I am in favor of love

The first question:

THE FIRST THING: because man can be tremendously happy, the possibility exists, hence, his unhappiness. Nobody else - no animal, no bird, no tree, no rock - can be so happy as man. The possibility, the tremendous possibility that you can be happy, eternally happy, that you can be at the top of a bliss mountain, creates unhappiness. And when you see around you, you are just in the valley, a dark valley, and you could have been at the top of the peak: the comparison, the possibility, and the actuality.

If you were not born to be Buddhas, then there would be no unhappiness. So, the more perceptive a person is, the more unhappy. The more sensitive a person is, the more unhappy. The more alert a person is, the more he feels the sadness, the more he feels the potentiality and the contradiction, that nothing is happening and he's stuck.

Man is unhappy because man can be tremendously happy. And unhappiness is not bad. It is the very drive that will take you to the peak. If you are not unhappy, then you will not move. If you are not unhappy in your dark valley, why should you make any effort to climb uphill? It is going to be arduous - unless the sun shining at the top becomes a challenge, unless the very existence of the top creates a mad urge to reach, unless the very possibility provokes you to seek and search.

People who are not very alert, sensitive, are not very unhappy. Have you seen any idiot unhappy?

- impossible. An idiot cannot be unhappy because he cannot be aware of the possibility that he is carrying within himself.

You are conscious that you are a seed, and the tree can happen. It is just by the corner. The goal is not very far away; that makes you unhappy. It is a good indication. To feel unhappiness deeply is the first step. Certainly, Buddha feels it more than you. That's why he renounced the valley and he started climbing uphill. Small things that you come across every day became great provocations for him. Seeing a man ill, seeing an old man leaning on his staff, seeing a dead body, was enough; that very night he left his palace. He became aware of where he was: "The same is going to happen to me. Sooner or later, I will become ill and old and dead, so what is the point of being here? Before the opportunity is taken away from me, I should attain to something which is eternal." A great desire arose in him to reach to the peak. That peak we call God; that peak we call kaivalya, that peak we call moksha, nirvana; but that peak exists within you like a seed. It has to unfold. So great sensitive souls suffer more. Idiots don't suffer, dullards don't suffer. They are already happy in their ordinary life: earning a little money, making a small house - finished. Their whole possibility is only that.

If you are aware that this can't be the goal, this can't be the destiny, then a great suffering will enter into your being like a sharp sword. It will penetrate to the very core of your being. A great scream will arise in your heart and that will be the beginning of a new life, of a new style of life, of a new foundation of life.

So, the first thing I would like to say is: to feel unhappy is blissful; to feel unhappy is a blessing. Not to feel so is to be dull.

The second thing: human beings remain in misery because they go on creating misery for themselves.

So first, understand it. To be unhappy is good, but I am not saying that you should go on creating your unhappiness more and more. I am saying: it is good because it provokes you to go beyond it.

But go beyond it, otherwise it is no good.

People go on creating their pattern of misery. There is a reason: the mind resists change. The mind is very orthodox. It wants to continue on the old path, because the old is known. If you are born a Hindu, you will die a Hindu. If you are born a Christian, you will die a Christian. People don't change. A particular ideology becomes so ingrained in you that you become afraid to change it. You feel apprehensive because with this you are familiar. The new - who knows? - may not even be so good as the old. And the old is known; you are well acquainted with it. Maybe it is miserable, but at least it is familiar. On each step, every moment of life you are deciding something, whether you know it or not. The decision encounters you every moment - whether to follow the old path that you have been following up to now, or to choose the new. At every step the road bifurcates. And there are two types of people. Those who choose the well-trodden path; of course, they move in a circle.

They choose the known, and the known is a circle. They have known it already. They choose their future just as it has been in their past. They move in a circle. They go on making their past their future. No growth happens. They are simply repeating; they are automata, robot-like.

Then there is another type of person, type of awareness, who is always alert to choose the new.

Maybe the new creates more suffering, maybe the new leads astray, but at least it is new. It will not be just a repetition of the past. The new has the possibility of learning, growth, of the potential becoming actual.

So remember, whenever there is to be a choice, choose the untrodden path. But you have been taught just the contrary. You have been taught always to choose the known. You have been taught to be very clever and cunning. Of course, there are comforts with the known. One comfort is that you can remain unconscious with the known. There is no need to be conscious. If you are following the same path you can move almost asleep, like a somnambulist. If you are coming back to your own home, and every day you have been coming, you need not be aware; you can just come unconsciously. When it is time to turn to the right, you turn; there is no need to keep any alertness.

That's why people like to follow the old path: no need to be aware. And awareness is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Whenever you are moving in a new direction, you have to be aware at each step.

