Now it is my turn

Friends,

I have been called for almost thirty years, a "so-called Bhagwan," a "self-styled Bhagwan." This was in condemnation of me. I patiently waited for the right moment. The right moment has come. Now it is my turn.

I call all the founders of all the religions, self-styled and so-called. The people who have been calling me so-called and self-styled did not realize that they were provoking me. Now I want to know what the conditions are that have to be fulfilled.

Jesus calls himself the only begotten son of God. What do you think? - is it self-styled, so-called, or was there some committee determining it? Was it an election? Was it a degree conferred by any university?

And if he was what he pretended to be - no Jewish scripture even mentions his name, and he was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, and he died a Jew. And if he was right, as the whole of Christianity considers him, then why did the Jews crucify him? Could not a single rabbi, learned in the ancient religion of the Jews, stand up and say that this man was innocent? He may have been imagining, hallucinating, but that is not a crime; he may have been dreaming that he was the son of God, but that too is not a crime to be punished by crucifixion.

It is absolutely clear that the Jews were angry at Jesus for the simple reason that he was a "self- styled" son of God.

God is a fiction, invented by the pathological mind of man, and fictions don't breed sons and daughters. And what happened to God after Jesus? Has he gone on birth control?

What is the criterion? ... Because Jesus was drinking wine, eating meat and fish, of course no Indian religion will accept him even as religious.

But the same is true about Indian religions and their founders. What was so great in Mahavira that he was thought to be the twenty-fourth and the last tirthankara of Jainism?

He was the contemporary of Gautam Buddha, and there were six others who were all competing vigorously to be the twenty-fourth tirthankara, because it was a tremendously respectable status, and the twenty-fourth is the last for this kalpa.

A kalpa means... millions of years are still left. A kalpa means when one existence - the whole universe - goes through the black holes and disappears. Then a second kalpa begins, when the second universe comes into being. Every kalpa lasts for millions of years, and in millions of years only twenty-four tirthankaras are allowed by Jainism. Twenty-three had already happened by the time of Gautam Buddha, obviously.

Eight persons were competitors - and I consider competition to be absolutely irreligious. The very idea of competition is violent; the very idea of competition is full of greed, full of ego. It is nothing but a hidden politics: you want a certain prestige, you are longing for respectability. All those eight philosophers and thinkers are guilty of being competitive - and they were all teaching against competition. Hence I call them all hypocrites.

To compete to be the president of a country or to compete to be the prime minister of a country is not different from competing to be the last tirthankara. Competition is simply competition: you want to overthrow somebody else and take his place.

All the seven were defeated, not by any great qualification in Mahavira. His only qualification was that he was more masochistic than any of the other seven. He tortured himself... and it is strange that humanity has always respected self-torturing people. He remained naked all the year round; he never took a bath, he never washed his mouth. Every year he used to tear out his hair, because he was against technology; the razor blade is great technology for him.

But because of these great qualities - nakedness, fasting for months, torturing himself in cold, in hot, not taking a bath, tearing his hair - which are signs of a certain kind of madness you will find in every madhouse... Very strangely, in madhouses, the people who remain naked tear their hair; both the things happen simultaneously in the same madness.

And why was he torturing himself so much? - just to justify that he was the real successor of the twenty-three tirthankaras who had preceded him. Is this self-assertion or something else? And these qualities I don't think have anything to do with religion. Not taking a bath in a hot country like India, in the hottest state of Bihar, wandering naked... There were no tarmac roads or cement roads; dust must be gathering around the year, and a naked person not taking a bath - it is simply disgusting.

I have been in close contact with Jaina monks. I used to sit as far away from them as possible, because they all stink. I don't consider stinking to be religious. When they would say something, their very breath was so thick.... They used to call me, "Come close. Why are you sitting that far away?"

I said, "It is my standpoint not to come too close to saints. Sinners are okay; they are at least human. You are practicing inhuman things. I don't consider it a privilege to be sitting close by you.

It is enough that you called me and I have come; otherwise, I am feeling sick surrounded by Jaina monks. The whole atmosphere is stinking!"

