OUR BELOVED MASTER
YAKUSAN
TALKED WITH MEIKEI OSHO AND LATER TOLD UNGAN: "MEIKEI WAS ONCE A GOVERNMENT
SUPERINTENDENT IN HIS PAST LIFE."
UNGAN
ASKED, "OSHO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN YOUR PAST LIVES?"
YAKUSAN
REPLIED, "BEING AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF UGLINESSES AND THOUSANDS OF
CLUMSINESSES, I SOMEHOW HAVE MANAGED TO LIVE LIVES."
UNGAN
LATER REPEATED THIS TO DOGO, WHO COMMENTED: "IT IS A GOOD STORY, BUT ONE QUESTION IS
MISSING."
"WHAT,
MAY I ASK?" INQUIRED UNGAN.
DOGO
SAID, IN THE MANNER OF LITERARY, SCHOLARLY CHINESE: "HOW DID YOU BECOME LIKE
THAT?"
UNGAN
TOOK THE QUESTION TO YAKUSAN, USING THE SAME SCHOLARLY CHINESE.
YAKUSAN
ANSWERED, "I NEVER OPEN ANY BOOKS."
ON
ANOTHER OCCASION, YAKUSAN ASKED UNGAN, "A HORSE HAS HORNS; CAN YOU SEE THEM?"
UNGAN
REPLIED, "IF IT HAS, THERE IS NO NEED TO SEE."
"THAT
HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY," ADDED YAKUSAN.
UNGAN
REPLIED, "IF THAT IS SO, I'LL TAKE IT."
Friends,
One
sannyasin has asked that his parents, and particularly his mother, harass him very much
while he is meditating. She says to him, "Why are you wasting your time sitting here,
doing nothing? Who are you bluffing by closing your eyes? It is better to read the Bible,
or go to the church and pray to God, or do some virtuous actions. This -- what you call
meditation -- is simply selfishness."
The
sannyasin has asked me, "What is your answer?"
It has
many implications to be understood.
First,
in one's unconsciousness one cannot do any virtuous act. Virtue comes out of deep
meditation. Virtue is a flower of your realization that you are eternal, immortal, that
you are divine. Sharing that divineness is virtue. There is no other virtue in existence.
But all
the religions, particularly Christianity, go on emphasizing, "Do virtuous acts. Don't
sit silently, it is selfish."
I have
to ask, first: when you succeed as a rich man nobody says to you that it is selfish.
Everybody praises you: that is great. When you succeed as a politician and become a
president or a prime minister nobody says it is selfish, everybody praises you.
Thirty
million dollars are being spent celebrating President Bush's success. Success is not
selfish -- do you see the point? -- being super-rich is not selfish, creating materials
for destruction of the world is not selfish, accumulating nuclear weapons is not selfish
....
And what
is your virtue? Is it unmotivated? Are you not being virtuous doing service to the poor,
or the sick, or the orphans, in order to get into paradise with all its pleasures? It is
simply business. Who says it is virtue?
I am
reminded of an ancient Chinese parable ....
There
used to happen in the capital of China every year a festival. Millions of people gathered
-- the fair lasted for one month -- and even the emperor used to come to inaugurate it.
But in those days, in China, the water wells were not protected by walls. In darkness one
could easily fall into a well, because there was no wall as a protection.
A man
fell into a well. It was getting dark and his eyesight was not good, he was almost blind.
He shouted for help, but with millions of people there was so much noise -- who is going
to hear him?
A
Confucian monk passed by the side of the well and he heard the noise of the man asking for
help, to be taken out of the well. The Confucian monk said to him, "Don't be worried.
Our master, Confucius, has written in his books that every water well should have walls,
and I am going to create a tremendous uproar in the country!"
The poor
man said, "By the time you create the great uproar in the whole country and all the
wells start having protecting walls, I will be dead. Just think of me first!"
The monk
said, "Individuals don't matter, what matters is society." That is the Confucian
idea. That is the idea of all socialists, that the individual does not matter.
The
reason for China becoming communist -- nobody has explored the reason why India has not
become communist -- is Confucius. For twenty-five centuries Confucius had been held in
tremendous respect, so when Karl Marx became available to the Chinese, it fitted very well
with the Confucian idea: the individual does not matter, what matters is the society.
The
Confucian monk said to the man, "Anyway, any day you are going to die, so why not
now? I cannot waste my time! I am going to create the revolution that will bring walls to
every well in the whole country. Think of your children!" And the man went away.
The man
in the well thought, "Strange ... I am dying here, and that idiot is going to create
a revolution!"
A
Buddhist monk passed by. He looked in the well. The man said, "Buddha has taught
compassion. You should save me, I am dying! And it is getting darker and colder."
The
Buddhist monk said, "Be patient. It is because of your past lives' evil acts that you
have fallen into the well. Millions of people are here, and nobody else has fallen into
the well. You must have committed very evil acts -- murder, rape. It is better to clear
the account.
"And
Buddha has also said, `Never interfere into anybody's life!' Just forgive me, I cannot
interfere into your life. If I pull you out, you will fall again, because your punishment
for the evil acts of the past life is not complete -- so what is the point? Just die and
be reborn, fresh, without any past evil acts hanging around you."
The man
was so amazed, "These people are religious people?" And the Buddhist monk went
away.
This is
the logical consequence of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna. All the Indian philosophies teach
it.
You will
not believe it .... One of the Jaina sects, Terapanth, whose head is Acharya Tulsi, has
seventeen hundred monks and three times more nuns. It is one of the very strongest folds;
very rich, super-rich people belong to that sect.
The
original man who created the sect separate from mainstream Jainism, his basic point was
that if somebody is drowning you should not interfere. That is the logical consequence of
believing in the past life and evil acts and their punishment. If somebody is hungry, you
should not interfere. If somebody is thirsty, you should not even tell him the way to the
river.
And,
moreover, interfering in nature's course will create bad karmas for you. For example, if
you pull a man out from the well, and tomorrow he commits a murder, do you think you are
also responsible for it or not?
Logically,
it seems to be perfectly right. If you had not saved the man, he would not have committed
the murder. You are fifty percent responsible: you saved him, he committed the murder. Now
you will have to suffer for saving the man. Whatsoever he does from now onwards, you will
be responsible -- for his whole life. You have unnecessarily disturbed his finishing of
the punishment, and you have created on the other hand evil acts for which you will suffer
in your future life.
The
statement, the philosophy, is logical, but absolutely against life. Is logic more
important than life?
And as
far as I am concerned, every act brings its punishment just as a shadow. You don't have to
suffer in your future life. Right now you murder; why should nature wait that long for
punishment? You put your hand in the fire ....
I have
told this to Acharya Tulsi -- and he has been angry with me since then, speaking every
kind of lie against me. The reason is personal, because I told him, before fifty thousand
people, "Your whole philosophy is absolutely ugly and obscene. You put your hand into
the fire right now, and let us see whether your hand burns now or in the future
life!"
He had
nothing to say. And his own people -- those fifty thousand were his own people -- they
laughed and they clapped. That hurt him very much.
Action
brings its reaction immediately, it follows without any gap. Why should there be such a
long gap? But the reason is ... You see right now all kinds of mean people being
successful. How do you explain it? -- all kinds of cunning people being prime ministers,
becoming presidents, becoming super-rich right now, just by sheer squeezing people's
blood! How do you explain it?
The
religions have been saving the vested interests. They had to find some way, and this was a
good strategy: nobody is making you poor, you are suffering from your past life's acts,
evil acts. And the rich? -- they are enjoying their past life's good acts, virtuous acts.
Do you
see the cunningness of the argument? Neither do you know anything about your past life,
nor do you know anything about your future life. Your real problem is dissolved into
smoke, so thick a smoke that you cannot see beyond it.
The
Buddhist monk moved on from the well, and he was followed by a Christian missionary. The
Christian missionary was carrying a bucket and a long rope. He immediately threw the rope
and the bucket into the well, and pulled the man out.
The man
said, "You are the only religious man."
The
Christian missionary said, "In fact, I should be grateful to you, because unless you
fall in the well I cannot earn virtue. I am against the Confucian idea that every well
should have a wall. Then nobody will be falling in! -- and for whom am I carrying the
bucket and the rope? No walls are needed; otherwise, all virtue, all morality, all service
will disappear from the world."
Bertrand
Russell has made a very important statement: "If there is no poverty, there will be
no religion. Whom are you going to serve?"
