There is No Back of this Book

Question 1:

This shows how deep a belief-system goes, how it becomes part of your unconscious. Now even the idea of perfection persists. First you were trying to become perfect, now you believe you ARE perfect - but you don't drop the idea of perfection.

First you were trying to become more complete, you had the feeling of incompleteness; still you cling to the old distinction. Now this seems to be cheaper and easier to believe - that you are already complete, you need not go anywhere. But you have to be complete, you have to be perfect. What is wrong in being incomplete? And what is wrong in being imperfect?

Your 'sls' missed; you could not get anything out of it. You remain the same, you have not changed anything; your belief-system remains intact. And sooner or later you will be again in difficulty.

Because you will be angry, you will be bored, you will be sad - it is impossible to think that your anger is perfect, that your sadness is perfect, that your boredom is perfect, it is impossible. Sooner or later, again the old snake will start uncoiling itself; again you will start trying.

When you are sad, will you not try to be not sad? When you are miserable, will you not try to come out of it? Will you really accept it totally? When you are in a ditch of darkness, won't you start striving again for light? Again it will come back; you have simply postponed it. You contain everything you contained before, you have simply changed the label on the container. But the content remains the same.

That's not my message. My message is: To be incomplete is beautiful. In fact, to be incomplete is a basic requirement of being alive. The day you are perfect, you are dead. Perfection is death, imperfection is life. Imperfection should not be condemned, but taken as an openness. Imperfection means open - still growing, still moving, still living. Imperfection means you still have a future, imperfection means you still have hope, imperfection means tomorrow will be exciting. That's what imperfection means.

'Imperfection' is not a derogatory word, it is almost synonymous with a living flow. Complete, where will you be going? what will you be doing? 'Complete means growth has stopped, you have come to your very end. All that was potential has become actual - that's what completion means. Now there is nothing else but to die.

Imperfection means there is much still awaiting, much is going to happen. I am not saying strive for it to happen, I am saying it happens if you accept your imperfection, and you live it in totality. These are two different things. To believe that your imperfection is perfect is utterly wrong. But be total in each moment - when you are imperfect be TOTALLY imperfect. And then out of that totality you start growing.

And I am not saying that you will ever become perfect, because the day you become perfect you are no more needed - the perfect ones are discarded immediately. So life never becomes perfect; it goes on moving. From one totality to another totality, from one imperfection to another imperfection, it goes on, it goes on. Imperfection is simply life, aliveness, growth, evolution. So why go on condemning imperfection? Now you think you have got the feeling that 'I am perfect as I am right now'. You are not. But I am not saying strive for perfection; that is again the same trap. I am saying wherever you are, live this moment totally - this is the only way it can be lived.

If you are sad, live it totally. Be really sad. And if you are really sad, you will come out of it sooner. If you are not really sad, half-heartedly you are in it, it will persist longer.

It happens, somebody has died. You loved the man or the woman; a lover is no more there. Then he sad, then be REALLY sad. You owe this much to him. Cry and weep; go crazy. Don't be lukewarm, don't be just so-so. And don't try to console yourself that now it is useless. If you try to console, the sadness will spread over a longer period - it can continue for years. That's how millions of people have become sad. Because they have never lived their sadness, they have been postponing it.

When you postpone it, it remains in your unconscious, waiting for the right moment to assert again.

It becomes a heavy weight on your heart.

When it is there. pour it. It's perfectly okay to be sad. There is nothing wrong in it, it's how it should be. If you are really sad. Soon you will find the sadness has dissipated, evaporated. You have gone through it, it is finished. Whatsoever the sadness was going to give to you, it has given to you; now there is no need to remain around you. It will go away. And you will come out fresher, younger, more alive. And you will come happier out of it, more experienced, more mature.

A man who has not seen somebody beloved dying has yet to see something, is not really mature.

In the East we have a saying: 'You are not mature until you have seen your father die. You are still a child.' When you see your father die, something deep dies in you too. Because the father is your life, the mother is your life, they have given you life. And those who have given life to you are disappearing into death - sooner or later your death is also going to come.

While your parents are alive you can go on believing that you are not going to die. But once your parents are dead, how can you go on believing that you are not going to die? Even those who had given birth to you, they are no more there; the source has disappeared. The roots have disappeared - sooner or later you will disappear.

Live it! Cry, weep, be sad, let tears come. Pour your whole heart into it. Don't be afraid, don't be shy, don't be embarrassed. If you can live it in totality you will come out of it more mature, more grown up, more grounded, and capable of living more happily.

This will look strange - out of unhappiness, how can we live more happily? Yes, this is how it is, this is how it works. Just like the pendulum of a clock - it goes to the right, to the very extreme right, and from there it starts moving to the left. While it is going to the right it is gathering momentum to go to the left. When it is going to the left it is gaining momentum to go to the right. Life moves between these two opposite banks; life is a river between these two shores.

If you have really gone deep into sadness, you are going to go into happiness as deep as your sadness was. People are miserable and people are not happy because they don't allow their misery.

When they don't allow their misery they don't allow their happiness either. The swing is going to be proportionate - if it moves one mile towards sadness, it will move one mile towards happiness. It will be always in proportion; life goes on balancing. If you can go ten miles into sadness, you will go ten miles into happiness - exactly like that.

So live whatsoever is there, live it in totality. I am not saying in perfection, because these are two different things. When you live in totality, you don't have any ideal. When you start living perfectly, you have an ideal.

For example, if you are crying, to be total means cry your heart, the way it feels to you. But if you are a perfect one, you will look around - 'Who is the perfect crier? Whose crying is perfect? Who is the master of crying?' Find the master, learn from him the technique, and make him the ideal. How big the tears are which come to his eyes, and how they flow, and how he pours his heart, with what art and skill. So you learn the skill and the art, and you bring big tears to your eyes. That will be false. Perfection is always false - you are imitating. Because perfection has to have an ideal, and all ideals create imitators.

