The Garden Of Tathagata

Question 1

Prageeta,

THERE IS NO GOAL OF MEDITATION. Meditation is the dropping of all goals, hence it can't have a goal of its own; that would be against its very nature. Goals exist in the future; meditation is to be in the present. There is no meeting ground between the present and the future - the future exists not - how can the non-existential meet the existential? That is impossible The future is our creation, it is our imagination. We create it for a certain purpose; the purpose is to avoid the present. We don't want to be in the present, we want to escape from the present. The future gives us an escape. To live in the future iS to be an escapist.

Whatsoever the goal - it does not matter what that goal is - it may be God-realization, it may be attainment of nirvana - still it is a goal and any goal is against meditation. But our whole mind exists in the future; our mind is against the present. In the present the mind dies. How can the mind exist in the present? If you are utterly now, utterly here, there is no question of mind. You cannot think because thinking needs space and the present has no space in it. It is just like a needle point: it cannot contain anything, not even a single thought.

Hence if you want to live in the mind, either you have to live in the past or in the future; these are the two ways. The old-fashioned, the orthodox, the conventional - the Christians, the Mohammedans, the Hindus - they live in the past, and the so-called revolutionaries, the progressives, the avant- garde, they live in the future. The communists, the socialists, the Fabians, the utopians, all kinds of idealists, they live in the future. On the surface they seem to be very different - the Catholic and the communist seem to be antagonistic - t deep down they are not antagonistic at all. They belong to the same category, they are doing the same work: they both are escaping from the present.

The Hindu lives in the golden age that has passed; his golden age was somewhere far far away in the past, it is only a memory, it has never been there. That past is simply a creation of imaginative people, but it helps them to escape from the present. Hindus call it ramrajya - the kingdom of God. It existed in the past and since then man has been falling down. Hence Hindus cannot agree with Charles Darwin, with the idea of evolution. Hindus have a totally different idea: the idea of involution, not evolution. Man is not progressing, man is regressing Man is falling every day, man is going downhill. The peaks are left in the past - the golden peaks, the sunlit peaks.

The communist lives in the future; his golden age has still to come. It will come one day, somewhere far away in the future when the state withers away, when the society becomes classless, when there is no exploitation when there is no need for any government, when people live in equality. That will be the kingdom of God - but that is in the future; that too is never going to happen.

The communist and the Hindu both are doing the same thing, they are partners in the same business: the business is how to escape from the present, how not to live in the present. Hence you will see a strange thing happening: Hindus are against me, Mohammedans are against me, Christians are against me, communists are against me. On one thing they all agree - at least on one thing they all agree. At least I am happy that I give them one point to agree about! But in fact they agree because my insistence is against the past and against the future, my insistence is on being in the present. Hence meditation cannot allow any desire for goals.

I can understand your question, Prageeta, because the mind always asks, "Why are you doing it?"

It can't do anything simply, spontaneously - the "why" is always there. You don't know any action in your life which is spontaneous, you don't know any response. All that you do is not action in fact but reaction. You do it because there are reasons for doing it, there are motives for doing it, there are desires behind it. Something is either pushing from behind or pulling from the front. You are never acting out of freedom, you are a slave. Hence you always ask "Why?"

A man was sent by his psychiatrist to the mountains just for a change to rest, to relax, to enjoy nature. The next day his telegram arrived: "I am feeling very happy. Why?"

One cannot accept anything without asking "Why?" Now one thing about happiness has to be understood: misery may have causes, happiness has no cause. And if it has a cause it is nothing but misery masquerading as happiness. When happiness is true - that's what is meant by bliss - it has no cause, no causality. It is beyond cause and effect; it is beyond the chain of cause and effect.

You cannot answer why.

Buddha was asked many times, "Why are you so blissful, so peaceful?n He always said, "Such is the nature of awareness - TATHATA. "

Now his answer has to be deeply pondered over. He says, "There is no'why' to it - such is the case.

The trees are green and the flowers are red, and the man who is awakened is blissful. There is no'why' to it."