If there
is no death, all churches, all religions will become absolutely useless, invalid, out of
date. They are surviving because of poverty, because of death, because of disease, because
of orphans. That's why they are all against birth control -- because birth control can
destroy all poverty, and all the orphans can be stopped from coming into the world.
What
will happen to poor Mother Teresa? Who will give her a Nobel Prize?
Orphans
are absolutely needed, otherwise Mother Teresas will disappear. Poverty is needed, that's
why they go on continuously being against all birth control methods. It has nothing to do
with God -- they need the poor people, because their religion teaches them that if you
serve the poor, if you open hospitals for the poor, if you open schools for the poor, you
are earning a great bank balance in paradise.
This is
not unselfishness. Who says it is unselfish? It is more selfish than anything else you can
find in the world -- a motivation to exploit poor people, people who have fallen into the
well, people who are dying, people who are sick, people who are orphans. You are taking
great advantage.
All
religions say that you will have great pleasures in heaven; beautiful women will be
available to all the saints who have done virtuous acts. Strange ... Here you talk about
celibacy, and in all the paradises of all the religions, celibacy is no longer applicable.
Do you see the contradiction?
If a man
has been celibate here for sixty, seventy years, he will become habitually a celibate.
Then he goes into heaven and finds beautiful girls .... They remain always at the age
sixteen; through eternity, they have never grown up. They don't perspire, they don't need
any deodorant; their breath does not smell, they don't need any mouthwash. It seems they
are made of plastic. No perspiration? -- do you know the meaning of it?
If you
paint your whole body, leaving only your nose to breathe, paint it thickly so that all the
pores in your skin are completely closed, you will die within three hours. Just your nose
is not enough. Every pore in your skin is breathing, in and out. Your whole body is a
breathing system.
Perspiration
is a protection. You will die without perspiration. The function of the perspiration is to
keep your inner temperature always the same. If you start getting hotter inside -- and the
span is very small, twelve degrees, from about ninety-eight to one hundred and ten -- if
there is no perspiration and there is a hot sun, how are you going to keep your
temperature at ninety-eight perpetually?
The
perspiration helps you. It distracts the heat from entering into your body. It distracts
it in a beautiful way: it cheats and deceives the sun. It gets the rays engaged in
evaporating the perspiration. So the more heat is there, the more you will perspire. The
heat is taken up in evaporating that perspiration, and not letting it in. If you let in
that much heat, you will burst immediately. By the time you reach one hundred and five,
you will fall into a coma; by the time you reach one hundred and ten, you will become a
beloved of God!
Stupid
ideas! And if in heaven you are going to give people beautiful girls ... In the Mohammedan
heaven even beautiful boys are available for homosexuals, because they should not be
deprived -- and most of the saints are homosexual, perverted; some provision has to be
made for them in paradise.
The
women are called houris, and the homosexual boys -- beautiful boys, they always remain
young, no mustache, no beard, so the saints can exploit them for their sexuality -- they
are called gilme. Strange ... Here you condemn sex, and there you make available not only
heterosexuality, you make available homosexuality.
And
there are rivers flowing of just pure French wine. Get drunk, get drowned, swim, take a
bath in it. And here? -- religions condemn all pleasures. Here you have to be a
self-torturer.
All
religions are exploiting your tremendous greed, in the name of virtue, in the name of
unselfishness.
As a
fundamental principal, I want you to remember that an unconscious man cannot act without
motivation, and motivation is selfishness, whatever you do.
I used to
live in a city, teaching in the university, and a beautiful marble temple was being made
there. For years I used to pass it on the road. Nine years I lived in that city, and the
temple was just coming up, coming up, because they wanted to make something rare. Some
super-rich man's father had died and it was his memorial.
I had no
idea about it, so one day I stopped my car and went inside where hundreds of marble
workers were working. I asked the chief, "For what is this temple being raised?"
A man of
great intelligence, he did not take me to the statue of Krishna which was placed in the
middle of the temple. I was thinking he would take me to the statue, saying that the
temple is being created for Krishna -- but he took me behind the temple.
I said,
"Where are you taking me?"
He said,
"To the right place."
There
was a big marble slab with the writing: "This temple is created by so-and-so in the
memory of his great spiritual father."
He said,
"For this stone the whole temple is being created. Krishna is just an excuse."
The
unconscious mind cannot do anything without motivation. What will I get? And religions
promise that in the future life, when he reaches to the pearly gates, Saint Peter will be
standing there with all the angels singing "Alleluia!", playing on their harps
in your welcome. It seems to be worthwhile to give something in charity, to do some
virtuous act.
Unless
an act is done without any motivation, it cannot be unselfish.
I want
you to understand that except meditation there is no act which is unselfish, because it is
only meditation which is going to dissolve your self, which is going to dissolve you into
the whole. And once you are no more, whatever you do is going to be without motivation.
Virtue comes out of a person who has become one with existence.
Meditation
is the door.
Meditation
is the only unselfish act.
But it
appears that people who are engaged in meditation are just thinking of themselves, not
bothering about the whole of humanity. Absolute nonsense!
The
people who are engaged in meditation are the only people who will find a place where there
is no self, and all selfishness disappears. Then their whole life, their whole love, their
whole compassion will be unmotivated. Whatever they will do will be virtuous, because
virtue can come only out of a conscious mind, an absolutely conscious mind.
In the
conscious mind, totally conscious, there is not a single shadow of self. The totally
conscious mind becomes qualitatively different from your unconscious mind. Hence it has
been called no-mind, just to show the difference, otherwise you will get confused.
Mind is
what you have. No-mind is the search of meditation. And from no-mind blossom flowers of
unselfishness, of love, of compassion, of sharing.
I repeat
Basho, the great Zen master, and one of the greatest poets of the world: "Sitting
silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."
This
sitting silently is not avoiding life. Sitting silently is searching for life, the very
source of life. And the moment you have found the source, everything grows by itself, just
like when spring comes, the grass grows by itself.
Virtue,
truth, compassion, love -- everything you can conceive of arises out of meditation, and
there is no other source for it. They do not arise from prayers, because prayers are
addressed to a fictitious God, who does not exist.
It
happened in America: a poor man ... his wife was dying, and
he had no money to purchase medicine or call a doctor, or have her admitted to a hospital.
In
desperation he thought of a great idea: "Why not write a letter to God, just for
fifty dollars, not much. And for a God who is almighty, omnipotent -- everywhere present,
omnipresent; omniscient, knowing everything, past, present, future -- he must know that my
wife is dying and I need fifty dollars right now."
So he
wrote a small card saying, "You know everything, you are all-knowing; I don't have to
say it to you. I need fifty dollars for my wife who is almost on the verge of death. Send
it to me by telegram."
But then
he was at a loss: What is the address of God? That he had completely forgotten in his
anxiety and misery. When he turned over the postcard, the address had to be written.
He said,
"My God! Nobody knows his address. Whom to ask? When you don't know the address, the
only way is to send it `Care of the Postmaster General.'" So he wrote: "To God
the Almighty, c/o Postmaster General of America."
The
letter reached the Postmaster General. He read it, and he said, "What an innocent
man, and what great trust! Because he does not know the address, he has sent it care of
me. I don't know the address of God myself!"
I don't
think anybody has ever known his address. Before he went on holiday after creating the
world in six days, he did not leave any address with Adam and Eve: "Go on giving it
to your children, from generation to generation. They will know where God is, and whenever
it is needed you can write." He simply disappeared. Nothing has been heard about him
since then.
So the
Postmaster General asked all his colleagues, "Why shouldn't we collect fifty dollars
and send them to this poor man?" So they made a collection, but they could manage to
collect only forty-five dollars, not fifty. So he said, "Even forty-five will be
helpful right now." He immediately sent it by telegram.
The poor
man received the telegram and the forty-five dollars. He looked up towards heaven and he
said, "Almighty God, next time don't send it through the Postmaster General! That
son-of-a-bitch has taken his commission -- five dollars! Send it to me directly! You are
present everywhere, why not hand it to me directly? If you don't want to do it face to
face, you can drop it on my roof very easily. It is not a problem for you. You have
created the whole world, you can create fifty dollars, although they will be fake!"
But there was no reply.
So again
he wrote another letter, thanking God: "You have sent me fifty dollars, but that
son-of-a-bitch, the Postmaster General of America, has taken his commission, five dollars,
from a poor man whose wife is dying!"
And
again it had to be sent "Care of the Postmaster General of America."
When the
Postmaster General received this letter, he said, "My God! We helped him with
forty-five dollars and he is calling me a son-of-bitch!"