Choose the new. It will give you awareness. It is not going to be comfortable. Growth is never comfortable; growth is painful. Growth goes through suffering. You pass through fire, but only then you become pure gold. Then all that is not gold is burnt, reduced to ashes. Only the purest remains in you. You have been taught to follow the old because on the old you will be committing less mistakes. But you will commit the basic mistake, and the basic mistake will be this: that growth happens only when you remain available to the new, with the possibility of committing new mistakes. Of course, there is no need to repeat an old mistake again and again, but be capable and courageous for committing new mistakes - because each new mistake makes a learning, becomes a learning situation. Each time you go astray, you have to find the path back home. And this going and coming, this constant forgetting and remembering, creates an integration within your being.

Always choose the new; even if it looks worse than the old I say, always choose the new. It looks inconvenient - choose the new. It is uncomfortable, insecure - choose the new. It is not a question of 'new'; it is to give you an opportunity to be more aware. Efficiency has been taught to you as the goal. It is not. Alertness is the goal. Efficiency makes you follow the old path again and again, because you will be more efficient on the old path. You will know all the nooks and corners. You have travelled on it for so many years, or maybe so many lives; you will be more and more efficient.

But efficiency is not the goal. Efficiency is the goal for a mechanism. A machine has to be efficient, but a man? - man is not a machine. A man has to be more aware, and if efficiency comes out of awareness, good, beautiful. If it comes at the cost of awareness you are committing a great sin against life, and then you will remain unhappy. And this unhappiness will become a pattern. You will simply move in a vicious circle. One unhappiness will lead you to another, and so on and so forth.

Unhappiness as an awareness is a blessing, but unhappiness as a style of life is a curse.

Don't make it your style of life. I see many people have made it their style of life. They don't know any other style of life. Even if you say to them, they won't listen. They w llgoonaskingwhytheyareunhappy, andtheywon i The theory of karma simply says that whatsoever is happening to you is your doing. Somewhere, on an unconscious level, you must be creating it - because nothing happens to you from the outside.

Everything bubbles from the inside. If you are sad, you must be creating your sadness somewhere in your innermost being. From there it comes. You must be manufacturing it somewhere within your soul. Watch: if you are miserable, meditate on your misery, on how you create it. You always ask,

"Who is responsible for misery?" Nobody is responsible except you. The mind goes on saying to you that if you are a husband, your wife is creating your misery. If you are a wife, your husband is creating your misery. If you are poor, the rich are creating your misery. It always goes on throwing responsibility on somebody else.

This has to be a very fundamental understanding: that except you, nobody is responsible. Once you understand it things start changing. If you are creating your misery and you love it, then go on creating. Then don't create a problem out of it. It is nobody's business to interfere with you.

If you want to be sad, you love to be sad, be perfectly sad. But if you don't want to be sad, then there is no need - don't create. Watch how you create your misery: what is the pattern? - how have you managed it inside? People are continuously creating their moods. You go on throwing the responsibility on others; then you will never change. Then you will remain miserable, because what can you do? If others are creating, what can you do?. Unless others change, nothing is in your hands. By throwing responsibility on others, you become a slave. Take the responsibility into your own hands.

A few days ago a sannyasin told me that her husband has always been creating problems for her.

And when she tells her story it will look, apparently, that of course the husband is responsible. She has eight children from the husband, and then the husband has three more children from another woman, and one child from his secretary. He has been continuously fooling around with any woman that comes along. Of course, anybody will sympathize with this poor woman. She has suffered a lot, and the game continues. The husband is not earning much. The woman, the wife, earns, and she has to pay for these children which he has brought into the world from other women also. Of course, she is in a great misery, but who is responsible? I told her, "If you are really in misery, why should you continue to be with this man? Drop out. You should have dropped out long before. There is no need to continue." And she understood, which is a rare thing - very late, very delayed, but still not too late. Still, her life is there. Now if she insists that she would like to remain with this man, then she is insisting for her own misery. Then she is enjoying the misery trip. Then she is enjoying condemning the husband; then she is enjoying attracting sympathy from everybody else. And of course, with whomsoever she will come in contact, they will sympathize with the poor woman.

Never ask for sympathy. Ask for understanding, but never ask for sympathy. Otherwise, sympathy can be such a good pay-off that you would like to remain miserable. Then you have some investment in your misery. If you are no more miserable, people won't sympathize with you. Have you watched?

- nobody sympathizes with a happy man. It is something absolutely absurd. People should sympathize with the happy man, but nobody sympathizes. In fact, people feel antagonistic to a happy man. In fact, to be happy is very dangerous. To be happy, and express your happiness, you are putting yourself in very great danger - everybody will be your enemy, because everybody will feel, "How come I am unhappy and you have become happy? Impossible! This cannot be allowed.

This is too much."

In a society which is unhappy and consists of miserable people, a happy person is a stranger. That's why we poisoned Socrates, we killed Jesus, we crucified Mansur. We have never been at ease with happy people. Somehow, they hurt our egos very much. People crucified Jesus; when he was alive they killed him. He was very young, only thirty-three. He had not yet seen the whole life. He was just beginning his life, just a bud was opening, and people killed him because he was too much to tolerate. So happy? - everybody was hurt. They killed this man. And then they started worshipping him. Just see... now they have been worshipping him for two thousand years, crucified. But with a crucified Jesus you can sympathize; with a happy Jesus you feel antagonistic.

