Get It?

The first question

Question 1:

Sant Maharaj,

WHAT IS THE MATTER? Are you really becoming a celibate? It happens to celibates: their interest starts changing from women to food. You can look around the Indian sannyasins, the so-called mahatmas, and you will always find them very fat, with big bellies. And the reason is that their whole sexuality becomes perverted. They start focusing their libido on food.

Food and sex are deeply related, very intimately related, from the very beginning. Food is necessary for the survival of the individual and sex is necessary for the survival of the species. Sex is exactly like food for the species and food is like sex for the individual. Without food the individual will die, without sex the species will die.

If you start repressing your sexuality, then the natural shift is from love to lunch! It is not coincidental.

You look at the picture of Swami Shivananda Maharaj. His whole life he was talking about Yoga and meditation, but seeing the picture it seems he was only eating and eating and eating. He could not

walk - became so fat. He could not raise his own hands; they became so heavy that two persons had to carry his hands!

And have you looked at the statue or the picture of Muktananda's guru, Nityananda? The man has defeated all the swamis and all the mahatmas of all the ages! If you look at the statue of Nityananda... Once when I was passing by the side of Muktananda's ashram he invited me.Just to have a look I went there. He showed me the statue of Nityananda and I told him - and since then he has been very angry - I told him, "This man is really a miracle!"

He said, "What do you mean?" He must have thought that I am talking about siddhis and yoga powers.

I said, "Please don't Misunderstand me. This man is a miracle in the sense that I have seen tat people with big bellies, but still they are not miracles - the man has a belly. Here it is just the opposite - the belly has the man! The man seems to be just an appendix! just somehow added; otherwise the real thing seems to be the belly."

Sant Maharaj, don't become so much interested in lunch; it is dangerous.

Unless brahmacharya, celibacy, happens on is own accord, as a consequence of deep awareness, it is going to become focused on something or other; it is going to find out an outlet. And food is very close.

The child becomes from the very beginning associated with the idea of food and love. They become almost like two aspects of the same coin, because he gets the love from the mother and also food from the mother. His love object and his food object is the same. Not only the mother but the breast in particular: he gets the food from the breast and the warmth and the feel of love.

There is a difference: when the mother loves the child. the breast has a different feel and different vibe. The mother enjoys the child feeding on her breast; it is stimulating to the mother's sexuality. If the mother is really in love with the child she goes almost in an orgasmic joy. Her breasts are very sensitive; they are the most erotic zones of her body. She starts glowing and the child can feel it.

The child becomes aware of the phenomenon that the mother is enjoying. She is not simply feeding him, she is enjoying it.

But when the mother gives the breast just out of necessity, then the breast is cold; there is no warmth in it. The mother is unwilling, she is in a hurry. She wants to snatch the breast away as quickly as possible. And the child feels that. It is so apparent that the mother is cold, she is unloving, she is not warm. She is not really a mother. The child seems to be unwanted, feels unwanted.

The child feels wanted only when the mother enjoys the child feeding on the breast, when it becomes almost a loving relationship, almost an orgasmic relationship. Only then the child feels love from the mother, needed by the mother. And to be needed by the mother is to be needed by existence because the mother is his whole existence; he knows the existence through the mother. Whatsoever is his idea about the mother is going to be his idea of the world.

A child who has not been loved by the mother will find himself alienated in existence; he will find himself an outsider, a stranger. He cannot believe in God, he cannot trust in existence. He could

not even trust in his own mother, how can he trust in anybody else? Trust becomes impossible. He doubts, he is suspicious; he is continuously on guard, afraid, scared. He finds everywhere enemies, competitors. He is every moment afraid of being crushed and destroyed. The world does not seem to him to be a home at all. He cannot be religious, remember.

Religion is born, the first glimpse of religion happens to the child in his relationship with the mother.

If that relationship is poisoned then something in the very source is poisoned. Then it becomes very difficult to bring religion to the child. Then he needs great psychotherapy. then he needs a long, long, arduous. painful process of moving backwards so that he can unwind all his ugly memories, attuned with any religious approach towards existence.

Atheism is born with his relationship - the first relationship. the first acquaintance - and that is with the mother, particularly the breasts of the mother. If the mother is happy, rejoices in feeding the child. then the child never eats too much because he trusts; he knows the mother is always there.

