The home-coming

Every man is in search of a home, because as he is, he is only a refugee: not at ease with himself or with the world around him, not relaxed the way one should be in his own home. Perhaps religion can be defined as the search for the home.

The psychologists have a certain insight into he phenomenon. The moment a child is born... he has lived for nine months in absolute comfort, in absolute security and safety, utterly relaxed. The mother's womb was his first experience of life - no responsibility, no worry, no struggle, no suffering.

He was in his element - utterly satisfied, contented. But that contentment, that satisfaction, that home, is lost when he is born.

Suddenly he finds himself in a strange world, with people he is not familiar with, with things which are absolutely new. He has to learn life from ABC, from scratch. Now he is no longer protected, safe, and secure.

Psychologists say the experience of nine months in the mother's womb is the basic cause for a tremendous desire in man to find again the same home - the same old days of peace and silence, of no worry, no struggle, no "other"... of being oneself alone and enough unto oneself. There seems to be some truth in it.

Zarathustra is saying, O SOLITUDE! SOLITUDE, MY HOME! I HAVE LIVED TOO LONG WILDLY IN WILD STRANGE LANDS TO COME HOME TO YOU WITHOUT TEARS!

Those who have again arrived to the same state of silence, peace and tranquility as a child in the mother's womb - in other words, the people for whom the whole existence has become a womb, a mother - all these people have found it to be as if they have come back home: a vaster home, with more freedom, with immense space, with great beauty, with intense ecstasy.

The old home was just a faraway echo of the real home. The real home is to find one's solitude, to find one's aloneness, to find oneself.

We are wandering always outside, going somewhere. And every going is going away from yourself.

You may be going in search of a home, but in fact you are going away from home - your home is within you. And that home can be found only when you stop searching, when you stop wandering, when you are no longer interested in the distant but utterly relaxed in your very source of being.

The home is to be found within you. And solitude is an essential, a basic necessity. To be with yourself - that's what is the meaning of solitude. We know how to be with others; we know how to be in a crowd, but we have forgotten the language of being with oneself.

This is not loneliness, because loneliness is always asking for the other. Loneliness is painful.

Loneliness is not a rest, but a restlessness. Loneliness is not the home; the home is aloneness. You are not asking for the other, because for the first time you have found that there is no need of the other. You alone are enough - more than enough.

Solitude is the flowering of meditation, is the flowering of silence, is the flowering of your innermost potential.

O SOLITUDE! SOLITUDE, MY HOME! I HAVE LIVED TOO LONG WILDLY IN WILD STRANGE LANDS TO COME HOME TO YOU WITHOUT TEARS! I'm coming home to you without any anguish of the world, without any anxiety of the world, without any responsibility of the world, without any tears; just like a small child running joyously, blissfully, towards his mother.

WE DO NOT QUESTION ONE ANOTHER, WE DO NOT COMPLAIN TO ONE ANOTHER, WE GO OPENLY TOGETHER THROUGH OPEN DOORS.

Solitude is not something strange. It is very strange that the people outside are all strangers - whatever you do, it is impossible to destroy the strangeness of the other. You cannot enter into his privacy; he cannot enter into your privacy. You remain yourself in a crowd.

Even lovers only come close; but closeness is also a distance. And for lovers, even a small distance is very painful, because the desire is to destroy the distance, to know the other in his totality, to allow oneself to be known absolutely and without any conditions. But that is just not possible. Our privacies, our secret innermost centers, cannot be reached. Even by love, the bridge cannot be made. The constant fight amongst lovers is not because of any enmity, the constant fight between them is because they are continuously feeling their deepest longing of becoming one. Yes, for moments, as if in a dream, they come very close. But however close they come the other remains a stranger, and however long they stay together, the feeling that the other is a stranger remains.

Only with yourself are you not a stranger. Only in your solitude there is no question to be asked, no introduction is needed - as if you have known this solitude forever and forever, just you had forgotten the way to it. You have gone away in search of a thousand and one things, and got lost in the jungle of the world and forgot the way back home.

This coming back home is without any question, without any complaint, without any conflict. WE GO OPENLY TOGETHER THROUGH OPEN DOORS.

