The day has been hilarious

Friends,

The day has been very hilarious. What I was saying... the masses have started proving it.

The Buddhists have joined hands with a minority Mohammedan league. They threatened the police that I should be arrested - as if by arresting me they are giving an answer to my argument. They threatened that they will come in a procession and destroy the ashram.

That exactly proves what I have been saying: that the world is not yet civilized, and there is no such thing as religion anywhere. These people are simply subhuman.

Even if you destroy this ashram, my arguments will not be destroyed. Even a blind man can see it!

They wanted to garland me with a garland of shoes. It only shows that they have become Buddhists but they have not forgotten their forefathers' craftmanship of thousands of years. They have been making shoes - they are the chamars - and anybody who offers shoes as a garland only shows his poverty. He has nothing else to offer. Just a poor shoemaker...

But even that will not destroy my argument. You can bring all the shoes of the whole world, but still what I have said, and what I am going to say, will stand absolutely intact and pure.

These people went to the Deputy Police Commissioner. He seems to be a nice, educated, cultured man. He refused, saying that "You cannot have any procession, because you don't understand....

You are misinterpreting." He came to the ashram, and said that "I have refused their permission to take a procession against you, or I am going to arrest them, because there is no validity at all."

Whatever I have said, I can say to any court, any high court, any supreme court. And this will be the right action: to take me to the court. Or if they have intelligence enough, I can allow three persons - they should choose - to argue with me on each point that hurts their so-called, self-styled religious feelings. Just those three persons have to fulfill the conditions of this campus. They have to come here unarmed, and they have to come here with an AIDS-negative certificate. We will welcome them with flowers, not with shoes - we have enough flowers - and I will give them every chance to argue on every point they want.

But this has been the whole conditioning for centuries. Poisoning Socrates, they thought that they were destroying his arguments. His arguments are still as alive, as strong as ever. Crucifying Jesus, they thought they were destroying the possibility of a new religion springing up. Now half of the world is Christian.

You cannot argue with swords, you cannot argue with throwing stones, you cannot argue with ugly slogans. These simply prove that you are barbarious, subhuman.

Perhaps if Charles Darwin were alive, I would have requested him to come here. His whole life he was searching for the middle agent - because monkeys or gorillas or chimpanzees cannot suddenly become man; they should pass through a transitory period. I would have welcomed him here, and told him that here we have found the missing link - the people who are no longer gorillas, but are not yet human beings either.

And now every effort is being made to camouflage the issue about the meaning of 'bhagwan', because I have exposed not only one religion, but all the religions. The Buddhists have joined hands with the Mohammedans, not knowing at all that these Mohammedans have destroyed thousands of Buddhist statues, have burnt thousands of Buddhist scriptures - and you are joining hands with them?

And the Mohammedans don't understand that Buddha would not have accepted the philosophy of Mohammed at all. Mohammed was a violent man, continuously fighting and warring and killing people - and that's what Mohammedans have been doing all along after Mohammed. Killing has become their profession.

That's why I felt very hilarious. Buddhists and Mohammedans are joining hands against me - a good sign of brotherhood. Soon every religion will join with you. Just wait a little, don't be in a hurry.

One self-styled Jaina monk, Daulatsagar Suriswarji, has stated fourteen meanings of the word 'bhagwan'. This is creating a camouflage.

Only for the argument's sake, I will read you the meanings he has given to 'bhagwan'.

First, essence.

But do you understand the meaning of essence? - that which is caught by the senses. A perfume is essence, because your nose catches it. Essence means anything that the senses catch.

Now what does that have to do with Mahavira? I don't think he was using perfumes.

The second meaning is knowledge. That will make all the knowledgeable people in the world Bhagwan. All the professors, all the deans, all vice-chancellors, all rabbis, all imams - even Ayatollah Khomeini will be called Bhagwan, because they are all knowledgeable people. All the brahmin scholars, pundits, priests - whether they are Christian or Mohammedan or Hindu or Buddhist, it does not matter. If knowledge is the meaning of Bhagwan, then all knowledgeable people become Bhagwan.

Then what is so great about calling Mahavira and Buddha and Krishna and Rama, Bhagwan? Just knowledgeable, just like parrots... repeating the scriptures.

The third meaning is greatness.

I could not resist having immense compassion on this poor fellow, Daulatsagar Suriswarji. There are all kinds of greatness in the world: are you going to call Alexander the Great, who conquered the world, Bhagwan? Are you going to call Adolf Hitler, Bhagwan? He believed that he was the reincarnation of the Jewish prophet Elijah, and still there are his followers in Germany, in America, and all over the world.

I received a letter from the American president of the Neo-Fascist Society, and he told me, "You have been again and again criticizing Adolf Hitler. It hurts our religious feelings!"

I had never even dreamt that criticizing Adolf Hitler was going to hurt somebody's religious feelings.