Any time he is hungry his needs will be fulfilled. He never eats too much.

A well-loved child remains healthy. He is neither thin nor fat; he keeps a balance. But if the mother is cold, if the mother is unwilling, then the child starts stuffing himself too much because he is afraid - who knows the next hour the mother will be available or not? He fills himself to his total capacity; his belly starts becoming bigger.

All poor children have bigger bellies for the simple reason the mother will be going to the work the whole day; they will miss the mother. She may come by the evening - tired, exhausted, not in a mood to love or to be warm. The child will look like a burden. And once the child's association has moved from love to food, then his whole life will be an unnecessary complexity.

It is not accidental that in India where celibacy has been propounded for centuries, exalted by centuries, people have become food addicts. So many spices you will not find anywhere else in the world, and so many kinds of food. The reason is that people's love life is starved and they have to fill it somehow, stuff it somehow with food.

Two middle-aged men were discussing their diminished libido. One said to the other, "Yes, food is replacing sex as the great fascination in my life. As a matter of fact, I am having a mirror installed over the kitchen table next week!"

But I hope that you don't literally mean, Sant, your question. I take it in a metaphorical way. Then it is okay. If you mean that, what am I cooking for you today? then it is okay, because I am constantly worried who is going to ring the bells of Jerusalem on the gate! If you become a Nityananda, Akandananda, Shivananda - and you can - you are a Punjabi, big body, you can defeat all these "nandas". If you really become interested in food you can come on the top! But I think your question is metaphorical.

Jack was telling his buddy that he met a girl who didn't know the difference between Caesar salad and sexual intercourse.

"Did you explain it to her?" his buddy asked.

"Hell, no! But I have lunch with her every day!"

If that is your meaning of lunch, then it is perfectly okay. With my blessings go ahead.

The second question

Question 2:

Sarjano,

IT IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, because man is the only animal who feels boredom. Buffaloes don't feel it, although they look very much bored. Donkeys don't feel it, although they too look very much bored. Except man, nobody feels boredom; and even as far as man is concerned, all men don't feel boredom. It needs intelligence to feel boredom, so very few, the most intelligent people in the world, feel boredom. Buddha felt it, Mahavira felt it. The rarest people feel boredom because it needs tremendous intelligence to experience it. So in a way it is not a curse, it is a blessing.

It is out of boredom that the inquiry for the meaning of life arises. Those who have felt bored simply show that whatsoever ordinary meanings life has, are no longer fulfilling for them. There are people who are perfectly happy with money, accumulating more and more money, and they seem to be immensely interested in it, perfectly happy with their search for more. These are not really developed human beings: they are the most mediocre human being, the lowest kind. Their intelligence has not yet become a flowering; it is still in the seed, only a potential.

You can see it. The people who are greedy may be clever and cunning - they have to be - but you will never see any intelligence in them. You will not see the sharpness, you will not see any creativity in them. You will not see any fragrance in their lives; they will stink. The greedy person stinks.

And so is the case with the power-hungry, the politician, who is always running after more and more powerful positions, far higher status, who wants to become the president or the prime minister, whose whole life is devoted to the single purpose of dominating people.

These people are dull people. Their life is that of the ugliest form. They don't have any sense of beauty, poetry, music. They don't have any sense for aesthetics Their whole interest is in bigger chairs, as if by sitting on bigger chairs they will become bigger, as if by becoming a president of a country they will have attained some spiritual integrity, as if by dominating millions of people they will become masters of their own being. They are empty people, hollow; their inner life is utterly dark.

But you will never see them bored. They are always on the go, always interested in stupid efforts of gaining power, prestige, money. But they are contented; if they are succeeding you will see them very joyous.

It is the most intelligent people who feel boredom, who cannot see any meaning in money. Of course, there is certain utility in money, but no meaning. Who cannot see any meaning, any significance, in power politics, in ego trips, who can see the utter futility of it all - now for people of such intelligence the greatest problem in life will be boredom.

The first thing, Sarjano, I would like to tell you is: feel blessed. This is a symptom of a higher intelligence. Out of this boredom the person starts moving inwards; finding everything futile on the outside he turns in - because there is nowhere else to go. His intelligence is so clear, so transparent that he can see that he can have all the money of the world, still he will be the same person. He can have all the power of the world, still he would not have become a new being through it, he will not be reborn. He can have all the knowledge that is available, but still he will remain the same stupid person inside; his knowledge will be just parrotlike. He will repeat beautiful cliches without exactly knowing their meaning, because their meaning can be known only through experience of one's own. He can talk like Jesus, he can sermonize on the kingdom of God that is within, but he has no glimpse of it. He has learned only mere words.