You and your solitude are not two things; you are your solitude. You and your aloneness are not two things; you are your aloneness, in its crystal clear transparency. Hence no question arises, no doubt arises.

You simply relax. You have found yourself.

In the crowd, in the wild lands, with strange people, you had forgotten how to relax within yourself.

Relaxation is the bridge. Relaxation is the only real prayer, because only through relaxation are you at ease with yourself and with existence. All fear disappears. You drop all defenses, because there is nobody else but you. The existence takes a totally new quality; your aloneness, your solitude, makes the whole existence not separate from you.

The whole sky becomes yours, with all its stars.

The trees become you, with all their foliage and flowers.

The mountains are within you.

For the first time you feel that your heartbeat is not only your heartbeat; it is the heartbeat of the whole universe. This can certainly be called "the homecoming."

HERE, THE WORDS... OF ALL EXISTENCE SPRING OPEN TO ME: ALL EXISTENCE HERE WANTS TO BECOME WORDS, ALL BECOMING HERE WANTS TO LEARN SPEECH FROM ME.

In the depths of your solitude, the whole existence wants to express itself through you, wants to become words and songs and poetry and dance and creativity. Once you have found yourself you become a vehicle to all that exists.

HERE THE WORDS... OF ALL EXISTENCE SPRING OPEN TO ME: ALL EXISTENCE HERE WANTS TO BECOME WORDS. Your experience of solitude wants to become your expression too.

It wants to sing and dance, it wants to share its treasures.

... ALL BECOMING HERE WANTS TO LEARN SPEECH FROM ME. It is utter silence - but with a deep longing to reach to others. You have found your home; they can also find their home. And it is not far away, it is just a question of turning one hundred and eighty degrees. Otherwise you can go on searching from one planet to another, from one star to another, and you will be going farther and farther away from yourself.

The man who finds that he is his own home feels a tremendous need, an irresistible need, to say to all those who are still wanderers, who are still in search in faraway lands, in wild places, with strange people: Close your eyes and move inwards.

On this point all the mystics of the world agree totally: You are whom you are searching. The searcher is the sought; the arrow is the target; the observer is the observed.

The duality between the observer and the observed disappears. You become one - the seer and the seen. This becoming one is the greatest ecstasy possible to human consciousness.

This is the highest peak and the deepest depth. This is the whole religion. All else that exists in the name of religion is false - not only false but positively harmful, because it takes you away. It tells you to worship a god who is in the sky - and your god is within you; the worshiped is in the worshiper.

It takes you to the temples and to the churches - while you are the temple and you are the church and you are the synagogue.

You need not go anywhere.

You have just to settle down in deep silence, calmness and quietude, and you will have found that which cannot be found by wandering thousands of miles, by learning hundreds of scriptures, by practicing many, many rituals.

It needs no ritual, it needs no scripture. It needs no churches, no temples; it simply is there. It has not to happen; it is your essential reality, it is your existence. It has only to be discovered - or perhaps rediscovered. Perhaps in the mother's womb you knew it. Those nine months of deep silence... how can you avoid knowing it?

But as you come into the world, the world is so full of attractions, challenges, that you start running after this thing, after that thing. And slowly, slowly... a very vague memory somewhere remains within you, but you cannot figure it out, where you have experienced it. But one thing is certain:

unless you have known something of it you cannot search for it. Without knowing something of it, the idea of searching for it does not arise. You have tasted it, and it still remains in the deepest parts of your unconsciousness.

That is the only hope - that someday you will listen to the still, small voice within. Tired of all your wanderings and explorations, there is only one hope: you will sit silently. You have done everything that was to be done; you will sit without doing anything. You are tired, utterly tired. You will relax.

And in that relaxation, the greatest wonder of life happens - you find that for which you have been running all along.

DOWN THERE, HOWEVER - ALL SPEECH IS IN VAIN!

In your innermost center of being... ALL SPEECH IS IN VAIN.

Obviously speech is invented to convey something when there is somebody else. When you are absolutely alone the function of the speech disappears; one becomes speechless.

