Prologue part 2

ZARATHUSTRA HAD gone to the mountains in search of aloneness. In the crowd you can find yourself lonely, but never alone.

Loneliness is a kind of hunger for the other. You are missing the other. You are not enough unto yourself - you are empty. Hence everybody wants to be in the crowd, and weaves around himself many kinds of relationships just to deceive himself, to forget that he is lonely. But that loneliness erupts again and again. No relationship can hide it. All relationships are so thin and so fragile. Deep inside you know perfectly well that even though you are in the crowd, you are amongst strangers.

You are a stranger to yourself too.

Zarathustra and all the mystics have gone to the mountains in search of aloneness. Aloneness is a positive feeling, the feeling of your own being and the feeling that you are enough unto yourself - that you don't need anyone.

Loneliness is a sickness of the heart.

Aloneness is a healing.

Those who know aloneness have gone beyond loneliness forever. Whether they are alone or with people, they are centered within themselves. In the mountains they are alone, in the crowd they are alone, because this is their realization: that aloneness is our nature. We have come into the world alone and we will be leaving the world again alone.

Between these two alonenesses, between birth and death, you are still alone; but you have not understood the beauty of aloneness, and hence you have fallen into a kind of fallacy - the fallacy of loneliness.

To discover one's aloneness one has to go out of the crowd. Slowly, slowly as he forgets the world, all his awareness becomes concentrated on himself, and there is an explosion of light. For the first time he comes to know the beauty and the blessing of being alone, the tremendous freedom and the wisdom of being alone.

Zarathustra used to carry a serpent and an eagle while he was living in the mountains. The serpent, in the East, has always represented wisdom. The greatest wisdom is to go on slipping out of the past, without clinging to it, just like a serpent slips out of his old skin and never looks back. His movement is always from the old to the new.

Wisdom is not the collection of the past; wisdom is the experience of the constantly renewing life.

Wisdom does not gather the dust of memories; it remains like a clean mirror, reflecting that which is - always fresh, always new, always in the present.

The eagle is a symbol of freedom. Alone it goes across the sun, far away in the boundless sky, with no fear. Wisdom and freedom are two aspects of the same coin.

Living for ten years in the mountains, Zarathustra attained the ecstasy of being alone, the purity of being alone, the independence of being alone - and this is where he is unique amongst other awakened people: When they discovered, they remained in their heights. Zarathustra starts "down- going," going back to the crowd.

He has to deliver the message to humanity that you are suffering unnecessarily; you are being dependent unnecessarily; you are creating all kinds of imprisonments for yourself - just to feel safe and secure. But the only security and the only safety is in knowing yourself, because then even death is impotent. It cannot destroy you.

Zarathustra is going downwards from the mountains to tell the people that wisdom is not synonymous with knowledge; in fact, knowledge is just the opposite of wisdom. Wisdom is basically innocence. Knowledge is ego, and wisdom is the disappearance of the ego. Knowledge makes you full of information. Wisdom makes you absolutely empty, but that emptiness is a new kind of fullness.

It is a spaciousness.

He is going to the people to tell them that wisdom brings freedom. There is no other freedom - political, economical, social, all those freedoms are fake. The only authentic freedom is of the soul, which can become an eagle and go into the unknown and the unknowable without any fear.

Because he has attained this state of ultimate consciousness, he wants to share it. The uniqueness about him is that he still loves mankind. There is no condemnation about the sleeping people, the blind people. There is tremendous compassion for them. He is going downwards because he loves life. He is not against life.

This small dialogue with an old saint who lives in the forest is very significant. It contains much which may not be apparent, but we will try to discover it as deeply as possible.