In his letter he said, "Perhaps you are not aware that Adolf Hitler was no ordinary human being. He was the reincarnation of the Jewish prophet Elijah."

I wrote to him that "If he is what you say, the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah, then you will be in trouble, because he killed six million Jews! What kind of Jewish prophet...?"

Whom are you going to call great? Ronald Reagan? Are you going to call people who have mountains of money great?

In America the richest man has four million dollars; in Japan the richest man has twenty-six million dollars. Certainly this man must be called Bhagwan. He has defeated everybody in the world. Never before has anybody had twenty-six million dollars. Forgive me, he has twenty-six billion dollars.

Japan is only one-fourth, as far as land is concerned, of the United States, but its value is four times more than the whole U.S.A. Now Japan should be called a great nation - the richest.

People who have money, people who have political power, people who have scientific knowledge...

Are you going to call Albert Einstein, the man who created atomic energy, Bhagwan?

What does it mean? All these meanings have no reference to your Mahavira, to your Buddha, to your Rama. They don't have any meaning; this is simply camouflage.

Fourth is success. When I read it I said, "Aha! Success is Bhagwan."

There are millions of people who are successful. There are successful people like Picasso, there are successful people like Morgan, there are successful people like Ford. Are you going to call these people Bhagwan?

I am simply cutting in a single blow all the nonsense that this man, Daulatsagar Suriswarji, has produced. From where has he got these meanings? I don't bother about it. I have accepted those meanings, not bothering about linguistics. I can simply destroy all the meanings he has been talking of.

The fifth is affluence.

Buddha renounced his kingdom: what affluence? He was not called Bhagwan when he was the prince; he was called Bhagwan when he renounced the kingdom. Mahavira renounced his kingdom.

These were beggars! - what affluence?

If affluence is the criterion, then the great Akbar, who ruled over the greatest part of India, should be called Bhagwan. Or Genghis Khan, who killed forty million people alone, terrorized the whole continents of Asia and Europe, should be called Bhagwan. Stalin should be called Bhagwan, because the Soviet Union is the biggest territory in the world, and he ruled over it most of his life. He was the man who defeated Adolf Hitler. He should be called Bhagwan, although he killed one million Russians... even his own people.

All the dictators of the world, all the richest exploiters of the world should be called Bhagwan, if affluence is the meaning of the word. But not Mahavira. Standing naked... what affluence? He had not even a begging bowl in his hands.

Sixth, detachment.

If detachment is the criterion, then what about Mohammed having nine wives? - and the richest woman he married just for money. He was only twenty-six and the woman was forty. She was a widow, but had the most money in Saudi Arabia. He married the woman not for beauty, not for any love, but just for her money.

His whole life he was holding his sword, although on his sword he had written, "Peace is my message." Strange... He killed as many people as you can conceive, and peace is his message!

Mahavira will accept neither Mohammed nor Jesus.

Jesus was very much in love with wine. He even converted water into wine - absolutely a criminal act. He was visiting prostitutes. Neither Mahavira nor Buddha is going to accept Jesus or Mohammed as Bhagwan.

What detachment can you see in Krishna? He never renounced his kingdom. He was one of the greatest warriors, and conquered as much land as possible, was unafraid to kill millions of people in war. What detachment? You cannot call Krishna Bhagwan anymore - according to the so-called, self-styled Jaina monk, Daulatsagar Suriswarji - you cannot call Rama Bhagwan.

Rama is the most common name in India; it has almost become synonymous with Bhagwan.

But Rama never renounced his kingdom. On the contrary, because a washerman found that his wife had not returned home the whole night - in the morning she came, she must have been visiting some lover - he said, "I am not like Rama, whose wife Sita has been for years in confinement, in the hands of Ravana, Rama's enemy, and yet he has accepted her. I am not Rama; just get lost. Don't come to this home again."

When this message reached to Rama, rather than renouncing the kingdom he renounced Sita, his wife, who was pregnant with twins, without saying anything to her. He just told his brother, "Take her into the deep forest and leave her in some Hindu seer's ashram."

She asked again and again, "Where are you taking me?", and Lakshmana could not say anything.

What to say? - he had tears in his eyes, and she was left in the deep forest. This is detachment?

That reminds me:

Rama's father, Dashrath, had four wives. Rama was the eldest son, and Bharat was the youngest among four brothers. Bharat was the son of the youngest woman. Of course, the youngest had much more power over Dashrath than the others. The youngest had asked him, just one time....

If she asked anything, he would not refuse it. And such a henpecked old man... he promised her without knowing what she was going to ask.

When the time came, she asked Dashrath, "You should remember what you have promised me.

Now fulfill your promise! Send Rama for fourteen years in exile outside your kingdom, and make my son Bharat the king." And that old man followed this stupid idea. Rama was exiled, and Sita and Lakshmana, his younger brother, followed him, because they were absolutely convinced that this was unjust.

