Come and Get It!

The first question

Question 1:

Dharmaraj,

Mind is misunderstanding - any kind of mind, good or bad, educated or uneducated, cultured or uncultured, Christian or Hindu; it does not matter what kind of mind it is. Mind as such is misunderstanding. Mind means you are carrying a priori conclusions; you are not seeing that which is, you are seeing that which you want to see. You are not seeing but projecting. Your mind is a projector; it uses everything as a kind of screen, it projects itself on the screen.

In the dim light you can see a rope as a snake. the snake does not exist; it is your fear projected, the rope becomes a screen. But for you the snake becomes as real as if it was really there. It can affect you - it will affect you. You may start trembling, you may start running, you may slip on a banana peel, you may fall down, you may have a heart attack - and all these things will be real. One can even be killed! And there was no snake at all. You created the whole thing, you invented it, you projected it.

The world that we know is not actually the world that is; it is the world that we are projecting. This is a misunderstanding. That's why the eastern mystics have called our world nothing but a maya, an

illusion. It does not mean that the rocks are not there, that the walls are not there and you can pass through them. It does not mean that the matter does not exist. It simply means that what exists is not known by you, and what is known by you is something else. Something certainly exists, but it remains unknown to the mind.

The mind is a barrier. It does not allow you to see, to feel, to know, to understand. It goes on creating misunderstanding, it is the source of all distortions. Hence, unless mind is put aside, understanding does not arise.

Understanding means a state of no-mind. That's what meditation is all about. Meditation is the art of putting the mind aside, not allowing it to interfere, not allowing it to stand between you and the real. When you face the real without any interference of any kind - philosophical, political, religious - when there is no idea between you and the real, when the real is simply reflected in you like a tree is reflected in the lake or the fac@ is reflected in a mirror, then there is understanding.

Understanding is a byproduct of meditation; misunderstanding is a shadow of the mind. And these are the only two ways a man can live: either one can live as a mind or one can live as meditation.

If you live as a mind you will be living in misunderstanding. But because millions of people around you are living also in the mind you never become aware that what you are doing to reality, how you are distorting it, how you are continuously avoiding it.

Rather than getting acquainted with it, how your mind is functioning as a barrier... it is not a bridge.

But if you live with people who have the similar minds like you... A Christian living among Christians will never feel that there is anything wrong in Christianity. The Hindu can see it very easily because he does not have the same projection. The Jew can see very easily; there is no problem in it. In fact, the Jew cannot understand how so many people are befooled by stupid doctrine. The Christian can see the foolishness of the Hindu - it is so obvious. The Hindu can see the mediocre ideology of the Mohammedans; not much intelligence is needed to see it. The Mohammedan can see the same in Hindus, Christians, Jews. They all go on quarreling with each other trying to prove that the other is wrong, but the reality is that mind is wrong.

That's the difference here. I am not telling you Hinduism is right or Christianity is right or Judaism is right. I am simply telling you mind is wrong and no-mind is right. Now, no-mind cannot have any adjective: it cannot be Hindu, cannot be Mohammedan, cannot be Christian. Mind can have an adjective. Mind will have an adjective, is bound to have an adjective. It will have a certain definition, a certain limitation. No-mind is vast like the great space; it is void, it is clear. It is clarity, it is transparency.

But we all live in our prejudices because we are all past-oriented. Whatsoever had been taught to us we go on repeating, whatsoever has been told to us we will go on telling to our children. That's how diseases are transferred from one generation to another generation. We call it heritage, we call it culture, religion, we call it our great past. Past is dead and to carry the dead is to become dead yourself.

To live in the present is the only way to be really alive and to be in tune with reality. God is always present, never past, never future. You cannot say "God was," you cannot say "God will be" - you can only say 'God is."

No-mind is: mind never is. Either it belongs to the past... You can look in, you can just try to find out.

I am not talking about any abstract theory, I am simply stating a fact. You can experiment with it. You can look into each of your thoughts and you will see from where it comes; it belongs to the past. Or maybe you have some desire for the future; that too is nothing but a modified past, a refined past.

But mind is never present.

And understanding means to be in tune with that which is, to be totally in tune, in accord with Tao, with God, with dhamma, with truth.

My sannyasins don't belong to any religion; they cannot belong. They belong to reality. They belong to the reality that is without and the reality that is within, and they live in a harmony between the without and the within. That harmony is the ultimate in understanding.

Buddha has called it wisdom, prajna. Buddha has said meditation is the means and wisdom is the end. Meditation is the tree and wisdom is its flowering. But people who go on carrying their prejudices, their ideologies, their political doctrines, their theologies, their nationalities, their pasts, remain stupid.