ZARATHUSTRA WENT DOWN THE MOUNTAIN ALONE, AND NO ONE MET HIM. BUT WHEN HE ENTERED THE FOREST, AN OLD MAN, WHO HAD LEFT HIS HOLY HUT TO LOOK FOR ROOTS IN THE FOREST, SUDDENLY STOOD BEFORE HIM. AND THE OLD MAN SPOKE THUS TO ZARATHUSTRA:

'THIS WANDERER IS NO STRANGER TO ME. HE PASSED BY HERE MANY YEARS AGO. HE WAS CALLED ZARATHUSTRA; BUT HE HAS CHANGED.'

The old saint could see the change; although it is the same man, it is not the same energy; it is the same man, but it is a totally different individual. He has gone into the mountains as ignorant and he is coming out of the mountains as the wisest man possible. He has gone there asleep; he is coming back awakened. He has gone through a transformation.

When he went to the mountains, he was just a mortal, and when he comes out of the mountains, he has attained immortality. Now he is full of joy, full of peace, showering blessings all around him. He is overflowing with love, with compassion.

'THEN YOU CARRIED YOUR ASHES TO THE MOUNTAINS:' You were nothing but a corpse. And you had carried your ashes to the mountains. '... WILL YOU TODAY CARRY YOUR FIRE INTO THE VALLEYS?' The transformation has been so radical - instead of being ashes, he is now fire. He has gone as darkness, now he is aflame.

'DO YOU NOT FEAR AN INCENDIARY'S PUNISHMENT?' This is significant to note. The old saint is saying, "Are you not afraid, going back to the blind people, with eyes? Going to the dead, full of life? Going to the asleep, awakened?"

When you had come from them, you were one of them. Now you are totally different. Don't you think you are taking a risk? They will punish you. They will not forgive you. Your blissfulness is too much; they will not be able to tolerate it.

It is a strange fact: we can tolerate people's misery, however deep it is. We have a certain enjoyment when others are miserable, because when they are miserable, you are higher than them. You can show sympathy and you can rejoice in the fact that you are not so miserable. Hence, no miserable person has ever been crucified, ever poisoned, ever stoned to death.

But to be blissful amongst miserable people is dangerous, because you are a height and they feel offended. You can see and they cannot. It is unbearable. They are dead and you are alive. You have to be punished. You have gone astray from the crowd. Are you not afraid of the punishment?

'YES, I RECOGNIZE ZARATHUSTRA. HIS EYES ARE CLEAR, AND NO DISGUST LURKS IN HIS MOUTH. DOES HE NOT GO ALONG LIKE A DANCER?'

The eyes are very symbolic. They are part of your body, but they are also windows of your soul. As your soul becomes silent, peaceful, joyous, your eyes attain a depth, a clarity, a purity, an innocence.

They become so transparent that you can see into the very soul of the man.

'HIS EYES ARE CLEAR, AND NO DISGUST LURKS IN HIS MOUTH.'

If you look at people, they are disgusted with the whole of life and you cannot blame them. What have they got? Their whole life is nothing but a long-drawn-out tragedy. It is sickness unto death.

They go on breathing, they go on living, they go on hoping. But those hopes always remain hopes.

Their dreams are never fulfilled.

As they grow older, they see their hopes shattering, more and more. It is natural that they will be full of disgust with this whole business of life. They had never asked to be born, they have never asked that they should be given a heart which feels, which needs warmth, which needs love.

They have never asked that they should be given a soul that longs for the ultimate heights of joy and ecstasy. They suddenly find themselves, and all that has been given to them by existence remains unfulfilled. They are truly angry.

One of the most significant novelists, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in his great novel BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, has one character who says, "I have only one relationship with God, and that is that of disgust. I am angry, and if I can meet Him, the only thing I am going to do is to give Him the ticket back, and ask Him to find the way out of life. It is a cruel joke. He gives us so many desires, so many longings... and there is no opportunity to fulfill them. There is not even any hope in the future."

Everybody is born with great enthusiasm, and everybody dies just frustrated.

The old saint says, "Now I don't see any disgust, any agony; instead I see ecstasy: he goes along like a dancer..." You had come to the mountains dragging yourself somehow, carrying your own corpse on your shoulders, and now: DOES HE NOT GO ALONG LIKE A DANCER?