The intelligent person becomes aware very soon that "All this is an exercise is sheer futility. Nothing on the outside can ever give me an inner fulfillment, an inner sense of significance." And unless that is experienced, boredom will remain and will become heavier every day.

Now there are two possibilities. One is the western possibility. If you look only through reason then you will never find any meaning in life; then boredom will become more and more acute, chronic. It will pervade your whole existence, it will permeate each moment of your life. It will not allow you to live at all. It will become such a burden that suicide will seem to be the only possible way out.

That's what Fyodor Dostoevsky says: that "If I can meet God, the only thing I am going to say to him is, 'Why you created me? For what? And without even asking me! Is this right?' And the only thing I want to see God for is to give him the ticket back. I don't want to be a part in this futile, meaningless existence."

Marcel says, "The only real metaphysical problem is the problem of suicide. Why man should go on living? For what?" If you look only through the head, only through the reason... that's what the western approach has been up to now. It is head-oriented, it is rational, it is Aristotelian, it is logical. It has given great technology and science, but it cannot provide meaning for your life. Life has become more and more boring; people are utterly bored. They go on living because they are cowards, because they cannot gather courage enough to destroy themselves, so somehow they go on pulling, dragging. West has come to a cul-de-sac; the road ends. Now there is no more possibility for western approach to grow.

But the East has a totally different alternative. When the mind fails, when the reason fails, it does not mean that life has failed. It simply means that whatsoever reason could do it has done; now you have to look for deeper realms of your being - and there are deeper realms. Deeper than your mind is your heart. Deeper than logic is love. Deeper than science is art. Deeper than mathematics is music.

The East drops the mind, not life, and starts moving into the heart, into the world of feelings. And then suddenly great meaning arises, the boredom starts disappearing. And remember, the heart is

not your innermost core either; it is only a midway rest. Moving from the mind to the being, the heart is exactly in between. When you have reached to the heart then you will become aware that there is a still deeper layer. But the heart will fill your life with joy, with great thrill, with excitement. The boredom will be gone, and with the boredom gone you will become aware of a deeper realm, the deepest: the dimension of your being, your innermost core. That innermost core fulfills you totally, absolutely. Reaching it is the goal of sannyas. Reaching it is the purpose of meditation.

Sarjano, move from the head to the heart. But the heart has to be used only as a stepping-stone.

The head gives you science, the heart gives you art; and the being, which is beyond the both, gives you religion. Religion is bliss, ecstasy, and we are searching for it.

The feeling of boredom simply shows that you are ready to go for the inner journey; if you don't go you will feel stuck. Now the head cannot fulfill your longing. The heart will give you something, a glimpse, a window will open. You will know something of the sky through the window, something of the stars, something of the moon and the sun and the wind and the rain and the flowers, but only through the window. You have to come out of the window too, under the sky, because when you look from the window everything is framed - and the frame is false. If you look from the window towards the starry sky, it feels as if the sky is framed, as if the sky has a limitation, a boundary.

When you reach to your innermost core, all the boundaries disappear... you have entered the unlimited, the unbounded, the infinite. That infinite is called God.

Boredom is a blessing. It is a goading for the search. It is a goading towards God, towards Tao. The western approach has failed; it has come to a point that now there is no more to go. The West is stuck, but the eastern approach has not failed and it is never going to fail. But the West can also move towards the East only when its approach fails. Now the time has come that the West can understand the East and the meeting can happen.

I am not against reason. Whatsoever reason can give it has to be used as a means, but one thing is certain: don't ask for things which it cannot give to you. It cannot give meaning, it cannot give significance, it cannot give dignity, it cannot give you your ultimate flowering. That is possible only through meditation, through discovering your innermost self, your ultimate, eternal being which is never born and never dies.

Use boredom as a jumping-stone towards the ultimate and then you will feel grateful, even grateful to the experience of boredom - which is painful, full of anguish. But the wise man can transform even misery into bliss, and the fool goes on destroying all opportunities for bliss and goes on creating misery out of the energy which could have created a paradise within you. The paradise is already there just you have to take a one hundred-eighty-degree turn.