Totality is yours, perfection is borrowed - that's the basic difference. Perfection you learn from somebody else. If you want to become a perfect man, how will you become one? Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna, Christ, they become your ideals: Be like a Christ, then you are the perfect Christian. Be like Buddha, then you are a perfect Buddhist. But what can you do? If you want to be like a Buddha you will be just an imitation, you will be plastic; you will not be real and authentic. You cannot be a Buddha, a Buddha happens only once. Existence never repeats - existence always grows into new dimensions and new beings. You will be cheating yourself, and you will be cheating the world, and the existence will never forgive you for that.

You can only be yourself; that is the ideal of totality. If you have to follow somebody, you have to be like somebody else, then you are after perfection. 'Perfection' is a dirty word: drop it. That is one of the most dangerous words ever used by humanity. Drop it, be total.

Totality is not an ideal that somewhere in the future you can be here. While you are angry, be really angry - it is part of life. And out of anger comes compassion. When you are sexual, be really sexual - because out of sexuality arises the fragrance called BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy. But it is always out of the opposite.

You say: I GOT THE FEELING THAT I AM PERFECT AS I AM RIGHT NOW. No, you are not, and nobody ever is. Existence is never exhausted; potentiality is infinite. So when I say you are gods, what do I mean? I don't mean that you are perfect; even gods are not perfect - because gods are alive. What do I mean when I say you are gods? I mean your potential is infinite. 'God' means infinite potential - you can go on growing, and you can go on growing, and there is no end to it.

Wherever you are, you can still go on growing.

Death never happens. That's what I mean when I say you are gods, I mean you are deathless.

The Vedas say: AMRITASYA PUTRAH - YOU are the sons of immortality, deathlessness. You come out of nectar, you are made of the stuff of which nectar is made - AMRITASYA PUTRAH.

YOU are sons of God, daughters of God - it simply means your potential is infinite, it can never be exhausted. Whatsoever you become, you will again find new doors opening, new peaks challenging, new adventures waiting for you, new dimensions calling you forth, invoking, provoking. One never comes to the dead end.

That's what I mean when I call you gods. God does not mean perfection, god simply means the energy that goes on moving. Each moment, you can be total. And from one totality you can slip into another totality; one totality helps you to be total in another moment. If you were angry totally, then you will be loving totally - the totality in anger helped you to be totally in love.

But you are incomplete; everything is incomplete. That's why things are growing, that's why there is so much evolution. God, to me, is an evolving concept. I am not talking about others' gods - they are dead things. If you ask a Hindu, he will say God is perfect. But perfect means dead. If you ask again, 'How long has he been perfect?' then they will be in difficulty. If they say he has been perfect always, then he is dead; he was never born. Then Nietzsche is right that God is dead. Perfect gods are dead gods.

God, to be at all, has to be as imperfect as you are. Then what is the difference between you and God? He is total and you are not total. He accepts his imperfections; you don't accept, you go on rejecting. That is the difference. The difference is not in perfection, the difference is in acceptance.

You deny, you reject, you hide, you defend, you remain closed, you are afraid. You never go into anything really, you remain out of it - afraid, fearful, scared, ready to escape if sometimes things become too much. You go only so far.

The difference between you and God is only one: he goes UTTERLY into everything. When God dances, there is no dancer, there is only dance - he is so utterly in it. When God loves, there is no lover, there is only love he is so utterly in it. You are never total. Imperfect you are, imperfect is everything - these trees, these birds, these skies, everything is imperfect. But remember, by 'imperfection' I am not saying anything condemnatory, I am praising life. I am praising the very pulse of life.

Now you ask me: I THINK YOU ONCE SAID THAT WE ARE GODS BUT THAT WE JUST DON'T RECOGNIZE IT. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE COMPLETENESS OF OUR BEINGS. Again, you go on being neurotic. The perfectionist is a neurotic person. If you want to drop neurosis you will have to drop perfection - the very idea of perfection is madness-creating. And then you start feeling everything is okay as it is. And that does not mean that it is not going to change. Everything is changing, it is a flux. Nothing remains; except change, everything changes. So this moment one thing is right, another moment another thing is right, still another moment something else is right.

Life goes on changing. And the person who has no ideals responds to life's changes, moment to moment, in totality.

Question 2:

Neither.

Once, when commenting upon Isaac Newton's statement that 'the purpose of the scientist is to sail the oceans of the unknown, and discover the islands of truth,' Jerome Bruner impetuously burst forth with the claim: 'Nonsense - the purpose of the scientist is to sail the oceans of the unknown, and INVENT the islands of truth!'

The emphasis - Isaac Newton says 'to discover', and Jerome Bruner says, 'Nonsense. It is to invent.'

And I would like to say to Bruner: Bruner, this is all just bullshit. The purpose of the scientist is to sail the oceans of the unknown and REDISCOVER the islands of truth. It is neither discovery nor invention.

Discovery means 'for the first time'. That is stupid. Eternity has been in the past - all the truths that we know again and again, are only rediscovered. They have been discovered many times; then we get fed-up, then we start forgetting a truth. It becomes too much, or boring - then we forget the truth. Then, after a few centuries, again we rediscover it. Truth is not something that is discovered for the first time; it is rediscovered again and again. Truth is eternal. We can move away from it - it is very natural for the human mind, it gets bored very soon. But once we have forgotten, the old again looks like new.

And this is what historians say too. For example, in this age, the truth of the atom is very important.

It is one of the greatest discoveries - but it is not new. Democritus talks about it in 'Eunon', in Greek philosophy. Mahavira talks about it in India. Kanad, even before Mahavira, talked about it - so much that his name, his very name 'Kanad' means atom. He talked so much about the atoms that his name became Kanad - 'the atomist'. We have forgotten his real name, he talked so much about atoms. His whole philosophy is atomic.

Now again we will forget. After a few centuries, Einstein will be forgotten - as Kanad is forgotten, as Democritus is forgotten, as Mahavira is forgotten. Once we have forgotten, when we stumble upon the same truth again, we call it 'discovery'.

Isaac Newton is not right, truth is never a discovery. But Bruner is also not right, he says it is an invention. Truth is not an invention. I understand what Bruner means, he means that all truths are man-invented mind-constructs. We create them, they are not really there. We imagine them - it is imagination. He also has some point in it, because again and again we go on changing our truths. Truth cannot change, our imagination changes. When our imagination changes, we talk about another truth.