In
Surat, in India, there exists one of the richest Mohammedan cults. The Aga Khan is the
head priest of that cult. The cult is called Khoja. Here, just by the side of the river on
the other bank, there is an Aga Khan palace.
The Aga
Khan is one of the richest men in the world. He has palaces in every great city all over
the world, in all the hill stations, on all the beautiful beaches.
And how
has he become so rich? What is his strategy? The strategy is: if somebody dies, in the
dead person's memory you send him the money, and the money will be sent into your account
in paradise. Millions of dollars he accumulates, and the blind believers think that the
money is reaching into their bank accounts.
I was
staying with a friend in Surat, who is a Khoja, a follower of the Aga Khan. I asked him,
"Your father has died. How much money have you sent?"
He said,
"Three lakh rupees."
I asked,
"Have you got the bank account number?"
He said,
"The account number?"
I said,
"When you reach to paradise, how will you find which is your bank account where the
money is deposited?"
He said,
"That's right."
And I
said, "You are a well-educated man, a doctor, and you could not think of a simple
thing? You could not see how the Aga Khan goes on throwing money all around the world?
From where does this money come? From which account?"
The Aga
Khan's hobby is racehorses. He is the greatest bidder all over the world, and wherever
there is a race meeting, he immediately rushes to that place. This palace here has been
made because Poona has a race meeting every year, a great competition. All these houses
you see belonged once to all the maharajahs of India, because while the horseracing was
going on, all the maharajahs were here. That's why this is a protected area.
Now the
maharajahs have disappeared, it is not much of a joy. Ordinary people are going to the
race course, and the Aga Khan no longer comes here. He has informed me that if I want the
palace he is ready to sell.
There is
another sect I have come across which is even more stupid. At least this money reaches to
the Aga Khan, it does not go further -- but that cult puts the money in the coffin. Your
father dies, you put ten lakh rupees into the coffin, and it goes into the graveyard.
Again, I
was a guest in a house with a friend, who was a professor and had been my colleague. I
said, "You also think that money will enter into heaven with your father's
soul?"
He said,
"Yes. My whole religion believes it; so many people cannot be wrong."
This
argument I have heard so many times that I have made my own argument: If there are so many
people agreed on something, they must be wrong! So many people cannot be right. Right
belongs to very rare people; crowds cannot be right, they cannot have the truth.
So I
said, "We shall do one thing. Tonight we will go and dig your father's grave!"
He said,
"What?! But that is criminal."
I said,
"I will do it, you just stand by, just to see whether those rupees that you have put
are still there, or your father has taken them."
He said,
"But if anybody comes to know ..."
I said,
"You are an educated man; it is a simple experiment to expose your belief. And I am
ready to take all the blame!"
So I
dragged him in the night to the graveyard of their religion, and I had to dig -- that was
the first and the last time I have done any digging! -- and I pulled the coffin out. It
was stinking of the dead body -- only bones had remained, everything else had gone rotten
-- and I said, "Look, those notes are here. You are an idiot, and your whole religion
is stupid! Take these notes!"
There
was a moment of grave silence. I said, "You take them or I will take them!" He
immediately took them out, and I said, "Now you do the remaining work, you have taken
the money! I am going. You push the coffin in, put in the mud, cover it, do whatever you
want -- but I have proved absolutely that your whole religion is stupid! And you think
this is a virtuous act? You are being conned by your priests!"
What is
selfish in meditation? Just because you are sitting alone, closing your eyes, going
inwards to find out the very source of your existence, is it selfish?
By the
time you find your authentic source of life, your self will have disappeared like a
dewdrop in the early morning sun. You will come out without a self, just as a pure
presence. Out of this pure presence radiates all that is virtuous.
Without
meditation there is no virtue; there cannot be any virtue! And when I say anything like
this, I say it with absolute authority, and I challenge every religion of the world to
prove that unconscious people, sleepy people, can do any act without motivation.
Selfishness
means motivation, you are thinking of some reward. An unselfish act means with no
motivation, you are not thinking of any reward. You are doing it out of your abundance.
You have too much, you are a rain cloud, you have to shower.
And the
more you share, the more starts coming to you. It is almost like a well of water: the more
you draw the water, fresh water is coming into the well from all directions. If you become
afraid that "If we take out the water, that much water is gone," it is better to
keep the well closed.
It
happened once ... Kahlil Gibran has a beautiful story.
In an
ancient village there were two wells. One was in the palace, which was not available for
anybody else than the royal family, and the other well was in the marketplace, which was
available for everybody else except the royal family.
But one
day a witch came into the town, and she chanted some gibberish and threw something inside
the well. People watched but they could not understand what was happening. But by the time
the sun was setting, everybody had drunk water from the well -- except the royal family --
and everybody had gone mad. The whole capital was mad, from the smallest child to the
oldest man -- except the king and the queen and the prince.
And a
strange thing happened .... The whole crowd gathered around the palace and they started
shouting that the king has gone mad. They were all mad, obviously, and they all agreed on
the point that "The king does not seem to be the same as we are."
The king
immediately asked his prime minister what to do. "Even our armies have gone mad. They
are all dancing and they are asking, `Come out of the palace! We will choose a new king
who is sane just like us!'"
The
prime minister was very old, an ancient wise man. He told the king, "The only way is
to run from the back door. I will keep them engaged at the front door, telling them that
`I am bringing the king, he is getting ready.' You run to the well that they have been
drinking the water from. Drink the water -- you, your wife, your son -- and you all get
drunk. Unless you are mad this crowd is going to kill you!"
The
advice was absolutely correct. The king and his family ran from the back door, drank
quickly the water of the well that the witch had changed with a certain alchemical
phenomenon. They did not come to the back door, they came dancing and rejoicing to the
front gate, and the crowd was very happy that their king had become sane.
That
night there was a great festival in the capital. "Our king, our queen, our future
king -- all have become sane!"
The
crowd is living so unconsciously. You cannot expect from this crowd any act of virtue, any
act of unselfishness. It is simply not possible. It is categorically impossible. First
comes meditation, then everything else follows.
So when
your parents or your priests tell you that you are doing a selfish act, tell them clearly
that you are the only one who is going to drop the self, and there will be no selfishness
left, and out of that state virtue will follow -- "not from your prayers, not from
your Bible or your Koran or your Gita, not from your teachings, but from my own
exploration into whether there is a self."
The self
is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness. It has never been found by
those who have entered deeper into themselves.
Just a
few days ago there were twenty-one Christian missionaries here. They have been at a
seminary for seven years in Poona. Poona is one of the centers for creating missionaries
for the whole of Asia.
For
seven years they were not allowed by their principal even to come close to the ashram.
That day when their course was finished, and they were ready to leave to their places,
they did not miss at least one chance to hear me. And they have come here, but they must
have been very much puzzled. I could see it on their faces: their seven years of seminary
training was erased within three hours!
To one
sannyasin they said, "Everything seems to be good, but your master is taking only the
negative side of religion and condemning it. There are many beautiful things that religion
has done to humanity, and he is not taking them."
Now I am
going to talk about "all the beautiful things that religion has done to
humanity."
By the
way, the same person quoted what seems on the surface a beautiful sentence: "It is
better to give than to receive." Ordinarily you will agree with it -- it is better to
give than to receive ....
I don't
agree with it.
Why is
it better to give? -- because it enhances your ego. You are the giver, you are higher,
your hand is upper. Why is it good to give? You are reducing the other man's dignity, you
are making him a beggar, you are insulting him. You are not really giving, you are
rejoicing in your ego being bigger and bigger. The more you give, the bigger ego you will
have, the more respect, the more prestige, the more honor.
What is
good in giving? It is a sin, because it enhances your ego.
And what
is not good in receiving? In fact, the receiver has not to be obliged to you; he is
unburdening you, you have to be obliged to him. That is authentic spirituality. You give,
and you touch the feet of the person to whom you have given, to thank him that he received
your gift and did not reject it. He could have rejected it, and you would have been
insulted -- but he received it.
I say to
you that these kinds of statements, which look very good if you don't have a sharp
intelligence to go deeper into them, are all over, in all the scriptures of the world. And
anyway, if it is better to give than to receive, then who is going to receive? Everybody
is going to give -- it is better to give -- but to whom? Everybody will reject, because it
is better to give than to receive.
"Why
are you insulting me?", everybody will ask you. "Do you want to insult me,
humiliate me by giving me just a few coins? Throw away those coins in the river and get
lost!"