If you want to remain stupid, cling to the mind. The mind can become very sophisticated, but it is nothing but stupidity sophisticated. It is stupidity pretending to be intelligent; that's what we call intelligentsia, the so-called intellectuals. They are not really intelligent people, they are only pretenders. Professors, authors, philosophers, scholars, these are not intelligent people, otherwise they would have been Buddhas; they are only intellectuals. Their mind is stuffed with great information - and mind is capable of collecting great information.

The psychologists have found that a single mind-system has such potential, almost unimaginable potential of collecting information, that it looks that it cannot happen. How it can happen? The psychologists say that each single mind can contain all the information contained in all the books of the world. Of course then the person will look as a great intellect. Yes, he has a great deal of information - he has become a computer - but if you look into his life, if you look into his ordinary life or in moments when his information is of no use, where he has to face life and respond spontaneously, you will immediately see his mediocrity, his stupidity.

And it is a well-known fact that scholars, professors, philosophers, behave very stupidly in situations where spontaneity is needed. If you ask something that they know already, about which they have enough information, then they will look very great, intelligent persons. But just a small situation will be able to expose them.

A great scholar is staying in a hotel. He is very upset and complains to the clerk at the reception of the hotel. "What kind of hotel is this?" he cries. "There is no toilet paper in the bathroom."

"We are very sorry, sir. It must have been a mistake."

"This is too much! Last night I could not clean myself because there was no paper. You are a bunch of incompetents!"

The manager came to the rescue of the clerk. "Sir, you should have called room service. Don't you have a tongue?"

"Sure I have, but I am not a contortionist!"

A professor with a wooden eye stood alone in a corner at the dance. He was so self-conscious about his wooden eye that he hardly ever mixed with people. He was very sad and lonely. Then he spotted a girl across the room who was also alone. She had a huge wart on her nose.

"Well," he thought to himself, "she is no beauty with that wart and all, but never mind - maybe she would dance with me."

So he gathered up all his courage and walked over to her. "Would you... would you like to dance with me?" he stammered.

Her face brightened. "Would I! Would I!" she cried.

Offended, the professor yelled back, "Wart nose! Wart nose!"

Any small situation in which his information is not applicable, in which his scholarship has nothing to say, will be enough to expose his stupidity.

Dharmaraj, as far as Zen is concerned, mind is misunderstanding and no-mind is understanding. If you want to have understanding, move from mind to no-mind. Don't go on polishing the mind. That's what people are doing. You can go on polishing it your whole life; you will have a very polished mind in the end, but that will simply mean a very polished misunderstanding. It will be difficult for people to see - your stupidity will be very much hidden - but if you come across a Buddha then you will be exposed. Then his X-ray eyes will immediately see that you are just stupid and nothing else.

When Maulingaputta, a very great and famous scholar of Buddha's days, came to see him, he had come really to argue with him. He had come with his five hundred followers. These kind of people can always gather other stupid people who are impressed by their information. There are always enough fools in the world. If you are a fool don't lose heart - you can still become a guru because there are greater fools than you! And there is no end to it. You have just to gather courage and start bragging about your knowledge of the Vedas and the Bible and the Koran, and you will find many fools coming around you. They may not understand a Buddha - in fact they will not understand a Buddha - but they will understand you. Buddha will seem to be too far away, too far removed, almost as if living on some other planet. But you are very close to them; deep down you are the same person, of the same quality, only you have a greater quantity of information than they have.

And people become very much impressed by quantity. To see quality one needs understanding; to see quantity no understanding is needed. Any fool can see quantity.

Five hundred fools were following Maulingaputta and he was traveling all over the country defeating other scholars. Now only Buddha was left; he thought he had conquered everybody. That was a routine phenomenon in India, that scholars used to roam about in the country, discussing, arguing, debating, defeating, conquering. It is the same as others do with swords - they were doing with their sharpened minds. They were using their minds like swords, cutting each other's throats.

He came to Buddha, very arrogant, obviously, because he knew all the Vedas and all the Upanishads and he knew all the ancient lore. He was well-educated, well-cultured. He belonged to a very famous

family of scholars; for generations they had been famous. And his name was spreading like wildfire - and, of course, five hundred disciples coming with him.

Buddha looked at him, and the first thing he did - he laughed.

Maulingaputta was offended. He said, "Why are you laughing?"

Buddha said, "I am laughing because once I had stayed in a village for the rainy season..."

In the rainy season Buddha used to stay for four months because traveling was impossible. You can think of the roads twenty-five centuries before - Indian roads! Even now in the rainy season they are not worth traveling, and Buddha was traveling on foot and it was difficult, almost impossible. So he used to stay for four months in one place; eight months he will travel to spread his word.