Now, what was special in Mahavira? And why was he competing? He was criticizing Gautam Buddha, he was criticizing Goshalak so mercilessly. These were the competitors. Goshalak was the most prominent competitor of Mahavira, and Mahavira was using as abusive language as you can conceive.

Gautam Buddha tried himself to compete - and they are all against competition! Gautam Buddha wanted to be the twenty-fourth tirthankara - it was a great privilege and respectability.

A man who wants respectability is not religious. From whom are you wanting respectability? From the blind? From the people who are unenlightened? From the people who are drowning in darkness?

You are hankering for their respect? You are even worse than those people whose respect you want.

And what is respectability other than nourishment for the ego? And when he could not succeed, Buddha declared himself - so-called, self-styled.

I will relate to you a strange story.

Gautam Buddha was born when his mother was standing under a tree in the garden. He was born from a standing woman; he came down on the earth standing, and he walked seven steps immediately, and declared unto the sky, "I am the greatest buddha ever born!"

Whom do you call self-styled?

What about Mohammed?

Every medical examination of the facts about his life shows that he was epileptic, uneducated - and he became a self-styled messenger of God. And you cannot find anything of any worth....

The same is true about Krishna and Rama.

Krishna is thought by the Hindus to be the perfect reincarnation of God; all others are imperfect, partial incarnations of God. I cannot understand how you can cut God into parts - but they consider Krishna to be a perfect incarnation. What are the qualifications he fulfills?

He was the ugliest man, absolutely immoral. He gathered sixteen thousand women just like cattle, and he was married only to one woman. These sixteen thousand were all other people's wives; they were snatched from their families.

But because he had power, he had an army, he had a great following behind him, nobody objected, "What are you doing? You will never be able even to remember the names of sixteen thousand women. You are destroying sixteen thousand families. Small children are left behind without mothers; their husbands are crying, but they are poor and they cannot do anything against you.

Their parents are old, they were dependent on them. You have caused sixteen thousand women to desert their families."

In India the family is not a small phenomenon like in the West. In the West the family consists, at the most, of five people: the husband, the wife, and three children. In India it was a joint family system.

One family consisted of maybe sixty people, fifty people.

For Krishna, just seeing a beautiful woman was enough to drag her into his palace. And he was the man who persuaded one of the greatest warriors of the world, Arjuna, to fight and create the greatest war India has ever seen. It is called The Great War, mahabharat.

Strangely enough, this persuasion of Arjuna, who did not want to fight with his own cousin-brothers...

On both sides there were relatives, friends, colleagues, teachers; Arjuna could not believe it: to murder all these people... The whole Srimad Bhagavadgita, the most famous Hindu religious scripture, is full of persuasion for violence.

And the most amazing thing is that the great Mahatma Gandhi, who used to think that he was nonviolent - perhaps the greatest nonviolent person in the world - called Srimad Bhagavadgita his mother. Nobody objected that the Bhagavadgita is completely violent; it preaches violence and war.

Adolf Hitler could have called it his mother, and that would have been consistent, but not Mahatma Gandhi.

But just a blindness that does not allow you to see into your own tradition... All that is old is gold for these people. They never think that the past was not as great a past as you think. If it was great, from where have you come? You are a descendant of that great past. The world would not have been in such a mess.

In China, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu... nobody objected to the idea that women have no souls. For centuries in China women have not been considered as spiritual beings - they don't have any soul, hence they are just like the furniture. If a husband killed his wife, it was not a crime. And these people - Confucius, and Lao Tzu, and Chuang Tzu - all tolerated it.

This tolerance is a silent acceptance. They could have objected, but nobody wants to risk his prestige. Nobody wants to be condemned by the blind masses.

I say unto you, all these religious founders were so-called, self-proclaiming.

I have told you that now it is my turn, and I am going to be on the warpath!

Every day I will take one issue and try to explain to you how this issue has been supported by all the religions, and humanity has been harmed immensely, wounded immensely.

Today I have chosen the subject, the woman, because the woman is half of humanity.

In the Christian trinity there is no place for a woman. The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost - absolutely a gay society. Even Jesus, who teaches to love your enemies, was disrespectful to his mother. I am reminded of an incident....