So all truths, according to Bruner, are inventions of the mind. But if the truth is an invention of the mind, then I would like to ask Bruner, 'What will you say about lies?' Then truth and lie will mean the same. A lie is an invention, an illusion is an invention - a mind-construct. A dream is an invention, a projection. Then what is the difference between a truth and a lie? According to Bruner, there will be no distinction; both are mind-constructs.

But there is a distinction. That's why I say truth is neither a discovery nor an invention, truth is a rediscovery. And truth is not a mind-construct - because only when mind ceases to function is there truth. That's why I don't call scientific truths 'truths'; they are only facts.

Only religious truths are real truths; they are not facts. Because the scientist never loses his mind.

He works THROUGH the mind, he works AS the mind - it is the mind that is trying to find out.

Religious truth is ultimate truth, pure truth - with no lies, with no mind involved in it. And the basis of all religion is to drop the mind. That's what meditation is all about - to put the mind aside, and then look. Look without the mind, look without this mechanism of the mind. Without the mind there can be no construct - because when the constructor is not there, there cannot be any construct.

When the mind is not there, mind-constructs disappear. Look into things - but don't think, don't contemplate, don't bring thinking in. Just look.

Science discovers facts. Facts are millions - that's why, in science, truth is not singular, it is plural.

There are truths, many truths. Biology has its own truths, and chemistry its own, and physics its own, and mathematics its own. - and so on, so forth. There are many truths, because there are many minds.

Religion talks about a single truth. It is not about truths - ONE. Because when the mind is dropped, you are no more separate from the universal, you are one with the universal. In that universal consciousness, in that cosmic expansion, whatsoever is known is truth. And it never never changes, it remains the same.

What Buddha discovered, that's exactly the same as what Jesus discovered later on - rediscovered.

What Jesus rediscovered is the same as what Eckhart discovered - rediscovered. What Eckhart discovered is the same. Millions of saints have discovered it, all over the world - Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus and Christians and Jews, Sufis and Hassids and Zen people - they all have discovered the same thing again and again.

Each individual comes to it alone; again he discovers it. But what he discovers is the same cosmic consciousness, is the same satchitanand - bliss, truth, consciousness. It is the same - but when you start expressing it, when you start talking about it, it becomes different. Languages differ - Jesus speaks in Aramaic, Buddha speaks in Pali, Mahavira speaks in Prakrit, Hui-neng speaks in Chinese, Eckhart speaks in German, Rinzai speaks in Japanese, and so on and so forth. These are differences of language. And all your so-called three hundred religions are nothing but differences of languages. They use different parables, naturally. They KNOW different parables, so they use different parables.

Buddha can't speak like a seer of the Upanishads - can' t speak like that. He knows different parables, he knows different metaphors, which are closer to his heart. The Upanishads know a different kind of language, a different symbology.

Jesus has a different world of words. Jesus is a carpenter - he speaks like a carpenter, very down to earth. His words smell of the soil, of the wood, of the trees. Buddha can't speak like that, he is the son of a king. He has never known trees and the soil, he has never walked on the earth, he has lived in palaces. He talks in a different way, naturally - he has been brought up in a different way, he has a different imagery. He talks like a king - very cultured, very very sophisticated. Jesus is a plain man. Hence the appeal of Jesus is far more than of Buddha, because plain men are more in the world than kings.

Only a few people can understand Buddha; Jesus can be understood by any and everybody.

The poorest man of the earth can understand Jesus, because Jesus speaks in the language of the poorest man. He talks also to the poor people - fishermen and farmers and prostitutes and labourers, he talks to these people. If he talks like Buddha they will not understand. And he cannot talk like a Buddha; he himself is a carpenter. The whole of his childhood he was working in his father's carpentry workshop - bringing logs, chopping wood, helping his father. He knows the smell of the wood. And a carpenter lives amidst fishers, farmers - those are the customers, he knows their language.

It is no accident that the whole world, particularly the world of the poor, has a great pull towards Jesus.

In India, Christians have not been able to convert brahmins. You cannot convert a brahmin; he speaks a totally different language. For him, Jesus looks not up to the mark - he knows the Vedas and the Upanishads and the Gita and the Dhammapada; he lives in a very sophisticated world of the mind. But Christians have been successful with the poor people - with the labourers, with the villagers, with the primitive aboriginals, they have been successful. They immediately understand the language of Jesus. They may not understand Krishna, he talks about great philosophy. Jesus talks about very pragmatic facts.

These are the differences - otherwise they are talking about the same reality, they are talking about the same truth. So whenever one has attained, one comes to see, it is the same reality discovered again and again and again.

And each one has to discover it on his own. You cannot borrow it from somebody else. I cannot give it to you, I cannot transfer it to you. I can say how it feels, I can say how I arrived at it, I can talk about the path that leads to it. But you will have to go, and you will have to discover it. And when you discover it, your language will be different than mine. It is bound to be so - your language will be yours, it will have your signature on it. That's why there are so many religions. Basically religion is one. It cannot be two; it seeks and searches the one. It is not a discovery, as Newton says. It is not an invention, as Bruner says. It is rediscovery.

Question 3:

Self-knowledge has nothing to do with just sitting silently. And if you attain to self-knowledge just sitting silently - never moving, never active, never dynamic, never living - your self-knowledge will be a dead self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge has to be total. It has to be known while you are sitting silently, and it has to be known while you are in move-ment. It has to be known in inaction, it has to be known in action. The real man of self-knowledge is both together - simultaneously both. He is action plus inaction. That is the meaning of the Chinese word, WEI WU WEI. WEI means action, WU means no, WEI means action - action-no-action. WEI-WU-WEI: action-no-action.

This is the polarity: from action to no-action, from no-action to action. The man of self-knowledge moves to both the polarities, he is at ease with both. Sitting, he is in God. Walking, he is also in God.

Not doing anything, he is in God. Doing a thousand and one things, he is in God. In the temple he is in God, in the marketplace he is in God.