The third question

Question 3:

Okay, Prem Upachara, I have found a joke for you:

The will of an eccentric millionaire read:

"To my wife, I leave her her gigolo and the knowledge that I was not the fool she thought I was. To my son, I leave the pleasure of earning a living. For the past thirty years he has thought the pleasure was all mine. He was mistaken. To my daughter, I leave one hundred thousand dollars. She will need it. The only smart thing that her husband ever did was to marry her. To my valet I leave the clothes he has been stealing from me regularly for the last ten years and also my fur coat he wore last winter when I was in Palm Beach. To my chauffeur I leave my Rolls Royce and station wagon - he has almost ruined them and I want him to have the satisfaction of finishing the job. And lastly, before I forget, hello to you, John, my beloved friend who always used to say that I will forget you in my will. I have not forgotten you. Hello again!"

So, hello, Upchara!

The fourth question

Question 4:

Ramchandra,

Man is very clever in finding rationalizations. You have heard my voice - and I have no knowledge that I have ever spoken to you. It must have been somebody else's voice. Please relieve me of the responsibility. It must have been your own voice. To avoid sannyas you are thinking I have already initiated you inwardly? Then to all my sannyasins I am deceiving, giving them outer sannyas? And to you, sir, I have given you the inner sannyas - only to you? And I don't even know about you, who you are, never heard you before. And what do you mean by "inner sannyas"? But man is so cunning.

I am not saying that you are Lying. You may have deceived yourself; you may have believed that I have given you the inner sannyas and now there is no need for the outer sannyas. Then why you have asked this question? You could have asked inwardly and I was bound to answer inwardly.

When things are happening on such a subtle plane, why you have bothered to write it? Why you have come here at all? There is no need.

You are also aware somewhere that you are a coward, otherwise there is no need. Nobody is telling you to become a sannyasin, at least I have not told you to become a sannyasin. Nobody is calling you a coward either.

You say:

I AM NOT A COWARD.

Why? You must be feeling it, that you are a coward. All these tricks are very ancient tricks. Food you need from the outside; you don't eat inner food. Clothes you need from the outside; you don't produce inner clothes. Medicine you need from the outside; you go to a physician. Sannyas you take inwardly. Money you will have to earn on the outside. Everything else you will do on the outside, and sannyas you will do inwardly.

Why not be at least clear about it, that you don't want to take it? Who is forcing you? But no, you want both the worlds together. You want to feel that you are a sannyasin, that you are a great inward seeker, an adventurer, an explorer of consciousness, that you are not an ordinary person engaged in mundane activities, your real work is spiritual. But you are a coward too; you don't want to risk anything for it.

Particularly my sannyas is risky. It has always been so, whenever a Master is alive, to be related to him is risky. When he is gone, then to be related to the past is never a risk; it is convenient.

When Jesus lived only very few people gathered courage to be with him. And now almost half of the world is "with Jesus". But only those few people were with Jesus; this half of the world is not with Jesus. It is with the past, with the dead, with the tradition, with the convention. Now it is convenient to be a Christian, very convenient. It helps you in the world, it does not hinder you. In those days, it was risking your life when Jesus was alive. When Buddha was alive it was dangerous. So has been always the case.

To be with a living Master means to be in tune with truth. And truth believes in no traditions, in no conventions, in no conformities. Truth is rebellious. And unless you are a rebel, unless you are ready to die for rebellion, you cannot be with a living Master, you cannot afford to be with a living Master.

Then you can have a picture of a dead Master, you can worship the statue of a dead Master, you can create a fiction around the dead Master of your own choice to your heart's content; whatsoever you want you can impose on him. You can make him as sweet and nice as you want. Real Masters are totally different.

Talmud says one very beautiful thing about God. I have never come across such a tremendously significant statement anywhere else. Talmud says: "God is not nice, God is not your uncle." To be with him is dangerous. But you can create your own God who is very nice, who is your uncle, and you can manage him the way you like him. It is very easy. You can do anything to the statue of a Buddha or the statue of a Mahavira; whatsoever you want to do you can do.

I was staying in a village and I came to know that the Jain temple has been locked by the police.

Because there are two sects of the Jains, the followers of Mahavira, just like Protestants and Catholics. The differences are very tiny, of no significance at all, between the Svetambaras and the Digambaras, the two sects of the Jains. The differences are so silly that to fight for them seems to be the rock bottom of stupidity.