Jesus was teaching in the marketplace to a crowd. His mother had not seen him for years and she was standing outside the crowd. somebody shouted to him, "Your mother is waiting outside! She has not seen you for years."

Jesus said, "Tell that woman" - he could not even use the word mother. "Tell that woman that nobody is my mother, nobody is my father! My father lives in heaven."

Such an insulting, humiliating attitude from a man who teaches to love your enemies, and "If somebody slaps you, give him your other cheek too." This is hypocrisy. Although he mixed with women, even prostitutes, he did not allow any woman to be his apostle. All the twelve apostles were men. It is a male chauvinist ideology.

Just today I have received a report on a woman who was a Catholic, educated in a Catholic convent.

Her name is Michelle Roberts. She became very disgusted because of the attitude of the bishops and her teachers.

The bishop told her that the woman is the door to hell! She became so disgusted, she renounced Catholicism and got converted to Buddhism, and went to Thailand. There she found that in Thailand, Buddhism believes women have no souls. Utterly frustrated, she dropped the very idea of religion.

Gautam Buddha insisted for twenty years continuously that no woman can be initiated into his discipleship. The woman has first to be born as a man, and then only she can be a disciple. Then there is a possibility, if she is in the body of a man, to become enlightened.

Strange... all these people have been teaching that you are not the body, and when it comes to the subject of women, suddenly the woman becomes the body! First she has to change the body into a man's.

Unfortunately, at that time there was no plastic surgery available, otherwise every woman who wanted to be initiated would not have had to wait for another birth; she can have plastic surgery and become a man right now.

What was Buddha's fear? The fear shows clearly that he did not trust his own disciples, the hundreds of so-called enlightened disciples - he did not trust them. And it is natural, because whether they say it or not, celibacy is unnatural, and all the religions who have been teaching celibacy are afraid of women.

The question is not the woman; the question is that if the woman is initiated, then she will be mixing with men, and what will happen to celibacy?

But nobody has looked into the matter - all these so-called great religious leaders - that woman is not needed to destroy your celibacy. Men are enough: man to man, man to animal - homosexuality, sodomy are as ancient as the Old Testament. Nobody has been celibate.

Yes, Buddha could have been, for the simple reason that for twenty-nine years he had been in the company of the most beautiful women of his kingdom. He was finished. Enough is enough. But poor people who have not known any relationship of love are being initiated into celibacy: this was his fear.

The same fear predominates in Jainism. Mahavira declared the same thing: that no woman is capable of entering into the ultimate state of enlightenment unless she has the body of a man.

Again I have to remind you: these people seem to be absolutely self-contradictory, continuously teaching that you are not the body, you are not the mind - and when the question of women comes up, suddenly they forget their whole philosophy. The woman has first to get into a man's body.

What is so great about the man's body? But male chauvinists... all founders of religion are male chauvinists.

In Jainism a beautiful incident happened.

A woman named Mallibhai asked the contemporary tirthankara, the contemporary Jaina master, "Why is a woman prevented?"

He said, "For the simple reason that unless you are naked and live like we live, you cannot become enlightened." And a woman certainly feels shy to be naked, particularly amongst so-called celibates.

But Mallibhai was a lioness! She immediately dropped her clothes, and she said, "If nakedness is the only problem, I am naked."

And she rose to deep meditations, to such a height that Jainism had to accept her as one of the tirthankaras. But such cunningness, such callousness... they changed her name so that posterity would never know that a woman had become equal to Mahavira! They changed her name from Mallibhai - bhai means a woman - to Mallinath - nath means a man.

I used to harass my father, that "I want to see which one of the twenty-four statues in the temple is Mallibhai."

He said, "I don't know. Don't harass me. They all are men!"

Even the statue has been made that of a man! The name has been changed, the statue is made of a man, just so that the fact that a woman has become enlightened is erased from the memory of man.

Mohammedanism has not allowed women any social freedom - not even to show their faces.

Mohammedan women's faces become pale because they cannot even have sunlight, pure air, open sky. They have to keep hidden behind clothes; you can see only their eyes. You cannot recognize even your wife.