Gautam
Buddha is far more right. He has made it very clear to his sannyasins and to his
lay-disciples. Because the sannyasins will be going to beg their food one time a day from
the lay-disciples, he has made it clear to his lay-disciples, "Don't feel that you
are great because you are giving. Remember the humbleness of the other person who is
receiving. So first you give the food, then you touch the feet of the person who has
received the food, and you give some other gift as your gratefulness."
So two
words are used: giving is called bhiksha, and when somebody has received bhiksha, then you
have to be grateful to him. The second word is dakshina; to show your gratefulness, you
present something else, a shawl -- the winter is coming -- or a new set of clothes. An old
set of clothes you can preserve as a memory from a man of meditation; something of his
meditation must have touched those clothes.
When you
pass through a rose garden, you may not touch the roses, but some fragrance is caught by
your clothes. If a man has been meditating -- and if by chance you come across an
enlightened person -- having his clothes in your house, your house becomes a holy temple.
His clothes have been receiving radiation continuously, of a different world, vibrations
.... So give him a new set of clothes, his old set is torn, too old. This will be your
gratitude.
So
Buddha's statement will be, "It is better to receive than to give." The giver is
a poor man, he has nothing else than money.
I was in
Jaipur, one of the most beautiful cities of India. The man who was making Jaipur,
Maharajah Jai Singh -- it is named after him -- the British government dethroned him and
put his son as the king. The reason was that he was creating Jaipur, a totally new city.
His idea was to have a better city than Paris, and certainly whatever he had built before
he was dethroned has a tremendous beauty.
The
whole city is made of one single-colored stone, red stone. All the houses are similar. No
city in India has such wide roads -- wide roads, and by the side of the roads, pavements
with the same red stone, covered pavements for people to walk. Nobody need walk on the
road; the road is for the vehicles. People have to walk on the pavement. But on the
pavement you are in shadow; you can walk in cool shade in the summer, you can walk in the
rains. You don't have any need of an umbrella in Jaipur. And all the shops, for miles and
miles, are just exactly the same.
The
British government became worried that his capital would look better than New Delhi,
better than London, better than Paris. It was not a crime; he was creating a beautiful
city, he should have been helped -- but this is not the way of the world.
I was
lecturing in Jaipur, and the richest man of Jaipur was Sohanlal Dugar. He was so rich, he
was far richer than the king. In creating Jaipur, the king had borrowed much money from
Sohanlal Dugar. Nobody knew how much money that man had, because he had no books.
He told
me, "I don't have any books, so I don't pay any income tax. Nobody knows how much I
have." And then I found out where his books were. He had written them in his bathroom
on the walls, in a language which is no more used, old Rajasthani. It is very difficult to
read, and those were short notes; you could even read them, but you would not be able to
figure out what they meant. He was the only man who knew.
He had
come with me to the meeting in his beautiful limousine, and he heard me for the first
time. After the meeting, he had come to take me -- but before taking me to the car, he
poured almost ten thousand rupees at my feet. He said, "You have to accept
them!"
I said,
"But I don't need them right now. You can keep them on my behalf. Whenever I need
them I will inform you, `Send me the money.'"
He said,
"That cannot be done -- because I am a gambler. Today I have, tomorrow I may not
have."
He was
one of the greatest gamblers you can conceive of. He was known as the Silver King of
India. Once he purchased all the silver available in India, and raised the rates so high,
and then started selling slowly from different places at a high rate. He accumulated
millions and millions of rupees. And that was his strategy: to purchase anything wholesale
from all over the country, and then automatically the price would go ten, twenty times
higher. Then he would start releasing it very slowly in different places, so the prices
don't fall.
He said,
"Today I have, tomorrow I may not have, so I cannot take that responsibility. You
have to accept them right now."
Seeing
that I was not interested in accepting the money, because I don't have even pockets to
keep it, so where to keep it? -- just to carry ten thousand rupees in my hands? ... I
don't have anything: no pockets, no wallet, no bag, just a robe without any pockets. And I
have lived without pockets, because my hands are always in other people's pockets. Why
bother? -- there are so many millions of pockets around, what is the need of having
separate pockets? I believe in one humanity!
So I
told him, "It will be very difficult for me. Tonight I am leaving, and ten thousand
rupees will be sitting by the side of my couch in the train. Anybody can take them; I
cannot just remain watching them."
He said,
"Listen ..." He had tears in his eyes, and he was an old man, more than seventy.
He said, "Listen, just look at my tears. I am a poor man, because I don't have
anything except money."
I have
not forgotten his statement, I have not forgotten his tears. I have nothing to say to such
a man who says, "I am so poor, I have nothing but money, and if you reject money you
reject me. Please don't reject me. It will become a wound in me. Nobody has ever rejected
me!"
So I
said, "Okay. For your sake I take the money." I gave half the money to the
organization that had arranged the meeting and had been arranging meetings for me for
years, and the other half I gave to Jaipur's library to purchase more and more agnostic
literature, which is neither theist nor atheist, but purely of those who are inquirers,
seekers.
He came
with me to leave me on the railway station. He said, "I am so happy that you
accepted, although you gave it away -- but that is not my problem. It was your money, you
have given it. You have accepted it, so I am at ease. I have never felt so happy. You have
made me so blissed out, I am grateful to you. Just one promise I want ..."
I said,
"You are now getting greedy!"
He said,
"I am greedy, otherwise why should I collect so much money? Just one promise
..."
I said,
"Let me first hear it."
He said,
"No. Do you want me to cry again?"
I said,
"No, I don't want that. Granted ... your wish is granted. Just tell me what is the
idea behind it."
He said,
"Just one thing: whenever you come to Jaipur or to Calcutta, you have to inform me,
and you have to stay with me -- I live sometimes in Jaipur and for longer periods in
Calcutta -- you have to be with me. When are you coming again to Jaipur?"
I said,
"I will be coming after three months."
He said,
"Promise that you will stay with me?"
I said,
"Promised."
He said,
"Great. That means at least three months I am going to live."
I said,
"That is a great idea!"
"For
three months no force can kill me. I have to survive three months, at least, and then I
will take another promise."
And
while he lived I had to stay with him in Jaipur and I had to stay with him in Calcutta. I
had to inform him continuously that I was coming here, I was coming there -- "so you
be there!" And he used to come immediately from wherever he was to receive me in
Calcutta or in Jaipur. And he would always give me a send-off with the words, "One
promise ...? Because," he said, "I am living on your promises. I cannot die if I
know that after three months you are going to be my guest."
But the
way he said, "I am the poorest man in the world because I don't have anything else
than money. If you reject the money, you reject me. Don't do that to an old man, the wound
may be fatal" -- this is far greater than this Christian statement: "It is
better to give than to receive."
I have a
friend in Jabalpur, who is the richest man in that state, and the biggest manufacturer of
beedies in the whole world. He used to come here, he used to come to my camps, and then he
became a minister. Then he started becoming afraid of me. All politicians are afraid of me
-- and I am not even going to touch them; they are untouchables to me! They are
unnecessarily afraid.
But I
can understand their fear. Anybody coming to me will lose his votes. The public, the
crowd, is not going to support him if they see him entering the Gateless Gate. Since he
became a minister he disappeared. Otherwise he used to travel with me ....
Once,
traveling in an air-conditioned coach, he told me his heart, which was troubling him very
much. He had been seeing me for years and he had never told me. People don't want to share
their misery, they hide it. They cover their wounds, and by covering the wounds they
create cancers.
But
sometimes it happens, particularly in railway trains or in airplanes, people become more
intimate. Strange ... even with strangers, you don't know who the person is -- the next
station he will get down and perhaps you will never see him again -- and you start telling
him your most secret things you have not told even your wife, not even your mistress!
He told
me, "I have been suffering from one thing, and I cannot find any solution. Perhaps
you can be of some help."
I said,
"Open your heart, just let me see the wound. Tell me what the problem is."
He said,
"The problem is that I was born in a poor family, then I was adopted by a super-rich
family because they had no son. I was a faraway relative, but seeing possibilities they
adopted me, they educated me. Now they are dead, and I am the sole owner of a great
empire. Because I have so much money, I have raised my old family also to be very rich, my
brothers, my cousin-brothers, my friends. The people I knew I have helped as much as
possible. Whatever they wanted ... they all have beautiful cars, they all have beautiful
houses, they have beautiful businesses, very prosperous, because I have so much.
"But
one thing is strange: they are all against me. Even if I am sick, nobody comes to see me.
It hurts me very much. I have done everything in my power to help them and they have all
turned their backs on me."