But the people who were asking again and again.... I think he must have been asked the same question thousands of times by different people. The people may look different from the outside, but deep down they are all unconscious, so the same question arises again and again out of their unconscious mind: "Why? There must be some reason. Have you discovered some treasure? Have you found some Kohinoor? Have you found some alchemy so that you can transform baser metal into gold? Have you found some secret that can make you immortal? Why are you so blissful?"

The people who are asking are saying something about themselves; they are not really asking why Buddha is blissful - they can't understand Buddha - they know only themselves. They know they are miserable and that their misery has a cause, and once in a while when they feel happy that happiness is also caused by something. You win a lottery and you are happy; without the lottery how can you be happy? And Buddha has not won any lottery. In fact he has renounced his palace and kingdom and all the riches. The people must be searching, trying to find out: "There must be something that he has found which he is hiding and not telling us. What is it? Why do you look so happy?"

Prabhu Maya has asked me a question - the same question that Buddhas have always been asked is being asked again and again here too. She asks, "Osho, I have recently been discovering the phoniness behind the smile I sometimes wear. Now I wonder about you - the same face, the same smile every morning, year in, year out. Is it for real?"

I can understand her question because whenever she is smiling she knows it is phony, and I am constantly smiling. Naturally, year in and year out, it must be phony; otherwise there must be some hidden cause for it which is not visible to you. Either it is phony or I have discovered something which I am not telling you, which I am hiding from you.

Even Ananda, Buddha's closest disciple, asked one day when they were walking through a forest.

It was autumn and leaves were falling from the trees and the whole forest was full of dry leaves and the wind was blowing those dry leaves about and there was a great sound of dry leaves moving here and there. They were passing through the forest and Ananda asked Buddha, "Bhagwan, one question persists. I have been repressing it, but I cannot repress it anymore. And today we are alone; the other followers have been left behind so nobody will know that I have asked you. I don't want to ask it before others. My question is: Are you telling us all that you have discovered or are you still hiding something? - because what you are telling us does not clarify your bliss, your peace.

It seems you are hiding something. "

And Buddha laughed and he showed a fist to Ananda and asked, "Ananda, do you see what it is?"

He said, "Yes, I can see it is a fist - your hand is closed."

Buddha said, "A Buddha is never like a fist." He opened his hand and he said, "A Buddha is like an open hand - he hides nothing. There is nothing to hide! I have said everything, I am absolutely open."

Ananda still insisted, "But we cannot explain your constant bliss - and I have been watching you day in, day out. In the day you are blissful, in the night when you go to sleep you are blissful. Your face seems so innocent even in sleep. Even in sleep you look so peaceful, so serene, so tranquil, so calm, as if not a dream is passing within you. You are always a still pool with no ripples. How is it possible? I have also tried, but I can do only a little bit and then I feel tired.

If you are trying you will feel tired.

Prabhu Maya, if you try to wear a smile you will feel tired because wearing a smile means making great effort. You have to practice it like Jimmy Carter... then it is not a smile at all; your mouth is simply open, your teeth are simply showing, that's all.

I have heard that his wife has to close his mouth every night because once a rat went in his mouth.

She phoned the doctor and the doctor said, "I am coming, but it will take time. Meanwhile you hang cheese in front of his mouth."

When the doctor came he was very surprised: she was hanging up another rat! He said, "What are you doing? I told you to hang cheese in front of his mouth!"

She said, "That's right, but a cat has entered behind the rat, so first the cat has to be taken out!"

Since then she has to close his mouth every night forcibly. It is dangerous! And the White House is an old building - it has many rats. In fact, who lives in the White House except rats? Who is interested in living in the White House? And because rats live there, cats also live there.

Meditation has no goal; it has no desire to attain anything. The dropping of the achieving mind is what meditation is all about. The understanding of desire and the understanding of the constant ambition for goals for achievement, for ambition brings you to a point, a point of tremendous awareness, when you can see clearly that all goals are false, that you need not go anywhere, that you need not attain anything to be blissful, that to be blissful is your nature. You are missing it because you are running here and there, and in that running, in that hustle and bustle, you go on forgetting yourself.