And what about Mohammedan men? They are allowed to have four women as their wives.

Mohammed himself had nine wives. Now this is absolutely unnatural. Existence keeps a certain balance, an equal number of men and women, so if you marry nine women, eight men are deprived of women. These eight men are bound to create prostitutes, homosexuality, sodomy, and all kinds of perversions. Once Mohammed managed to have nine wives, the door was open.

Just forty years ago, when India became independent, there used to be a Mohammedan state, Hyderabad, and the king of Hyderabad state was the Nizam. He had five hundred wives - even in this century - because Mohammed had not said, "Don't go beyond four; four is normal. But if you can afford more, God is graceful to you." Five hundred women...?

I have been to Hyderabad many times. I inquired, and I was completely puzzled. These five hundred women were not only the Nizam's own wives; in these five hundred women his father's wives - except his own mother - were also included. His grandfather's wives who were still alive were also included. They came as heritage.

Woman has been reduced into a commodity. Just like money and palaces and furniture and diamonds, she also comes as a heritage.

So the Nizam was having even his grandmothers, his great-grandmothers, as his wives - and nobody objected, no Mohammedan objected.

The woman has been the most oppressed, and the reason is these so-called religious people, these self-styled founders of religion.

In fact, religion is not yet born.

My whole effort with you is to bring an authentic religiousness into the world. The whole past consists of ugliness and obscenity.

You will be surprised to know that your so-called obscene literature is nothing compared with the religious scriptures - and not only scriptures, but in sculpture also. You just go to Khajuraho.

In Khajuraho there used to be one hundred temples. It was a city of temples only, and every temple had thousands of statues of naked women in all kinds of sexual postures - and such absurd postures that if you try you cannot manage them.

I used to go to Khajuraho often, because it was on the way to Chhatarpur, a small state where I had many friends. Mohammedans have destroyed seventy of the temples, and thirty temples were covered in mud to protect them from the Mohammedans, in the corner of a deep forest. So thirty temples are still there.

When for the first time I went to see, just on the way, I could not believe my eyes. Men and women are making love standing on their heads! Just to stand on your head is enough trouble; to make love... and both are standing on their heads - would have been a great practice, a discipline, a lifelong discipline.

You will be surprised... your playboys and your playgirls are nothing compared to Khajuraho. Two men are making love to one woman from both the sides. Three men are making love to one woman:

two from both the sides, and one from the mouth! And these are religious temples!

I am going to expose all these religions by and by. Now I have to see how many people's religious feelings are hurt.

These temples of Khajuraho are not exceptional. The same temples exist in Jagganath Puri, where the Puri Shankaracharya, my arch-enemy, presides over those naked women! These same kinds of sculptures exist in Konarak. They were all over India. Most of them have been destroyed by the Mohammedans, because they were anti statues. God should not have any statue; he cannot be confined to a stone. They destroyed millions of statues all over India, but still a few have remained in deep forests, or maybe out of their reach. They show the reality of this so-called religious country.

And if you feel so hurt, just go to Khajuraho, go to Konarak, go to Puri, and let your religious feelings hurt as much as you want. I am simply stating facts. I have not been hitting so hard, for the simple reason that I wanted the idiots who have been calling me a "so-called, self-styled god" to ask me - but nobody ever asked. They were simply writing - everybody - in their magazines, newspapers, in books, that I am a "self-styled god."

But they were not aware that once I drop the word bhagwan, I am going to expose all your Bhagwans as self-styled; there is no other way. And I am going to expose them on every single point: poverty, ecology, celibacy, violence.

All these religions have been destructive, harmful, a curse to humanity. They need to be completely destroyed. Only on their death is there a possibility of a religiousness arising, a new man with a new vision in which there will be no difference between man and woman.

Now the sutra:

The answer looks strange, but its implication is clear. He is saying, we live moment to moment spontaneously, responding to the reality. We don't have a doctrine already in the mind, according to which we live. We live without thoughts, beyond mind, allowing our consciousness to respond to reality.

"IN AUTUMN WE REAP; IN WINTER WE STORE."