I said,
"It is not a difficult problem. It is very simple. Have you ever received anything
from them?"
He said,
"No, I don't need to."
I said,
"That is not the problem. By giving to them, you have insulted them. You don't
understand the subtle psychology. By giving to them -- always giving, a one-way traffic --
you have never allowed simple things. You could have asked one of your friends to whom you
have given millions of rupees, `I was passing by the side of your house and I saw such
beautiful roses. Can you bring a few to me? I will be so grateful.' And immediately that
man would have become your friend. He can also give something to you. He can be equal.
"When
you were sick, you could have phoned anybody whom you have helped: `I am feeling very sick
and I have been remembering you so much. You must be busy, but find just five minutes to
come and sit by my side. One never knows whether I will survive or not ....' That man
would have come, putting everything aside, and would have felt immensely friendly towards
you because you remembered him, you called him in your deepest moment of need -- only him
and nobody else. He would have felt so gratified.
"But
you have never done that. Just giving and giving and giving is insulting and humiliating.
Your ego, your pride -- this is your unconsciousness. You thought you were doing great
service to your friends and family and acquaintances, but why have they all become your
enemies if the service was so great? They have seen in your eyes that you give, but you
give from a very high superiority. They are all inferiors, receivers."
He said,
"I never thought about it."
I said,
"This is the state of the whole of humanity -- the unconscious humanity. They never
understand that receiving is far greater, it needs a far greater heart than giving.
Anybody can give. For receiving you need such a consciousness that cannot be humiliated.
You need such greatness of being that `Who can insult me?'"
I
disagree absolutely with this good Christian teaching: "It is better to give than to
receive." And I will take one by one now what they call their good principles.
I have
not seen a single thing done by the religions which has been good for humanity.
One
Christian monk told to a sannyasin, "Your master speaks from bitterness, not from
love."
It is
true -- but he is wrong.
I speak
with great love for all those women, millions of women, who have been burnt alive by the
popes. With great love I speak for those women -- but I cannot speak without bitterness
for all these popes who have been nothing but murderers.
More
people have been killed by religions than by wars. Political wars are number two; more
people have been killed by religious wars, crusades, jihads. Mohammedans killing
Christians, Christians killing Mohammedans, Christians killing Jews, Hindus killing
Mohammedans, Mohammedans killing Hindus, Hindus killing Buddhists ... The whole history of
religion is so bloody that I don't see why I should not be bitter against these criminals.
Yes, I
am speaking with great love for the victims, but I cannot speak with love for the
murderers in the name of God -- pious murderers, virtuous murderers. Yes, I am bitter --
because I see the crime that religions have been committing against humanity. I speak with
love for humanity, but I cannot be in favor of the criminals.
My
situation is simple and clear. With whoever has harmed humanity, I am bitter; and whoever
has been harmed, I am full of love for him. For all those women you called witches and
burned them alive, I have tremendous love. For all those people you killed because they
were Mohammedans, they were Jews, I have tremendous love and respect -- but not for the
criminals.
For the
criminals I am a sword, and for the victims I am a lotus. I am both together. In one hand
I have a sword, in the other hand I have a lotus flower. Everybody according to what he
deserves.
So I say
his statement is right, but he is wrong. Do you understand what I mean? The statement is
right because I am speaking with love on the one hand, and on the other hand I am speaking
with great bitterness for all those people who have been preventing human evolution
towards buddhahood. I cannot forgive them, neither can I forget them.
And
these people should look at Jesus, then they will understand me more clearly. When he
overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the great temple of the Jews in Jerusalem,
and started beating them and throwing them out of the temple, was it out of love or
bitterness?
When he
called his own mother ... She was waiting outside the crowd; she had not seen him for
years because he had been traveling to the East. He had been to India, to Ladakh and
Tibet. That's why where he has been for seventeen years is completely missing in the
Bible. And he lived only thirty-three years; there is one instance when he was thirteen,
and then the story jumps suddenly to thirty -- and he lived only thirty-three years. Where
have those seventeen years disappeared to? What was he doing and where has he been?
Christianity has no answer.
His
mother had not seen him for years. When she heard that he was speaking in a nearby
village, she rushed there, the poor old woman, and a man in the crowd shouted to Jesus,
"Your mother is waiting outside the crowd. She wants to come close to you and to see
you."
Jesus'
statement has to be remembered. He said, "Tell that woman" -- he did not even
use the word `mother' -- "Tell that woman there is nobody who is my mother, who is my
father, on this earth. My father lives in heaven." And he did not see her, and he did
not call her close. Was it love?
He talks
about loving your enemies and he could not love even his own mother. And he talks about
loving your neighbors, which is far more difficult than loving your enemies. Enemies are
far away, who cares -- but neighbors ... Mere talk!
People
think that what he preached he practiced. That is wrong.
One day
he was very hungry because a village had turned his gang out without giving them any food
or even water, and they had been traveling for three days. Then they came to a fig tree,
and you can see the insanity of the man -- not only anger but insanity, pure insanity: he
cursed the fig tree.
"Did
not you know that the only begotten son of God was coming towards you? Where are your
fruits?" -- and it was not the season for the fig tree. The poor fig tree, what can
she do? And he is cursing a tree, and this man talks about loving your enemies and even
your neighbors! Was he not cursing out of bitterness and out of madness? Was it love?
I am a
very straightforward man. I have people I cannot love, I know they are poisonous; I will
be bitter against them. They are very few, but they have been exploiting and distracting
humanity onto wrong paths.
I have
all my love for those who have suffered, who have been oppressed, who have been exploited
-- but I cannot love the priests, I cannot love the politicians, I cannot love the
exploiters and the oppressors.
I am
absolutely clear, and I want you also to be absolutely clear. Meditation brings such
clarity that you know what is a thorn and what is a rose. Only a blind man can be
mistaken, thinking of the thorn as the rose and the rose as the thorn. When you have eyes,
you know what is a thorn and that it has to be avoided, and what is a rose, and that it
has to be loved.
As
Yakusan says: Isness is my business.
Now the
sutra:
OUR
BELOVED MASTER,
YAKUSAN
TALKED WITH MEIKEI OSHO AND LATER TOLD UNGAN: "MEIKEI WAS ONCE A GOVERNMENT
SUPERINTENDENT IN HIS PAST LIFE."
UNGAN
ASKED, "OSHO" -- Osho is a word of honor, of tremendous honor, of infinite honor
-- "OSHO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN YOUR PAST LIVES?"
If you
can see other people's past lives that you say Meikei was once a government superintendent
in his past life ... I want to know, Ungan says, "When you can see other people's
past lives, you must be seeing your own past lives.
"OSHO,
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN YOUR PAST LIVES?"
YAKUSAN
REPLIED, "BEING AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF UGLINESSES AND THOUSANDS OF
CLUMSINESSES, I SOMEHOW HAVE MANAGED TO LIVE LIVES."
So true,
so truthful -- this is what comes out of meditation.
I have
heard of many people in India and outside India who have remembered their past lives, but
strangely enough, somebody in his past life was Alexander the Great, somebody in his past
life was Ivan the Terrible, somebody in his past life was Napoleon Bonaparte. It seems in
his past lives everybody has been some great historical figure, and it is strange to see
that the Alexander the Great is a beggar today. One goes on evolving: from Alexander the
Great you will become a greater Alexander -- but you are a beggar.
I have
been going around the country for twenty years continuously and I have come across at
least half a dozen cases of people who remember their past life. Somebody has been a
Krishna, somebody has been a Rama. It seems everybody in his past life has been a great
historical figure -- the founder of a religion.
These
are all imaginations. These are all people's wishfulfillments, and people's unconscious
minds are such that they can supply any idea to console you. If you are very inferior in
this life, it is hurting. You are not rich, you are not beautiful, you are not a great
celebrity; you are just nobody. It hurts. It starts hurting so much that the unconscious
mind creates an imagination, a projection that "Don't be worried, in the past life
you were Cleopatra -- the most beautiful woman ever born. You have enjoyed it, now let
others enjoy. Don't suffer, just remember your past life.
"You
have been Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah -- these were the people who were never
defeated in their whole life. You have lived so much, now let others have little bits of
victories. A football player -- you should not be jealous of a football player because
thousands of people think of him as a hero. You have been Alexander the Great. Don't be
bothered by Sophia Loren -- she is nothing, just a wretched woman -- you have been
Cleopatra!"
This
gives great consolation. One feels, "That's perfectly right. I have already enjoyed.
Other people also need some chances." It helps you to forget your inferiority.