Stop running here and there and discover yourself. The discovery of yourself is not a goal. How can it be a goal? A goal needs a distance between you and itself The discovery of yourself is not a goal because you are already it! All that is needed is that you stop running here and there, you sit silently, you relax, you rest. Let the mind become calm and cool. When the mind is no longer running towards the past and towards the future, when all running has disappeared, when there is no mind as such, when you are simply there doing nothing just being, this is meditation. Suddenly you know who you are. Suddenly you are overflooded with bliss overwhelmed by light, by eternity. And then your life becomes a natural phenomenon. Then you need not wear smiles - a smile becomes natural. Then you need not pretend to be happy.

Only an unhappy person pretends to be happy. A happy person has no idea even that he is happy, he is simply happy. Others may think that he is happy; he has no idea. He is simply just being himself.

Yoka says:

THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND ALWAYS ACT NATURALLY.

Out of his understanding his actions are natural - his laughter is natural, his smile is natural, his whole life is natural. Your whole life is artificial, arbitrary. You are always trying to do something which is not really there. You are trying to love. Now, trying to love is to start in a wrong way from the very beginning. You are trying to be happy. How can you be happy? It is not a question of trying.

You are making all kinds of efforts to be graceful. Now, grace is not an effort; if there is effort, there is no grace. Grace is an effortless beauty. The really graceful person knows no effort.

Yoka says:

You live in the phony, in the unreal, and when you come across a man of Zen - remember the man of Zen means the man of meditation - then there is a problem for you. Never try to understand the man of Zen according to your ideas; they are irrelevant. You can understand the man of Zen only through meditation. Learn the art of meditation, of being here and now - not for peace, not for bliss, not for anything. Effort without goal... that's what meditation is: effort without goal.

Now, you only know effort when there is goal. Otherwise you will ask, "This is illogical - effort without goal? Then why should we make an effort?" You have been making efforts for goals - what have you attained? It is time to try something else. Enough is enough!

Yoka says:

Quite different from all that you have done up to now.

The word tathagata comes from the same word I used just a few moments ago: tathata. Buddha says, "I am peaceful because this is my suchness, my tathata." Ask him anything and he always says, "This is my nature my tathata." Slowly slowly it became known to his disciples that tathata is his most important word, his key word. Hence he is called tathagata: one who lives in suchness, one who lives now and knows no other time one who lives here and knows no other space.

If you can also be here and now, IT OPENS THE DOOR OF TRUTH WHICH LEADS TO THE GARDEN OF TATHAGATA. A TRUE STUDENT OF ZEN IGNORES THE BRANCHES AND THE LEAVES, AND AIMS FOR THE ROOT.

What is the root of your misery? This goal-oriented mind. What is the root of your misery? This constant escape into goals. What is the root of your misery? Your mind is the root of your misery.

But you never cut the root; you go on pruning the branches, you go on pruning the leaves. And remember, the more you prune the leaves and the branches, the thicker will be the foliage the tree will become stronger.

I have initiated more than one hundred thousand sannyasins and I have been teaching meditation for twenty years to millions of people, but not a single person has come with a root question to ask.

They all come with "How to cut this branch?" and "How to cut this leaf?" Somebody says, "I am suffering from anger. What should I do with it?" And somebody says, "I am suffering from too much greed. What should I do about it? How can I drop greed?" Somebody is suffering from jealousy and somebody is suffering from something else - and these are all branches and leaves. Nobody comes and says, "I am suffering from my mind. How should I get rid of it?" And that is the root question.

The day you see the root, things are very easy. Cut the root and the whole thing withers away of its own accord. Anger and greed and sexuality and jealousy and possessiveness - everything disappears.