In fact, he has said the most essential thing for religiousness. Nan-yin is one of the great masters I have always loved.

ANOTHER MONK ASKED NAN-YIN, "WHAT IS THE WAY?"

NAN-YIN ANSWERED, "A KITE FLIES ACROSS THE GREAT SKY; NOTHING REMAINS THERE."

To disappear into the ultimate sky beyond the horizons is "THE WAY."

A man of the quality of Nan-yin I can call religious: so authentic, so sincere, so accurate - not a single word more, not a single word less. You cannot edit his statements, they are so complete, so perfect.

NAN-YIN ANSWERED, "A KITE FLIES ACROSS THE GREAT SKY; NOTHING REMAINS THERE.

Everything dissolves.

"This is the Way. Nirvana is the Way."

Go deep into your inner sky and disappear and you will be one with the cosmos. There is no outer way, there is no outer asceticism, no outer discipline: a simple meditativeness...

Relaxing into yourself, you will find your inner sky. Allow everything to disappear; not even a trace is left behind. You have come home. This is the Way.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, NAN-YIN ASCENDED THE ROSTRUM AND SAID, "ABOVE THE MASS OF RED FLESH STANDS ONE AT AN IMMEASURABLE HEIGHT."

He's saying that the body is just red flesh. Above the body stands your consciousness, like a great Himalayan peak.

"ABOVE THE MASS OF RED FLESH STANDS ONE AT AN IMMEASURABLE HEIGHT."

The height is so great, it is immeasurable. Your body may be small, but you are not your body.

It does not matter whether the body is of man or woman; both are just a mass of red flesh. And the consciousness is not contaminated by the body, neither is it contaminated by your thoughts.

Its purity is so absolute that once you have found it, you will find standing above your own body and mind a great peak, immeasurable, of consciousness which reaches to the highest possibility of human life and its potentiality.

Now these are the real religious people, who don't talk of unnecessary things. They simply state a simple fact. He has not made any difference between man and woman. He is far greater a Buddha, far greater a Mahavira - but he has not founded any religion.

He lived with his lovers, he shared his insight with his lovers, friends. And when asked, "Why don't you found a religion?", he simply laughed. He said, "Don't you see the other organized religions?

They have all killed the truth. I am the last person to found a religion. When I disappear, I don't want to leave my footsteps on the sands of time.

"And you have also to remember," he used to say to his disciples: "Don't ever try after me to organize a religion. The moment truth is organized, it is killed. There is no way to have an organized truth.

There is no way to have an organized love. These are individual affairs."

This is the greatness of the individual. No organization can touch it, no society can reach to it.

A MONK THEN CAME OUT FROM THE ASSEMBLY AND SAID, "IS NOT THIS 'ABOVE THE MASS, AND SO ON,' THE MASTER'S WAY?"

Are you not talking about the master's way? - beyond the mass, beyond the body?

This is what he was trying not to be done by his people. Immediately, in front of him a monk stands up and starts talking about "This is the way."

This is how scriptures arise, this is how religions arise - by people who are intellectuals but are not in any way enlightened, awakened, illumined. They can understand things intellectually, of great complication, but they cannot understand the obvious truth of your inner being.

The monk said, "IS NOT THIS 'ABOVE THE MASS, AND SO ON,' THE MASTER'S WAY?"

NAN-YIN REPLIED, "THAT'S SO."

AT THAT, THE MONK OVERTURNED THE ZEN SEAT.

The Zen seat is overturned only when somebody declares his enlightenment.

Nan-yin has said, "THAT'S SO," but he has not said that the monk is enlightened: "You are simply repeating like a parrot what I have said."

But hearing that this is so, the monk must have thought, "I have got the point."

AT THAT, THE MONK OVERTURNED THE ZEN SEAT OF THE MASTER.

NAN-YIN SAID, "LOOK WHAT A ROUGH, WILD FELLOW YOU ARE!"

THE MONK DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY OR DO AND NAN-YIN DROVE HIM OUT OF THE TEMPLE.

People think that compassion should not do such a thing - turning him out of the temple. But it is out of compassion that he is turned out of the temple, to show him that "You are not enlightened.