They were staying in a small cottage deep in the forest in South India, and Sita saw a deer made of gold running just in front of their cottage. Rama is thought to be Bhagwan, and he could not...

Even an idiot could have realized that deer are not made of gold. And these so-called, self-styled Bhagwans have been calling the whole world a dream - but that gold deer was not a dream. So Sita sent him to catch the gold deer.

Such utter ignorance! Even you would have recognized that deer are not made of gold. And the whole world is illusory! - but the gold and the deer made of gold seemed to be ultimate realities.

He went into the forest to find the golden deer. And he had told Lakshmana not to leave the place, because Ravana was the king of Sri Lanka; his place was very close, and there was every danger that he may try to abduct Sita, "So whatever happens, you remain here."

And soon Rama found that golden deer had turned into a monster, so he started shouting for help.

Lakshmana was in a dilemma: to go to his help... but he has been told not to leave Sita alone under any conditions.

Sita is thought to be one of the most holy women of India. She said to him, "Go to save your brother."

Lakshmana said, "But my brother has told me to stay here to protect you."

She said, "I know your protection. You always want your brother to die so that you can have me!"

This is the holy woman, making such an absurd excuse to force him to go!

Now, feeling abused, he went to look for Rama. But he made a line in front of the cottage and told Sita, "Don't go outside this line whatever happens."

And Ravana came - that was a whole planned conspiracy - and he came as a beggar. He made it a point that, "If you don't come across the line, I will not accept whatever you give. And remember, you are turning away a beggar - and you are thought to be one of the holiest women! I am hungry, I am thirsty." So Sita came over the line, and he abducted her to Sri Lanka.

Three years of continuous war... and everybody thought that Rama was fighting for his wife.

Everybody thought, "What a love!" - but it was not so.

When Ravana was defeated and Sita was brought to the camp of Rama, Rama said, "Listen, you woman! I have not fought this war for you. I have fought this war for the pride of my forefathers. And as far as you are concerned, you cannot enter into my cottage unless you pass a fire test, unless you pass through fire and come out alive. That will be the only test that you are pure, that you had no sexual relationships in this three years under Ravana's imprisonment."

I have always wondered: if Sita had to go through the fire test, why does not Rama also? He was also three years alone, and there is a possibility that he was in love with another woman.

But this is the male chauvinist society.

Sita passed through the fire. I don't think fire changes its rules for different people; I think it is pure mythology.

But my emphasis is that Rama should have taken the same test if he was a man of any integrity, if he was a man of any dignity. To ask a poor woman, who has suffered three years of imprisonment, and not to follow with her, is absolutely ugly and inhuman.

And after the fire test, still she was renounced. Just because a washerman had told his wife, "I am not Rama," Rama's ego was hurt. If he had really loved Sita, he should have renounced the world - detachment. But rather than renouncing the world and all the money and the whole kingdom, he renounced a poor pregnant woman without telling her even where she was being sent.

And you call it detachment? This man was too much attached with the kingdom.

And these Dalits, oppressed Buddhists, don't know at all that Rama was the man who killed an untouchable - the forefather of these people - on the grounds that Hindus don't allow the untouchables, the sudras, even to listen to their religious scriptures. Reading them is out of the question; they are not educated, in the first place, so they cannot read. Even listening... their scriptures become dirty. And a young man, just out of curiosity, asked "What is so precious in these scriptures?"

A few brahmins were doing a ritual and reciting the Rigveda, and he was hiding behind the bushes just trying to find out what is so precious. He was caught red-handed, listening. He was brought to the king, Rama: "You have to give punishment to this fellow! This should not happen again!"

And you call Rama Bhagwan? He gave a punishment to that young man in which he died then and there. Lead, hot and burning and liquid, was poured into his ears - because those ears have heard the holy scriptures of the brahmins. The young man died then and there. And yet you call Rama Bhagwan? And particularly these people whose forefather that young man must have been...

Seven, beauty.

You will be surprised to know: Buddha's statues are so beautiful, but it is inconceivable that these statues represent Gautam the Buddha. He was born on the borderline of Nepal and India; most probably he would have looked like a Nepalese.

This face, it is well-known to the historians, belongs to Alexander the Great. Alexander came to India just three hundred years after Buddha. Up to that moment no statue had been made, because Buddha had forbidden to make his statues; just worship the tree under which he has become enlightened.

But seeing Alexander and the Greek beauty - Alexander certainly was one of the most beautiful men - it was irresistible for the Buddhists to take the head of Alexander the Great and put it on Buddha's body. This face that you see on Gautam Buddha belongs to Alexander the Great, not Gautam Buddha.

And anyway, I have seen thousands of Jaina monks as ugly as possible. I cannot conceive...