Buddha said, "Once I was staying in a village for four months. Every day I used to see a man sitting in front of his house counting all the cows and the buffaloes and the bulls going to the river to drink water and coming back from the river. I became interested that why he goes counting every day how many cows, how many bulls, how many buffaloes, have gone to the river. So I asked him, 'What is the matter? Do these cows and the bulls and the buffaloes belong to you? Why you go on counting?'

"He said, 'No, they don't belong to me - they belong to the people of the village.'

" 'How many cows belong to you?' I asked him.

"He said, 'Nobody had ever asked me this. I am a poor man. I don't have even a single cow.'"

Buddha said, "Then why you go on counting? And you look so happy counting others' cows and bulls and buffaloes. Are you a fool? Why are you wasting your time? And every day! It is better to have one's own cow, even if one has only one cow, because that will give you milk and nourishment.

"Seeing you I remembered that man, Maulingaputta."

Maulingaputta said, "How am I related to that man? Are you mad or something? Why should you remember that man?"

And Buddha said, "I am remembering that man because whatsoever you know does not belong to you. These are other people's cows - the Vedas, the Upanishads. I can see your head is full of all kinds of things, beautiful sayings, wise sayings. They have made you look wise, but you are not a wise man. You tell me one thing: do you know or you are simply repeating the scriptures?"

The question had come in such a sudden way. Nobody had asked it before because Maulingaputta had never come across a Buddha. He was meeting other scholars who were counting also the same - others' cows and bulls and buffaloes - and of course he had counted more than they had counted.

And Buddha looked deep into him and he said, "Come close to me, let me look into your eyes and answer me honestly - is this your experience? Have you experienced God? Have you experienced samadhi? Have you experienced the truth?"

Maulingaputta felt ashamed, started looking down, could not raise his head in front of Buddha.

And Buddha said, "At least you are a sincere person, an honest person. I respect your sincerity - you cannot lie. Do you want to experience truth, or do you think it is enough that others have known and you can go on just repeating their words like a parrot?"

Maulingaputta said, "Yes, sir, I would like to know."

Then Buddha said, "Sit by my side and for two years remain absolutely silent - no talking, no questioning, no argumentation, no studying. Throw all your scriptures and for two years sit in silence by my side. After two years you can ask whatsoever you want to ask."

After those two years Buddha asked Maulingaputta, "Now do you want to ask anything?"

Maulingaputta bowed down, touched his feet and said, "I am grateful. The silence has taught me everything, that two years' silence sitting by your side. I have experienced. Now there is no need to say anything to me. I am yours, at your service. You have not argued, but you have conquered. You have not defeated me and yet you have defeated me."

Understanding arises out of silence; silence means no-mind. Misunderstanding is all kinds of noise in your mind. Dharmaraj, move from mind to no-mind, from noise to silence.

The second question

Question 2:

Narayandas Diwari,

IT IS GOOD, it is beautiful that you recognize, that you confess that you are a hypocrite. This is the beginning - the beginning of sincerity, the beginning of truth. Hypocrisy cannot remain long now any more. Hypocrisy can remain only if it goes on pretending that it is not hypocrisy. It exists by pretending to be that which it is not.

Once you recognize that you are wearing a mask, the mask has already started slipping. You have become aware that this is not your face. The mask can remain on your face only so long as you go on believing, pretending, deceiving others and yourself that it is your real face. And the problem is:

if you deceive others you will start deceiving yourself finally. The person who goes on being cunning with others sooner or later starts being cunning with himself He forgets the language of sincerity, authenticity, truth. He has been Lying so long that all he knows now is Lying; he goes on Lying. And if others start believing in his lies - because he becomes very clever in Lying - seeing that others are believing in his lies he starts believing in those lies himself; naturally, when so many people are believing, there must be some truth in it. How can you deceive so many people? People are not such fools!

This is the greatest problem of wearing masks: they become your faces. Slowly slowly the distance between the original face and the mask disappears, they become glued together, almost welded. In fact, to separate them will feel as if you are peeling your skin - it is painful, it is surgical.

But to be with a Master is to be on a surgical table. It is surgery because much that has accumulated around you which is false has to be cut, chunk by chunk. It hurts. It has become almost your second nature - your originality is completely forgotten - it has become far more important than the original.

Hence, the first thing I would like to say to you, Narayandas, is that this is good, tremendously good, that you accept. Otherwise it is very difficult, particularly for Indians, to accept that they are hypocrites. They are all hypocrites. For centuries they have lived in hypocrisy; that has become their way of life. Their mahatmas, their saints, their so-called great men, they all live in hypocrisy; and the smaller people naturally follow the so-called great. The hypocrisy has gone into the blood, into the bones, into the marrow.