Sometimes it has happened... for example Mahavira lived for twelve years in silence. Naturally, living twelve years in absolute silence, he forgot how to speak. When he came out of the mountains he found himself just like a newly-born child who knows no language. And a beautiful parable exists about him, that he never spoke in his whole life from then on. He had to devise a totally different method for conveying a simple idea - that that which you are searching is not outside; it is within you.

The device that he had to develop... because he had forgotten speech - he had forgotten those words, those languages, that he had known once; the silence for twelve years had been so deep, it had erased everything else - the device that he found was telepathy. He had his closest disciples just sit silently with him, and they would speak to people. Something would transpire between him and his closest disciples which was invisible; no word was exchanged.

And the miracle was that his closest disciples could hear that which was not said. How to decide whether they are hearing the right things? It was more a vibe... he was vibrating with tremendous ecstasy and silence and peace. They had become just sensitive enough to receive that vibe, and to translate that vibe into language. The only criterion that they were right was that they all were saying the same things to people. There was no quarrel, no conflict, no question that, "You have heard wrong." They simply repeated that which was not possible for Mahavira to speak. He used their language, their words, to convey his silence, to convey his solitude.

Just in this century, one of the most important men was Meher Baba. He remained silent his whole life. Although he again and again announced that he was going to speak at a certain date, when the date came it was postponed.

His closest disciple, Adi Irani, used to come to see me. All Meher Baba's books are written by Adi Irani. His name is not on those books as the author; the author is Meher Baba.

I asked him, "Why, again and again, do you declare that this year Meher Baba is going to speak?

This has been going on for thirty years, and people gather on that date and he does not speak."

He said, "I don't have any explanations."

I said, "My own experience says that perhaps he has forgotten language."

Adi Irani was not aware of Mahavira and his state that had happened after twelve years of silence.

Perhaps he was trying, but he was failing again and again. The silence is so much, and the words are so small they cannot contain it. The truth is so big and the language is so trivial.

I told Adi Irani, "Drop the hope that he will ever speak."

And he did not speak; he died without speaking. But with Adi Irani he had a telepathic, non-linguistic communion.

I asked Adi Irani, "Do you feel sometimes suspicious whether what you are saying is exactly what he means?"

He said, "Not for a single moment. It comes with such force; it comes with such inner certainty that even if he says, 'That is not right,' I am not going to listen. How it happens I don't know, but just sitting by his side, something starts becoming so solid, so absolutely certain that there is not even a slight doubt about it. I know it is not from me, because I have no idea what I am saying. I could not have said it, left alone by myself.

"Certainly it is coming from him; and it is not coming as language. I am not hearing the words, but I am feeling surrounded by a certain energy, a presence, which becomes words within me. The words are mine, but his presence triggers them. The meaning is his, I am only a hollow bamboo flute. He sings his songs; my only function is not to hinder. Just let him sing his song. I am totally available to him as a vehicle."

DOWN THERE, HOWEVER - ALL SPEECH IS IN VAIN! And by the way, I would like you to remember that Meher Baba comes from the same heritage as Zarathustra.

It is the fate of all the mystics to be misunderstood by their own people. Neither Zarathustra was understood by his own people, nor Meher Baba was understood by his own people. It seems something like a law of nature, that you cannot tolerate the idea that someone who comes from you has reached home, and you are still wandering.It hurts the ego.

THERE, THE BEST WISDOM IS TO FORGET AND PASS BY: I HAVE LEARNED that - NOW! He has tried to convince people, and they laughed at him. He has tried in different ways to argue with people, and they thought he was insane. At the most, they enjoyed him as an entertainment.

Now he says, THERE, THE BEST WISDOM IS TO FORGET AND PASS BY: I HAVE LEARNED that - NOW!

EVERYTHING AMONG THEM SPEAKS, NO ONE KNOWS ANY LONGER HOW TO UNDERSTAND.

As far as the people are concerned, everyone among them speaks, and... NO ONE KNOWS ANY LONGER HOW TO UNDERSTAND.