The same is happening here. I am a happy man. If you want me to be worshipped, you will have to manage for a crucifixion. There is no other way. Then people who are against me will become my followers. But first they will have to see me on the cross, not before it. Nobody has ever worshipped a happy man. First, the happy man has to be destroyed. Then, of course, he is manageable. Now you can sympathize with Jesus. Whenever you see, tears start flowing into your eyes: "Poor man; how much he suffered." A dancing Christ creates trouble.

In Sweden, a man is trying to make a film on Jesus: JESUS THE MAN. For ten years he has been trying, but a thousand and one barriers: the government won't allow - "Jesus the man? - no!"

Because 'Jesus the man' means that this man may have been in love with Mary Magdalene, and the man will bring it out. Jesus loved women. It is natural; nothing is wrong in it. He was a happy man. He sometimes loved wine also. He was a man who could celebrate. Now, Jesus the man is dangerous. And this man wants to make a film on Jesus the man; not the son of God, but the son of man. This will be troublesome. And if he starts working out a story, he will have to bring in some illegal love affair with Mary, because a virgin woman cannot give birth. Jesus was not the son of Joseph; that much is certain. But he must have been the son of somebody. The government is against, the church is against: "You are trying to prove Jesus a bastard! Impossible! The film cannot be allowed." And Jesus loving the prostitute Mary Magdalene? - and certainly, he loved. He was a happy man. Love simply happens around a happy man. He enjoyed life. It is a God-given blessing; one has to enjoy it. Every religious man is a celebrating soul.

Then they killed this man, crucified him, and since then they have been worshipping him. Now he is manageable; he creates much sympathy in you. Jesus on the cross is more attractive than Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree. Jesus on the cross is more attractive than Krishna playing his flute.

Jesus became the world religion. Krishna? - who bothers about him? Even Hindus feel a little guilty about sixteen thousand women dancing around him - "Impossible, it is just a myth." Hindus say it is beautiful poetry, and they go on interpreting. They say, "These sixteen thousand women were not really women; these are sixteen thousand nadis, the nervous system, the sixteen thousand nerves in the human body. It is a symbolic expression about the human body. Krishna is the soul, and sixteen thousand nerves are the Gopis dancing around the soul." Then everything is okay. But if they are real women, then it is difficult, very difficult to accept.

Jainas, another religion of India, have thrown Krishna into hell because of these sixteen thousand women. In the Jain puranas, they say, "Krishna is in the seventh hell, the last... and he will not be coming up soon. He will be there up to the moment this whole creation is destroyed. He will come up only when the next creation starts; millions and millions of years still to wait. He has committed a great sin"; and the great sin is because he was celebrating. The great sin is because he was dancing.

Mahavir is more acceptable, Buddha still more acceptable. Krishna seems to be a renegade who betrayed the serious people. He was non-serious, happy; not sombre, not a long-face - laughing, dancing. And that is the true way. I would like to say to you, dance your way to God, laugh your way to God. Don't go with serious faces. God is already much too bored with that type.

Sympathy is a great investment, and that can be continued only if you can go on getting sympathy, only if you remain miserable. So if one misery stops, you create another; if one illness leaves you, you create another. Watch it - you are playing a very dangerous game with yourself. That's why people are miserable and unhappy. Otherwise, there is no need.

Put all your energy into being happy, and don't bother about others. Your happiness is your destiny; nobody is entitled to interfere with it. But the society goes on interfering; it is a vicious circle. You were born, and of course you were born into a society already there, a given society of neurotic people, of people who are all miserable and unhappy. Your parents, your family, your society, your country, are already there waiting for you. And a small child is born; the whole society jumps on the child, starts culturing him, cultivating him. It is as if a child is born in a madhouse, and all the mad people start cultivating. Of course, they have to help - the child is so small and does not know anything about the world. They will teach whatsoever they know. They will enforce whatsoever has been enforced on them by their parents, by other mad people. Have you seen that whenever a child starts giggling and laughing, something in you becomes uneasy? You immediately want to tell him, "Shut up and suck your lollipop!" Immediately, something in you says, "Shut up!" When a child starts giggling, do you feel jealous, or what? You cannot allow a child running hither and thither, jumping, just sheer joy.

I have heard about two American women, two spinsters. They visited Italy to see an old church.

American visitors! In the church they saw an Italian woman praying, and her four or five children running inside the church and making much noise, and simply happy, completely oblivious that it was a church. Those two American women could not tolerate it: "This is too much. This is sacrilege."

They went up to the woman who was praying, the mother, and told her, "These children are yours?

This is a church and some discipline should be maintained! They should be controlled." The woman, with prayerful eyes, tears flowing and tremendously happy, looked at them and said, "This is their Father's house, can't they play here?" But this attitude is rare, very rare.