The transformation has happened. The man has realized himself. The man has drunk from the sources of the divine. 'HOW CHANGED ZARATHUSTRA IS. ZARATHUSTRA HAS BECOME - A CHILD...' That is the greatest change in life - to be a child again: '... AN AWAKENED-ONE: WHAT DO YOU WANT NOW WITH THE SLEEPERS?'

The question of the saint is the question of all the saints of the world, all the buddhas, all the mystics, all the awakened ones. You have become a child, you are awakened: What do you want now with the sleepers? You are an absolute stranger to them. They will punish you, they may kill you. Your very presence will become a danger to their sleep, a danger to their misery, a danger to their blindness.

'YOU LIVED IN SOLITUDE AS IN THE SEA, AND THE SEA BORE YOU. ALAS, DO YOU WANT TO GO ASHORE? ALAS, DO YOU WANT AGAIN TO DRAG YOUR BODY YOURSELF?' Have you forgotten the day you had come to the mountains? Do you want to be the same old self again?

Why are you going downwards, leaving your sunlit peaks? You know in the valleys there is darkness alone? What is the purpose of your going?

ZARATHUSTRA ANSWERED, 'I LOVE MANKIND.' In those three words is contained Zarathustra's whole philosophy: "I love mankind. I love life. I had not renounced the world. I had not come to the mountains as an anti-life escapist. I had come to the mountains to find myself, my aloneness, my freedom, my wisdom. I have found it.

"Now there is no need for me to remain on the heights. On the contrary, I am so full that I need people to share with. I want to share my love, I want to share my wisdom, I want to share my freedom. I am too overloaded - I am overflowing."

'WHY,' SAID THE SAINT, 'DID I GO INTO THE FOREST AND THE DESERT? WAS IT NOT BECAUSE I LOVED MANKIND ALL TOO MUCH?' The saint says, "I have also gone into the mountains, into the forest because I also loved mankind all too much, that has become a slavery, and that has become a dependence, and that was bringing only misery to me and nothing else."

But there is a difference. He loved mankind "all too much" when he was ignorant, when he himself was asleep. Zarathustra loves mankind when he is fully awake, when he is enlightened. The love of the unawakened is nothing but lust. Only the awakened knows the beauty and the spirituality, and the divinity of love. It is no longer a bondage.

The love of the awakened gives you freedom.

The love of the unawakened is that of a beggar's love: he wants you to love him, he wants to get more and more love.

The love of the awakened is just the reverse. It is the love of an emperor. He wants to give to you - he has so much, such an abundance. It is giving, it is sharing without any desire to be rewarded and without any desire to get anything in return.

The saint said, 'NOW I LOVE GOD. MANKIND I DO NOT LOVE.' In this statement is contained the whole attitude of all the so-called religions. They have been creating a division that if you love mankind you cannot love God. The Old Testament God says, "I am very jealous. If you love me, you cannot love anyone else."

But that is the attitude of almost all religions. Either you can love this world; then you have renounced the other world.... If you love man, you have forgotten God. You can choose. If you love God, you will have to withdraw your love from mankind. In fact, you will have to hate mankind, you will have to hate life, you will have to hate all the pleasures of life. This idea of religions is very monopolistic.

God wants the love in your heart in its totality. He cannot tolerate any competitor.

'NOW I LOVE GOD: MANKIND I DO NOT LOVE. MAN IS TOO IMPERFECT A THING FOR ME.

LOVE OF MANKIND WOULD DESTROY ME.' Through the old saint, the whole religious attitude of anti-life, anti-joy, anti-pleasure is condensed. Why cannot you love mankind? - because mankind is too imperfect a thing. God is perfect.