Our world is just the ancient story about the Tower of Babel: People had heard that God lives far away in the sky, and they decided that they should make a tower high enough so they can reach from the tower to God. It is a beautiful parable. And they were almost near finishing the job. They had made the tower and God must have become afraid, because now they are making a ladder, everybody will be coming to Him with all their complaints, all their problems, all their so-called prayers.

He asked his advisors, "What to do? The tower is reaching every day closer to us."

And the advisors said, "Do one thing. While they are sleeping, make their minds such that nobody understands each other."

God said, "What kind of advice is that? How is it going to help?" The advisors said, "You just try."

It was tried, and it worked. All people were speaking, and nobody was able to understand anybody else.

The work stopped - was bound to stop. There was so much misunderstanding all around, so much suspicion, so much doubt; nobody trusted anybody because nobody could understand anybody.

The tower remained incomplete for the simple reason that everybody knew how to speak but nobody knew how to understand.

It is simply a parable, but has immense truth in it. We are still doing the same. For thousands of years people have been speaking; everybody knows how to speak, but it is very rare to find a person who understands too. Misunderstanding is the law; understanding is an exception.

And the more important a thing is, the less is the possibility to be understood; otherwise there is no reason that there should exist three hundred religions in the world. You don't have three hundred chemistries, you don't have three hundred physics, you don't have three hundred biologies. One is enough, because truth is one.

If, for the outside world, one science is enough, it is ridiculous that for the inner world three hundred religions are needed. This is a tower of Babel. No two religions understand each other. In fact, even people believing in the same religion have different interpretations of the same holy book.

India has a longer experience than any other country. You will be surprised to know, for example...

one great philosopher, Badarayana, has written one of the most important treatises in existence, brahmasutras - maxims about the ultimate. And there are hundreds of commentaries on it, and no commentary agrees with another.

But the thing has not stopped there - then there are commentaries on commentaries. But the thing has not stopped there - there are still commentaries on commentaries on commentaries!

Thousands of schools... and it seems Badarayana is completely lost and forgotten; those commentaries have become important. But on those commentaries also people are not in agreement - then they write more commentaries on commentaries.

Now, for almost two thousand years, nobody has written a commentary on Badarayana - because first you have to write commentaries on commentaries on commentaries... it goes on. If you can read all the commentaries on Badarayana you will go mad! And perhaps then you can understand what Badarayana means.

EVERYONE AMONG THEM SPEAKS, NO ONE KNOWS ANY LONGER HOW TO UNDERSTAND.

EVERYTHING AMONG THEM SPEAKS, EVERYTHING IS BETRAYED.

Man has been betraying all the great masters, all the great mystics. If it was a single case of betrayal one could have thought it was accidental, just by chance. But every great master is bound to be betrayed. The greater the master, the more are the betrayers. In fact, count the number of the betrayers and you will know how great the master was. Jesus was not very great - just one betrayer, Judas. He had a very small following.

The betrayers are the right criterion to find out how great a master is - for the simple reason that the greater the master is, the more he has to be misunderstood, and the more people are going to try to be his successors. Because they cannot be his successors, the only possibility left for them is to betray him.

And you know perfectly well, in every house... because that is where you can understand easily.

The husband says one thing - simple words, not something of great philosophy, metaphysics, but ordinary, day-to-day words - but the wife does not understand. She jumps to a conclusion which the husband had never thought, never dreamt about - that his words can mean this too. And it is not only the wife. When the wife says something, the husband insists, "I don't mean that," but what he is understanding about the wife's statement is in the same line, in the same category. The wife also says, "I don't mean that."

I have heard about a neighborhood which was very much puzzled, because everybody was fighting except one family, one sardarji. He was the exception in the whole neighborhood. From his house people always heard laughter. And in other houses, things were being thrown, plates were being broken, shouting, screaming, all kinds of tantrums... the husbands beating the wives - and the more liberated wives were beating the husbands. But they were all puzzled about one thing: "How does this sardar manage it so that we never hear any fight, any conflict? All that is heard from his apartment is laughter."

Finally they could not resist their temptation, and as the sardar was coming back from his office, they all gathered around him on the lawn, and asked him, "You will have to tell us the secret. It is only from your house that always laughter is heard. What is your secret? How are you managing your life? Neither your wife screams, nor you beat her."