But I can understand your question. It is one of the perennial questions, and has created much trouble. Because there are people who think if you are in the world you cannot know yourself, you cannot become enlightened. Leave the world, renounce the world, escape from the world - the world is a disturbance and a distraction. So go to the Himalayas, move to some caves deep in the Himalayas. Be there, alone - only then can you know God.

But this God will be very poor. And this knowing of God will be very very starved knowing, it will not be rich. Because when you are not active, there will be a dullness in your being, a deadness. Dust will settle in you. You will be like dormant water - stagnant, not moving; you will not be fresh like a river. Even if you are silent, even if you are peaceful, you will be dead. Yes, stars will be reflected in you, but you will not be going to the ocean. The river is more alive.

But I am not saying that people who are in the marketplace are going to know God just by being in the marketplace. Because if you are not silent within, the marketplace can become a madhouse - it does become.

There are two kinds of people - and they are not really enemies, they are of the same attitude. One believes that this is the only world, this is all that there is to life - so live it. Rush into ambition, desires, thoughts; do many things - achieve, attain, become. This man, by and by, drives himself mad.

Another man, seeing all this madness happening, escapes from the world, sits silently in a cave, becomes dormant, dull and dead. The man in the marketplace is alive, but he has no silence. And the man in the cave is silent, but he is no more alive. Both have missed.

That's why, for my sannyasins, I insist: Be alive and be silent, together. You will be richer. Be in the world and yet be not of it. Be a lotus flower - remain in the water but don't be touched by it. Then there is beauty and there is grace, and life enriches you. Because life is nothing but God, manifest in many many ways. Then life is no more taken as a distraction, but as an opportunity to grow, as a challenge.

Don't think of life as a distraction, but as a challenge. When somebody insults you, you can think he is disturbing you - that is one interpretation. Or you can think he is challenging you. Whether you are disturbed or not, it depends on you. If you are not disturbed, he has given you a great opportunity to grow. You will be thankful to him. You should go to him and say thank you, you should convey your thankfulness to him - because he insulted, and yet you were not distracted; something has become very, very solid in you, something has integrated.

A beautiful woman passes by, and there is no distraction - not that you avoid; not that you don't see her.

Just the other day, somebody sent a cutting from a London newspaper, that the leader of the Swami Narayan sect went to London.

For forty years he has not seen a woman. Even in the aeroplane he was curtained, and the air hostesses were warned not to go to him. Special arrangements were made so he could avoid women. Then at London airport he was driven from the aircraft in a closed car. In the airport a special curtained place was arranged to be there for him before he was cleared. And now in London he moves with his eyes focused on the ground. He could not even see the jubilee celebrations on the tv, because the Queen is not a king. So a special commentator... he was sitting in another room and a special commentator just commented to him, so he heard about it.

Now, this type of people - do you call them alive? And do you say of them that they have transcended sex? You cannot find more perversion; this is sheer perversion. This man needs to be psychoanalyzed, hospitalized - even electric shocks will be good. Now, this is absurd. And this man thinks that he is coming closer to God. To be so much afraid of women simply means you are afraid of your sexuality. Otherwise what can a woman do? What can a poor air hostess do?

Why should you be so much afraid? The fear is indicative of repression.

And this type of man will be constantly thinking of women. He cannot think of God. He is not worried about God at all, he is worried about women. When will he find time to think about God? And even if he thinks about Ram, he will have to avoid Sita - and they both are standing together. If he thinks about Krishna he will have to avoid the gopis, because they are dancing around him. This man cannot enter the temple of Kali, because she is a woman.

How did this man manage to live in a mother's womb? Curtained?

This is sheer foolishness - but this foolishness has been thought of as a great religious quality. This is neurosis in the name of religion. No, if you have transcended your sexuality, you will by and by start forgetting who is a woman, who is a man.

Buddha was sitting under a tree meditating. A few people from the town had come with a prostitute for a picnic, and they all became drunk and they took away the clothes of the prostitute, and she became afraid. They were much too drunk. Naked, she escaped. By the morning when the cool breeze started blowing, they became a little alert and they saw that the woman had escaped. So they started searching for her in the forest, and they came across Buddha sitting under a tree. So they thought, 'We should ask this man, he must have seen her - because this is the only way she can go, there is no other way.'

So they asked Buddha, 'Have you seen a beautiful woman, naked, passing by?'

Buddha said, 'You came a little late; you should have come ten years before.'

They thought this man mad. What is he talking about - 'ten years before'? They asked, 'What do you mean?'

He said, 'For ten years, I have lost all distinctions. Yes, somebody has passed - but whether she was a woman or a man... you are asking the wrong question to the wrong man. Yes, somebody has passed. I have heard somebody's footsteps, I have seen somebody passing. But to say whether she was a man or a woman is difficult, because I was not looking for a man or a woman.'

Unless you look for, how can you see? Have you not watched it happening to you some time? One day you are in the market, and somebody comes and says your house is on fire. And then you rush towards your house. A beautiful woman passes by - do you see? You look, certainly you look - but do you see? And if tomorrow somebody reminds you that a beautiful woman had passed, you will say, 'Forget all about it. My house was on fire - how could I see the beautiful woman? Maybe somebody passed, but I don't remember. It didn't make any impact on me, I was concentrated so much on my house.'

Another day, this same man will SEE the woman. And if she is beautiful, will see more alertly, more keenly, more closely. You see only that which you are LOOKING FOR.

Buddha said, 'Since ten years ago, I have stopped looking for women. I am not searching; they have disappeared from within me. In fact, I am no more a man.'

Strange words, but of tremendous truth. Buddha says, 'In fact, I am no more a man, because I am no more searching for a woman.' A man searches for a woman - that's what a man means. A woman searches for the man, that's what a woman means.

You cannot define a man as a man if he stops searching for the woman - he is no more a man. And Buddha says, 'I am no more a man. It is very difficult, sir, to tell you, but somebody has passed. You can go and inquire, somebody must have seen.' Now, this seems to be something valuable.

My whole approach is: You are to live in the world, but you have to live here with great awareness.