Mahavira lived naked in cold winters, in hot summers, eating only once in a while. In twelve years he had eaten only three hundred sixty-five days - two months' fast, three months' fast - and just look at his statue. He looks like an athlete - even Muhammad Ali is nothing! - he looks like a great boxer.

I cannot think that a man who has not been eating for months together, who has been living naked under the sky, in cold winter and hot summer, could have remained beautiful.

And you still call him Bhagwan?

In fact, even Gautam Buddha, who was the contemporary of Mahavira, has criticized him in many places. Mahavira used to have this self-styled assertion that he knows everything, past, present, future. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. He knows everything that has happened before, is happening, and will ever happen; he is omnipresent - he is everywhere present; and he is omnipotent - he is all powerful.

Buddha criticized him in many places. Buddha said that "This so-called, self-styled tirthankara, who says that he is all-powerful, everywhere present, all-knowing - but I have known him begging before a house which was empty! He could not see that in the house there was nobody, and he is omnipresent, he is omniscient, and he is all-powerful!

"In the early morning hours when it is still dark, I have seen this fellow, Mahavira, trampling on the tail of a dog. When the dog started barking, then he moved away. This fellow says that he knows everything, past, present, future, and he does not know that just in front of him a poor dog is sleeping!"

And this seventh quality, beauty, has been abandoned by all your so-called Buddhas and Mahaviras.

Beauty is an enchantment, it drags you out. It takes you to the other: a woman, a man, a flower, a bird on the wing - but everything is outside.

They have all renounced beauty to such a point that one of the self-styled, so-called saints of the Hindus, Surdas... He was not born blind, but he had renounced the world and he used to beg for his food. One day he found, as he knocked on the door for food, a very beautiful woman, and he could not forget the woman. She was in his thoughts, she was in his dreams.

He went again and again to the same house - which is prohibited. You should not harass one householder every day for alms. But the woman's beauty was pulling him like a magnet. And the woman was certainly very compassionate, very motherly. She prepared beautiful food for him, but she had no idea at all that that man was now biologically interested in her.

Seeing his situation, the saint thought that, "It is the eyes which are taking me away from my discipline, away from my detachment" - so he burned both his eyes. Nobody knows his name - Surdas means "the blind man" - but he is respected for the fact that he burned both his eyes.

But just by burning both your eyes, you cannot forget the woman. In fact, now it will be even more difficult.

I am reminded of a great poet. He prayed to God, "When you took away my beloved" - the woman died - "why did you not make me blind? because I see her everywhere. And how long can I resist?

This has become a self-torture! The same face I see everywhere. If you have taken her, at least please take my eyes." But the poet is wrong; he does not understand the biology, the physiology of man.

Your eyes can be taken away, but that will not disturb the beautiful face that you have seen. In fact, now you will not see anything else, which may have been a distraction. Now, only one face and you, for your whole life, fixed in a frame.

Beauty has been condemned by all your saints, and you are making the meaning of Bhagwan, beauty. All meanings given are imaginary.

Valor... That means all warriors, great warriors should become Bhagwans. Perhaps this self-styled monk, Daulatsagar Suriswarji, has not understood me at all, what kind of a man he is going to face.

What does valor have to do with Buddha? He had such a delicate body that King Prasenjita, one of the greatest kings of those days, gave his own personal physician to follow Buddha like a shadow, because his body was so fragile. "He is just like a roseflower; protect him in every way. The longer he can live, the better for humanity."

What kind of valor? Do you think he would have been able to have a boxing match with Muhammad Ali? Just the first hit on his nose, and perhaps that would have been his last breath.

Effort... And Buddha teaches continuously effortlessness.

I am simply surprised. These people are thought to be great saints! They don't understand a single word about spiritual reality. It is not attained by effort; it is attained by relaxation, dropping all effort, all longing, all search. Only then do you come to your own being. It is not by effort.

Yes, money is gained by effort, political power is gained by effort, but not spirituality.

Desire...

That's why I told you I have had such a hilarious day.

Bhagwan means desire - and all the teachings of all the great enlightened people of the world have been against desire. Unless you become desireless you cannot attain to your innermost luminous self, your being.

Splendor... What splendor do you see in a Jaina monk? What splendor do you see in your Hindu saints? What splendor do you see in Mohammed or Jesus?

Splendor is an inner experience, it is not something to be seen by the eyes.

But there have been very splendrous, beautiful people in the world. Cleopatra of Egypt is thought to have been the most splendrous, majestic woman ever born. But you cannot call her Bhagwan; she was a prostitute. She ruled over Egypt just because of her beauty. Whoever came to conquer Egypt - Caesar, Anthony, and other great conquerors - she would simply go to meet them and they would fall in love with her. It was impossible, irresistible. But you will not call her Bhagwan.