For example, the Svetambaras worship Mahavira with eyes open, his statue with eyes open, and the Digambaras worship his statue with eyes closed. And nobody asks poor Mahavira. As far as I can see, sometimes he must be closing his eyes and sometimes opening. So you can worship him

in both ways, there is no problem. At least in the night he must have been closing his eyes, so what is wrong in worshipping him with closed eyes. And there is nothing wrong in worshipping him with open eyes. He is the same person with open eyes or closed eyes.

The village was small and there was only one Jain temple, and the two sects had both contributed to make the temple. They had divided the time: up to twelve o'clock one sect will worship, after twelve another sect. But sometimes it will happen some mischievous person will go on doing his worship even after twelve: just to create trouble will not remove the eyes. False eyes have to be fixed because the statue is with dosed eyes, so you have to fix false eyes on Mahavira and then worship him, and when the other sect comes you remove the eyes and they worship him. But sometimes a mischievous person will not remove the eyes and will go on praying and will go on praying.

It became so much that one day there was a great fight. They started beating each other - the believers in nonviolence! There was blood in the temple. Even if Mahavira had had his open eyes - must have closed immediately seeing all this nonsense! The police had to lock the temple; now the key was with the police. And for three years the temple has remained under police custody; nobody can worship. Poor Mahavira is imprisoned inside the temple.

This you can do with a statue, but not with a living Master. To be with a Mahavira is dangerous. He lived naked, he moved naked. People will beat him, people will chase him out of their towns, people will put their dogs behind him. He was tortured in every way. And when he died, the same people started worshipping - the same people.

You are saying you are not a coward? It is risky to be with me. Your wife will create trouble, Ramchandra, your family will create trouble, your parents will create trouble. If you are in some service, your boss will create trouble. Your society will create trouble. You will by boycotted by people; they will think you have gone crazy.

So you have made a compromise. You want to take sannyas, otherwise the question would not have arisen at all, but now you are playing a trick with yourself, rationalizing it, saying that "I am not a coward." It is better to realize that you are a coward, because with that realization you can get out of your cowardliness. To recognize that "I am a coward" is the beginning of courage; otherwise you will remain almost unconscious of the fact, if you go on pretending. Even unconscious people don't readily accept that they are unconscious. Even mad people don't accept at all that they are mad.

Obviously intoxicated, a man was hunched over the bar, toothpick in hand, spearing at the olive in his drink. A dozen times it eluded him. Finally the patron on the next stool became exasperated and grabbed the toothpick.

"Here, this is how you do it," he said, and easily skewered the olive.

"Big deal," muttered the drunk. "I already had him so tired out, he could not get away."

Nobody is willing to accept anything. Even if you are drunk you will not accept it; you will rationalize it in some way or other.

An amorous Frenchman took his secretary to stay with him while his wife was weekending with friends. Just before they went to bed the girl said she had forgotten to take the Pill.

"What can we do to make sure I don't get pregnant?" the worried girl asked.

"Why don't you use my wife's diaphragm?" he suggested.

They looked all over for it but could not find it.

"Imagine that," he said indignantly. "The bitch doesn't trust me - she took it with her."

A lorry driver arrived home very late one night to find his wife waiting for him, fire in her eyes and rolling pin in her hand.

"So," she shouted. "where have you been?"

'Well, you see," he replied, "I picked up this young witch on the highway to Maidstone. She had to be a witch because every time she put her hand on my knee I turned into a rest stop."

Get it? You say:

I AM NOT A COWARD, ALTHOUGH IT IS TRUE THAT I HAVE NOT BECOME A SANNYASIN YET.

With whom you are talking? Who is asking you at all, Ramchandra? You say:

I THINK THAT I DO NOT NEED ANY OUTER INITIATION.

Very good! So I am relieved of a burden. My Noah's Ark is already full.

You say:

I AM ALREADY INITIATED BY YOU INWARDLY.

If you say I have to agree. I will not like to disappoint you. Good that you are already initiated by me inwardly.

You say:

I HAVE HEARD YOUR VOICE SPEAKING TO ME FROM MY VERY INNERMOST CORE.

Please stop coming here, don't waste your time - you can hear my voice anywhere you are.