But a
man like Yakusan will not say that. He says exactly what he has seen in all his past
lives: "BEING AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF UGLINESSES AND THOUSANDS OF
CLUMSINESSES, I SOMEHOW HAVE MANAGED TO LIVE LIVES."
Only a
master, only a man who is fully awakened can see so clearly. Nothing has to be hidden,
there is no need to hide. He has reached to the highest peak of consciousness from where
he can see far away, thousands of lives, very clearly. Not a single instance of any
projection, of any imagination, of any wishfulfillment; just a simple, factual, actual
truthfulness. Everybody is shaky.
When the
Christian monks went out of the door, Narendra was watching. Two or three were Westerners,
the others were Indians. The Westerners were very shaky. The Indians are converted
Christians. They are not converted because they feel Christianity is a better religion
than Hinduism; deep down they know Hinduism is far superior. It is because of poverty,
need for more education, to be somebody in life, that they have converted to Christianity.
Narendra
was puzzled: "Why are all the Indians feeling happy?" There were eighteen, they
were all happy, and they told Narendra, "Thank you, and we will be coming again and
again!"
The
three Westerners immediately rushed to the bus and were feeling very shaky and trembling,
because they are not converted Christians, they are born Christians. They think
Christianity is their religion. Those eighteen converted ones know perfectly well that
they were born Hindus and that Hinduism is their religion, but for economic reasons they
have created this Christian personality around themselves.
When the
pope came to India he had to make concessions for Indian Christians. Never had such
concessions been made before ... because poor Indians, just because of poverty and
starvation, had become Christians. But their whole programming is Hindu, so when they go
inside the church they burn incense, they bring flowers and coconuts to the poor Jesus
Christ who is hanging on the cross. You don't bring flowers; it will be very embarrassing
to offer a garland and coconuts -- and they are breaking coconuts under the feet of Jesus
Christ and bringing sweets, just the way they have done to the Hindu gods.
At first
the pope was very much shocked that this is happening, but then he saw that most of the
Christians come from the lowest strata of Hinduism and it is difficult to change their
upbringing. Somebody has become a Christian at the age of fifty; now, fifty years
upbringing and he cannot conceive, "Why not coconuts? -- all gods love them; why not
sweets? -- all gods love them!"
You just
look at the Hindu gods -- for example Ganesha, who is the most cherished god all over
India, and for a strange reason. Just look at his belly! He goes on eating sweets and
sweets. His belly has become so big, I don't think he can see his own legs!
Ganesha
is worshipped, and every businessman begins his books when the new year starts ... the
first line has to be written: "Shree Ganeshaja namah -- victory to the god
Ganesha." Why? Because in the ancient scriptures, Ganesha was a very mischievous god.
He enjoyed teasing people, disturbing their ceremonies, disturbing their worship. People
were afraid that if he comes, everything will be topsy turvy. The only way was to start
worshipping him.
He was a
rascal, but to bring the rascal down to the earth, to some gentlemanliness, they started
worshipping him. His name has to be taken first in every ceremony -- in every marriage, in
every festival, everywhere. First you have to remember him, otherwise he will disturb.
Because of his rascaliness he has become the chief god of the Hindus -- and he loves
sweets ....
He
should have been born in America -- with an inbuilt fridge rather than a belly! His belly
is big enough to have a fridge inside, so take the food from the inside and put it in the
mouth, and it goes back into the fridge! That would have been perfectly scientific!
In the
second world war, it happened ... A man was shot in his neck.
His throat was cut; now he could not drink anything or eat anything. Because of the fear
of poisoning spreading, the doctors had to cut the whole throat out. That door to the
belly was closed.
Now they
had to make a new door, so they made a hole in his belly, at the side, and fixed a plastic
pump so that he had to put everything into the plastic pump, and from there it went into
the belly.
But the
man was very frustrated. What is the point of putting ice cream into the tube? You don't
have any taste of it. It does not matter what you are pouring into it, it doesn't have any
taste. So finally the doctors had to suggest to him, "First you put the ice cream in
your mouth, chew it, enjoy the taste, and then vomit it into the tube." And the poor
fellow had to do that!
So I am
not talking off the wall!
UNGAN
LATER REPEATED THIS TO DOGO, another master, WHO COMMENTED: "IT IS A GOOD STORY, BUT
ONE QUESTION IS MISSING."
"WHAT,
MAY I ASK?" INQUIRED UNGAN.
DOGO
SAID, IN THE MANNER OF LITERARY, SCHOLARLY CHINESE: "HOW DID YOU BECOME LIKE THAT?
"If
you have been in all your past lives, AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF UGLINESSES AND
THOUSANDS OF CLUMSINESSES ... how have you become a buddha now? Where is the bridge?"
That
question remains to be answered. Certainly Dogo is pointing to an immensely important
fact: "If this is your whole past, how did you become a buddha?" Yakusan was a
buddha, an awakened master.
"But
if only this is your past, then how out of this past did you manage to blossom into a
buddha?" This past has no potentiality .... Dogo asked a very pertinent question.
Ungan
took the question to Yakusan. He himself had not thought about it, but Dogo had pointed
out rightly that there is a missing link. "You should have asked the question: How
have you become like this? Your past is absolutely contradictory. Out of this past a
buddha cannot be born."
UNGAN
TOOK THE QUESTION TO YAKUSAN, USING THE SAME SCHOLARLY CHINESE.
YAKUSAN
ANSWERED, "I NEVER OPEN ANY BOOKS."
He is
saying, "I never tell any secrets. I NEVER OPEN ANY BOOKS. I have told you my
miserable past which can be told, which can be managed in language. But the secret of how
I became a buddha cannot be expressed in language. It is a closed book, it is a secret.
You have to find it within yourself."
That is
my link also, and that is the link of every buddha. Don't ask about it, it is a mystery.
You just enter into yourself and you will find how one becomes a buddha, how a lotus
flower comes out of dirty mud.
Dirty
mud I could talk about, but about the beauty of the lotus I am helpless. I cannot say
anything about it. I cannot open the book. You will have to face the lotus yourself and
see how out of dirty mud a lotus arises -- the most beautiful flower in the whole world.
Yakusan
talked only about the dirty mud. "I accept that one thing is missing, and Dogo is
right, but that thing you can find only by going in. The moment you find yourself becoming
a lotus flower out of the mud, you will know my secret too. But as far as I am concerned,
I never open any books, any secrets, any mysteries."
In fact,
nobody can do it. But he said it in a very beautiful way.
In our
meditations we are trying to find the same missing link. I call it witnessing; hence my
continuous emphasis on witnessing. That is the missing link. Once you are a witness,
suddenly, out of the mud, the dirty mud, centuries old, a lotus flower bursts with a
fragrance which is almost not of this world, but something that belongs to the beyond.
Yakusan
is right. Nobody can say exactly what it is. No explanation is ever complete, only
experience ...
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, YAKUSAN ASKED UNGAN, "A HORSE HAS HORNS; CAN YOU
SEE THEM?"
Now, no
horse has horns -- you know it. But this is the world of Zen, where strange things happen.
YAKUSAN
ASKED UNGAN, "A HORSE HAS HORNS; CAN YOU SEE THEM?"
Ungan
replied -- just a masterly reply -- "IF IT HAS, THERE IS NO NEED TO SEE. If you say
it has horns, there is no need to say. I trust."
But
Yakusan was far greater a master than Ungan:
"THAT
HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY," ADDED YAKUSAN.
UNGAN
REPLIED, "IF THAT IS SO, I WILL TAKE IT."
A
strange dialogue. But I would like you to know that everybody who is unconscious has horns
-- horse or man, it does not matter. Your anger, your violence, your rage, your tendency
to destroy -- that is what is represented by horns.
So when
Yakusan said, "A HORSE HAS HORNS," he was saying that "A horse is here
which is very violent, very furious, very terrible."
Ungan
understood the symbol; that is why he said, "IF IT HAS, THERE IS NO NEED TO
SEE."
And in
fact, nobody can see your horns, although everybody has them. You only depict horns on the
head of the devil, but everybody has horns -- in his violence, in his anger, in his
murderous possibilities, in his destructiveness.
Yakusan
said, "THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY."
In fact,
if you have a horse which is really wild, furious, violent, it is a great horse in war. It
will trample thousands of people. You have just to rush towards the army of the enemy ....
In the past, the horse was the only nuclear weapon.
So
Yakusan said, "THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY."
UNGAN
REPLIED, "IF THAT IS SO, I WILL TAKE IT."