Religion: the twelfth meaning.

Which religion?

It is because of a Jaina saint... Jainas think that their religion is the purest religion, the ancientmost and the highest as far as other religions are concerned.

Do you think Pope the Polack is a Bhagwan? He is the greatest leader as far as numbers are concerned: six hundred million people belong to the Catholic church. Do you think he is Bhagwan?

Ayatollah Khomeini rules over Iran, and he has under him two thousand imams, all the priests in every mosque in the whole of Iran. Do you think Ayatollah Khomeini is Bhagwan?

What religion? Which religion are you talking about?

I was brought to Poona for the first time by a man who was a close contact of Mahatma Gandhi, Rishabhdas Ranka. Mahatma Gandhi's basic theme was that all religions are equal, although it was not his practice; it was only theoretical, verbiage. And Rishabhdas Ranka lived in his ashram, so he was very much influenced by the idea that all religions are equal.

He was by birth a Jaina, so obviously he thought to write a book of synthesis between Buddha and Mahavira. He showed me the manuscript. I simply looked at the title and I returned it back. He said, "You have not looked inside even one page?"

I said, "The title is enough." The title was BHAGWAN MAHAVIR AND MAHATMA BUDDHA.

I said, "Either you call both the people Mahatma or you call both the people Bhagwan."

He said, "That is difficult. I cannot call Mahavira Mahatma because there are millions of mahatmas.

And I cannot call Buddha Bhagwan, because I am a Jaina by birth. I believe only in the twenty-four tirthankaras as Bhagwan, nobody else."

You will not believe that the Jainas have thrown Krishna into the seventh hell, because he created the greatest war India has ever known. He is the ultimate criminal.

And the same is true about Hindus.... The Hindus have not even mentioned this great splendor, this great religious man, this great beauty of Mahavira. They have not even mentioned his name in their scriptures anywhere.

No contemporary source, except Buddha, even mentions the name of Mahavira. If he was so great, such a splendor, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, do you think the contemporary literature would have completely missed him? And Buddha has mentioned him only to criticize him. It is only in the words of Buddha that we have a certainty that a man called Mahavira ever lived.

But the same is done to Buddha by the Hindus. He was certainly a very influential man, a very rational and logical man. Hindus could not deny him, but they could not accept him either, because he was against the caste system, he was against the Vedas, against the whole tradition of the Hindus. He was born a Hindu.

But remember always, it is one thing to talk about it, it is another thing to live it. He never initiated a single sudra as his disciple, although he was talking against the caste system. That would have been the proof. He was talking against riches, but all the kings of India were his disciples, lay disciples.

Most of his enlightened disciples were princes who had left their kingdoms and come to his feet. But I have not come across a single initiation of a sudra.

And the sudras are converting themselves into Buddhism. They should bring proof that Buddha has initiated any sudra - a single sudra - to his communion. The question never arose.

But he was very influential, far more influential than Mahavira, more articulate. The Hindus could not simply ignore him. They had to accept him in such a way - in a very cunning way. Their PURANAS say...

These so-called Buddhists, self-styled Buddhists who want to destroy my commune, should first look into the Hindu scriptures. The Hindu scriptures, particularly the PURANAS - 'purana' means the ancient stories, ancient parables, ancient metaphors. In the PURANAS they have a beautiful story for you, and for all Buddhists to understand.

God made the world. He also made hell and heaven - heaven for the virtuous ones, and hell for the sinners. And he made the devil to be the king of hell, to control, to manage, to maintain. But thousands of years passed and nobody came to hell. Everybody was so virtuous that they were going directly to heaven.

The devil was tired of waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally he approached God. He said, "You are making me a laughingstock. For thousands of years not a single man has entered in hell, and I am sitting there alone, unnecessary. What is the point?"

God said, "Don't be worried. Go back, and I will come in an incarnation named Gautam Buddha, and I will corrupt people's minds, and I will corrupt people's moralities, and I will create sinners. You will not be alone anymore."

So Hindus have accepted Gautam Buddha as one of the incarnations of God, but on the other hand a God who comes to corrupt the people, a God who comes to fill hell with the masses. Since Gautam Buddha, hell is overflowing; many people are standing for centuries in queues. It is all due to the great corruption that Gautam Buddha brought to this land.

Do you see the cunning and tricky mind of the Hindu priests?

And these Buddhists want me to be arrested?

First, get the people arrested who are still holding such scriptures as religious and holy.

Thirteen, liberation.

But everybody around the world has been liberating: Lao Tzu in China, Chuang Tzu in China - you don't call them Bhagwan.

I am the first man to introduce Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and thousands of others to this country; otherwise people have never heard their names. They all talk about ultimate liberation. Thousands of Zen masters have lived liberation, but do you call them Bhagwan? I am asking Daulatsagar Suriswarji, the self-styled Jaina saint.