Humanity is dominated by mad people: politicians, priests, they are mad because ambition is madness - and they go on enforcing their pattern. When a child is born he is a bubbling energy, an infinite source of bliss, happiness, joy, delight; sheer delight, nothing else - overflowing. You start controlling him: you start cutting his limbs, you start butchering him. You say, "There are proper times to laugh." Proper times to laugh? - that means proper times to be alive? You are saying the same thing: proper times to be alive - "You should not be alive twenty-four hours." There are proper times to cry. But when a child feels like laughing what is he supposed to do? He has to control, and when you control your laughter it goes bitter and sour within you. The energy that was going out has been held back. Holding back the energy, you become stuck. The child wanted to reach out, to run around, to jump and jog and dance; now he is stopped. His energy is ready to overflow, but by and by he learns only one thing: to freeze his energy. That's why so many stuck people are in the world, so uptight, continuously controlling. They cannot cry; tears are too unmanly. They cannot laugh; laughter seems to be too uncivilized. Life is denied, death is worshipped. You would like a child to behave like an old man, and old people start forcing their deaths on new generations.

I have heard about an old woman of ninety, a countess, who had a very big house with acres of greenery. She came one day to look around the property; it was very big. Just beyond the pond, behind the woods, she saw two young people making love. She asked the driver, "What are these people doing here?" - ninety years of age; she may have forgotten... "What are these people doing here?" The driver had to say the truth. Very politely he said, "They are making love. They are young people." The old lady was very much annoyed and she said, "Does such a thing still go on in the world?"

When you become old, do you think the whole world has become old? When you are dying, do you think the whole world is dying? The world goes on renewing itself, reviving itself. That's why it takes the old people away, and gives small babies back to the world. It turns the old people into small babies.

Existence goes on peopling the earth with new people. Whenever it sees that a person has gone completely stuck - now there is no more flow, no more juice, and the person is simply shrinking and unnecessarily becoming a burden on earth - then life removes him. The person goes back into the existence, is destroyed. The earth goes to the earth, the sky goes to the sky, the air to the air, the fire to the fire, the water to the water. Then out of that earth, out of that water and fire a new baby is born - flowing, young, fresh, ready to live and dance again. Just as flowers come to the tree, just as the tree flowers, the earth goes on babying, goes on creating new babies.

If you really want to be happy you have to remain young, alive, available to crying, laughter, available to all dimensions, flowing all over, streaming. Then you will remain happy. But remember, you will not get any sympathy. People may throw rocks at you, but that is worth it. People may think that you are irreligious, they may condemn you, they may call names to you, but don't be worried about it. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is your happiness.

And you have to undo many things; only then can you become happy. Whatsoever has been done by the society has to be undone. Wherever you are stuck - you were going to laugh and your father looked at you with anger and said, "Stop!" - you will have to start again from there. Tell your father, "Please, now I am going to again start laughing." Somewhere inside your head your father is still holding you: "Stop!" Have you watched? If you meditate deeply you will come to see and hear your parental voices within. You were going to cry and the mother stopped you, and of course you were helpless and you had to compromise to survive. There was no other way. You had to depend on these people and they had their conditions; otherwise, they wouldn't give you milk, they wouldn't give you food, they wouldn't give you any support. And how can a small child exist without the support?

He has to compromise. He says, "Okay. Just to survive, I will follow whatsoever you say." So by and by, he becomes false. By and by, he goes against himself. He wanted to laugh but the father was not allowing it, so he kept quiet. By and by, he becomes a pretender, a hypocrite.

And a hypocrite can never be happy, because happiness is being true to your life-energy. Happiness is a function of being true. Happiness is not somewhere, that you go and purchase it. Happiness is not awaiting you somewhere, that you have to find the path and reach it. No, happiness is a function of being true, authentic. Whenever you are true, you are happy. Whenever you are untrue, you are unhappy.

And I will not say to you that if you are untrue you will be unhappy in your next life, no. This is all nonsense. If you are untrue, right now you are unhappy. Watch - whenever you are untrue, you feel uneasiness, unhappiness, because the energy is not flowing. The energy is not river-like; it is stuck, dead, frozen. And you would like to flow. Life is flow; death is frozenness. Unhappiness comes because many of your parts are frozen. They were never allowed to function and, by and by, you have learned the trick to control them. Now you have even forgotten that you are controlling something. You have lost your roots in the body. You have lost your roots in the truth of your body.

People are living like ghosts; that's why they are miserable. When I see inside you, rarely do I come across an alive man. People have become like ghosts, phantoms. You are not in your body; you are somewhere about your head hovering like a ghost, just like a balloon around the head. Just a small thread is joining you to the body. That thread keeps you alive, that's all, but it is not a delight. You will have to become conscious, you will have to meditate, and you will have to drop all the controls.

You will have to unlearn, undo, and then for the first time you will again become flowing.