Watch, see, live, go into everything. Don't deny anything and don't repress. Only by ex-periencing the whole of life, one goes beyond it. Only experience liberates.

So I am not for just sitting silently in a cave. And I am not for just getting involved in a thousand and one activities because you don't know how to sit silently. Yes, sometimes sit silently, and sometimes move into action. And by and by create a bridge between inaction and action.

And become so much in tune with your being that neither action nor inaction will make any difference to you. Acting, working, moving, flowing, you will still remain sitting silent. That's something worth attaining - when you are moving and nothing moves in you, when you are running and nothing runs in you, when you are talking and still you remain quite silent. When you do a thousand and one things and you are not a doer at all, then you have achieved the synthesis I call spirituality.

Otherwise, both kinds are 'endarkenment'; they are not enlightenment. One is endarkened by too much activity and occupation, another is endarkened by too much inactivity and unoccupation. Both miss.

Enlightenment is a great synthesis, a great harmony of the opposites. It is WEI-WU-WEI.

Question 4:

The moment you start settling, you are becoming dead. You have to be unsettled. Settlement means you are stopping living. Settlement means you have become a householder, you are no more a sannyasin.

Never settle: be moving. Life should be a pilgrimage. Live in houses but don't become householders.

Think about your houses as tents - any moment you can take them away from the earth and you can move. Remain moving, flowing, entering into the unknown.

Yes, that's what I do - the moment you start feeling settled, I unsettle you. That's what a master is needed for - to go on goading, to never allow you to settle. You would like to create some belief, some belief-system, and you would like to settle and be comfortable and forget all about journeys, inquiries, travels, unknown lands, uncharted seas - you would like to forget all that.

You want a small home, to settle with comfort, a cozy place to be in. This constant movement feels like inconvenience. You are searching for convenience, and I am trying to give you a journey. A journey is troublesome, pilgrimage is troublesome - but if you want to attain to truth you have to be a pilgrim.

That's why I go on unsettling you. I am not here to give you some belief-systems, I am here just to give you an urge to seek - just an urge to be an adventurous being, an urge to take the jump into the unknown.

And the moment it becomes known, drop it! It is finished! You have taken the juice out of it, now don't go on chewing dead bones. There is no juice in dead bones, there is no juice in dead beliefs.

Whenever something keeps you going, it is alive: drink all the juice possible, drink to the full. And the moment you feel now it is dry, drop it: move.

There are millions of flowers; don't get attached to one flower. Remain a bee - remain a bee moving from one flower to another. Go on moving... every flower in this world carries honey for you. Why should you settle at all? Why are you in such a hurry to settle?

And confusion is the method to unsettle you. But one day, when you have been unsettled millions of times and confused millions of times, a new consciousness will arise in you - and even I will not be able to confuse you. That's what I am waiting for. The day I cannot confuse you, you have become ripe, mature - not that you have become settled. Confusion comes because you WANT to settle, because you start feeling settled, and then I unsettle you. Hence confusion. You say, 'Again. Again here we go. And just now I was feeling so cozy and I was feeling so good, and I was thinking that SATORI is very close... and it looks very far away.'

By the time you start feeling asleep... that's what you call 'settling'. I am not a lullaby, I am an alarm.

Then you feel confused. You want to cling to the old, and I am destroying it, and I am giving you some new idea, some new path, some new urge. Now you are in difficulty. The confusion is, you want to cling to the old, I want to push you into the new. Hence the confusion. Once you stop clinging to the old, there will be no confusion. And then I will not be able to unsettle you at all. Because you are no more seeking settlement - how can I unsettle you?

Meditate on this small parable, a real story.

Ma Tsu heard of Ta Mei's stay on the mountain, and sent a monk to ask him this question....

Ma Tsu is a great Zen master, and Ta Mei is one of his disciples - he had thousands of disciples. The master sent some-body to ask the disciple some question - because he is staying on a mountain, alone, meditating, just sitting silently there. Now, the master must be feeling that he is getting settled or something. So he sends a person. He cannot go - he is very old, it will be difficult for him to climb the mountain - but he wants to see whether this Ta Mei can still be unsettled or not. He must be thinking to unsettle this Ta Mei, so...

Ma Tsu heard of Ta Mei's stay on the mountain and sent a monk to ask him this question: 'What did you obtain when you called on the great master Ma Tsu and what prompted you to stay here?'

Ta Mei replied, 'The great master told me that mind was Buddha and that is why I came to stay here.'

The monk said, 'The great master's Buddha Dharma is different now.'

Ta Mei asked, 'What is it now?'

The monk replied, 'He says it is neither mind nor Buddha.'

Ta Mei laughed and said, 'That old man is causing confusion in the minds of others and all this will have no end. Let him say that it is neither mind nor Buddha. As far as I am concerned, mind is Buddha.'

When the monk returned and reported the above dialogue to Ma Tsu, the latter was very happy and said, 'The plum is now ripe.'

'Ta Mei' in Chinese means 'big plum'. 'The plum is ripe now, I cannot unsettle him.' Now even the master cannot unsettle the disciple. The disciple has arrived; now he knows all the tricks of the old man.

If you get unsettled, this simply means you have not yet under-stood me. And I will go on unsettling you, till you understand. One day you will understand what I am doing here - destroying belief- systems, one by one. And not giving any belief-system to you instead as a supplement.

You are not much worried about destroying a belief-system - if you come as a Christian and I destroy your Christianity, you are not much worried. You would like to become a Rajneeshite - then it is okay.

But when I start destroying that too, then you say, 'Now this is too much. Somehow I managed to come out of my Christianity and I was getting settled in this Rajneeshianity - and this man is now driving me out of that too. So where am I going to land?'

I don't want you to settle anywhere. The whole is your home - why choose small homes? Why create small gardens? The whole wilderness is yours, this wide world is yours, this whole belongs to you.

Don't become ever an 'ist', don't believe in any 'ism'. When you drop all 'isms,' truth comes to you - never before it. That price has to be paid.

Question 5:

Because it is. Fictions are by-products of life; how can they be MORE strange than life? Fictions are just shadows of life; how can they be more strange than life itself? Fictions are man-made, and life is God-made. Whatsoever man can do will have limitations; whatsoever God makes is unlimited, infinite.