And the last - he could not manage to hide it in this long list - last comes yoni. That was my meaning that I have given to you. Yoni means bhag, yoni means the female sexual organ, the vagina.

But he still tries to camouflage the issue. He says, "In the Jaina religion yoni does not mean vagina."

I was surprised to know that religion has anything to do with the vagina!

What does it mean in the Jaina religion? It means the cycle of birth and death.

Okay. How do you manage birth and death without the vagina, and without the male genital organs?

Finally, I have caught him red-handed. Yoni means the cycle of birth and death. How do you manage it? Without a woman and man there is no birth and no death.

So in brackets he writes yoni - and that is the only meaning. All these others are just bogus, efforts to create much cloud and mist in people's minds.

If yoni means the cycle of birth and death, it means the vagina of woman and the penis of man. The meeting of the two brings the circle of birth and death. That's what I have been telling you, and they are getting mad at me.

Now go to Suriswarji and ask him, "How do birth and death come into being? - from the woman's mouth?"

To be just straightforward is not a crime. That's why I say I am ready to face anybody, in any court.

Or if you are intelligent enough, I am ready to invite you here, and point by point I want to discuss everything that is hurting your so-called, self-styled religious feelings.

Now Maneesha's sutra:

These are the people who count! Chokoman is a great Zen master.

CHOKOMAN SAID, "JUST BY WALKING, THEY TROD ON IT."

The question was, "WHAT IS THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EXERCISES OF THE ANCIENT BUDDHAS?"

Only one exercise Chokoman mentioned:

"JUST BY WALKING, THEY TROD ON IT."

All disciplines, all moralities, all so-called scriptures, they simply trod on them. That is the only message of the ancient buddhas.

THE MONK WENT ON, "AND AFTER THEY HAD TROD ON IT?"

What happens when they have trodden on the scriptures, and religious exercises, and disciplines, and moralities, and all kinds of virtues? What happens?

CHOKOMAN REPLIED, "ICE MELTING, TILES BREAKING UP."

He is saying, "The moment someone walks over the heads of the statues and the holy scriptures and so-called religious exercises, the ice starts melting. Your separation with existence starts melting just like ice. TILES BREAKING UP... Your egos start breaking like tiles. The open sky, the ultimate existence, and you are no more separate from it."

The ice has melted in the ocean the same way the enlightened man finds his consciousness melting into the ocean of the cosmos.

These are the people with spine.

THE MONK THEN ASKED, "HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?"

He could not understand, otherwise there is no more any point in asking anything. The master has said everything.

CHOKOMAN RESPONDED BY SAYING, "THE GENTLEMEN IN THE CITY, THE LITTLE CHILDREN OUTSIDE THE WALLS."

It is a very surprising answer. He is saying, "You have not understood. I have said everything.

Now what is left is just to be a gentleman in the city, with little children outside the walls. Forget all about religion and religious exercises. Forget all about ancient buddhas. Just get into the city, find a woman, have children, and move in the cycle of birth and death - yoni."

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK ASKED CHOKOMAN, "WHAT IS THIS SWORD THAT WILL CUT A HAIR THAT IS BLOWN ONTO IT?"

Great swordsmen in their final examination cut hairs just with their swords. One hair becomes two hairs. The hair is the thinnest thing you can find. To cut it with a sword, and make two hairs out of one... The man is asking, "What is this sword that will cut a hair that is blown onto it into two?"

I have told you about a Zen story....

At the final contest of the warriors of Japan, the emperor himself used to preside. Three men had come from winning all over the country, to the finals. Thousands of people who loved swordsmanship...

In Japan it is loved as a meditation, because a swordsman cannot for a moment waver in his mind.

If he wavers he is gone. He has to remain in the no-mind, so no thought can waver, and he has to act out of no-mind. It is allowing existence to act through him.

It is a beautiful exercise of meditation.

Japan has turned strange things into meditation: swordsmanship - so unbelievable; archery - so unbelievable. Who had ever thought that swordsmanship and archery could become meditations?

But in Japan that transformation has taken place.

Those three swordsmen were all great. They had come from different parts, winning all along. The king released a fly for the first swordsman; he cut the fly into two pieces. There was great clapping and shouting. People could see a flying insect, and the man cut it in the air in two.

The second man... and a second fly was released, and he cut the second fly in three parts, just in the air. People could not believe their eyes.

Then the third - and they were waiting: "Now what can happen?" The third fly was released and the third swordsman waved his sword, and people started laughing because the fly went away, nothing was cut.

The swordsman said, "Shut up! You don't know anything about swordsmanship. This fly will not have any children anymore!"

He was the winner. He cut the very cycle of birth and death. He liberated the fly.

"WHAT IS THIS SWORD," THE MONK ASKED, "THAT WILL CUT A HAIR THAT IS BLOWN ONTO IT?"