First find out your own experience, and then come and I will welcome you, and you can overturn my seat, you can sit on my seat; I will vacate the seat for you. But right now it is your absolute need that you should be thrown out of the temple." It is not unkindness; it is a very superior compassion.

Shusai wrote:

LIKE A LOVELY CLOUD IN A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE, NEW YEAR'S FIRST SUNRISE!

These beautiful people! A small stream, very small, but it has contained the most precious ones.

When Shusai says, "LIKE A LOVELY CLOUD IN A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE, NEW YEAR'S FIRST SUNRISE!" - what an amazement that "I am still alive!" What an amazement that "I don't deserve such a beautiful sunrise."

And yet existence goes on showering from all directions, in thousands of ways. But you are dumb, you are deaf, you are blind. You don't see the sunrise, you don't see the sunset.

I have seen people walking on the road. The sun is setting - such psychedelic colors all over the horizon - and nobody is looking at it. Somebody is talking to himself, you can see the lips moving; somebody is counting something, somebody is looking down on the earth. They are completely unaware that a great sunset, which will never be repeated again...

But a man of aesthetic sensibility, of religious consciousness, will gather all these beauties, will become one with the sunset, will become one with the sunrise, will become one of the stars in the night, will become one of the roses, or the lotuses. He will enjoy this tremendous mystery that is unfolding every moment all around you. Everything is poetry, and everything is music, and everything is a great dance.

But all the religions, the organized ones, have destroyed your sensibility. They have destroyed your perceptivity.

When I was a teacher in the university I used to have a beautiful garden. I have always had a beautiful garden around me. A Hindu monk, very famous among the Hindus, had come to see me. I took him around the garden - because my garden was winning for years, every year, the first prize.

We used to bring such big dahlias, such big roses - almost impossible to believe. And that old fool, the Hindu monk, said to me, "A man of spirituality like you should not indulge in any senses."

Even looking at the roses is indulgence, because if you can appreciate the beauty of a rose, what prevents you from appreciating the beauty of a woman? It is the same sensibility. To destroy the sensibility, to make your skin as thick as possible, to make your skull as thick, as retarded as possible so you don't appreciate anything... you cannot enjoy this beautiful existence.

To my understanding, if you cannot enjoy that which is outer, you are incapable of enjoying that which is inner, because the inner is far deeper. The outer is immediately available.

According to my experience, enjoying the beauty of flowers and stars suddenly makes you aware to look into yourself: what is my beauty? What is my being's light? The outer beauty indicates towards the inner.

I am in favor of a deep balance. Enjoy the outer beauty, the outer sensibility; it will help you in your meditation. It is not going to distract you. It distracts you because you have been inhibiting your outer sensibility. If you have not appreciated the beauty of a woman or a man, then when you will close your eyes you will be surrounded by beautiful women, by beautiful men. This has been your inhibition, this is your suppression, which will come to the surface the moment you start going inwards. You have not fulfilled your responsibility for the outer existence. You are not worthy to enter into the inner sanctum.

I teach you to love the world, not to renounce it, because that is the only way to find yourself. You are part of this existence, you cannot escape from it. All escape is false, and creates only frauds.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, no, absolutely no, because Gurdjieff's system is totally different.

You cannot put one car's parts into another car of another make. Both cars are functional.... I am not against Gurdjieff's system, but I have a far more refined system. Gurdjieff is crude, cruel, and goes unnecessarily into disciplines which don't matter. They can be discarded.

For example, what Maneesha is asking, that was his main theme: you have to find your chief characteristic. Somebody has greed as his chief characteristic, somebody has jealousy, somebody has pride, somebody has envy, and so on, so forth.

I don't want to deal with parts of your being separately; it will be a long process. That's why not a single man among Gurdjieff's disciples has become enlightened - not even P. D. Ouspensky, who was his spokesman. Nobody knew anything about George Gurdjieff until P. D. Ouspensky started writing about him. P. D. Ouspensky was already a world-renowned mathematician.