But you don't want to cut the root. You are living a very paradoxical life: you go on watering the root, you go on training and refining your mind, you go on making your mind more informed, more nourished, and on the other hand you go on desiring that there should be less anger, less ambition, less greed, less ego. "How to be humble?" you ask. And you go on giving water and you go on giving fertilizers to the roots and you go on cutting the leaves. You cut one leaf and three leaves will come in its place. The tree immediately accepts your challenge and instead of one it brings three leaves!

Hence a society that has been against sex becomes morbid, becomes sexually obsessed. It has happened in India; you will not find such a sex-obsessed country anywhere else for the simple reason that they have been cutting the leaf again and again. They are constantly cutting that leaf and the tree goes on growing more leaves. So sexuality has penetrated in such subtle ways that unless you are very alert you will not be able to see how it has penetrated in different ways, how the Indian mind has become more and more sexual than that of anybody else.

Do you know? India was the first country to think about sexual postures. The KAMA SUTRA was written in India - the first treatise on sexology. Sigmund Freud came after five thousand years. And Masters and Johnson, and other researchers into sex, are just breaking ground in the West. And they have not yet the sophistication which Vatsyayana's KAMA SUTRA has - even the French are not as sophisticated. Vatsyayana has discovered almost everything about sex; nothing is left - his treatise is almost complete. And it is a "how to" book; it gives you all the techniques.

Why did India discover the KAMA SUTRA? The country which has been celebrating celibacy for centuries, which has been teaching and preaching celibacy, this country discovers the KAMA SUTRA. This country gives birth to a man like Vatsyayana. And then came Pundit Koka, another Vatsyayana. Now, modern pornography is nothing compared to Koka! Modern pornography is very ordinary. Pundit Koka is a perfect pornographer.

But why were these people born in India? And thousands of temples are devoted to the shivalinga; that is a phallic symbol. No other country worships phallic symbols except India. And it is both; it represents man and woman - both. If you go to a Shiva temple observe well. It represents the feminine sexual organ, it represents the masculine sexual organ, and it represents them in a state of meeting, in a state of orgasm. And this is worshipped.

People have completely forgotten what they are worshipping. If you look into Indian scriptures you will be surprised. You will find them so obsessed with sex: on the one hand continuously condemning, and on the other hand continuously, in subtle ways, depicting it. No other country has temples like Khajuraho, Konarak, Puri. Why? Why did this have to happen in India? For the simple reason that if you cut one leaf, three arrive. You cut three and nine leaves arrive. You cut nine - remember it - twenty-seven leaves will arrive. Nature believes in the magic number three. It believes in trinity.

This is not the way to transform a man, this is a way to deform humanity.

So on the surface the Indian tries to show that he is not interested in sex at all and deep down he is boiling with sexuality, he is constantly looking for sexuality. His whole mind is full of sexuality. If we could make windows in the heads of people, then Indian heads would be really worth seeing!

This was bound to happen. Whatsoever you repress, whatsoever you cut, if it is not cut at the roots, it is bound to grow, it is bound to grow in subtle ways. It may start asserting itself in morbid and perverted ways.

Yoko says:

There is only one freedom: the freedom from all goals.

Prageeta, don't ask me what the goal of meditation is. Try to understand why you are constantly hankering for goals, and in that very understanding meditation will arise in you, meditation will flower in you.

Meditation is not something that you can enforce, that you can practice; it is something very mysterious, tremendously vast. It comes only when your heart opens its doors to understand everything with no prejudice, with no a priori conclusions.

Being here with me, learn to be without goals. My sannyasins have to know perfectly well that we are not working for any goal at all. Our whole point is to live in the present moment so totally that all past and all future disappear. Who cares about that which is already gone? And who cares about that which has not come yet? Enough is the moment unto itself. And that is the way of meditation:

enough is the moment unto itself. Living the moment in its totality, in joy, diving deep into it without holding anything back, is bliss. Getting rid of all goals - worldly and other-worldly, material and spiritual - one knows the taste of meditation. It is the taste of absolute freedom.