The sardar said, "It would have been better if you had not asked. But you are so curious, I have to tell you the truth. The truth is very sad!"

They said, "Sad? And we hear always laughter."

He said, "That is true. After our honeymoon we decided one thing: she is allowed to throw things at me; if she misses, I will laugh; if she hits me, she can laugh. That's why you hear only laughter.

But the situation is the same. There is no difference, just an agreement. It is almost fifty-fifty. She is becoming expert at hitting me; I am becoming expert at how to save myself. It is good exercise too.

And there is no problem. At least the whole neighborhood has a tremendous respect for us - that this is the right model of a family."

But I have heard that this sardar was found after twenty years in a court, asking for a divorce. And the magistrate said, "I have heard about you, that you are a well-known celebrity around the place because of your laughter and your agreement. What happened? And you have been married how long?"

He said, "It must have been forty years we have been married, but now it is too much."

The magistrate said, "What happened to the agreement?"

He said, "It is that agreement, that goddamned agreement... because she has become so expert that one hundred percent she is laughing. Now it is too much - fifty-fifty was okay. I cannot live with that woman anymore. And I cannot do anything, because she always reminds me, 'Remember the agreement!'"

Look into your families, look into your relations, look when you are talking with your friends - it seems everybody speaks, nobody listens. And if you don't listen, how are you going to understand?

EVERYTHING AMONG THEM SPEAKS, EVERYTHING IS BETRAYED. AND WHAT WAS ONCE CALLED A SECRET AND A SECRECY OF PROFOUND SOULS, TODAY BELONGS TO THE STREET-TRUMPETERS AND OTHER BUTTERFLIES.

MY GREATEST DANGER ALWAYS LAY IN INDULGENCE AND SUFFERANCE.

These are the extremes: either people indulge or people repress and suffer. Both are against nature.

Nature is very harmonious and balanced - in all its activities. Man has a tendency to move to the extremes - either he will be absolutely against, or he will be absolutely for. He cannot see that life is not an extreme but a golden mean. You need not indulge too much; otherwise your indulgence will destroy you. And you need not repress too much; otherwise your repression will destroy you. You have to keep a balance in life about everything. And a balanced life is a healthy life, wholesome.

... AND ALL HUMANKIND WANTS TO BE INDULGED AND SUFFERED. Man seems to be so conditioned that either he will suffer to become a saint, or he will go to the other extreme and indulge and become a sinner. The sinner and the saint both have to be dropped from the world; they are not needed. They are polar opposites, but very much deeply connected with each other.

Man has to be somewhere exactly in between. A saintly sinner, that seems to be the right attitude - harmonious, balanced. But nobody has preached that you should be a saintly sinner; people could not even conceive of how these two things could be together. There is no need for you to make some harmony between them - when nature is followed, the harmony will arise by itself.

What religions have called sin has a place in life, and what they have called saintliness also has a place in life, but they should be balanced. Zarathustra repeats again and again, "Life is like walking on a tightrope" - you have to keep your balance continuously, every moment. If you are leaning towards the right, then immediately lean towards the left to keep the balance. If you are leaning too much towards the left, lean towards the right to keep the balance. The real thing is not whether you are leaning towards the left or towards the right, the real thing is that you remain on the rope, that you remain balanced.

WITH TRUTHS HELD BACK... THAT IS HOW I USED TO LIVE AMONG MEN. Zarathustra is saying, "When I lived among men I had to keep many truths hidden, because they will not understand. They will misunderstand; there is no point in telling them."

One cannot be sincere and truthful in this insincere and untruthful society. But in solitude, when he has reached his home of aloneness, he can be true to the very depths of it.

Nothing has to be hidden. You don't have to hold back anything, you can be simply absolutely innocent, clean, and clear.

PITY TEACHES HIM TO LIE WHO LIVES AMONG THE GOOD. PITY MAKES THE AIR STIFLING FOR ALL FREE SOULS. FOR THE STUPIDITY OF THE GOOD IS UNFATHOMABLE.