Of course, discipline is needed, not as control but as awareness. A controlled discipline is a deadening phenomenon. When you are alert, aware, a discipline comes easily out of that awareness - not that you force it, not that you plan it. No, moment to moment your awareness decides how to respond. And an alert person responds in such a way that he remains happy, and he does not create unhappiness for others.

That's all religion is all about: remain happy, and don't create any situation for anybody to be unhappy. If you can help, make others happy. If you cannot, then at least make yourself happy.

The second question:

G.K. Chesterton has said, "The angels fly because they take themselves lightly."

That must be happening to you; you must be becoming an angel. Allow it. The more light you feel, the more happy you feel, the less will be the pull of gravitation. Gravitation makes graves out of you. Heaviness is a sin. To be heavy simply means that you are loaded with unlived experiences, incomplete experiences; that you are loaded with much junk, unfinished. You wanted to love a woman but it was difficult, because Mahatma Gandhi is against it; it is difficult because Vivekanand is against it; it is difficult because all the great seers and sages go on propounding brahmacharya, celibacy. You wanted to love, but all the sages were against it, so you somehow controlled yourself.

Now that is like a junk load on you. If you ask me, I will say you should have loved. Even now, nothing is lost; you should love. Complete it. I know the seers and sages are right, but I don't say that you are wrong.

And let me explain the paradox to you. The seers and sages are right, but they come to this understanding after they have loved much, after they have lived, after they have experienced all that love implies. Then they come to understanding, and brahmacharya flowers. It is not against love, it is through love that brahmacharya flowers. Now you are reading books, scriptures, and through the scriptures you go on getting ideas. Those ideas cripple you. Those ideas are not wrong in themselves, but you take them from the books, and the sages come to them through their own lives. Just go back into history, in the old puranas, and see your sages: they loved much, they lived much; they lived tremendously human lives with power, intensity. And then, by and by, they came to understand.

It is only life that brings understanding. You wanted to be angry but all the scriptures are against it, so you never allowed anger. Now that anger goes on accumulating - piles upon piles - and you are carrying that load, almost crushed under it. That's why you feel so heavy. Throw it out, drop it! Go into an empty room and be angry, and be really angry; beat the pillow, and do things to the walls, and talk to the walls and say things that you always wanted to say but you have not said. Be in a rage, explode, and you will come to a beautiful experience. After the explosion, after the storm, a silence will come to you, will pervade you, a silence that has never been known by you, an unburdening.

You may suddenly feel light!

Vidya has asked this question. I can see that she is feeling light. Go deeper into it so that not only in dreams, but actually you can fly.

If you are not carrying the past, you have such a lightness - feather-like. You live but you don't touch the earth. You live but you don't leave any footprints on the earth. You live but nothing is scratched by you, and a grace surrounds your life, your being - an aura, a glow. It is not only that you will be light, but whosoever will come in contact with you will suddenly be filled by something so graceful, so beautiful. Flowers will shower around you, and you will have a fragrance that is not of this earth.

But that happens only when you are unburdened.

Mahavira has called this unburdening nirjara - dropping everything. But how to drop? You have been taught not to be angry. I also teach you how not to be angry, but I don't say to you not to be angry. I say: be angry. No need to be angry on someone, with someone; that complicates. Just be angry in a vacuum. Go to the river where there is nobody and simply be angry, and do whatsoever you feel like doing. After a great catharsis of anger you will fall down on the sand, and you will see that you are flying. The past has, for a moment, disappeared.

And this same has to be done to every emotion. You will feel, by and by, that if you try to be angry, you will pass through a sequence of emotions. First you will get angry, then suddenly you will start crying, out of nowhere. Anger relaxed, released - another layer of your being is touched, another load of sadness. Behind each anger there is sadness, because whenever you withhold your anger you become sad. So after each layer of anger, there is a layer of sadness. When anger is released, you will feel sad. Release that sadness - you will start crying, sobbing. Sob, cry, let tears flow.

Nothing is wrong in them. Tears are one of the most beautiful things in the world: so relaxing, so relieving. And when the tears have gone, suddenly you will see another emotion: a smile is spreading somewhere deep within you, because whenever sadness is released, one starts feeling happy, a very smooth, delicate happiness, fragile. It will come up, it will bubble and it will spread all over your being. And then you will see that you are laughing for the first time - a belly laugh, like Swami Sardar Gurdayal Singh a belly laugh. Learn from him. He is our Zorba the Greek in this ashram. Learn from him how to laugh.

Unless your belly goes into ripples you are not laughing. People laugh from the head; they should laugh from the belly. After sadness is released, you will see a laughter arising, almost maddening; a mad laughter. You are as if possessed and you laugh loudly. And after laughter has gone, you will feel light, weightless, flying. First it will appear in your dreams, and by and by, in your awakened state of being also you will feel that you are no longer walking, you are flying.

Yes, Chesterton is right: angels fly because they take themselves lightly.

Take yourself lightly.