'LOVE OF MANKIND WOULD DESTROY ME.' The reality is, that love in its purity, in its spiritual flowering, does not make any distinction. It loves, not because you are worthy, it loves not because you are perfect, it loves not because you are God - true love loves for love's sake. The object of love is irrelevant. You are so full of love that you go on sharing with those who are imperfect. And in fact they need more. Those who are unworthy, in fact they need more. Those who are undeserving, in fact they need more.

The perfect God has no need of your love - the perfect God is only a hypothesis, it is only in your mind. You have never come across him; otherwise, a man who goes on looking for imperfections will find imperfections in God, too.

Have you ever thought about it? If God suddenly appears in front of you, will you not be able to find imperfections in Him? - you will find imperfections in Him too. Perhaps He is not as beautiful as you had imagined. Perhaps He looks Chinese, or perhaps He is a Negro, or perhaps He is a Negro woman! Perhaps He is too old, too ancient: there is no freshness around Him, but only a stinking oldness; for centuries He has been there.

There are so many hypothetical conceptions of God. Some believe He has four hands. Do you think four hands will look right? And some think He has one thousand hands. A man with one thousand hands will be perfectly useful to be kept in a museum, but to love Him... and if He gives you a hug - with one thousand hands. Once you can get out of His hug, you will never think of God again.

There are conceptions of God with three faces. It will be curious to see Him, but a man with three faces will not look beautiful. And who knows what kind of faces those are?

The perfection of God is in your mind, because God is only a mind projection. And you can love God very easily, because there is no God, so there is no problem.

To love a woman or to love a man... there are problems. Your likings differ; your preferences differ.

You want to go to the movie, and your wife insists on not going to the movie; she has a headache.

Once it was asked of Henry Ford: "How did you go on becoming richer and richer and richer; what was the motivation?" He said, "To tell you the truth, I wanted to see whether I can earn more than my wife can expend, and I have to accept that I am a failure."

With the other person there are problems. You want to sleep and your husband snores. What can you do with this husband who is just sleeping by your side, snoring? And he is helpless also. Thousands of methods have been tried to prevent snoring. The latest is a bag, electrically engineered, hanging over the husband's mouth. The moment he snores, the bag immediately falls on his face, and then he wakes up - would you let him sleep the whole night or not? - because whenever he snores, the bag comes immediately over his nose and mouth, and closes them.

You have a wife whose body smell you cannot tolerate....

With God everything is beautiful because neither you have to sleep with Him - let Him snore - nor do you have to live with Him - if His body stinks, let it stink. It is a pure hypothesis in your mind.

But to be in contact with real human beings is a totally different experience. It is a fire test for your love. It is very easy to love God; it is very difficult to love man. It costs nothing to love God; it needs tremendous understanding to love a man.

So those who have escaped into the forest and the mountains, and are projecting an idea of God and love that God, have chosen a very easy kind of life. Their love is not going to grow, because it has no challenges.

The old saint is speaking, almost in essence, of the whole approach of all religions: "Love of mankind will destroy me. Man is too imperfect a thing for me." This is egoistic. He thinks himself to be perfect and mankind is too imperfect a thing. Of course a perfect man can only love a perfect God - and God is just your hallucination. If you persist, you may see the God of your conception: it is nothing but a dream seen with open eyes - it is hallucinatory. There is nobody in front of you, but your own idea has hypnotized you.

That's why a Christian will see Jesus and a Buddhist will see Buddha and a Hindu will see Krishna.

Even by mistake a Christian never sees Buddha or Krishna. Even by mistake Krishna never comes to a Christian, Christ never comes to a Hindu - because these people don't exist. They are part of your mind; you create them. THE BIBLE says God created man in His own image. I say unto you:

man creates God in his own image.

ZARATHUSTRA ANSWERED, 'WHAT DID I SAY OF LOVE? I AM BRINGING MANKIND A GIFT.'

Love is always a gift; otherwise it is abstract poetry. 'WHAT DID I SAY OF LOVE? I AM BRINGING MANKIND A GIFT.' The old saint is saying very significant things: "Give them nothing, because they never forgive those people who give them anything."