Man can create a strange fiction, but he cannot create a real mystery. Even the strangest fiction that man can create will remain man's product. You can get intrigued with it once, or at the most twice, or, if you are very dull, at the most thrice. Even the dullest person cannot go to see the same movie a fourth time. Then it is no longer strange.

But life is like a Zen koan; it has no answer. It is a question-mark, and it remains a question-mark, and the more you inquire into it, the bigger becomes the question-mark. The more you know about it, the less you know. One day, when you have really known it, you declare your utter ignorance.

That's what Socrates does when he says, 'I don't know a thing.' That's what the Upanishads say:

'The man who thinks he knows, does not know. And the man who says he does not know, he is the knower - follow him, go with him, keep track of him, don't allow him to escape. He has the key - the man who says, "I don't know."'

Why? What is the point of these declarations? The point is, when you really know life, suddenly it is revealed to you, that how can you know? Life is a mystery; it has no solution. And every day, in many ways, you come across this riddle. But because you have become a knowledgeable person you don't see those riddles. You keep on repeating some dull answers which are meaningless, pointless.

D. H. Lawrence was walking in a garden with a small boy, and the boy asked, 'Tell me, sir, why are the trees green?' Now, if there was some scientist, some foolish scientist, he would have said, 'Because of the chlorophyll, ' or something like that. But Lawrence is not a scientist, and not a foolish man at all. He is one of the great mystics the West has produced, but is not KNOWN as a mystic.

One of the great tantrikas the West has produced, but is not known as a tantrika.

If you were not a scientist, an ordinary person, you would have felt embarrassed. You would have answered something or other, or you would have forced the child to keep quiet. You would have said, 'When you grow up, you will know.' That's what fathers go on doing. Neither they know, nor their fathers nor their fathers' fathers - and they go on saying, 'When you become a grown-up person you will know. Don't disturb me.'

But D. H. Lawrence is an authentic man. He looked into the child's eyes and he said, 'They are green because they are green.' He is saying there is no answer. 'I am ignorant' he is saying - 'I am as ignorant as you are.'

And don't think for even a single moment that if you come across God and you ask him why the trees are green.... He will also shrug his shoulders, I tell you. He will not be able to answer you, because he is not a school master.

Once it happened, a great poet, Coleridge, wrote a small poem. A child from the neighbourhood came, because the poem was being taught in the school, and the teacher was finding difficulties in explaining it. So the teacher said to the child, 'You live just next door to this poet - you go to him.

He must know what his poem means.'

And Coleridge looked into the child's eyes and said, 'Yes, when I wrote it, two persons knew what it means - but now only one knows.' The child said, 'Who is that one? That one must be you!' And the poet laughed, and he said, 'I am not that one. When I wrote this poem, I and God knew the meaning. Now only God knows.'

And I tell you not even God knows. Knowledge is so foolish, God cannot be thought of as knowledgeable. God is not a pundit, not a scholar, God is a lover. God himself is a poet. He sings a song, but you cannot expect him to know the meaning of it. He creates beautiful flowers, but you cannot expect to know the meaning of them. In fact there is no meaning.

Once you know the meaning of something then it is no more meaningful. Let me repeat it: Once you know the meaning of anything then it is no more meaningful, then it loses all meaning. The day you know what love is, love becomes meaningless. You can know the chemistry of the love - hormones and chemicals and this and that - and then love is finished.

Anything, the moment you know the meaning of it, becomes meaningless. God himself is the meaning, but he does not know what the meaning is. This is the mystery of life. You will come across it every day, if you are a little more sensitive. Knowledge makes people insensitive - knowledge makes them such dullards that they go on carrying in their heads much knowledge. And their knowledge is nothing but labelling.

There is a flower blooming, and somebody asks, 'What is it?' And you say, 'A rose.' And you think you have answered? Is this the answer? By calling it a name, by labelling a certain mystery in life, do you think you know? Just by saying it is a rose, what have you said? You have not said a single word about the rose. The rose has no name, it is just a way of classifying it - utilitarian. But what do you mean by calling it a rose? You can call it by another name, and the rose will remain the rose.

So the name is not the rose. Then what is it? Just by calling it a name, you are befooled. You think you know; you have labelled it. Labelling is not knowing - and your so-called science goes on just labelling.

If you go into the world of the scientist, his work is labelling. He goes on labelling. The more labels he puts on reality, the greater the scientist he becomes, the greater he becomes. And then we go on throwing those labels at children's heads, and tell them to cram them, so they become knowers.

A rose is such a great mystery. Tennyson has said, 'If I could understand a flower, root and all, I would have understood the whole existence.' Yes, in a small flower the whole existence is involved - by knowing a small flower, you will know the whole of it. Or, unless you know the whole of it, you cannot even know the part - the whole and part are so together.

That's why it is said that life is stranger than fiction. Life comes from God; the very source is mysterious. Life is a riddle, and a riddle with no solution. It is not like a riddle you find in your magazines or in your books - at the back of the book the answer is given. There is no back of this book. Mm? You can go on and on looking for the answer, but there is no written answer anywhere.

Listen to these few stories.

There's eight bubbleboys, with long hair, coming into a road-side cafe, and they see this fellow at a table. He's got a cup of coffee and a plate full of egg and bacon and sausages. Well, they go over to him, all eight of them, and just start messing him about. The first one pours coffee over his head, the second picks up his sausages with a fork and rams them in his eyes, the third one crashes the plate over his head, the fourth one shoves bacon in his ear, and the fifth one says, 'Oh, we'd better leave him now and get ourselves something to eat and drink.'

So they go over to the man that's serving and say, 'He isn't much of a man to stick up for himself, is he?'

And the man that's serving says, 'No, and he's not a very good driver either. He's just run over eight motorbikes.'

Life is more like fiction. Strange things happen in life.