It always happens to an ancient culture, and India is one of the most ancient cultures alive - not very much alive, of course, but still breathing; vegetating, almost in a coma, but still breathing. It has not died yet. That is a misfortune that it has not died, because if it had died something new would have been born.

There have been other great cultures which have disappeared from the world. Where is Babylon, Assyria? Gone, absolutely gone. Where is the ancient civilization of Egypt? The civilization that made the pyramids has disappeared completely. The ancient Chinese civilization is no more there.

Where is Greece and its great civilization, and the Roman culture? They all have disappeared.

If you look around the map of the world, the only ancient culture somehow still dragging is the Indian culture. It is so old, so crippled, so paralyzed, that it can only pretend. It has lost all courage to be true, to be adventurous, to be inquiring. It has become almost fossilized, it is a big graveyard.

But somehow the people who are in the grave are not completely dead; that is the trouble. If they were dead one is finished with them. They are somehow alive and they have gathered many lies meanwhile.

Have you watched this fact? - that children are never hypocrites, they cannot be! They simply say whatsoever is the case. As they grow they start telling lies; they have to, just to survive with the grown-up people, because the all grown-up people are Lying. And slowly the child starts seeing the fact that if you want to survive you have to lie.

My own approach about it was always this: whenever my father will ask me anything I will ask him another question immediately: "Do you want the truth? Are you ready to listen to the truth? Or you want something sweet? You decide!" If he asked me, "Have you done this? Had you jumped into somebody's well and were you taking bath in the well?" I will ask him immediately, "You just tell me one thing: do you want the truth? Are you ready to hear the truth? Are you ready not to punish the truth? Otherwise I was not in the well - somebody else - then you will have to prove!"

He was a very beautiful person. He will always tell me, "You can tell the truth and you will be protected." And I will tell him the truth, whatsoever it was. But sometimes he himself used to get into trouble because of me.

One day he said to me that, "You are sitting outside in the sun..." It was a winter cold morning. "Some person is going to see me and I don't want to see him today. He is such a bore and he will destroy my whole day, and it is very difficult to get rid of him. So you simply say him that, 'My father is not at home.' "

And the bore came and he asked me, "Where is your father?"

I said, "He is in, but he has told me to tell to the bore, because he is going to destroy his whole day, that he is not inside the house."

He became very angry. He went inside the house, found my father and said, "What is the matter?

What is your son saying?"

I went in and my father was in trouble because that bore was one of the richest men of the town and he could do harm in many ways.

My father said, "What have you told him?"

I said, "Do you want the truth?"

For a moment he hesitated because now it was going to cost him, but finally he decided. He said, "Yes, whatsoever he has said I had told him. Just I had forgotten to tell him not to tell it to you! But he did exactly the way I had told him. Now I am sorry, it was my fault. He has nothing to do with it."

Many times he was in difficulty because of me, but never he punished me for being true. Then there was no need for me to be untrue.

The same was my approach with my teachers, but they were not so courageous. Then I would tell them lies and I would say, "These are lies! But you want to listen lies and you protect lies and you support lies. You are creating a hypocrite in me!"

But that's how older people become: older they are, more cunning they become. And the same happens to a civilization: the older it is, the more cunning.

For example, Americans are more honest than any country for the simple reason because they are the newest people in the world, only three hundred years of history; it is nothing compared to the Indian ancient past. Even the very realistic historians say India has existed at least for ten thousand years; about that there are enough proofs. But there are other historians, who are not so accepted, who say that India has existed at least for ninety thousand years. And there is a possibility, because in the Vedas the description of a star is such that it had happened only ninety thousand years before.

The description is so exactly true that it cannot be just imagination, poetry. It is so scientifically true that it seems that the record is at least ninety thousand years old. And if the record is ninety thousand years old then the people whose record it is must have lived more than ninety thousand years. Now what is three hundred years? America is just like a small child; hence the truth, the authenticity.

You can ask an American girl, "how many times you have made love before you got married?" and she will answer. But no Indian woman will answer; it is impossible. Her whole life will be destroyed.

You can collect such data only in America, not in India. And Indian saints go on saying, "Look! In our country no girl ever loses her virginity" - because there is no data for it. You cannot collect data for the simple reason - not that it is true - for the simple reason that nobody is ready to say the truth.

Only in America you can find such data.

You can ask all kinds of questions to people and people are willing to answer sincerely, for no other reason than just to help the scientific survey. They are ready to risk their own personal lives. You can ask American husbands how many extra-marital relationships they are having, but you cannot ask an Indian husband. He will say, "What? Extra-marital relationships? Never thought about it, never dreamed about it!"