Socrates gave people an immensely valuable method to find truth: the Socratic dialogue. But what did mankind do to him? - poisoned him.

The old saint has some truth when he is saying, 'GIVE THEM NOTHING. RATHER TAKE SOMETHING OFF THEM AND BEAR IT WITH THEM - THAT WILL PLEASE THEM BEST; IF ONLY IT BE PLEASING TO YOU!'

It is part of human psychology that you want to be a giver; you don't want to be a receiver. But there are things which you have to receive. There is no way for you to give them because you don't have them.

What can you give to Gautam Buddha or to Jesus Christ or to Zarathustra? You are a beggar, but still the psychology is that you have to give them something, and that will make you happy. They may give you tremendous treasures, but you will never forgive them, because they are the givers and you are the receivers. You are a beggar. How can you forgive someone who has made you a beggar?

I have a friend who was born poor, but was adopted by one of the richest families in India. He is a very generous man - he has made all his relatives rich, comfortable. He goes on giving to friends, to relatives, even to strangers. But he confessed to me once, while traveling with me in the train: "I have always wanted to ask you something, but I could not gather courage to expose myself. I have given to all my relatives who were poor, and now they are rich people. I have given to my friends, I have given even to strangers who have asked; I have never said no to anybody - I have so much that I can go on giving. But they are all angry at me; they talk against me."

I said, "It is very simple: have you ever allowed them to give something to YOU?"

He said, "I don't need anything."

I said, "That explains everything. But small things... for example, you can phone a friend to whom you have given money, a factory, and made a rich man, and say: 'Just passing by your house I saw beautiful roses in your garden. Will you bring a few roses to me?' And the friend's attitude towards you will change.

"You are sick: you can phone somebody and say: 'I am lying in bed, with a bad headache and fever, and a great desire has arisen in me for you, that you should be close to me. Just come here, hold my hand and sit by my side.' That will be enough.

"You have many cars, but you could have told any of your relatives: 'I need your car for one day.' You don't have to use it. Just keep it in the garage and by the evening return it. But your relative or your friend will think he can also give something to you. He is also needed."

He said, "I will try, although I am very reluctant. I have made them whatsoever they are. Why should I ask anything? I have roses in my garden. I have my own cars, and their cars I have given to them; their houses I have given to them."

I said, "It is up to you. It is your ego that is hurting them all - that you are the giver, and they are always the receiver. If you want to change their attitude towards you, you have to become in some way a receiver. Let them enjoy for some moments the ego of giving."

He tried, and next time when he met me, he said, "It works, it works miracles! I had never seen...

those people are so happy with me. They are talking about my generosity. Now that I am taking things from them, I have become generous; otherwise they were always saying, 'He is just an egoist; he has given to us not because we needed anything, he has given just to humiliate us!"

The old saint is right: 'GIVE THEM NOTHING. RATHER TAKE SOMETHING OFF THEM AND BEAR IT WITH THEM - THAT WILL PLEASE THEM BEST; IF ONLY IT BE PLEASING TO YOU!

AND IF YOU WANT TO GIVE TO THEM, GIVE NO MORE THAN AN ALMS, AND LET THEM BEG FOR THAT!'

His advice is very significant and based on deep psychological truths. Just give them alms. Don't give them too much. Give them enough so that they start wanting more. Then they will always be wagging their tail around you. Give them only when they beg, and they will be happy with you, because you have not reduced them to beggars. They themselves have begged. It is not your fault; they cannot be angry with you.

But a man like Zarathustra cannot do that. 'NO,' ANSWERED ZARATHUSTRA, 'I GIVE NO ALMS. I AM NOT POOR ENOUGH FOR THAT.' A great statement: I AM NOT POOR ENOUGH FOR THAT.

To reduce somebody to begging, and to give in such little amounts that it creates the desire for more in them, shows my poverty. I am not poor enough for that.