He is saying, "One has to lie many times just out of pity."

It happened in a bus: A woman was carrying a child with her, and a drunkard looked at the child and said, "Lady, I have to tell you the truth. I have never seen such an ugly child in my whole life." But he is drunk - that's why he is saying exactly what he thinks; otherwise even ugly children are to be praised to their mothers: "What a beautiful child you have."

The woman started crying, and she made so much fuss that the driver had to stop the bus. And he came and enquired, "What is the matter?" And they said, "Nothing is the matter. This man is absolutely drunk, so he says the truth. And he has said something to that woman, and she cannot control herself; she is crying and crying."

The driver said, "I will do something."

He went out, brought a cup of tea, gave it to the woman, saying, "Don't be bothered about him, he is drunk. Have pity on him. Have a cup of tea... and I have also brought a banana for your pet monkey."

But what to do? At least the drunk was right. Even the driver could not manage to say, "It is a beautiful child." He found a way: it is better to say that it is a pet monkey - then there is no problem.

In life every moment you are forced to lie, out of pity, out of compassion; and you have to hold the truth back.

PITY TEACHES HIM TO LIE WHO LIVES AMONG THE GOOD. PITY MAKES THE AIR STIFLING FOR ALL FREE SOULS... because anybody who wants to be truthful and honest and sincere will be crushed by the society - because he will simply say, whatever the case is.

The prime minister of a country was coming to someone's house as a guest for a dinner. He had a very long nose, which made his face so ugly that you could not say that his face had a nose - on the contrary his nose had the face. It was all nose and the other things were small. The family was very much worried about their small child, and all morning they were teaching him, "Listen, one thing you have to remember: don't mention the nose." The child said, "This is strange, but why?"

They said, "There is no question of why. You have to remember, he is the prime minister of the country, and he does not want and does not like noses to be discussed. So you have to remember one thing, keep quiet! You can talk about everything except the subject of noses." The boy said, "This is a strange guest. Is he mad or something? Why? And I have never in my life discussed noses."

But they were not telling him the actual fact, they were just preventing him from mentioning anything about the nose. The prime minister came, and the boy looked at him and he said, "My God, you have such a great nose! And my parents have been telling me from the morning, 'Don't discuss the nose!' Seeing you it is impossible not to discuss the nose. I really love it. You are such a cartoon."

It is difficult for children to lie, because they are not yet civilized enough. They are yet primitive - simple souls. They are yet free to say the truth. But otherwise:

PITY MAKES THE AIR STIFLING FOR ALL FREE SOULS.

And... THE STUPIDITY OF THE GOOD IS UNFATHOMABLE. You ordinarily never think that the people who are thought to be good are good only because their stupidity has been accepted by the society long enough that people have forgotten it.

I was traveling with a Hindu monk. In every way he was a good man - nonviolent, a very silent person - and amongst the Hindus nobody would have taken note of his stupidity. When a limousine was brought to the station to receive us, he would not sit in it. I said, "What is the matter?"

The driver said, "First his bamboo mat has to be put on the seat. He will sit on the bamboo mat, because he is an ascetic. He cannot sit in such a luxurious car on such a luxurious seat.

Immediately his bamboo mat was brought. It was put there, and he sat on it. I was watching the whole show. Now he is thinking that he is sitting on his bamboo mat, and he is not concerned anymore about the luxurious car. Under his thin bamboo mat there is a beautiful leather couch - that is not his concern; he has created a barrier. I said, "This is simply stupidity. You are such a good man, but can't you be intelligent also?"

And then the trouble started. He would drink only milk; he would not eat anything else. Hindus think that milk is the purest food. The reality is totally different - because if you are really vegetarian, totally vegetarian, you cannot drink milk. Milk is coming from animal's bodies. In fact, it is part of the blood; the mother animal changes the blood into milk. It is pure blood, nothing else. It is non-vegetarian.

It is not even vegetarian - what to say about its being the purest food? And it is also dangerous, because in the whole of existence only small kids of animals drink the milk, and soon they move to solid food. It is only man who continues to drink milk to his last breath.