There was once a man, and a woman who had a dog. They were travelling in the same compartment in the train. The man started to smoke and the dog began to cough. The lady said, 'If you don't stop smoking I'll throw your cigarette out of the window.' The man didn't stop smoking, so the lady took his cigarette and threw it out of the window. Then the man took out another cigarette and started smoking again. The dog began to cough again. The lady said, 'If you don't stop smoking I'll throw your cigarette out of the window again.'

So the man said, 'If you throw my cigarette out of the window again, I'll throw your dog out of the window too,' and carried on smoking. So the lady took his cigarette and threw it out of the window.

The man took the dog and threw it out of the window.

When they reached the next station the dog was there waiting for the train. And what do you think it had in its mouth? The cigarette.

Or this third one.

Aunt Mildred decided to buy a parrot to keep her company. The local pet shop had a good selection, but one bird with bright green and blue feathers immediately caught her attention as the pick of the bunch. Curiously enough, the shopkeeper seemed reluctant to sell it.

'I don't think he's really Madam's sort of parrot,' he explained evasively.

'Why on earth not?'

'He doesn't come from a very nice home. Now, if Madam would care to step this way, I think I have just the bird....'

'But I don't like any of those, I want this one,' Mildred insisted.

'Very well, Madam.' Noting the glint of determination in Mildred's eye, the shopkeeper sold her the bird and an expensive wrought-iron cage to go with it.

Mildred installed the parrot in her sitting-room and waited breathlessly for his first words. The parrot flapped his wings, looked around the house, and said, 'New house. Very nice.' Mildred was delighted.

At half-past four Mildred's two teenage daughters came back from school. The parrot cocked an eye at them and said, 'New girls. Very nice.'

Mildred clapped her hands with joy. Not only was the parrot such a magnificent specimen, but he had perfect manners. No wonder the man at the pet store hadn't wanted to part with him!

At half-past five her husband Henry returned from the office. The parrot skittered to the front of his cage and said, 'New house. New girls. Same old customer. How are you, Henry?'

Life certainly is more strange than fictions.

Question 6:

You will have to kill me too. That's what Zen masters mean when they say, 'If you come across Buddha in your meditations, kill him immediately.' It is not disrespectful about Buddha, it is simply a great love and respect for Buddha. It is great reverence.

But the disciple one day has to get free of the master too. The master can be used as a crutch in the beginning, but not for ever. You can use my words to drop other words, but my words are also words, remember - one day you have to drop them too, otherwise nothing will happen. You dropped your father's word, your mother's word, and you replaced them with my word. But again you are caught in the word. You have changed your scripture, but the scripture remains. That is not going to help. A mind is needed where no word exists, no clinging with anything.

If you really love me, one day you have to do that ultimate act too: you have to kill me too. You have to drop me, you have to drop my word. And that does not mean disrespect, remember. In fact that is the ultimate in respect, because that is what I wanted you to do.

You have a thorn in your foot, you try to bring out that thorn with another thorn - you find another thorn in the garden and you pull out the first thorn with the second. But what are you going to do with the second thorn? It has helped; be thankful, be grateful - but throw it, don't start worshipping it.

Buddha used to say that a master is like a raft. You cross a river on the raft - then what do you do?

You are grateful to the raft, but you don't carry the raft on your heads into the town. He said: Once it happened, four fools crossed a river on a raft. And on the other bank they were so grateful to the raft that they carried the raft on their heads into the marketplace. People inquired, 'What are you doing?

Where are you taking this raft?' They said, 'Now we will carry it for our whole lives, because this is the raft that saved our lives. We would have been eaten by the wild animals if we had to stay on the other side - this raft carried us to this side. We are so grateful, how can we drop this raft? We will carry it our whole lives.'

Now this is foolish. This is not respect, this is simply stupidity. Buddha says when you have crossed the river, feel thankful, say a good thank you. Bow down, touch the feet of the master, and move on.

Question 7:

The question is from Anuprada. Anuprada, you can sleep. Everybody is allowed to do anything that feels like it is the right thing in this moment. If you feel like sleeping, fall asleep. Just one thing to remember: Don't snore - because that keeps other people awake.

Question 8:

Not all poetry, not all painting, not all music, not all art, arises out of contradiction. But ninety-nine percent arises out of contradiction. That's why ninety-nine percent of art is a little pathological.

Picasso is pathological, so is Vincent van Gogh. You will always find your poets, your painters, a little ill somewhat eccentric, bizarre, nuts.

Now psychologists say that if you get nuts to paint, that helps them to become normal. It has been tried all over the world - 'therapy through art' they call it. If a madman is given paints to paint with, by painting he throws his madness out. If he goes on painting, after a few weeks you will find he is turning to normal. Something has been catharted out of him through art.

Sigmund Freud had this attitude, that all art is pathology. Not all - I will not agree with him to that extent - but ninety-nine percent of it is. It is out of contradiction, it is out of conflict, friction. All great artists have suffered much. A Dostoevsky is a very ill person. Out of his illness, contradiction, out of his inner conflict, comes a great piece like BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.

So is Van Gogh very insane. But out of his insanity come great paintings. In fact, it may be that because he was painting it kept him closer to the normal. If he had not been allowed to paint he would have gone mad sooner. If Dostoevsky had not been allowed to write he might have committed suicide, he might have gone mad sooner. These are like vomits. And I am not saying that there is something condemnable in it, I am simply stating a fact: ninety-nine percent of art is pathology. So if man becomes healthy, if man becomes normal, if man becomes more meditative, this kind of art will disappear.

Hence there is a fear in the artists' minds that if people are REALLY meditative then what will happen to art? There will be no good poetry and there will be no good novels and there will be no good paintings and no good music. No, they need not be afraid - one percent of art does not come out of pathology, it comes out of silence. The Ajanta, the Ellora, Khajuraho, they come out of an inner meditative consciousness, they come out of meditation.

The great statues of Buddha have not come out of pathology, they have come out of a great inner experience. The great temples of the world, the great cathedrals of the world, have not come out of pathology. They are great aspirations, rising higher and higher towards the sky - towards the superconscious, towards God.