In fact, if you want to understand George Gurdjieff, don't read his books, you will not understand what he is writing. He was not well-educated in any language. He became an orphan when he was only nine years old, and then he moved in the most primitive part of the world, the Caucasus. In the mountains, among the primitive tribes, he moved from one tribe to another - they were all gypsies, continuously on the move - so he learned everything amongst those gypsies.

When he started writing, he had to invent his own words, because he did not know any language perfectly, particularly any contemporary language. So you will be surprised to find that one sentence runs the whole page, one word runs the whole line. You cannot understand what he is talking about.

By the time you have reached to the end of the passage, you have forgotten the beginning, and you may read a hundred pages but you cannot find ten lines which are understandable.

It was P. D. Ouspensky.... If you want to understand Gurdjieff, read P. D. Ouspensky. He is a man of contemporary genius, and he has found out through Gurdjieff, living with him for almost thirty-five years, slowly slowly the essential core of his teaching. This was one of the most important things, but it is primitive.

According to me, there is no need to find which is your chief characteristic. We have to go beyond it. What is the point of finding it? You have to be a witness of all the things: anger, greed, envy, jealousy, violence - whatsoever it is, you have to be just a witness of it all without getting identified with anything.

That is my refinement on Gurdjieff.

Gurdjieff dealt retail: find out first which is the chief characteristic, then find out the second, then find out the third.... And your whole mind is full of so many things, that if you are going to deal partially in a retail way, this life is not enough. You will need many lives, and even then there is no guarantee that you will remember what you have gained in the past life.

Do you remember anything that you have gained in your past life? And you have lived in many lives, and perhaps you have meditated, perhaps you have been an ascetic, perhaps you have followed a certain path, but you don't remember anything.

I want to finish everything wholesale! There is no need to find your chief characteristic, it will be part of your mind. I want you to be a witness of all your characteristics. In a single blow finish the whole game!

Maneesha, there is no place in my vision for Gurdjieff's ideology.

But I love the man. He was primitive, but he was right. But he was right for primitive people; he was not right for the contemporary intelligence. That's why he could not find many people to follow him.

He lived in his commune near Paris, and not more than twenty people were ever there. They also by and by disappeared, because it seemed such a long, long process, that soon they recognized that this life is not enough to finish the course.

Gurdjieff died enlightened himself, but not even P. D. Ouspensky was enlightened.

Finally, he himself - P. D. Ouspensky, who has made Gurdjieff well known around the world - dropped from his discipleship, because it was so torturous for no reason at all.

Gurdjieff was in Tiflis, in the Soviet Union, and P. D. Ouspensky was teaching his teachings in London. He phoned him from Tiflis, saying "Come immediately! Drop everything." When the master gives such a call... Ouspensky dropped everything - he had created a big school - and rushed towards Tiflis thousands of miles away. And when he reached, utterly tired, exhausted, to Gurdjieff's house, Gurdjieff said, "Right now, go back and start your work in London."

Ouspensky could not believe that he would do such a thing to him. He had abandoned everything, the school was destroyed; he had ordered him to come: "Leave everything!" - and now he is not saying a single word. He has not even allowed him to enter into the house, he is just on the steps, and Gurdjieff says, "Okay, you have come; now just go back. Start your work in London."

It has some significance, but very primitive. It simply means a test for your trust. But even Ouspensky could not tolerate this humiliation. He had destroyed his whole school, he had finished with everything, and now again to start from ABC....

He started the school again, but it was no more concerned with the living Gurdjieff. It was only concerned with the Gurdjieff that Ouspensky had written about. So he never mentions Gurdjieff's full name in his new editions of his books, he only talks about "G". He had to break away from him.

And this happened to almost all the disciples.

It is perfectly good to read Ouspensky, but don't get into Gurdjieff's books. You will come out insane.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

"Mommy! Mommy!" cries Little Albert. "Can I go into the sea?"

"No, not today, Albert," replies his mother - "maybe tomorrow. The sea is far too rough and choppy now - it is too dangerous."

"But mom," cries Little Albert, "daddy is in the sea swimming."

"I know, dear," says his mother, "but daddy has got lots of life insurance!"