Milk is for small children who cannot digest food, it is not for grown-ups. And naturally it will have its implications. The person who lives only on milk will remain of retarded intelligence. He will remain childish - a little foolish. When I came to know about the whole thing it became simply laughable.

He would drink only the milk of a cow. Hindus are great worshipers of the cow. They worship the cow so much that even the cow dung becomes "holy cow dung." They eat it. They drink the urine of the cow - it is holy. I have asked many learned Hindu scholars, "You don't drink the urine of your mother. That must be even holier."

And that man had other conditions also. The cow should be completely of white color, because black represents the devil and death and darkness and all that is evil. So a white cow had to be found for him. It had to be completely white - not even patches of other color. I said to him, "Can't you see a simple fact, that even the black cow gives white milk. You should think of the milk; milk does not become black."

He said, "Don't disturb my religious life." He was worshiped for these idiotic ideas, and every morning... what Hindus call panchamrit: five nectars. Those are the five things that come from the cow's body: the cow dung, the urine, the milk, the curd and the butter. These five things have to be mixed and it becomes "five nectars." And that's how the real Hindu saint takes his breakfast.

Just look at the good people and you will rarely find them intelligent. Their stupidity has no limits.

Watching so many good people, I have come to the conclusion that unless we get rid of good people we cannot get rid of stupidity, we cannot get rid of all kinds of idiotic ideas.

We need intelligent people, not good people.

And if your intelligence leads you, that life will be a good life. But a good life should not be the aim, the aim should be a keen and sharp intelligence.

TO CONCEAL MYSELF AND MY RICHES - that DID I LEARN DOWN THERE: FOR I FOUND EVERYBODY STILL POOR IN SPIRIT. Zarathustra is saying, "DOWN THERE, AMONGST THE PEOPLE, I LEARNED TO CONCEAL MY RICHES JUST SO THAT THEY DON'T BECOME JEALOUS, BECAUSE EVERYBODY IS SO POOR IN SPIRIT THAT IF YOU ARE A GIANT IN INTELLIGENCE IT IS BETTER TO HIDE IT; OTHERWISE THEY WILL KILL YOU."

THESE LITTLE MEN AND THEIR CROWDS DON'T LIKE GIANTS IN ANY SPHERE; THEY HURT THEIR EGOS. THEIR VERY PRESENCE MAKES THEM FEEL THAT THEY ARE SO SMALL. THE ONLY WAY TO REGAIN THEIR PRIDE IS TO DESTROY THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE REALLY RICH INWARDLY.

THAT I SAW AND SCENTED IN EVERYBODY WHAT WAS SUFFICIENT SPIRIT FOR HIM AND WHAT WAS TOO MUCH SPIRIT FOR HIM!

WITH HAPPY NOSTRILS I BREATHE AGAIN MOUNTAIN-FREEDOM! AT LAST MY NOSE IS DELIVERED FROM THE ODOR OF ALL HUMANKIND!

Zarathustra loves man, and Zarathustra also hates man. Zarathustra loves man because man has the potential to go beyond himself. Zarathustra hates man because man never uses his potential; he remains stuck as a seed, and never becomes a flower.

That is one of the reasons why Zarathustra has not been followed by a great crowd of human beings - because he hates you as you are. But he hates you only because you have great treasures and you are not exploring them. He hates you because he loves you. There is no contradiction in it.

He wants the superman to be born out of you. He loves the superman, and unless the little man is ready to die and disappear the superman cannot arrive.

The seed has to die in the soil. Only then beautiful green sprouts will start growing. But the seed has to die. Man has to die to give place to the superman. So on the one hand he loves man because he is the seed... but he hates man because the seed is not allowing the superman to grow. The seed has become an imprisonment.

The seed should be only protective, and as the right soil is found, the seed should immediately be ready to die. But the seed becomes too protective - then it becomes a prison. Then the seed avoids the right soil, because there he will have to die. Then the seed starts loving itself, and forgets completely the great possibility that he is carrying within himself.

Zarathustra loves the superman, and hence he has to hammer and shatter the seed - the humankind. The humankind has to disappear from the earth so that a superman can make this earth a paradise.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.