In the sweet young thing's opinion the bench was far too public. Her gallant immediately suggested that they change their seat to one some distance away where it was more discreet and darker too.

"And you will promise not to hug me?" she asked coyly.

Her lover nodded acquiescence.

"And you will promise not to kiss me?"

Again her lover nodded.

"Then what on earth's the use of going over there?" demanded the girl angrily.

This is how hypocrisy goes on working: it pretends one thing, it hides just the opposite of it.

A man arrived at his local pub for a Friday night drink. Just as he was about to open the door, a nun jumped out from the shadows and said fervently, "My son, stop before it is too late! This pub is the House of the Devil! Repent your sins and forget the demon drink!"

The man had a bright idea and said to the nun mischievously, "How can you condemn something that you have never experienced? Have you ever tried alcohol? Have you ever felt it is health-giving and has many good properties in it?"

"Never!" she cried. "I am a nun!"

After some very serious persuasion the drinker convinced the nun to try a little. "But wait," said the nun, "in these clothes I will be recognized. Why don't you bring some drink out to me in this old china cup?"

So the man entered the pub, walked up to the barman and said, "Evening, Jim. Give me a pint of your best and a large gin and tonic in this cup, please."

"By Christ!" exclaimed the barman. "Is that old nun hanging around outside my pub again?"

It is good, Narayandas Diwari, that you say:

I AM A HYPOCRITE. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

First see it clearly, watch it, all its subtle ways, its whole mechanism. It must have gone deep. You will have to be very aware of it. And nothing else is needed to be done - because if you do something, that will create repression.

I am not in favor of much doing. My whole effort here is to help you become more aware of things.

And the miracle of awareness is that whatsoever is wrong, the moment you become fully aware of it drops on its own accord, and whatsoever is right, when you become fully aware of it, it becomes your very being.

Awareness is the most alchemical phenomenon in the world.

And it is good that a recognition has happened; this is a good beginning. The seed has fallen in the soil. Just go on becoming more and more aware. Watch each act, each thought, each dream. And don't do anything - don't be in a hurry to do something. Just simply go on watching, taking notes what is happening inside you, how you are living your life. And slowly you will become aware of a change happening on its own accord. And when any change happens by itself it has a beauty of its own.

The third question

Question 3:

Dharmamurti,

Obviously!

The fourth question

Question 4:

Anand Eti,

Please don't be afraid of madness - for the simple reason because you are already mad! This world is such a vast madhouse. Every child is born sane, but cannot live sane long; it is impossible. He is brought up by other mad people, taught by other mad people, conditioned by other mad people. He is bound to become mad; just to survive he has to become mad.

Only once in a while there has been a sane person - a Buddha. a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus.

And the strangest thing is that these sane people look mad because the so-called mad are not really mad. The really mad are the so-called sane. The people who are put in the madhouses are simply very sensitive people, vulnerable people, delicate people, not so hard as the others who live in the marketplace. They are not so thick-skinned, that's why they break down. The thick-skinned go on living amongst all kinds of madness; they go on adjusting.

Man has infinite capacity to adjust himself, and each child learns to adjust with all kinds of things.

Just look in your own being, how many superstitions you have become adjusted to, how many stupid beliefs you are carrying. And it is not that there are not moments when you become aware of their stupidity, but those sane moments you put aside because they are dangerous moments. Yes, once in a while the window opens, but you immediately close it. You have to close it - you are afraid the neighbors may see that your window is open. You don't want to show your sanity to anybody.

Jesus says: Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God. What does he mean? He means: Unless you become again sane, as sane as every child is, you will not enter into my kingdom of God.

Anand Eti, don't be afraid of going mad - you cannot It has already happened! Now if you really want to be afraid of something it is of going sane. That's what can happen here. If you can go on hanging around here long enough, then you can become sane. But that sanity will be looked by others as insanity.

Kahlil Gibran has a beautiful parable about it:

A witch entered into a village. She said some abracadabra, threw some magical potion in the well of the village, and told to the people who were there, "Whosoever drinks the water of this well will go mad!"

Now in the village there were only two wells: one was for the public, for the common people, and the other was in the palace for the king and his queen and his vizier. The king was very happy:

"It is good that we are saved." But by the evening he became aware that it has not been a fortune.

He asked the vizier, his old, wise counselor, "Something has to be done immediately," because by evening the whole village had gone mad. They had to drink the water. How long can you remain thirsty? And there was no other water except that well. By evening the whole village became mad.