The second question:

Leeladhar,

IT IS JUST NATURAL - TATHATA. How can it be otherwise? Everybody has to understand me in his own way, because everybody has a mind - and right now the understanding is happening through the mind. When mind disappears then of course everybody will understand in my way. Then there will be no problem, then there will be no question. Then there will be no need for me to say anything - I will be sitting in silence, you will be sitting in silence, and we will enjoy silence; there will be communion, a heart-to-heart communion.

But right now you have minds and there is no other way for me to communicate with you. And one has to accept this: that when you are communicating with minds you have to accept that they will understand differently, they will understand in their own way.

Each mind is different. And here we have all kinds of minds - this is not a community of people from one certain society.

If only Hindus were here they would understand or misunderstand in the same way. But here are Hindus and Mohammedans and Jainas and Buddhists and Christians and Jews and Zarathustrians - they have all their own religious backgrounds and all kinds of political ideologies. And we have people from all the nations of the world; nearabout forty nations are represented here. How can you expect...? This is not a Catholic church this is not a Hindu temple, this is a miniature universe! In fact it is a miracle that some understanding is happening, that people are not cutting each other's throats, that people are being very friendly and loving.

These are the people who have been cutting each other's throats for centuries: Hindus killing Mohammedans, Mohammedans killing Hindus. And here you will see the miracle: you will find a man called Krishna Mohammed. You cannot find this anywhere else in the world. Krishna Mohammed?

In fact I am very worried. When I die and I go to the other world then all these people - Krishna and Moses and Mohammed and Mahavira and Buddha - they will jump upon me. They will say, "What have you been doing? Calling a man Krishna Mohammed?" Because I have heard that even in heaven they have compartments: Hindus live in one compartment, the Hindu colony, and Mohammedans live in another compartment, and they don't see each other eye to eye. In fact everybody believes he is in heaven and nobody else is in heaven. God has to maintain that illusion, otherwise they will be creating trouble for God. So big walls surround those sections.

Now God is also going to be in trouble. Where will he put Krishna Mohammed - in the Hindu section or in the Mohammedan section? Our people will be flying all over the place!

It is natural, Leeladhar, that people should understand differently - people have different minds.

Julius: "How many Commandments are there?"

Julia: "Ten."

Julius: "What would happen if you - er - well - know - if you broke one of them?"

Julia: "So, there'd be nine!"

On Mother's Day her husband presented her with a beautiful skunk coat.

"I can't see how such a beautiful coat comes from such a foul-smelling beast," said the mother.

"I don't ask for thanks, dear," replied the husband, "but I do demand respect."

An Italian calls Alitalia's office and is answered by the office boy.

"Please, sir, is-a that-a the Alitalia office?"

"Yes," answers the boy.

"Can you tell-a me how long-a it takes from Roma to Poona?"

"Just a minute, sir."

"Thank-a-you!" answers the Italian and hangs up.

"Have you ever been bedridden?" the new doctor asked Mrs Longo.

"Sure I have. And I've been screwed lots-a other ways, too," the lady said proudly.

"What do you want for your birthday, son?" the indulgent Italian father asked his kid.

"I want-a watch," the kid said.

Shrugged the father, "If it's all right with your mother, it's okay by me."

During an official ceremony in a European country, the Brazilian ambassador is in a carriage with the Queen of England when suddenly the horse farts noisily.

Very embarrassed, the Queen apologizes, "I'm very sorry, Ambassador."

"It was nothing, Your Majesty, it happens. Mind you, I even thought it was the horse!"

The third question:

Prem Leela,

THERE IS ONLY ONE COURAGE and that is the courage to go on dying to the past, not to collect it, not to accumulate it, not to cling to it. We all cling to the past, and because we cling to the past we become unavailable to the present. And the mind has reasons, valid reasons, for clinging to the past.