I have abundance: abundance of love, abundance of peace, abundance of truth, abundance of wisdom, abundance of freedom, and these things cannot be given in parts. They can be given only as a whole. You cannot cut truth into pieces. You cannot cut love into fragments. Either you give or you don't give. But if you give, you have to give it wholeheartedly, with totality. It does not matter even if they crucify you; it does not matter if they become irritated and annoyed with you.

THE SAINT LAUGHED AT ZARATHUSTRA AND SPOKE THUS: 'SEE TO IT THAT THEY ACCEPT YOUR TREASURES!' - because they have been always rejecting them. Deep down they want the treasures, but when somebody comes to give them, they reject them. There is a joy in rejecting:

why have you rejected Buddha or Mahavira or Jesus? By rejecting, you have shown them: "You may have the treasure, but we are not so poor to accept it. You may be rich in having it. We are rich, more rich than you, in rejecting it."

The old man's advice is based on great wisdom. 'SEE TO IT THAT THEY ACCEPT YOUR TREASURES! THEY ARE MISTRUSTFUL OF HERMITS, AND DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE COME TO GIVE.

'OUR STEPS RING TOO LONELY THROUGH THE STREETS. AND WHEN AT NIGHT THEY HEAR IN THEIR BEDS A MAN GOING BY LONG BEFORE THE SUN HAS RISEN, THEY PROBABLY ASK THEMSELVES: WHERE IS THAT THIEF GOING?

'DO NOT GO TO MEN, BUT STAY IN THE FOREST! GO RATHER TO THE ANIMALS!'

I have loved this advice of the old saint, because animals are innocent: they will not reject you, and they will not be annoyed with you, and they will not crucify you.

I would just like to add to it: Go to the animals, go to the trees - they are more sensitive. Man has become almost insensitive, and the higher the value, the more insensitive he is. He understands only the language of money, power, prestige. He has forgotten the language of love, the language of joy, the language of dance.

'WHY WILL YOU NOT BE AS I AM - A BEAR AMONG BEARS, A BIRD AMONG BIRDS?'

'AND WHAT DOES THE SAINT DO IN THE FOREST?' ASKS ZARATHUSTRA.

THE SAINT ANSWERED, 'I MAKE SONGS AND SING THEM, AND WHEN I MAKE SONGS, I LAUGH, WEEP, AND MUTTER: THUS I PRAISE GOD.

'WITH SINGING, WEEPING, LAUGHING, AND MUTTERING I PRAISE THE GOD WHO IS MY GOD. BUT WHAT DO YOU BRING US AS A GIFT?'

WHEN ZARATHUSTRA HEARD THESE WORDS, HE SALUTED THE SAINT AND SAID: 'WHAT SHOULD I HAVE TO GIVE YOU! BUT LET ME GO QUICKLY, THAT I MAY TAKE NOTHING FROM YOU!' AND THUS THEY PARTED FROM ONE ANOTHER, THE OLD MAN AND ZARATHUSTRA, LAUGHING AS TWO BOYS LAUGH.

Zarathustra said, "What should I have to give to you? You sing, you create songs, you are joyous. In your aloneness you are absolutely happy. What can I give to you? Let me go, I am afraid I may take something from you, and I am already too much burdened with songs, with blissfulness. We both are burdened. You have chosen to live with the bears as a bear; to live with the birds as a bird; to live with the trees as a tree. I have chosen to go back to man, and to live as a man. I have nothing to give to you. You have got it." They understood each other, and the old man and Zarathustra, laughing as two boys, parted from one another.

BUT WHEN ZARATHUSTRA WAS ALONE, HE SPOKE THUS TO HIS HEART: 'COULD IT BE POSSIBLE! THIS OLD SAINT HAS NOT YET HEARD IN HIS FOREST THAT GOD IS DEAD!'