But by the evening a rumor started spreading in the village that the king, the vizier and the queen have become mad. The king's army has also gone mad, his bodyguards had gone mad, so he was absolutely unprotected.

And as the sun set, the whole village gathered around the palace shouting, "We don't want this mad king any more! We want to change him!"

The king asked his old, wise counselor, "What to do?"

He said, "Now there is only one thing that can be done. I will somehow keep them engaged - you run from the back door, drink the water from the well and come back."

The king and the queen ran from the back door. The vizier kept the people talking, kept them engaged. And he was waiting that the king and queen will come from the back door, but they didn't come from the back door. Why they should come from the back door? They had gone mad! They came from the front door - dancing! He saw them in the crowd; he could not believe his eyes. They were dancing with the people and the people said, "Look! Our king and our queen have become sane again!" And they celebrated the whole night.

The vizier had to run and drink the water. The whole night was a great festival. Of course they were happy that their king, their queen, their vizier, they all had become sane again. Now the whole village was sane again.

Buddha looks mad, Jesus looks mad. Now mad people like Sigmund Freud think that Jesus is neurotic! n nd Freud is neurotic, but he thinks Jesus is neurotic and he tries to prove it and he convinces many people. He has convinced almost the whole contemporary mind.

You ask me, Eti:

PLEASE TALK ABOUT THE FEAR OF GOING MAD.

The whole fear is absolutely unbased. You have already gone mad, otherwise you would not have been able to exist in the society. Whatsoever society you belong to, you have already become distorted. You are no more innocent; you are already corrupted and poisoned - by the priests, by the politicians, by the pedagogues. They have done the work; my function here is to undo it.

And there is no need to ask for proof. When I say the whole world is a madhouse, there is no need for me to prove it. You can just look around and you will find thousand and one proofs.

Mulla Nasruddin was saying to one of his friends the other day, "I gave a man one rupee note for saving my life."

"My goodness!" said the friend. "What did he do?"

"He gave me back seventy-five paise."

Dave and Mabel are sitting on the porch. Mabel says, "Jeez, you are a nice bloke, Dave. You love me? Do you really love me?"

"Yeh, I love you, Mabel."

"Would you die for me, Dave?"

"No, Mabel, mine is an undying love!"

Mulla Nasruddin was trying to hang himself. A friend was watching. He said, "Look, Nasruddin, if you want to hang yourself you have to put the rope around your neck, not under your arms!"

"Well," said Nasruddin, "I tried, but then I feel suffocating!"

An Australian ocker staggers out of a pub pissed to the gills, and spying a young woman standing on the street comer staggers up to her. "Wanna make love?" he asks.

She looks him up and down. "Nah," she replies, "not really."

"Well," he says, "how about lying down while I do?"

There were four blacks in a car going ninety miles an hour. The car careens out of control crashes into a brick wall. The auto's four occupants are strewn about the ground. By some miracle none is hurt, but all are still in a daze.

A policeman approaches the group and shouts, "All right! Who the hell was driving?"

"Nobody," said one of the men. "We was all in the back seat turning on!"

When Fidel Castro visited the United States, the security people were warned to only allow in people with Cuban credentials. When they asked what the Cuban credentials were they were told, "A beard and a cigar."

So first came Fidel Castro and behind him the others followed. The man behind him was wearing a beard and smoking a cigar and said, "Public relations," so they let him in.

Next came another man with a beard, smoking a cigar, who said, "Chief of Police."

"Come in," was the reply.

Next approached a man with no beard and no cigar. When he was stopped at the entrance, to identify himself he pulled at the front of his pants and said, "Secret Police!"

A Jewish army captain walks into a prostitute's parlor, marches up to the Madam and says, "How much would you charge for the pleasure of my company?"

"Twenty dollars, sir," she replies.

"Jolly good!" he says and walks across to the window, opens it and shouts, "Company, forward march!"

A man was badly injured in a car crash and had to be taken to hospital. When he opened his eyes, the doctor was standing by his side with a serious look on his face.

"Well," stammered the doctor, "I have some good news and some bad news for you. What do you want to hear first?"

"Give me the bad news first," replied the injured man.

"We had to remove one of your legs."

"Well," said the man, "I expected it. It was a bad accident."

"Yes," said the doctor, "but unfortunately we removed the wrong one!"

With tears rolling down his cheeks in a croaking voice the man asked, "So what is the good news?"

"Well," the doctor said cheerfully, "there is a guy in the bed next to you who wants to buy your slippers!"

And, Anand Eti, you think you can go mad in this world? You belong to this world, you are part of it!

You are already mad! Hence all fear is unfounded. Drop all fear.