First: mind itself is the past. Just look at your mind - what it is. It is nothing but the past: all that you have read, listened to, experienced, observed, all that has been. Mind never is; it consists of the past tense. So naturally mind feeds on the past, it clings to the past, because that gives it strength, power, energy, life. But the more the past accumulates around you, the more you become like a mirror covered with layers of dust. And, of course, the past is comfortable, it feels cozy, because you are well-acquainted with it. You know it perfectly well, so you know how to deal with it. You are skillful with it, you are artful with it; your whole intelligence depends on it. To drop it will mean you will have to learn again and again, and that is inconvenient, uncomfortable.

To drop the past will mean you will have to become a child every day, and your ego wants to be an adult not a child. Your ego wants to pile up the past and sit upon it so that it looks higher than others.

Without the past you will always remain a child with no knowledge, but full of wonder, of awe.

That is the only courage: to drop the known and to move into the unknown. And it has not to be done only once, it has to be done every moment. It is not a question that once done it is done forever, you have to do it every moment, every day, till the very last moment of your life when you are dying on your bed. Then too you have to continue the process of dying to the past so that you can live each moment with pristine clarity, with no dust on your mirror. When you can reflect the present as it is you know what God is, what godliness is. God is another name for what is, for that which is.

But you are collecting information about God, and that is one of the greatest barriers. Hence I have heard of sinners reaching God, but I have never heard of scholars ever reaching God. Pundits are the most impossible people. The more they know the farther away they are from God. So many scriptures are preventing them. They cannot reach God and God cannot reach them. They are absolutely closed in their knowledge.

Courage means courage to drop knowledge, courage to be innocent again, courage to function from a state of not-knowing. I don't know of any other courage.

When I use the word "courage" I don't mean the courage of a soldier. That is just stupidity, that is not courage. That is just stubbornness, that is not courage. That is just forced, you have to train the soldier so that he becomes dull. It is unintelligence, not intelligence. Hence soldiers become unintelligent people. The more medals they have, you can be certain, the more unintelligent they are. Just count the medals on their chest and you know how foolish they are.

The whole process of the army is to destroy intelligence because an intelligent person will not be able to kill. And an intelligent person will ask a thousand and one questions before killing somebody for no reason at all.

An Indian killing a Pakistani whom he had never met before, whom he had never seen before, with whom there is no enmity, and a Pakistani killing an Indian for no reason at all, who has not done any harm to him....

If they were a little bit intelligent would they be able to do it? Would the Indian or the Pakistani be able to do it without thinking of this man's wife who is waiting at home just as his wife is waiting at home for him, and his small children are waiting just as his small children are waiting for him, and his old mother and his old father who depend on him just as his mother and his father depend on him? Would he be able to do this stupidity of killing or being killed?

If soldiers are allowed to be intelligent, wars will disappear from the earth. Wars can exist only if soldiers are made in such a way, conditioned in such a way that they lose all intelligence. That's why unintelligent training has to be forced on them for years. Now the soldier goes on doing things which make no sense for years.

Early in the morning he gets up, he has to line up and the parade begins. And "left turn," and "right turn," and "about turn," and "go forward," and "go backward." For what? And for hours together.

In the Second World War a philosopher was recruited. When the commanding officer said, "Right turn!" everybody turned right except the philosopher. The commanding officer asked, "Why? Why are you not turning right?"

He said, "Why should I turn? I have no business there; I don't see the need. And I think all these people are fools. You just say'Right turn' and they have turned. You will have to prove to me what the purpose of it is. Why should I turn right?"

The commanding officer knew that he was a famous philosopher. He said, "This man is not right for the military. This type of person is not needed." Even the other soldiers started thinking, "That's right! Why? We are certainly fools. This man just says,'Right turn!' and he has no answer for it and we turned right!"

The commanding officer thought, "This man will create trouble. Not only will he be a trouble to me, even the others will start getting ideas from him." He took him out and he said, "This is not for you.

You come into the kitchen. I will give you some other job, some simple job which will be good." So he gave him a pile of potatoes and told him, "You just sort them out - bigger ones on one side, smaller ones on the other side."

When he came after one hour the philosopher was sitting silently, just in zazen - sitting silently, doing nothing. He had not even touched a single potato. The commanding officer said, "Can't you even do that?"