Jesus' sermons are not out of pathology - that is one percent. Freud will not count even that; he thinks even Jesus is neurotic. Freud will not count even Buddha - even Buddha's assertions are neurotic. That is going too far; in that way Freud himself proves to be neurotic. Then what about his own psychology? What about his own creation? It is a great work of art - what about it? Is it neurotic?

And if you ask me, I will count Freud and Adler and Jung in the ninety-nine percent.

But, one percent has happened, and that one percent can grow more. Yes, this kind of art will disappear, the Picasso type of art will disappear, if people are more meditative. But nothing is lost.

More art of that one-percent quality will enter into the world.

What is the difference? How will you know the difference? If you stand before a Buddha-statue and meditate over it for half an hour, you will see the difference. And then go and meditate half an hour on a Picasso painting, and you will see the difference immediately. Half an hour, and the painting will start driving you mad. You will feel very uneasy, you will start feeling very very restless. You cannot look at Picasso's painting for half an hour.

In fact Picasso never had any paintings in his own room - even his own paintings. Once it happened, somebody asked, 'All people who can afford to, have your paintings in their drawing-rooms, in their bedrooms - why don't you have?' He laughed. Jokingly he said, 'Because I can't afford to.' But that is not the real thing. To have a Picasso painting in your bedroom means sure nightmares - it is dangerous. And Picasso must know. He is already suffering from those paintings; now more of them are not needed.

A new kind of art will enter into the world if a great majority of people become meditative, that will have grace, silence, that will have the quality of something transcendental. Watching it, looking at it, you will start evaporating into the skies. It will bring you the message of God; it will bring you the message of your own infinite possibilities.

Go and see the Taj Mahal - that is of that quality. The beauty is not just in its architecture, the beauty is something transcen-dental. In a full-moon night, just sitting by the Taj Mahal, you are transported to another world. You will come back calmer, quieter; you will feel a tranquility arising in you. It is a music in marble, it is poetry in marble - and poetry of the quality of the Upanishads, Gita, Dhammapada, Sermon on the Mount, Tao Te Ching.

That one-percent art will grow, if you grow in silence. But the neurotic, the pathological art will disappear. And it is good that it disappears.

Question 9:

Now this is a little bit too technical. And I wonder why somebody is so much concerned about this word 'bastard'. The question has come once in the past few days in another way; now it is here again. It seems that on somebody's conscience this word is sitting heavy - somebody is disturbed by this word.

But because you have asked, I will have to tell you a few things. Bastards come in all sizes and all shapes; basically they can he divided into three categories. First, a small anecdote, and then you will be able to understand them easily.

The excited couple had the county clerk rush filling in the marriage licences, and then they dashed over to the Justice of the Peace.

'I'm sorry,' said the Justice, when he looked at the licence, 'but it doesn't have the girl's name on it.'

'Can't you put it on?' asked the girl. 'No indeed,' said the Justice, 'you'll have to take it back to the county clerk.'

So they hurried back to the clerk, and when they returned to the Justice he looked at the licence again and said, 'There's no date on it.' 'But can't you....' 'Nope!'

So back to the clerk they went. Once more they appeared before the Justice, and this time he said, 'It doesn't have the county seal on it. And don't ask me to put the seal on. That's not my job. Take it back to the clerk.'

Thoroughly disgusted, the couple went back to the county clerk, and at last returned to the home of the Justice. 'Well, that's better,' said the Justice as he approved the licence. He then looked up and for the first time noticed a three-year-old boy with the couple.

'Whose boy is that?' he asked. 'Ours,' answered the girl. 'Yours? That means you had this child before you....'

'Yes,' said the boy's father. 'Before we were married.'

'Well, I suppose that's not my affair,' said the Justice, 'but I hope you realize that this boy is a technical bastard.'

'Isn't that strange,' retorted the young father. 'That's exactly what the county clerk said you were!'

So the first category is technical bastards. That means one is born only out of love, without any legal licence - one is born out of love without marriage. But that is not the worst kind. The worst kind is one who is born out of marriage without love. And that kind exists in millions; that is the major part of humanity.

That is the real bastard. This is just a technical bastard - a boy or a girl born out of sheer love.

Nothing is wrong in it; it is just a technical question, nothing basically wrong. It is a perfect child; it is how it should be.

In a better world, these people will not be called bastards - because it depends on the way you look at things. These people will be respected more than the people who are born only out of licence, marriage, legality, otherwise there was no love. Without love conceived, without love born - they are the real bastards. And these real bastards go on calling the first category 'bastards'.

But even that is not the worst. The really real bastard is a third kind who is born neither out of love nor out of marriage, just accidental. These are the three basic categories. But why are you worried?

If you are of the first kind, be perfectly happy.

I don't know why Jesus has not made a beatitude on bastards: 'Blessed are the bastards, because theirs is the kingdom of God, for they are born out of pure love.' Mm? he could have made this.

'Woe unto the real bastards! Because they are only born out of marriage, hence they will live in hell.'

And I don't know any other place where we can send the really real ones.

Don't be worried, don't take it seriously, don't let it crush you. Out of love, it's perfectly good - out of love is out of God. Marriage is a social invention, an institution. Sooner or later, marriage will disappear - SHOULD disappear. People should live in love. Why should people try to live in an institution? Why should people try to live in marriage? Marriage has been created because people are not responsible, marriage has been created because people are not loving. Marriage is a substitute - something is missing in people's real life, so marriage has been created.

Once you love a woman or a woman loves you, love is enough! Love will take care of itself. And if love cannot take care of itself, what else can take care? Then there is only a licence.

As I see it, out of a hundred marriages ninety-nine marriages are just licensed prostitution. They are not marriages. A marriage is only a real marriage when it grows out of love. Legal, illegal, does not matter. The real thing that matters is love. If love exists between two persons, it is blessed. If love does not exist between two persons, then all your laws put together cannot bridge them. Then they exist separate, then they exist apart, then they exist in conflict, then they exist always in war. And they create all kinds of trouble for each other. They are nasty to each other, nagging to each other, possessive of each other, violent, oppressive, dominating, dictatorial.

In a better world, with a better humanity, things will be different. In a better world, the child born out of love will not be called bastard; the child only born out of license, law, will be called bastard.