This
whole dialogue is not what it appears. It is a dialogue about your unconsciousness, out of
which all that is violent, all that is destructive, all that is ugly, arises. Your
unconscious has horns. In other words, your unconscious is the only devil; there is no
other devil anywhere else.
But when
Yakusan said, "THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY ..." Your unconsciousness has
two possibilities: if it remains unconscious, it is destructive, dangerous to you and to
others. But if you bring light to it, if it turns into consciousness, that is its other
possibility. Then it has the best quality in the world. You become a buddha.
That's
why Ungan said, "IF THAT IS SO -- that it is of the best quality -- I WILL TAKE IT. I
am ready to become a buddha."
It would
have been difficult for you to enter into this dialogue. You would have thought, "It
seems to be absurd!" It is not. These people are meditative people, who have been
meditating for years. They understand the symbols, they understand the deeper psychology,
the parapsychology and beyond psychology, so their dialogues are not ordinary dialogues.
Even the
dialogues of Socrates are ordinary; ordinary not in the sense that you will be able to
understand them, but ordinary in the sense that they are only logical dialogues -- very
refined logic, very sharp, and very complicated, but after all, that is the function of
the mind. Socrates could not reach to the function of no-mind. He was unaware of the
Eastern search.
There
were contemporaries of Socrates who had reached the East, like Pythagoras. Pythagoras
became a buddha. Socrates had every possibility, but he remained confined in the mind. He
went on sharpening the sword of logic. He cuts very fine arguments, he is very convincing,
but as far as awakening is concerned, he is as fast asleep as anyone else.
His
contemporary, Pythagoras, moved from Athens to Alexandria, and from Alexandria to India.
It was the time when Buddha was alive, when Mahavira was alive, when six other great
thinkers of the same quality as Gautam Buddha were alive, all in the small state of Bihar.
And Pythagoras traveled to Bihar, met all the great enlightened people.
He was
young, but he reached to India at the right time, just as you have reached to India at the
right time.
Ekon
wrote:
WHO
SHALL HALT THE SWAN
IN ITS
FLIGHT?
OR LIFE
IN ITS FLOW?
I have
been telling you: everything is moving so fast -- and there is nobody who is capable of
preventing a swan in its flight.
The
great swans live deep in the Himalayas, in the highest lake in the world, Mansarovar.
Mansarovar remains frozen for nine months of the year, you can drive a car on it. It is a
lake miles and miles long, but the snow becomes hard as stone.
The
swans leave -- they have to leave because there is no water to drink, no fish to eat, they
cannot penetrate the thick layer of hard snow -- and three thousand miles they fly over
the Himalayas and come to small lakes, rivers, around North India. It is a very mysterious
phenomenon.
In those
nine months ... nature has such balance, such harmony, that those nine months are the
months for their mating also. So they mate and they lay the eggs, but before the eggs open
and their children come out, nine months are over. Now Mansarovar will be melting. They
fly again, leaving the eggs in the plains of North India, a three-thousand-mile flight --
thousands and thousands of swans disappearing into the Himalayas.
The
miracle is, when the parents are gone, then the eggs open and those small swans
immediately start moving towards Mansarovar. They don't have any map, no guide, no parents
to tell them which is exactly the same route the parents have taken for millions of years.
Every year the miracle happens: those small swans start flying three thousand miles high
above the Himalayan peaks where the snow has never melted since eternity, and they take
the same route and they reach to the same Mansarovar lake.
And
people think nature has no intelligence!
Nature
has tremendous wisdom, just we have forgotten to listen to it. The only way for you to
listen to nature is by going deeper into yourself, because there are roots which are
spread into existence. Those roots still understand the language of existence.
Far away
from the roots, you are hung up in the head. You don't know anything about the wisdom of
existence. That's why you ask questions which are not needed at all. You need only one
thing: to find a connecting link with existence, and all questions disappear.
My new
symbol is going to be a flying swan.
WHO
SHALL HALT THE SWAN IN ITS FLIGHT OR LIFE IN ITS FLOW? -- but people try hard.
Just
look at women ...! They halt again and again, although life goes on, it does not listen. A
sixteen-year-old woman will take almost three years to become seventeen, and as the age
grows the gap becomes bigger. Never ask a woman her age. Always tell a woman, "You
look very young!"
Even if
the woman has one foot in the grave and another foot in the church, still you have to say,
"You look so young, so fresh, so radiant" -- and even an old, dying woman will
have a blush of youth on her face! Sometimes I think perhaps even a dead woman, if
persuaded rightly, will start blushing -- I just think, I have not tried! -- but there is
every possibility of it being true.
At the
age of thirty-six -- that is the finding of the psychologists -- women stop, because now
this is very dangerous. To go beyond thirty-six ... it will take almost four years to
become thirty-seven! Now things are dangerous ahead. A woman becomes forty with great
difficulty, great reluctance, because the dangerous time is coming when people will start
telling her, "You look much younger!"
Nobody
tells that to a young woman, there is no point. A young woman is young. Whenever somebody
tells you, "You are looking very young," take it for granted -- Avirbhava! --
that you have gone beyond; people are being very nice to you. People try ... but nobody
succeeds.
One has
to become old, and when you are becoming old reluctantly, old age becomes ugly. When you
are becoming old joyously, old age has a beauty of its own, a grandeur of its own, a
ripeness, a maturity, a centering. Young people have nothing compared to the experienced,
who have lived life and who know it is all just a game.
The
moment a person comes to the point where the whole life is just a game, his old age is so
beautiful, so graceful; no young person can be compared to it. His white hairs will look
like white snow -- just on the highest peak of the mountains. He will die with joy. He has
lived his life, now he is entering into a new phase -- death. He will not be reluctant.
If he
was not reluctant for old age, he will not be reluctant for death. If he accepted old age
joyously, he will accept death also dancingly. He will go with death dancing.
If a man
can go joyously with death, there is no death for him, he enters into eternal life. Then
there is no birth, no death. He has gone beyond the circle of birth and death.
Maneesha's question:
OUR
BELOVED MASTER
ARE THERE
CERTAIN CONDITIONINGS -- SUCH AS GUILT, FEAR, JEALOUSY -- THAT ARE NOT PECULIAR TO
CHRISTIANITY ALONE BUT HAVE BEEN ENDORSED BY ALL RELIGIONS, IN ALL CULTURES SINCE TIME
IMMEMORIAL?
Maneesha,
no religion can exist without guilt. It is an absolute necessity for a religion that
people should feel guilty.
No
religion can exist without creating fear in people -- fear of hell, fear of punishment,
fear of eternal fire.
No
religion can gather masses and exploit them without guilt and fear.
A guilty
person feels somehow to find a savior. He has committed sin, and all religions create as
many sins as possible. In fact, everything that makes you happy is a sin. Everything that
makes you a long-faced Englishman is virtue.
Guilt is
needed absolutely -- but how to create guilt? First you have to indicate to people that
all these things are sin. If you commit these things, you will be guilty and you will
suffer immensely for it -- eternal hellfire. So guilt creates the fear that, "My God,
I have loved a woman!" -- and all the religions say the woman is the gate to hell.
I have
always been wondering: If the woman is the gate to hell, then no woman can go into hell;
she is the gate, and gates don't move, gates don't walk. Only man can go into hell, the
woman remains outside hell. She may not enter into heaven, but outside hell -- I think
this is a perfectly good position! Allow as many men to go into hell, the poor creatures,
and you need not be afraid: you are the gate!
Don't
love a woman, otherwise you are finished. Don't dance, and don't sing, and don't look
happy. Look miserable. The more miserable you look, the more religious you are.
And
miserable people are created by the same strategy: they cannot commit the sin and they
have every desire to commit it. So everything is propelling them to commit the sin and
they cannot, because hell is there. This creates such a dilemma that half of them are
ready to commit, and half of them are escaping -- so they are stuck. They cannot move
towards sin, they cannot move towards paradise. In this stuck stage, they feel utterly
miserable.
These
miserable people gather into churches, into temples, into mosques for the priest to guide
them, to help them. If they have committed some sin, that makes them guilty and miserable:
"I have committed ..."
Religions
relish and get nourished on your guilt, on your sins. Christianity has made them more
emphatically clear than other religions, but other religions also have the same strategy.
Jealousy
is created by religion's continuous emphasis on monogamy, and monogamy means -- not in the
dictionaries, but in life -- monotony. Nobody wants to live in a monotonous life. Marriage
is a great strategy. Married couples are the most miserable people in the world and
religions insist, "No divorce, divorce is a sin!" In this way prostitutes are
created. This is the by-product of religion.