CHOKOMAN REPLIED, "YOU CAN'T TOUCH IT."

It is so subtle.

Chokoman is talking about the inner sword, which cuts all the strings with the body, with the mind, and leaves you in absolute silence, just a witness. You cannot touch that sword.

But the monk persisted. Then he asked, "HOW ABOUT ONE WHO USES IT? I may not be able to touch it, but how about one who uses it?"

CHOKOMAN SAID, "HIS BONES AND BODY ARE SMASHED TO SMITHEREENS."

One who uses it, the sword of witnessing, the sword of meditation, his body, his mind, everything that he used to think he is, is thrown away into dust. What remains behind is a pure mirrorlike witnessing.

THE MONK COMMENTED, "THEN, IT IS A GOOD THING NOT TO BE ABLE TO TOUCH IT!"

He goes on misunderstanding and misunderstanding. "If that sword destroys the body and the bones and the mind and everything, then it is better not to be able to touch it" - AT WHICH CHOKOMAN STRUCK HIM.

It was enough.

But these idiots are all around the world. Their thick heads are such that you go on hitting them and it will not reach to their consciousness.

Nothing happened to that man. Ordinarily in Zen anecdotes, when the master hits, the person becomes enlightened. Here, the person goes to the city it seems, becomes a gentleman: "Have a wife and children, and turn over the cycle of birth and death" - called in Jainism, yoni.

Basho wrote:

WHEN A THING IS SAID, THE LIPS BECOME VERY COLD LIKE THE AUTUMN WIND.

Basho is the greatest haiku writer. His haikus have never been surpassed by anyone else.

WHEN A THING IS SAID - his meaning is, when somebody says something out of an authentic experience, when something comes from the silences of your innermost being, THE LIPS BECOME VERY COLD, because you are coming from such a cool place, like the Himalayas.

In your very innermost being everything is cool, so that when some word comes out of the lips, THE LIPS BECOME VERY COLD LIKE THE AUTUMN WIND.

You speak from the mind, you simply repeat what has been conditioned into you. You are not even as intelligent as parrots.

I have heard....

A woman had a beautiful parrot, but he died. She was very desperate and in despair. Her neighbors said, "There is not much to be worried about. Just go to a pet shop and get another parrot, even better than you had before."

So she went, and she loved one parrot, the beauty of it - Suriswarji would have called it Bhagwan.

But the shopkeeper insisted, "Madam, you can choose any - we have hundreds of parrots - but leave that one alone."

The more he insisted, the more the woman said, "Whatever is the price is not the question. I have decided, I will take this parrot."

The shopkeeper said, "If you insist, I will give it to you. It is not a question of the price; it is a question that this parrot has lived in a very ugly place. He comes from the house of a prostitute, so he uses four-letter words" - like Bhagwan!

The woman said, "I will manage, I will teach him. I have no other work. My husband died, and just to replace my husband I took a parrot, because my husband was doing nothing else than what a parrot is capable of doing - and more nicely. I will manage, don't you be worried."

So she took the parrot, and she started teaching him. But the parrot was impossible. She would teach him the Christian, authorized prayer, and he would say, "Fuck it all!" The woman was at a loss what to do with this parrot.

And then came Sunday, and the bishop came for the round. It was early morning, the woman had just got up, and she saw this bishop's car coming towards her home. She had removed the blanket from the parrot's cage, because it was cold winter, but seeing the bishop coming, she again covered the parrot's cage, because nobody knows what this fellow will say. Before the bishop it would be very embarrassing.

As the bishop entered, the parrot inside the cage, hidden behind the blanket, said, "Aha! Today has been very short!" Every day, in the morning the blanket was removed, in the evening the cage was covered again. He said, "Today has been very short. I have never seen such a short day."

The bishop said, "What is the matter? Why have you covered the poor parrot?"

Now the woman was at a loss what to do. She said, "I feel embarrassed, but I have to tell you: he uses four-letter words."

The bishop said, "Don't be worried. I have a parrot myself, who is a very religious and saintly person.

The whole day he goes on counting on the beads, praying to God. You give your parrot for a few days to me, and I will put it in the cage of my parrot. He is so saintly a person that he will teach your parrot to be virtuous, to be Catholic."

And what transpired when the new parrot went in? The other parrot looked into its eyes, and dropped the beads. The bishop could not believe it; he said, "Why have you dropped the beads?"

The parrot said, "My prayer is fulfilled! I was asking for a girlfriend. She has come!"

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, it is not a question of guts. Guts don't argue. Millions of people have guts. It needs genius, and guts have nothing to do with genius. It needs tremendous intelligence.

And my arguments are not arising out of intelligence either. My arguments are arising out of my clarity of no-mind. Unless somebody has no-mind, he cannot challenge me. And a man who has no-mind will understand me immediately without any argument. So it is a very complicated matter.