But your whole question shows something else; you are trying to deceive yourself See clearly that you want to become a sannyasin, but you don't have the guts; that you would like to become a sannyasin like other sannyasins, but you are afraid of the implications.

And Indians have become a cowardly race, otherwise why they lived for two thousand years in slavery? Such a vast and big country was dominated by small countries, and without much effort either, for the simple reason that the whole country has become cowardly and the whole country has become very much cunning and clever in rationalizing. When somebody conquered the country the

Indians said, "What can we do? That is God's will. Nothing can happen without his will. Not even a single grass leaf can move without his will, so if we are slaves that must be his will. It is our fate."

These are all rationalizations. Now you are poor, the poorest in the world, and still you are rationalizing that this is because of your past bad karmas that you are suffering. As if all the people with bad karmas are born only in India; they don't go to America. As if the souls have not yet come to know that Columbus has discovered America! They don't go to Soviet Russia; souls seem to be very much afraid of communism. They don't go to Europe, they don't go even to Japan. All the bad souls come to India. Is this hell or something that they are sent here to suffer? But you are rationalizing, nothing else. You have lost all courage to encounter any situation, to face any problem authentically, sincerely. You have become clever in avoiding.

Ramchandra, whether you become a sannyasin or not, that is not my interest. I am not interested in converting people into sannyas. I am not a missionary. But you have to be at least sincere with yourself. If you don't have courage, recognize that you don't have courage. If you are a coward, recognize you are a coward. But don't play around with beautiful words, don't make those beautiful words ugly: "inner", "the innermost core", "the inner voice". These are very significant words; don't destroy them and their beauty.

The fifth question

Question 5:

The bulls don't like them!

The sixth question

Question 6:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, Anand Joaquin!

And for your birthday, few jokes. Your name reminded me of these jokes, otherwise I have not been talking about the Portuguese.

Every evening when Joaquin comes home from work, he sees a long queue of men waiting outside his house, waiting to go in and make love to his wife. Finally a friend approaches him and says, "How can you live with such a wife? If I were you, I would divorce her immediately!"

"Eh, are you crazy? If I divorce her I will have to wait at the end of the queue myself!"

While waiting for his turn in a whorehouse, the guy began to chat with the owner, a very nice Portuguese.

"Mr. Joaquin," says the guy, "in your opinion, what does the success of your establishment rely upon?"

"To the diversity of the service we offer," replied the Portuguese. "Here you can find what you want.

If you want a good woman, you get it. If you want a girl, you get it. If you want a gay, you get it."

"So this business is highly profitable?" he asked.

"Oh, yes! But in the beginning it was hard."

"Why, Mr. Joaquin?"

"Imagine... in the beginning there was just my wife, my daughter, and me!"

During World War II, a German regiment was fighting against a Portuguese one when suddenly a German shouted, "O Joaquin!"

Half of the Portuguese soldiers stood up and said, "Yes?"

Ta... ta... ta... they were all killed.

Then again a German soldier shouted, "O Manuel!"

And again more Portuguese soldiers stood up and replied, "Yes?"

Ta... ta... ta... they were all killed.

Indignant with the mean strategy used by the Nazis, the only Portuguese survivor shouted, "Fritz!"

The whole German regiment stood up and replied, "There is no Fritz here!" To which the Portuguese angrily replied, "Aie, aie, if only there were!"

Joaquin and Maria had been married a few years but had no children. At last, tired of all the inquiries that friends and relatives were making about an heir, they decided to consult a doctor.

The doctor examined Maria and found to his surprise that she was still a virgin.

"How can you expect to have children if you don't have intercourse?" he demanded.

"What the hell is that, doctor?" asked Joaquin.

"You don't know what intercourse is?" asked the amazed doctor. "Do you want me to show you?"

"Of course, doctor, that's why we are here!"

So the doctor made love to Maria, after which a confused and surprised Joaquin asked, "So now we can have children?"

"But of course, my friend," smiled the doctor.

"Okay," replied the relieved Joaquin. "We will come back next year for the second son."

And the last:

Joaquin took his girlfriend on a picnic. On the way their car had a flat. So they went in the back and jacked and jacked and jacked. Then they got out and fixed the flat.

When they were sitting in the park, a little kid hit Joaquin's girlfriend in the tit and broke three of his fingers. And when he was kissing her good night, she crossed her legs and broke his glasses.