This is something to be understood by anybody who is in search of truth, in search of religiousness, in search of spiritual growth: that God is only a hypothesis. It is only a way of saying that God is dead - God has never been alive. It is just to satisfy man's curiosity that the cunning minds have invented the idea of God. It is not a revelation, it is just imagination, and forced by conditioning for centuries.

But in his heart he said: Could it be possible that such a beautiful old man who makes songs and sings, who lives with birds and trees and animals, has not yet heard in his forest that God is dead?

- that he is still talking of loving God?

With Zarathustra and with Friedrich Nietzsche I agree totally. Just my expression is different. I want to say that God has never been alive; there has never been any God. God is an invention out of fear, or out of greed, or out of frustrations in life. God is the invention of those who were not able to learn the art of life.

And because they could not dance, they started condemning dance. In fact they themselves were crippled because they could not live. Life needs alertness, intelligence, patience, tolerance.

Because they could not create these qualities in themselves, they created the idea that life is something wrong: it has to be renounced. But you cannot renounce anything unless there is something bigger to get by your renunciation. So God is the greatest projection of greed: Renounce the world, and you can get God. Renounce the world and you can get paradise.

These are the inventions of the escapists, of the crippled, of the retarded; of those who have not been able to learn the art of love, the art of living, who don't know how to sing, who don't know how to dance. Naturally, one who does not know how to dance will condemn dance. One who does not know how to sing will condemn singing. That is a defense measure to hide one's crippledness, to hide one's ignorance.

God is the creation of the unwise, not of the wise. It is the creation of the slaves, not of those who love freedom.

Zarathustra is immensely in love with life and all that life provides. He is the only mystic with immense affirmation of life. There is no place for renouncing anything - life is a gift of existence. Learn to enjoy it! Relish in it! Dance with the trees, and dance with the stars. Love without jealousy. Live without competition. Accept everybody without judgment. And then there is no need for any God.

And there is no need for any paradise.

We can transform this very earth into a divine existence. Our very life can become the expression of godliness.

I am all for godliness because godliness is a quality you can learn, you can grow. God is just a dead idea. The sooner it is dropped, the better, because it unnecessarily wastes your time.

Millions of people are praying around the earth, not knowing that there is nobody to hear their prayers. Millions are worshiping stone statues. If they cannot love living human beings, how is it possible for them to love stone statues? But stone statues are comfortable. They don't create any trouble. You can do anything you want: you can pour water over them or milk over them, you can offer them rotten coconuts, and they will not even object. You can say anything in any language, right or wrong, to the stone statue, it does not matter.

Love needs the other to be living, alive. But then you have to learn the art.

It is one of the stupidities that no university in the world teaches people the art of living, the art of loving, the art of meditating. And I think anything else is far lower than love, life, meditation, laughter.

You may be a great surgeon, you may be a great engineer, you may be a great scientist - still you will need a sense of humor, still you will need the art of love, still you will need the art of living, still you will need all these great values in your life.

But you will be surprised: I teach only these things - love, life, laughter, and as a background for all these, meditation - but the government of India is not willing to accept this school as an institution of education. They would accept it as an institution of education, if I was teaching geography, history, chemistry, physics - the mundane things of life.

I don't say that they should not be taught, but they should not be the only education. They should be a lower kind of education, and each university should have a higher faculty of education where you are taught real values of life... because geography cannot make you a better man, nor can history make you a better lover, nor can chemistry make you meditative.

All that is being taught in the universities cannot give you the sense of humor. You cannot laugh, you cannot dance, you cannot sing. Your life becomes almost like a desert.

Zarathustra would like your life to be a garden where birds sing, where flowers blossom, where trees dance, where the sun comes with joy. Zarathustra is absolutely for life, and that is the reason why he does not have many followers. The poisoners, the destructive people, have millions of followers. And a unique teacher and a unique mystic whose whole message is love and life, has got the smallest religion in the world.

Zarathustra's religion should be the only religion. All other religions should be buried in the cemeteries, because except for life there is no God, and except for love there is no prayer.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.