One day in Judge Grump's courtroom, Big Black Leroy is on trial for assault and battery. Boris Babblebrain, the lawyer, is severely cross-examining Leroy, trying to prove the black guy guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Leroy just quietly looks at Boris, and maintains that he merely pushed the plaintiff "a little bit."

"Okay," snaps Babblebrain, "just how hard?"

"Ah," replies Leroy, coolly, "like I said, just a little bit."

"Now," badgers Babblebrain, "for the benefit of the judge and jury, will you please step down here, using me for the subject, and illustrate just how hard a little bit is."

"Sure," says Leroy, smiling as he steps down from the witness stand.

Boris is excited, hoping that Leroy will feel intimidated and overdo his demonstration, thereby proving himself guilty.

When Leroy reaches Boris, he suddenly kicks the lawyer as hard as he can in the shins, then seizes him bodily, and with full force, lifts Boris over his head and hurls him across the room.

Turning around from the mess on the floor, Leroy smiles up at Judge Grump and explains, "Your honor, just about one-tenth that hard!"

Sardar Gurudayal Singh is rumbling along M.G. Road in his old Ambassador car when he gets pulled over by Officer Ghansu of the Poona traffic police.

Officer Ghansu looks inside the car and sees a big black hole in the dashboard.

"What happened to your speedometer?" asks Officer Ghansu.

"I sold it," replies Sardar Gurudayal Singh. "I don't need it any more."

"What do you mean, you don't need it any more?" shouts the cop. "How can you tell how fast you are going?"

"That is easy," laughs Sardar Gurudayal Singh. "At twenty miles an hour, the fenders rattle. At thirty, the doors rattle. At forty, my turban rattles. At fifty, my teeth rattle. And at sixty, my teeth fall out!"

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) (gibberish) Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards with your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this is the last moment of your life.

Deeper and deeper... The deeper you go, the closer you come to yourself and existence.

As you move deeper, a great silence descends on you.

More deeper... and a ecstasy, a drunkenness... as if you are drinking from the divine source itself.

The moment you reach to the center of your being, you know without any doubt your existence is eternal, your being is beyond birth and death.

Centered, you are a buddha, the awakened one.

Just remember one quality, because buddha, the awakened one, consists only of one quality, simple and single: witnessing.

Witness whatever is happening to you.

Witness the body far away on the circumference.

Witness the mind also far away.

Witness also the experiences of silence, peace, ecstasy.

You are only a witness. Not to get identified with anything brings you to the ultimate freedom of consciousness. From that point you can disappear into the blue sky not leaving a single trace. You can become the very cosmos.

This is the ultimate destiny of the evolution of consciousness.

To make this witnessing clear, Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Relax.

Let go...

But remember only one thing: that you are a witness of the body, of the mind, of all the experiences that are surrounding you. This witnessing makes you a buddha. No other initiation...

It is your self-realization.

At this moment you are the most blessed people on the earth, because suddenly you have found your center. You have also found your birthright: to be a buddha.

The evening was beautiful on its own, but your presence - ten thousand buddhas' presence - has made it a miraculous evening.

I can see the whole Gautam the Buddha Auditorium turning into an ocean of consciousness. You are melting your separation and becoming one with the whole. This is the only process of becoming holy.

Gather as much silence, ecstasy, blissfulness, the sense of eternity, and persuade the buddha to come along with you, to melt into your daily activities so there is no difference between the center and the circumference. Every day, inch by inch, the distance is becoming less and less.

Sooner or later everybody is going to have his spring, and suddenly... the enlightenment.

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Come back, but come back as buddhas: silently, gracefully, with an immense sense of eternity, immortality, and sit for a few moments just to remember and remind yourself of the golden path that you have traveled towards your center, and all that you experienced there.

It has to become your very breathing, your very heartbeat.

There is no reason why it should not be! To be a buddha is your birthright.

I proclaim to the whole world: everybody who is living has the birthright to be a buddha! Just get centered in your witnessing, unwavering like a small flame of a candle in a house where no wind blows, and the flame is absolutely unwavering.

To be centered in an unwavering witnessing is the greatest secret I can convey to you.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.