Happy birthday to you, Joaquin The seventh question

Question 7:

Girijanandan,

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO THINK ABOUT? About men? Man, are you mad? It is absolutely natural. The psychologists say that every three seconds a man thinks about a woman. They don't know about the Indians - they don't stop thinking at all. This three-second limit is not applicable to Indians; the Indian psyche has to be explored. Centuries of repression has made them think continuously of women. The women think of men once each six seconds; that makes the whole trouble - the difference is vast. That creates the conflict, the struggle, the fight between wives and husbands. All women all over the world think that men are just sinners and naturally, because they think twice. All women seem to be holier.

It is natural. It disappears, but you cannot make it disappear. If you try to make it disappear it becomes more stubborn, more persistent, more perverted.

Unless you become enlightened you are bound to think of women if you are a man, of men if you are a woman. And nothing is wrong in it! But you have been told from your very childhood stupid things, unnatural things, and they are still hanging around you. You are not yet finished with all that nonsense, and unless you are finished with that nonsense you will never be a grown-up person.

One boy was saying to the other, "My father used to say that I should not go the whorehouse."

"Why?" asked his friend.

"He said that if I went to those kinds of places I would end up seeing things that I should not see."

"And did you go?"

"Yes."

"And what did you see there?"

"My father!"

Your parents are corrupting you, your society is corrupting you, your priests, your politicians are corrupting you. And this has gone for thousands of years; it has become a routine phenomenon. So naturally, when you start thinking of women you feel guilty. Guilt does not help you to get rid of the desire for women; it simply makes your joy poisoned.

That's what Friedrich Nietzsche says... and I have come across many beautiful insights in Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a madman, but sometimes it happens that mad people have truer insights than the so-called sane people, because the sane people think of thousand and one things before they assert anything; they are always ready to compromise. Mad people go on saying things: whether those things go against the tradition, convention, whether those statements make their lives difficult to live; but they are mad enough and they go on saying.

It is good that once in a while people like Friedrich Nietzsche are born in the world: they keep truth alive. Of course they suffer much - he went mad. In a better society, in a normal society, in a healthy society, he would have been respected, but he went mad because he was tortured in every possible way, because all those people who live on lies, who live only on lies, their very foundations are laid on lies, cannot tolerate such people.

Friedrich Nietzsche says, "The priests have not been able to help man get rid of sex, but they have been able to poison his joy of sex." And that has created a great difficulty: because you cannot enjoy it, the desire continues. If you can enjoy it, a time will come naturally when you will be finished with it.

My own observation is: just as at the age of fourteen you become sexually mature, at the age forty- two you will go beyond sex. If sex is lived naturally, accepted totally, with no guilt, with no fear, with no condemnation, at the age forty-two you will go beyond it. And you will not need any Yoga or any methodology to go beyond it; it will be a natural transformation. You would have lived it, you would have seen it. You would have seen its joys and its miseries, its ecstasies and its agony, you would have seen all. And the experience, and only the experience, can make you ripe.

Jesus used to say to his disciples, "Unless you hate your parents you cannot follow me." A very strange statement, but nothing compared to Buddha's statement. He used to say to his bhikkhus, his sannyasins, "Unless you kill your parents you cannot follow me." Both meant - in a psychological way - you have to get rid of your parents.

Girijanandan, that's what is troubling you, not the women: your parents are still heavy on you.

A boy comes to a lawyer in tears. "I want a divorce!" he says between sobs. "Life is too difficult!"

"But what are you saying?" exclaims the lawyer. "You are not old enough to be married!"

"I want to divorce from my parents!" replies the boy.

Everybody needs that divorce sooner or later because your parents have lived a life which was dominated by their parents, and so on and so forth. If you want to live authentically, truly, naturally, you have to disconnect yourself from all traditions. And the only way to disconnect is to become psychologically disconnected from your parents. That does not mean that you have not to respect them and not to love them. In fact, if you psychologically are free from your parents you will be able to love them and respect them because you will be able to forgive them; you will feel sorry for them.

Right now you cannot forgive them, with all this guilt.

The most difficult thing in life is to forgive your parents. You can forgive them only if you become psychologically independent, mature.

You say:

OSHO, WHY AM I CONSTANTLY THINKING ABOUT WOMEN AND WOMEN AND WOMEN?