Now try to understand the mechanism of your madness. Once you accept that you are already mad there is a possibility to go beyond it, but if you simply remain afraid of going mad then there is no possibility. That fear won't help you; that fear will go on driving you more and more mad. Fear itself is part of madness, otherwise there is nothing to fear. Death is absolutely certain; if there is anything certain in life that is death. Everything else is uncertain, only death is certain, so nothing to be worried about death. Old age is bound to come. Everything in life changes. The friends of today may be enemies tomorrow; the enemies of today may become friends tomorrow. The person you love most you may hate most; the person you hate today you may fall in love tomorrow. Life is a flux and you cannot hold anything static. So what is the point of fearing anything? One should simply live moment-to-moment, enjoying whatsoever is available.

Fear does not allow you to live totally; it always holds back. It never allows you intensity, passion, totality, wholeness; it keeps you divided. You love a woman and you love half-heartedly because you are afraid. Who knows where the love will land you, where it will lead you? You are always partial, fragmentary, and because you are partial and fragmentary nothing gives you the joy that it can give.

Fear is not going to help. Fear can drive you more and more crazy.

Rather than being afraid, become cool, calm. Drop this feverish state and become watchful. Once you accept a fundamental fact - that the society has already driven you mad - now the work to be done is how to get out of this unnatural state that society has forced upon you. And it is not difficult then, it is very simple. It is as simple as the snake slipping out of its old skin. Once you understand the mechanism of madness...

For example, these are the causes of madness; ambition is the root cause. Try to understand your ambitiousness; your effort to be somebody in the world will drive you mad. Just be nobody and then there is no problem. Drop ambitiousness and start living, because the ambitious person cannot live; he always postpones. His real life will always be tomorrow - and the tomorrow never comes.

The ambitious person is bound to be aggressive and violent, and the violent person and aggressive person are bound to go mad.

The non-ambitious person is peaceful, loving, compassionate. The ambitious person is always in a hurry, running, rushing towards something which he vaguely feels is there, but he will never find it.

It is like the horizon; it does not exist, it only appears. The non-ambitious person lives herenow, and to be herenow is to be sane. To be totally in this moment is to be sane.

Sanity means a state of peace, harmony, joy, blissfulness, benediction.

The fifth question

Question 5:

Reverend Banana,

SO DO I! You look terrible in the light!

The last question

Question 6:

Gyan Deva,

IT IS REALLY DIFFICULT not to be a Jew because to be a Jew is not only to be part of a certain culture, religion, tradition - there are Jews everywhere, in Hindus, in Mohammedans, in Christians - to be a Jew is more a psychology than a religion. Calculativeness is Jewishness, always to be calculating about life, always thinking in terms of business, in terms of money, in terms of profit.

That's what I call Jewishness.

All Jews are not Jews and all non-Jews are not non-Jews either. Jewishness is a far wider phenomenon. Hindus are confined to the Hindus, Mohammedans ar confined to the Mohammedans - Jews are spilled all over. It is something psychological, far more psychological than cultural. It is easy not to be a Hindu; you have just to get rid of your concepts. It is easy not to be a Christian, not to be a Mohammedan, not to be a Buddhist, but not to be a Jew is certainly difficult. It is something that has entered in everybody's very lifestyle.

We are all brought up to earn more, to achieve more, to snatch more. To give less and to get more - that is Jewishness. And it is really difficult to drop the idea, because that will mean a total transformation; it will be really a conversion. It will be something very fundamental, very basic. It has to do with dropping all our valuations.

For example, we value things which have some utilitarian purpose, we don't value things which serve no utility. We will have to shift our whole consciousness from the utilitarian to the non-utilitarian. A flower is far more valuable than a bayonet. This rain falling on the roof and the sound of it is far more valuable than all the money in the world. These green trees are far more valuable than having any worldly conquest - becoming Alexander the Great or Adolf Hitler, becoming a president of a country or a prime minister of a country. Just to enjoy a beautiful sunset i5 far more valuable than having a world-famous name. Being able to experience the wonder of nature or the splendor Or existence is far more valuable than getting the Nobel prize.

We have to shift the whole system of valuation. We have to unlearn the achieving mind, the ambitious mind, and we have to learn a totally new way of life, of enjoying, of rejoicing.

And that's exactly what Zen is. Its basic, most essential quality is the capacity to enjoy the ordinary, the very ordinary, with extraordinary perceptiveness. If somebody gives you the Kohinoor diamond of course you will appreciate it; but if somebody gives you just a marigold flower, you will say thank you but you don't mean really; it will be only a formality. You will not really feel grateful.