Ego takes itself very seriously. Now, there is a problem: egoistic people become very much interested in religion. And in fact, they are almost incapable of being religious. Only people who are non-serious can become religious, but they are not too interested in religion. So a paradox, a problem exists in the world. Serious people, ill people, sad people - uptight, hung-up in their heads - they become very much interested in religion because religion gives them their greatest ego-trip. They are doing something otherworldly, and the whole world is just worldly - materialists, condemned. Everybody is going to hell; only these religious people are going to heaven. They feel very, very strengthened in their egos. But these are the people who cannot become religious. These are the people who have destroyed all the religions of the world.

Whenever a Buddha arises, these people start gathering. While he is alive he does not allow them to become powerful. But when he is gone, by and by, the serious people start manipulating the non-serious people. That's how all the religions become organized, and all religions become dead.

While Buddha is there, he goes on spreading his smile, and he goes on helping people.

So many times I have told the story: that Buddha comes one day with a flower in his hand, and sits silently. Minutes pass; then the hour is passing and everybody is worried, uncomfortable, uneasy:

"Why is he not speaking?" He has never done that before. And he goes on looking at the flower as if he has completely forgotten the thousands of people who have gathered to listen to him.

And then one disciple, Mahakashyap, starts laughing, a belly laugh. Amidst that hushed silence his laughter spreads. Buddha looks at him. He calls him close, gives him the flower and says, "Whatsoever I could say through words I have told to you, and whatsoever I cannot say through the words, I transfer it to Mahakashyap" - to a laughing Mahakashyap. To laughter Buddha gives his heritage? But Mahakashyap disappears. Those serious people who could not understand became the mamipulators. When Buddha is gone, nobody hears anything about Mahakashyap. But what happened to Mahakashyap, to whom Buddha had given the most secret message: that which cannot be delivered through words, that which can only be delivered and received in silence and laughter, that which can only be given by tremendous silence to tremendous laughter? What happened to Mahakashyap? In Buddhist scriptures, nothing is mentioned - only this solitary anecdote, that's all. When Buddha is gone, Mahakashyap is forgotten; then serious long-faces start organizing.

Who will listen to the laughter? And Mahakashyap will recede back. Why bother? - these serious people are fighting so much that a man who loves laughing will get out of this mad mob of competitors: "Who is going to be the head of the Buddha sangha, of the Order of Buddha?" - and politics enters, and fighting, and voting, and everything. Mahakashyap is simply lost. Where did he die? - nobody knows. Nobody knows the real heir of Buddha. Many centuries, almost six centuries pass; then another man, Bodhidharma, reaches China. Again Mahakashyap's name is heard, because Bodhidharma says, "I'm not a follower of the organized Buddhist religion. I have received my message through a direct line of Masters. It started with Buddha giving a flower to Mahakashyapa, and I am the sixth." Who were the other four in between? - but it became a secret thing. When mad people become too ambitious and politics becomes strong, laughter goes secret.

It becomes a private, intimate relationship. Silently, Mahakashyap must have delivered his message to somebody, and then he to somebody else, and he to Bodhidharma.

Why did Bodhidharma go to China? Zen Buddhists have been asking for centuries, "Why? Why did this Bodhidharma go to China?" I know; there is a reason: the Chinese are more joyous people than Indians, more delighted with life and small things, more colorful. It must be the reason why Bodhidharma travelled so long, crossed the whole of the Himalayas to seek and search for people who could laugh with him, and who were not serious, not great scholars and philosophers, and this and that. No, China has not created great philosophers like India has. It has created a few great mystics like Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, but they all are laughing Buddhas. It must be that Bodhidharma's search towards China was a search for people who were non-serious, light.

My whole effort here is to make you light, non-serious, laughing. People come to me, particularly Indians, to complain that: "What type of sannyasins are you creating? They don't look like sannyasins. A sannyasin, has to be a serious person, almost dead, a corpse. These people laugh and dance and hug each other. This is unbelievable! Sannyasins doing this?" And I tell them, "Who else? Who else can do that? - only sannyasins can laugh."

So Vidya, very good - laugh, enjoy, be more and more light.

The third question:

The question is from Prapatti.

Yes, I know this happens. This has to happen. It is with a deep consideration; I want it to happen that way. When you are listening to me in the morning talk, I'm not talking to you personally. I'm not talking to anybody personally. I'm not talking to anybody in particular, I'm simply talking. Of course, you are not involved in it, you are just a listener. Even if I hit you on your heads you can always think it is for others, you can always find excuses: "Osho is doing it to others, doing well." You can always exclude yourself.

But when you come to darshan in the evening, I am talking to you in particular, Prapatti. Then I hit you and you cannot avoid it. And I know you need many shocks, because there is no other way to wake you. The alarm has to be jarring and hard, and when you would like to sleep, the alarm disturbs you. In fact, exactly in those moments when you would have really liked to sleep, suddenly the alarm goes.