These
are the good things that religions have done. First, create monotony -- that is, marriage
-- then prostitutes are bound to come, because man is a polygamous animal. You cannot
change his nature, it is an inbuilt process.
So is
woman polygamous, but it does not appear to be so. The reason for it is that the woman has
been deprived of education, of economic freedom, of movement into society. So, rather than
being polygamous, her security is in remaining monogamous -- although she suffers as much
as the man, or perhaps more, because man has created prostitutes.
You will
be surprised to know that in India there were pious prostitutes called devadasis. They
still exist in South India -- beautiful girls, and the parents would dedicate those girls
to the temple. They become servants of God. Actually they are prostitutes for the priests,
first; second, they are prostitutes for the rich people who can pay the priests. Every
great temple has hundreds of devadasis, even today, in the name of religion.
And why
do parents, knowing perfectly well, go on giving their beautiful girls? -- only beautiful
girls are chosen by the priests, by the saints -- because, in India particularly, to have
a daughter is to have a catastrophe. To get her married you may have to sell your house,
your business, your land, everything. You have to give so much money, because the parents
of the boy to whom you are marrying your daughter ask for money. They have brought the boy
up for twenty-five years, then he became a professor. For those twenty-five years you have
to pay, because now he will not be any more with the parents, he will belong to the wife.
There is some logic in it.
So even
though the constitution prohibits it, it continues in indirect ways. A car is needed, a
house is needed, and where will they live? And if you cannot give, then keep your
daughter. And Indians are very much afraid: if the daughter goes on becoming older, the
less are her chances for marriage. Because every man wants a woman in every way inferior,
she should be smaller in height than the man, she should not be so educated as the man,
she should not be as strong as the man. This is the masochist, male chauvinist society. So
man has to find prostitutes, just once in a while, to get out of the monotony.
Religions
create great things -- marriage, prostitutes, devadasis. Now the women's liberation
movement has started creating male prostitutes in Europe, and particularly in London. Now
in London you can find male prostitutes. This is a new phenomenon. Now women can also have
a holiday from the husband!
And if
you cannot go to the prostitutes because it is so unrespectable -- a red-light district
... You cannot even pass by there. You may not be going to the prostitutes, you may be
just passing by the street, but you cannot enter in case somebody sees. So there are
freelance prostitutes, without any licence; they are called call girls. You don't have to
go anywhere. In every hotel, in every room, there is a Bible. Open the Bible, and on the
first page you will find, "Look on page ninety." You open page ninety and you
find the address and phone number of Gorgeous Gloria! Just give a call and she will come
to your room number directly -- no question of being disrespected, dishonorable.
So
judges, politicians, the super-rich, they stay in five-star hotels, and every Bible has
the address -- just give a call. Perhaps now in London they will have also the address for
male prostitutes -- call boys!
These
are all the great things that religion has done. And because of marriage, jealousy arises.
These are all linked with one another. When you feel unhappy with your wife you start
looking around in the neighborhood, and the wife is constantly watching where your eyes
are moving, why you are always sitting by the fence reading the newspaper. That newspaper
is just to prevent the wife so she cannot see your face, where you are looking -- making
signs, smiling. The newspaper is a great help.
And
wives are very angry. They snatch the newspaper immediately. I was wondering why wives are
so much against newspapers, but by and by I found out the reason. Now jealousy arises. The
man is frustrated, his wife is frustrated, you are also frustrated, and your wife also is
frustrated. All these frustrated people -- created by religion -- and then they are
jealous!
The wife
is afraid. She is uneducated, has no financial position and has children. All the money is
in the hands of the husband; she is just a commodity. Because you have reduced the woman
into a commodity she is constantly watching where you are going, what you are doing. She
is looking into your pockets, she is even watching when you are sleeping.
I have
heard: a woman was watching the husband while he was sleeping. Now, in sleep he cannot go
anywhere -- but in his sleep he was talking to some woman: "Maria! Sweetheart, sugar
pie!"
The
woman immediately shook the husband and asked, "Who is this Maria?"
Husbands
have also become clever .... He said, "Maria? It is a horse. I am thinking to bet on
the coming horse race, and Maria seems to be the right horse!"
The wife
said, "Okay."
In the
morning Maria phoned. The wife immediately took the phone -- she never allows the husband
to take the phone -- and she told the husband, "The horse is calling!"
Unless
marriage disappears from the world, jealousy cannot disappear.
But
religion is very insistent on marriage. It is not worried about the suffering of millions
of people unnecessarily. People are driving each other mad with their jealousy, with their
new girlfriends. And men are also jealous, it is not that only women are jealous.
Men are
jealous because they want their wives to be absolutely dedicated to them. They know they
are not dedicated, but they are men -- boys are boys; all this dedication and surrender is
for the woman. Boys are boys and will remain always boys.
But I
say to you: girls are girls!
It is
time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.
Harry
Manners, a very proper British gentleman, is in the habit of taking his wife, Mabel, on
holiday to France every year.
This
year they are staying, as usual, in their little seaside cottage, when Mabel becomes
suddenly ill and dies.
Harry is
very upset but manages to keep the British "stiff upper lip" and decides to have
Mabel's funeral there, in the French village.
Monsieur
Felix, the mayor, lends Harry a black suit for the funeral, but being British, Harry feels
it would not be proper to go without a black hat. He feels that his wife, Mabel, would
expect it of him.
So Harry
goes into town to the local men's shop and tries in his best French to ask the salesman
for a black hat.
"Have
you a capot noir?" asks Harry.
The
salesman thinks Harry is mad, because in French, capot means condom. So he points to the
pharmacy across the road, and sends Harry there.
"Have
you a capot noir?" asks Harry, wondering why the French keep black hats in a
pharmacy.
"Monsieur,"
replies Madame Fifi, from behind the counter, "we have pink ones, blue ones, green
ones and ones with feathers -- but no black ones."
"That
is too bad," thinks Harry to himself, wondering how he is going to get a black hat.
"But,
monsieur," asks Madame Fifi, "may I ask you why you want a black one?"
"Oui!
Oui!" replies Harry, hopefully. "It is for my wife; you see, she is dead!"
"Ah!"
gasps Madame Fifi, with admiration, "you British -- so cultured!"
Jack and
Jill Jerk are sitting in their living room one evening, talking about the future of their
young son, George.
"Gee,
Jack," says Jill, "I wonder what little George will grow up to be."
"I
know how we can find out," says Jack. "Watch this." And Jack pulls a
ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, setting it on the table. "If he takes this
money," says Jack smiling, "then he will grow up to be a banker."
Then
Jack takes a dusty old Bible off the bookshelf and sets it on the table next to the money.
"Now,"
says Jack excitedly, "if he takes the Bible, for sure he will grow up to be a great
TV evangelist like Jimmy Bakker!"
Next,
Jack pulls out a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and sets it on the table alongside the
other items.
"And,"
says Jack seriously, "if he goes for this whiskey bottle, then he will just turn out
to be a bum!"
Quietly,
Jack and Jill Jerk go and hide in the next room when they hear little George coming in.
George is whistling happily when he suddenly sees all the articles sitting on the table.
He looks around to make sure that he is alone, and then he walks over and picks up the
ten-dollar bill. He holds it up to the light and fingers it gently. Then he puts it down,
and picks up the Bible. He blows the dust off and thumbs through a few pages, and puts it
back down.
Little
George looks around again, then he quickly uncorks the whiskey bottle and sniffs the
contents.
Suddenly,
in one motion, he stuffs the money in his pocket, sticks the Bible under his arm, grabs
the whiskey bottle by the neck and walks out of the room, whistling.
"My
goodness," says Mrs. Jerk, "what does that mean he will grow up to be?"
"Ah!"
cries her husband, "it means he is going to be a politician!"
Justice
Dung is the presiding judge in a case where Paddy is called as a witness. The judge is
asking Paddy some questions.
"Did
you see the defense witness fall over in the street?" asks Justice Dung.
"Who,
me?" asks Paddy.
"Yes,
you," replies the judge.
"No,
not me," says Paddy.
"Did
you see the witness at all?" asks Justice Dung.
"Who,
me?" asks Paddy.
"Yes,
you!" replies the judge.
"No,
not me," says Paddy.
"Then
why are you here?" asks the judge.
"Who,
me?" asks Paddy.
"Yes,
you!" replies the judge.
"To
see justice done," says Paddy.
"Who,
me?" asks Justice Dung. |