He said, "I can do it but there is a great problem. Yes, there are a few potatoes which are big and a few which are small, but a few are in between. First it has to be settled where those in between ones go. Unless everything is clear I never take any step. What about the middle-class potatoes?"

He had to be freed. This man was not for the army. In fact no intelligent man is for the army. Parading six hours per day, turning right, turning left, being ordered to do stupid things and following those orders... then one day the commanding officer says, "Shoot!" and they just function like machines.

Just as they were turning left and right they shoot, without a single thought of what they are doing - destroying life.

A sannyasin needs a totally different kind of courage. This is not courage, this is simply dullness, stupidity - thickness of the head and nothing else. Their intelligence has been completely destroyed, they have been conditioned to be robots. That's why all army races prove to be very unintelligent.

In India the Punjabis, particularly the Sikhs, the Sardars, they are the most warlike people, and the most unintelligent people too. Very courageous, because where an intelligent person will think twice, they will rush in; they will not bother. You just order and they will go into the fire. This type of courage has been taught to humanity for centuries. This is a wrong type of courage. When I use the word "courage" I am using it with a totally different connotation, a different meaning.

Leela, courage to me means courage to be intelligent against this unintelligent crowd that surrounds you. Courage means fearlessness. The society will try in every way to force you according to its ideas. It is better to suffer than to compromise, because through suffering your soul will be born.

Through compromise you may save your skin but your soul will be lost.

Courage means to be an individual; not to be a sheep but to be a lion. Courage means the capacity to assert: "I am myself, and my life is my life, and I am going to live it in my way. I am not here to live according to others, and I won't allow anybody to dictate to me how I should live, what I should do. I will live according to my light whatsoever the cost, even if I go astray." It is better to go to hell by your own decision rather than to go to heaven by somebody else's order, because then heaven will be just slavery.

Courage means the courage to be free. Courage means freedom. And if you reduce it to the essential core it is in fact dying to the past. If you die to the past you die to the tradition you are born in, you die to the religion you are born in, you die to the society you are born in, you die to the whole past, you die to history and time, and you are born anew - a new human being who belongs to no race, to no country, to no religion, but who belongs to God; a religious person but not a Christian, not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan.

The fourth question:

Sanjeeva,

IT IS CERTAINLY NOT BRITISH. To be British is not easy. One has to be born British at least seven times. It takes a very long time to be British. And it is not American either because I am not a tourist.

You know I don't even leave my room - what kind of American can I be?

And why should my English be British or American? My English is MY English - Rajneesh English!

And this is a democratic country and the constitution declares freedom of speech as one of the fundamental rights. I speak my own language. Why should I speak American or English? In fact, English is too uptight, it is too tense, and American has become too lousy - just the opposite; it is a reaction.

"Mine American-born daughter she's telling me: 'Yeah, Popsi-wopsi, I gotcha, but you'll hafta lay some heavy bread on me so's I kin strut new threads at the establishment bust-out, ya dig?' "So I am digging for maybe a half-hour to learn she needs money she should have a new dress by the school dance.... And she is criticizing mine dialect!" her father was saying to me.

Now it is very difficult for me to understand....

"Yeah, Popsi-wopsi, I gotcha, but you'll hafta lay some heavy bread on me so's I kin strut new threads at the establishment bust-out, ya dig?"

I don't dig it at all! And why should I dig? I have never done such a job in my whole life.

So I simply speak whatsoever way comes to me, whatsoever way comes spontaneously to me. You will have to be a little patient with me

The fifth question:

Shahida,

I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN. I am collecting jokes about the Australians. Everybody is welcome to send me jokes about Australians. I have only one.

A man walked into a London pub and ordered twelve pints of bitter. He put them on a tray, took them outside to a car and passed them through the window. Later he brought back the empty glasses, bought another round and passed them into the car.

Curious, the bartender went outside with the next round, and looking into the car, saw twelve midgets carousing and drinking beer.