Let us go to simple matters: Sardar Gurudayal Singh time.

Kowalski goes to San Francisco for the first time in his life, and is very excited about seeing the city lights... city sights.

He checks into the famous Daffy Duck Hotel, and before he retires to bed, he asks the clerk what time the meals are served.

"Well, sir," replies Reginald, the clerk, "we serve breakfast from six to eleven, lunch from eleven to three, and dinner from three to eight."

"My God!" exclaims Kowalski. "When the hell am I going to see the sights?"

Grandpa Giggle is really worried about his health, and is waiting nervously in the hallway at Hamchop Hospital while a team of eminent physicians gathers together to consult about his case.

All the doctors retire to another room to discuss the old man's condition, but Grandpa has hidden his nephew, Little Albert, in a closet in the room to listen. Then Albert is supposed to report to him what the truth of the situation is.

After a few minutes, Albert escapes and runs back to the old man.

"Quick, Albert," asks Grandpa in a shaky voice, "what did those doctors say?"

"I cannot say for sure," reports Little Albert. "I listened hard, but they used such big words, I can't remember much of it. But I do remember one thing."

"Tell me!" cries Grandpa. "What is it?"

"Well," says Albert, "they said, 'We will find out everything at the autopsy!'"

One day at the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter opens the door and greets three new arrivals: Mrs. Baloney, a devout Catholic woman, Mrs. Baker, a good Protestant woman, and Mama Faginbaum, a Jewish woman.

"Okay," says Peter, welcoming the girls, "now that you have entered into heaven, this is the place where all your dreams come true. So each of you can tell me your special wish."

"My wish," says Mrs. Baloney, the Catholic, eyeing Mrs. Baker, "is that you get rid of all the Protestants in the whole universe!"

"My goodness!" exclaims Peter, "that is an odd thing to say here in heaven. What about you, Mrs.

Baker?"

"My wish," cries Mrs. Baker, the Protestant, glaring at Mrs. Baloney, "is that you wipe out all Catholics from the universe!"

"Good God!" shouts Saint Peter. "That is really strange." Then turning to Mrs. Faginbaum, Peter asks, "Okay, Grandma, and what about you?"

"Oy vey!" says Grandma Faginbaum, waving her hands in the air. "What about me? Ah! Nothing for me - just give my friends what they want!"

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) (gibberish) Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Be silent.

Close your eyes, and feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to enter into your inner being.

Gather all your consciousness, all your life energy, with an urgency as if this is going to be the last moment of your life.

Then rush towards the center of your being, which is the only shelter against mortality, which is the only shelter in the whole existence, the only security.

As you come closer to your inner being, you will start feeling a cool breeze, a great silence descending on you, a new fragrance that you have never known before.

As you settle in your center, a tremendous ecstasy takes over you. You are drunk with the divine.

You have found your innermost hidden treasure, the buddha, the awakened one.

The awakened one has only one quality, and that quality is witnessing. Just witness: your body is not you, your mind is not you. All other experiences, howsoever beautiful, are not you. You are only the witness. As the witnessing deepens, you start melting - ice melting in the oceanic consciousness of the universe.

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Relax, but keep witnessing.

This moment, you are the most blessed souls on the earth.

I can see the ice melting....

I can see the Buddha Auditorium becoming a vast ocean of consciousness without a single ripple.

This beautitude is you.

This blissfulness is you.

This eternity is you.

You have been always here. You will be always here, whether in the body or out of the body, but your existence is eternal.

I teach eternity, and only when you experience eternity do you know what freedom is. Then you disappear in the blue sky of the cosmos.

Disappearing in the cosmos is not annihilation; it is becoming one with the whole. And to become one with the whole is the only holiness. All else is just fraud.

Collect as many flowers, as much juice... You are at the very roots of your being. Fill yourself with all the fragrances, with all the silences, with the truth, with the beauty, with the good. And persuade the buddha to come along with you.

Until the buddha becomes your day-to-day life, you are only a bodhisattva - bodhisattva means buddha in the seed - but I want you to be buddha in the blossoming of a lotus.

Seeds you have been for many many lives. It is time to become a flower. I come to you as a spring.

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Come back. But come back totally transformed, with a grace that has not been with you before, with a silence, with a peace.

Sit down for a few moments just to recollect the golden path that you have traveled to the very center of your being.

Watch, witness that every day, inch by inch, the distinction, the distance between the circumference of your life and the center is becoming less and less and less. And the day is not far away when suddenly your circumference will melt into the center. That moment is the moment of enlightenment.

That moment, the buddha is come to his ultimate flowering.

I don't want you to be Buddhists, I want you to be buddhas! Less than that is not for those who have intelligence, is not for those who are authentic seekers of truth.

Okay, Maneesha?