. You have to come back to the marketplace from the mountains. The ultimate test is there.

There is NO reason for this, that I would like to repeat. There is no reason for this world, but there is a rhyme and a rhythm - no reason, but a rhyme and a rhythm. When you have become silent, create sound - and your silence will go deeper because of the contrasting sound. When you have known what aloneness is, be together with people - and the people and their presence will help you to know your aloneness far more deeply. When you have known how to remain still, dance - and the dance will give you the background in which the stillness will come very loud and very clear.

There is no reason for it, but there is a rhyme and a rhythm in it. Go to the opposite! And that is the meaning of Shiva Nataraj - Shiva the Dancer of dancers. It is hard, he is a Buddha, but in his outer activities he is a worldly man.

This is the ultimate for Tantra, and this is the ultimate for me too. I would like you to become gods and yet part of this world. No withdrawal is needed. But if you have a guilt feeling somewhere, the moment you become silent you will not be able to come back to the world of sound and noise. Drop all guilt feelings. That will help you to grow to the ultimate, and that will help you to come back to the world too.

When you can come back to the marketplace with a wine bottle in your hand, the ultimate is achieved.

The fourth question: THAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

A small anecdote:

A SPORTING GENTLEMAN at a bar insisted that blind-folded, he could taste any liquor and identify it, and tell the name of the company that produced it.

The bartender accepted the challenge. After the gentleman was blindfolded, the barflies gathered round to witness the first test. The expert took a sip, and immediately declared: "Four Roses, put out by Frankfort Distillers."

"Right," replied the bartender. They would try again. On his next turn, the expert again took only the one sip and announced, "Canadian Club, put out by Hiram Walker."

"Right again," said the bartender. "Let's try just once more."

This time the gang thought they'd play a trick on him. Instead of whiskey, the bartender filled the bottle with urine.

When the expert tasted this, he remarked excitedly, "Why, this is piss!"

"Right you are!" acknowledged the bartender. "But whose?"

Philosophy is unnecessary curiosity. Pointless cur-iosity. And you can go on and on... ad nauseam.

Avoid! Philosophy has trapped many people and destroyed their lives.

Philosophy is mind gymnastics, hair-splitting. One can become very much, deeply involved in it. It is very very engrossing, because one question leads to ten new questions and so on and so forth....

But you are in a mind trip; it leads you away and away from life and life's real problems. It leads you away from existence. You become obsessed with specu-lation and you forget living.

That's why I say art is far better, because it is far more earthly. Philosophy is abstract. Avoid ab- stractions, because through abstraction you will never come to reality. And we HAVE to come to reality - because you can only eat real bread, not a philosophic concept of bread. You can love only a real woman, not a philosophic abstraction of womanhood. When you want to drink water and you are thirsty, you would not like any philosophy about water; you would like real water - howsoever muddy and dirty, but real water. Even Poona water will do! But you would not like philosophy about water.

Philosophy is always about and about; it goes round and round in circles - it never arrives anywhere.

The fifth question:

Question 3:

SAMUDRA, FRANCIS OF ASSISI WAS ENLIGHTENED - not because he was a monk, but in spite of it. It is like a man taking part in a race carrying two rocks in his two hands and he arrives first - not because of those two rocks that he has been carrying in his hands, but in spite of them. It is a miracle that St. Francis ever became enlightened.

You need not carry those rocks.

He must have been a rare man - that even re-maining a Christian he became enlightened.

The sixth question:

Question 4:

TO TAKE SANNYAS SERIOUSLY IS TO MISS THE WHOLE point of it. Sannyas is laughter, playfulness, fun. Laughter is at the very heart of it. You can only take it playfully, not seriously.

If you decide out of long long thinking about it, your decision will be wrong. If you come to a conclusion I will not suggest to you that you take sannyas. You have started from a wrong beginning.

The whole point of sannyas is to take life non-seriously, playfully, lightly. And if you can take life lightly, you will be able to walk without feet, fly without wings, think without mind.

I have heard that angels in heaven can fly, not because they have wings, but because they take themselves very lightly.

Bonhoeffer, a Christian mystic who was murdered by Adolf Hitler, wrote from prison his last letter to his friends. In that letter I have come across a great message. He says: "Make the most of the beautiful country you are in. Spread HILARITAS around you - and mind you keep it yourself too!"

Hilaritas - hilarity - this country is beautiful! This moment, this space is beautiful, where you find yourself. Nothing is missing except your laughter. If you can laugh, you will fall in tune with the cosmic energy. I teach you laughter. I am against all seriousness.

Either take sannyas or don't take it - but don't think about it, because that is a sure way to miss it.

You can take it after thinking but you will miss it all the same.

Sannyas is a state of living unison, of being who we are and where, with widest eyes. Paradise is regained in the recognition that it was never lost. We waken from the long dream of having left it, and find ourselves at home all the while.

You have not gone anywhere, you have not left the home. You have NOT fallen! You are ALREADY in the Garden of Eden, just fallen asleep. Sannyas is an awakening. And if you can laugh, you will awaken and you will awaken others too.

I teach you a life of joy, celebration, delight. I don't teach you long faces. The days of the sad saint are no more. The future belongs to the laughing saints.

And the last question:

Question 5:

RADHA, THAT IS GREAT! Forget all about the lectures! You are having such a beautiful experience - even I felt jealous.

And the really really last one:

Question 6:

BE A LITTLE PLAYFUL, MAN. If you go on succeeding in everything, then everybody else will go on failing. A few chances to others too - be a little fair.

A story for you to meditate...

Joe the gambler walked into a saloon and said to the bartender, "Bet you a dollar I can bite my right eye."

The bartender said, "Okay. It's a bet."

So Joe took out his glass eye and bit it. The bartender paid up, and then challenged, "Bet you a dollar you can't bite your left eye."

Joe accepted the challenge. A crowd gathered. He then removed his dental plates from his mouth and bit his left eye. The bartender smiled and paid up.

Then Joe said, "I'll bet you a dollar I can piss on you without getting you wet."

This offer was promptly accepted, and then Joe proceeded to do his thing. The bartender jumped back, drenched, and exclaimed, "What? What the hell are you doing?"