Whenever I see any fragment of sleep travelling in your mind, I have to hit you hard. And of course, in darshan you are facing me; it is an encounter, and you feel frustrated. If you understand you will feel fulfilled, not frustrated. If you understand you will see why I hit you so hard. I am not your enemy.

It must be out of compassion that I hit you so hard. If you understand me, you will feel grateful that I bother to hit you. Let me tell you a few anecdotes.

A man went into a large store and bought some groceries. As he was waiting for his change, he kicked the assistant in the leg. Then he apologized: "I'm awfully sorry, sir. It is a nervous thing I have."

"Why don't you see a doctor about it then?" the assistant asked him.

Soon he returned to the store. This time, nothing happened at all.

"I see you are cured," said the assistant. "Did you see the psychiatrist? "

"I did," said the man.

"How did he cure you?" the assistant asked.

"Well," said the man, "when I kicked him in the leg, he kicked me back - and very hard."

So when you come to me, remember: if you kick me, I am going to kick you very hard. And sometimes even when you don't kick, I kick. Your ego has to be shattered; that's why the frustration.

The frustration is of the ego, it is not yours. I don't allow your ego. I don't give any visible or invisible support to it. But in the morning talks, it is very easy. Whatsoever hammering I do is for others, and whatsoever you feel good with is for you; you can choose. But not so in the evening.

Let me tell you another anecdote.

She: "Do you love me with all your heart and soul?"

He: "Uh huh."

She: "Do you think I am the most beautiful girl in the world, bar none?"

He: "Yeah."

She: "Do you think my lips are like rose petals, my eyes limpid pools, my hair like silk?"

He: "Yup."

She: "Oh, you say the nicest things."

In the morning talk, it is very easy; you can believe whatsoever you want to believe I am saying to you. But in the evening darshan, it is impossible.

But remember that I hit you hard to help you. It is out of compassion and love. When a stranger comes to me, I don't hit him, even in darshan. In fact, I don't make any contact, because all contact from me is going to be like an electric shock. Only with sannyasins am I hard, and I am harder when I see that your potentiality is greater. Prapatti has a great potential. She can grow and flower beautifully, and in no time, but she needs great pruning. It hurts. Remember, whenever it hurts, always watch... and you will see it is the ego that feels hurt, not you. Dropping the ego, chopping the ego, one day you will arise out of it, beyond the clouds. And then you will understand my compassion and my love, not before it.

People ask me, "Won't you help us if we are not sannyasins?" I'm ready to help, but it will be difficult for you. Once you are a sannyasin, you become part of me. Then I can do whatsoever I like to do, and I don't bother even to ask your permission; there is no need. Once you have become a sannyasin, you have given me all permission, you have given me all authority. When you take sannyas you are giving a gesture to me, showing your heart. You are saying, "Now, I am here. Do whatsoever you like." And of course, I have to cut many parts which have become wrongly joined in you. It is going to be almost a surgery. Many things have to be removed, undone. Many new things have to be added to you. Your energy has to be re-channelized; it is moving in wrong directions. So it is going to be almost a dismantling, and then a re-creation. It is going to be almost a chaos. But remember always, only out of chaos are dancing stars born; there is no other way.

The last question:

I am in favor of love.

Let me explain it to you: be true to love, and don't bother about partners. Whether one partner or many partners is not the question. The question is whether you are true to love. If you live with a woman or with a man and you don't love him, you live in sin. If you are married to somebody and you don't love that person and you still go on living with him, making love to him or her, you are committing a sin against love... and love is God.

You are deciding against love for social comforts, conveniences, formalities. It is as wrong as if you go and rape a woman you don't love. You go and rape a woman; it is a crime - because you don't love the woman and the woman does not love you. But the same happens if you live with a woman and you don't love her. Then it is a rape - socially accepted, of course, but it is a rape - and you are going against the God of love.

So, like in the East, people have decided to live with one partner for their whole lives; nothing is wrong. If you remain true to love, it is one of the most beautiful things to remain with one person, because intimacy grows. But, ninety-nine per cent are the possibilities that there is no love; you only live together. And by living together a certain relationship grows which is only of living together, not of love. And don't mistake it for love. But if it is possible, if you love a person and live the whole life with him or with her, a great intimacy will grow and love will have deeper and deeper revelations to make to you. It is not possible if you go on changing partners very often. It is as if you go on changing a tree from one place to another, then another; then it never grows roots anywhere. To grow roots, a tree needs to remain in one place. Then it goes deeper; then it becomes stronger.

Intimacy is good, and to remain in one commitment is beautiful, but the basic necessity is love. If a tree is rooted in a place where there are only rocks and they are killing the tree, then it is better to remove it. Then don't insist that it should remain in the one place. Remain true to life - remove the tree, because now it is going against life.

In the West, people are changing - too many relationships. Love is killed in both ways. In the East it is killed because people are afraid to change; in the West it is killed because people are afraid to remain with one partner for a longer time - afraid because it becomes a commitment. So before it becomes a commitment, change. So you remain floating and free, so a certain licentiousness is growing. And in the name of freedom, love is almost crushed, starved to death. Love has suffered both ways: in the East people cling to security, comfort, formality; in the West they cling to their ego's freedom, non-commitment - but love is suffering both ways.