Because you must have been told not to think about women. You must have been told that women are the doors of hell, that it is women who keep you tethered into the world; they are the cause of bondage. If you want to get rid of the misery, if you want to be free from the world, you have to be free from women.

All your scriptures have been written by men, hence they condemn women. If the scriptures were written by women they would have condemned men. All your scriptures are male chauvinistic. They show only one standpoint, one aspect of the problem. The woman has been forced to remain silent.

And with all these ideas you are bound to think of all that you have been repressing. Don't repress any more.

If you understand me, if you want really to understand me, I am against repression, all kinds of repression - I am for understanding. Understand your desires, but don't repress them. And it is through understanding that transcendence happens. It is through understanding that you go beyond desires. It is through understanding, meditating, becoming more aware, that your unconscious, slowly slowly, is transformed into conscious, that your dark continent within becomes full of light. And that is nirvana, that is freedom, that is moksha. The state of becoming full of light is enlightenment.

Girijanandan, only then you will not think of men or women. But don't repress. People go on repressing in thousand and one ways.

Just this morning as I was coming to the lecture, Vivek was telling me about a beautiful conversation she happened to hear between Veena and Nandan. Nandan was asking Veena, "While making love, if somebody else is present in the room, how do you feel?" And Veena said, "There is nobody present in my room. I am alone in my hut." Nandan said, "I don't care myself, but I love to make noises, go wild, and that disturbs the other person - I am not worried." Veena said, "That is not good.

I remain completely cool, silent. unmoving." And Veena must be doing that. Nandan said, "I have not gone that far in Tantra."

And I bless you, Nandan. Don't go that far in Tantra! Enjoy love, enjoy lovemaking. It is perfectly natural to make noise, scream, shout. In fact, whenever two persons are making love, the whole

neighborhood should know that now it is happening. Only then one day you will be able to transcend; then you will have lived it totally. Otherwise, if you follow Veena and remain cool and calm and collected, then it will take lives for you, because that expression is part of experience. The unexpressed remains unexperienced; the expressed becomes part of experience. And when you are going in an orgasmic joy it has to be expressed, danced, sung.

I know among my mediums, when they go deep in their mediumship. there are a few - Nandan tops the list - who start screaming and saying words, incoherent, meaningless sounds. Chetana is another; she goes almost into latihan. But there are a few who remain cool and calm.

Divya is calm, perfectly calm. Sometimes I have been even puzzled, because when my mediums are dancing and singing they all perspire, except Divya. For me it is good, because she is the only one who does not perspire, and if I touch her forehead, her forehead is the only one that is cool. Otherwise everybody perspires, screams, sways. Now Divya has become cool. She is a primal therapist. She has learned that art how to bring the primal scream in the other and she has forgotten her own primal scream. Now she will bring Yatri's primal scream!

Love totally, love singingly, love dancingly. Love should be a joy in all its possibilities; it should not be cold. Otherwise you are simply moving into the gesture of it, empty gesture which will not fulfill.

Now Veena is functioning like an Indian lady. Out of a hundred, ninety-seven Indian ladies have known no orgasm in their life. I have asked many of my Indian women sannyasins. It is very rare to come across an Indian woman who has attained orgasm, because they have been taught to remain cool and calm, unmoving - because it is prostitutes who move, make loving gestures. The perfect lady simply remains cool. But then they don't know what orgasm is, and without knowing orgasm you will never transcend your sex.

And sex has to be transcended. I am not saying that it has not to be transcended - it has to be transcended but through understanding. Not by effort, not by force - gracefully, naturally. One day it falls on its own accord, and when it falls on its own accord it does not leave behind you any trace.

It does not leave behind a so-called saint, it leaves behind a tremendously beautiful, graceful being.

Not a dead and dull person, but absolutely intelligent, aflame, divine being, full of fire, of love. The passion disappears, but it becomes compassion. And if you repress the passion you will never attain to compassion. The repressed passion will go on hanging around you; it will make your whole life dirty.

Girijanandan, it is still time. Don't go on just thinking about women; it is not going to help. Just thinking is not going to help - go through the experience. Love a woman, fall in love, risk yourself, and forget all your traditions and conventions. And one day... that day is not far off - if you have lived intensely that day will come, that day is bound to come, when you will see sex has disappeared and instead the same energy has become love. And the love flowers; the perfume that comes out of that flowering is prayer.