"Who are they?" he asked.

"Oh," said the man, "they're just Australians with all the bullshit knocked out of them!"

The sixth question:

Ananda Maite,

NO, THAT DOES NOT MEAN that a woman cannot become a Master; many women have become Masters. But then there is a problem. The problem is: unless a man becomes a Master he is not allowed to speak by the wife. And he has not been a Master for thousands of lives, so when he becomes a Master he starts speaking. And when a woman becomes a Master she becomes silent - she is tired. For thousands of lives she has been speaking and speaking and speaking, she has done enough speaking, so she becomes silent.

Now it is very difficult - how to know about silent Masters? Unless you speak nobody will know about you. If Buddha had not spoken, if there had not been any dhammapada, then I would not have talked on his sutras.

A man takes revenge when he becomes a Master. And, do you see? Whenever there is a Master more women gather to hear him than men. In fact the proportion is: in four, three are women, one is a man. That was the proportion with Buddha's disciples, that was the proportion with Mahavira's disciples. So he really takes revenge - so many women! And he remembers all those wives. Many of them may have been his wives in past lives. Wives, mothers, daughters, sisters - they have all tortured him. Now he says to himself, "Now it is my turn! Nobody can prevent me now!"

But women, by the time they become Masters, have run out of gas.

The seventh question:

Prem Patipada,

OKAY.

Dig it? Get it?

It is not difficult for me, it will be difficult for you.

But a little more....

The eighth question:

Prem Amir,

PLEASE DON'T ASK such difficult questions!

They arrest a cat and torture him until he admits he is a lion.

The ninth question:

Dharmendra,

YOU ARE ASKING ME - a man who is an utter failure?

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.

The tenth question:

Pragyan,

YOU SHOULD GO TO THE VATICAN and ask the Polack. I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a Pope. You create trouble for me. But I can suggest.... This is only a piece of advice:

Sow your wild oats on Saturday night, then on Sunday pray for crop failure!

And the last question:

Muktananda,

YOU FOOL! Now this question is just the right question from you. I always knew you would ask something really great. The moment I saw you I immediately realized that here is a great fool, hence the name Muktananda - although I didn't explain it to you that way. I give beautiful explanations just to be polite. Truth can be said only later on when you are ready.

For example, you know our great guard, Sant. Somebody has asked me, "Why, Osho, have you given him the name Sant?" In Hindi sant means saint, the English word "saint" comes from sant.

But in Hindi we also have one beautiful expression: ant sant. Ant sant means "nonsense." So when I saw Sant for the first time, I said, "Here comes ant sant!" But ant I had to drop because that would have been too much just in the beginning. So I called him Sant. But now it can be said. There is no trouble.

Muktananda, I immediately saw the fool in you. But even I was not so sure that you would be a perfect fool. Otherwise I would have called you Paramahansa Muktananda. Paramahansa means perfect. Now you deserve to be called Paramahansa Muktananda.

Now, what kind of question is this?

"Drinks on the house," the Italian said to the bartender. "I feel great - just had my first blow job."

"What was it like?" the barkeep asked.

"Okay, I guess," the wop said. "But it did taste kind-a funny."

A brave young Irish Revolutionary comes to London to blow up a bus and burns his mouth on the exhaust-pipe.

An Italian dwarf was very famous among his friends for the size of his prick. A sex-starved American female tourist heard about him and visited his home to offer him twenty dollars to see his massive member.

Luigino agreed and pulled down his zipper to display his pride and joy.

The American lady was awe-struck at the sight and asked hesitantly, "Is it all right if I kiss it?"

"Please, Missus," said the dwarf, "no more blow jobs! Ten years ago I was seven feet tall with a tiny prick. Just look at what all these blow jobs have done to me!"

Muktananda, never ask me such dangerous questions. You are expected to ask spiritual questions, esoteric questions, supramental questions - and you are asking such questions which no Buddha had to answer before. And I don't think anybody else in future will have to answer them because I will finish them all!