This is to be learned, this spirit has to be imbibed Your whole world vision will change. Then you cannot be achievers; then you will have to remain contented wherever you are, whatsoever you are. Nobody wants to remain where one is, whatsoever one is. Even it in the world, you start feeling contented, you start a new kind of desire, ambition for the other world. You start looking tor heavenly pleasures, tor paradise. It is the same game, it is the same mind!

Your saints are all Jews, all mahatmas are Jews, for the simple reason because they are trying to achieve something in the other world. They are gaining virtue, the are doing meritorious acts in order to gain something in the other world. They are really far more Jewish than the ordinary people. The ordinary people are asking tor ordinary things - money, power, prestige - your mahatmas condemn them as momentary. They are asking tor eternal joy for eternal bliss, for non-ending bliss. They are not going to be satisfied by small things. They call things of this world "toys"; real things belong to the other world. They are far more greedy - and greed is Jewish.

To be non-greedy simply means you have to live each moment for no motive at all, for the sheer joy of living, for the sheer joy of dancing, for the sheer joy of singing. Just as the flower blooms and the birds sing and the rivers flow, in the same way when you are also living moment-to-moment, for no reason at all, for no purpose at all, with no motivation, with no end, as if this is the first and the last moment and you are utterly contented with it, then Jewishness disappears.

Gyan Deva, you ask:

HOW NOT TO BE A JEW?

Be of the moment, live in the moment. Learn the art of remaining in the present. Neither the past exists nor the future. The past is no more, the future not yet; only the present is. Enter into the present with your totality, unmotivated.

And the miracle is, tremendous is going to be your joy. Yes, eternal is going to be your bliss. But remember, let me remind you, I am not saying that live in the moment so that you can attain to eternal bliss. If that is your idea then again you fall back into the old trap. It is a consequence, it is not an end. You cannot ask it. It is a byproduct, it comes by itself You need not bother about it.

I loved swimming in my childhood days, so much so... and particularly in the rainy season when the river of my village becomes almost oceanic, it swells and becomes so big. It is a wild river. All the mountains pour their water in it. In the rains I was almost the whole day in the river.

Other friends used to ask me, "There must be something in it - why you go on swimming in the river for hours?"

And I used to tell them, "It is the greatest bliss I have known." And just in order to taste something of it they will come with me. And after a few minutes they will say, "We don't get anything at all, so we are going and we are shivering and we don't see any bliss anywhere. And the danger is there - the river is so wild you tell us to cross it, to go to the other side."

And the torrents were so strong that it used to take almost one mile for me to reach the other shore and then walk one mile up, then I will reach to the point from where I can jump again back in to reach my home.

They said, "This is all dangerous. And so much mud is there and so many thorns, and life is in danger, and we feel almost that the river is going to kill us And we don't see any bliss."

And when one young man really lost his life... he had also gone there to find bliss with me. His name was Hari. When Haridas came to me I gave him the name Haridas in remembrance of him, because he looked almost like Haridas. And whenever I look at Haridas I always smile - I remember him. He simply got lost into the river. We tried hard for two, three days; we could not find even his corpse.

Since that time I was there alone; then nobody will come to find bliss in the river. And they will say that I am mad, and they were right in a way, because they were coming only to seek bliss and my joy was to swim in the river, to be in the river, to flow with the river, to go with the river wherever it was taking me. And bliss was just a byproduct. Bliss is always a byproduct.

Ask the dancer; he will say there is great bliss. But if you dance to gain bliss you will simply get tired; you will not find any bliss. Ask the singer, ask the musician. And you will simply perspire and you will simply feel tired in the throat. There is bliss only for those who are singing for singing's sake, who are not looking for anything - they get it.

This is one of the most fundamental laws of life. Ais dhammo sanantano - this is the fundamental law - Buddha says that you cannot directly find bliss; it comes always as a byproduct, as a shadow.

You love, and there will be bliss; but don't seek bliss in love, otherwise bliss will not be found and love will disappear.

So when I say that live in the moment and all bliss will be yours, don't misunderstand me. I am not saying live in the moment so that you can get bliss. I am not saying live in the moment because that is the way to get to bliss. If that is your argument you will miss and then you will say that I was not right. I am saying live in the moment and you will suddenly find, from nowhere, bliss descending on you.

And once you have tasted then all Jewishness disappears, all greed disappears, because it comes and fills you so much that there is no place for anything else - for greed, for jealousy, for competitiveness, for ambition, for future, for past. It fills all the nooks and comers of your being. It overfills you, it starts overflowing you.

Gyan Deva, learn to live in the moment for its own sake, for its own joy, and you are in for a great surprise. You can call that surprise Tao, dhamma, God, nirvana, enlightenment, bliss, or whatsoever is your choice of the word. It has no name; it is a nameless experience.