I am in favor of love. I am neither Eastern nor Western, and I don't bother to which society you belong. I belong to no society. I am in favor of love. Always remember: if it is a love relationship, good.

While love lasts remain in it, and remain in it as deeply committed as possible. Remain in it as totally as possible; be absorbed by the relationship. Then love will be able to transform you. But if there is no love, it is better to change. But then, don't become an addict of change. Don't make it a habit.

Don't let it become a mechanical habit that you have to change after each two or three years as one has to change one's car after each two or three years, or after each year. A new model comes, so what to do? - you have to change your car. Suddenly, you come across a new woman. It is not much different. A woman is a woman, as a man is a man. The differences are only secondary because it is a question of energy. The female energy is female energy. In each woman all women are represented, and in each man all men are represented. The differences are very superficial: the nose is a little longer, or it is not a little longer; the hair is blond or brunette - small differences, just on the surface. Deep down, the question is of female and male energy. So if love is there, stick to it.

Give it a chance to grow. But if it is not there, change before you become addicted to a relationship without love.

A young wife in the confessional box asked the priest about contraceptives. "You must not use them,"

said the priest. "They are against God's law. Take a glass of water."

"Before, or after?" asked the wife.

"Instead!" replied the priest.

You ask me whether to follow the Eastern way or the Western way. Neither; you follow the divine way. And what is the divine way? - remain true to love. If love is there, everything is permitted. If love is not there, nothing is permitted. If you don't love your wife don't touch her, because that is trespassing. If you don't love a woman, don't sleep with her; that is going against the law of love, and that is the ultimate law. Only when you love is everything permitted.

Somebody asked Augustine of Hippo, "I am a very uneducated man and I cannot read scriptures and great theology books. You just give me a small message. I'm very foolish and my memory is also not good, so you just give me a gist, so I can remember it and follow it." Augustine was a great philosopher, a great saint, and he had delivered great sermons, but nobody had asked for just a gist. He closed his eyes, he meditated for hours, it is said. And the man said, "Please, if you have found, just tell me so I can go, because I have been waiting for hours." Augustine said, "I cannot find anything else except this: love, and everything else is permitted to you. Just love."

Jesus says, "God is love." I would like to say to you, love is God. Forget all about God; love will do. Remain courageous enough to move with love; no other consideration should be made. If you consider love, everything will become possible to you.

First, don't move with a woman or man you don't love. Don't move just out of whim; don't move just out of lust. Find out whether the desire to be committed to a person has arisen in you. Are you ripe enough to make a deep contact? Because that contact is going to change your whole life. And when you make the contact, make it so truthfully. Don't hide from your beloved or your lover - be true. Drop all false faces that you have learned to wear.

Drop all masks. Be true. Reveal your whole heart; be nude. Between two lovers there should not be any secrets, otherwise love is not. Drop all secrecy. It is politics; secrecy is politics. It should not be in love. You should not hide anything. Whatsoever arises in your heart should remain transparent to your beloved, and whatsoever arises in her heart should remain transparent to you. You should become two transparent beings to each other. By and by, you will see that through each other you are growing to a higher unity.

By meeting the woman outside, by really meeting, loving her, committing yourself to her being, dissolving into her, melting into her, you will, by and by, start meeting the woman that is within you; you will start meeting the man that is within you. The outer woman is just a path to the inner woman; and the outer man is also just a path to the inner man. The real orgasm happens inside you when your inner man and woman meet. That is the meaning of the Hindu symbolism of ardhanarishwar.

You must have seen Shiva: half man, half woman. Each man is half man, half woman; each woman is half woman, half man. It has to be so, because half of your being comes from your father and half of your being comes from your mother. You are both. An inner orgasm, an inner meeting, an inner union is needed. But to reach to that inner union you will have to find a woman outside who responds to the inner woman, who vibrates your inner being, and your inner woman which is lying fast asleep, awakes. Through the outer woman, you have to meet the inner woman; and the same for the man.

So if the relationship continues for a long period, it-will be better, because that inner woman needs time to be awakened. As it is happening in the West - hit-and-run affairs - the inner woman has no time, the inner man has no time to rise and become awake. By the time there is a stirring, the woman is gone... another woman, with another vibration, with another vibe. And of course, if you go on changing your woman and your man you will become neurotic, because so many things, so many sounds will enter into your being, and so many different qualities of vibrations that you will be at a loss to find your inner woman. It will be difficult. And the possibility is that you may become an addict to change. You will just start enjoying change. Then you are lost.

The outer woman is just a way to the inner woman, and the outer man is the way to the inner man.

And the ultimate yoga, the ultimate unio mystica happens inside you. And when that happens, then you are free of all women and all men. Then you are free of man and womanhood. Then suddenly, you go beyond; then you are neither.