OUR BELOVED MASTER ONCE, WHEN YAKUSAN
WAS RECITING A SUTRA, A MONK ASKED HIM: "YOU DON'T USUALLY ALLOW US TO RECITE SUTRAS.
WHY DO YOU YOURSELF RECITE A SUTRA?"
"I JUST WANT
TO ENTERTAIN MY EYES," REPLIED YAKUSAN.
THE MONK ASKED,
"CAN I ALSO RECITE SUTRAS LIKE YOU?"
"IF YOU WANT
TO RECITE SUTRAS LIKE ME," ANSWERED YAKUSAN, "YOU MUST PIERCE EVEN THROUGH THE
HIDE OF A COW."
ON ANOTHER
OCCASION, YAKUSAN WAS ASKED BY GOVERNOR RI, "WHAT ARE THE PRECEPTS, MEDITATION AND
WISDOM?"
YAKUSAN ANSWERED,
"THIS POOR MONK HASN'T SUCH USELESS FURNITURE."
RI SAID,
"DON'T BE SO MYSTERIOUS!"
YAKUSAN SAID,
"IF YOU WANT TO HAVE WHAT I HAVE, YOU MUST SIT ON THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN, GO DOWN TO
THE BOTTOM OF THE DEEPEST SEA.
"YOU DON'T
THROW OFF YOUR BURDENS EVEN WHEN YOU GO TO BED; YOU ARE BUSY WITH ILLUSIONS."
Friends,
The Christian monks
who have visited the ashram have sent me their ideas of what religion has done for
humanity, for civilization, for culture, and I have to discuss them point by point, to
show that no religion, including Christianity, has done anything to humanity except harm.
I would like to
begin from the very beginning, because Christianity believes obedience is a fundamental
virtue, and disobedience is the original sin.
God created the
world, and in every church you will hear that he created Adam and Eve after he had created
everything else. That's a lie. He created first Adam and Lilith, but it is not being told
to people. There are reasons for not telling it.
God created Adam
and Lilith with the same mud. It is a myth, but it carries tremendous meaning. And this
shows the utter stupidity of God, that he created a small single bed, only one bed, with
the male chauvinist idea that Adam will sleep on the bed and Lilith will sleep on the
floor. The woman cannot be equal to the man.
From that very
point the whole of Christianity has been against equality. If even God is against it, then
equality, equal opportunity for all, cannot be accepted. That's why Christianity is
against communism, against anarchism.
And I say that God
was utterly stupid, because when you create a couple, you should at least create a double
bed.
The first night was
the beginning of a struggle that continues even today. Lilith wanted to sleep on the bed,
and Adam wanted to sleep on the bed, and the bed could not contain the two. So Adam threw
Lilith down, then Lilith jumped on Adam and she threw Adam down -- just because of a
stupid God who could not think that a double bed was needed!
The whole night the
fight continued -- the fight for equality that continues even today in every bedroom. Even
though now there are double beds available, the fight continues, the pillow fight!
Next day Adam asked
God not the right question -- "Why don't you give us a bigger bed?" -- which
would have been so simple, logical; he asked God, "I cannot tolerate this woman who
wants to be equal to me." And God killed Lilith, his own daughter.
Neither was Adam
asking for a bigger bed, nor did God suggest to him that "There is no problem. I have
created the whole world, I can create a double bed. Just (THE MASTER SNAPS HIS FINGERS)
like that ... a double bed!"
But God was also a
male chauvinist. He favored Adam, although it was unjust to Lilith, and the injustice goes
even to the point of murder -- murdering his own daughter because she was asking for
equality.
To me, asking for
equal opportunity is a fundamental religious principle. I don't say people are equal, I
say people need equal opportunity to grow into their unequal uniquenesses.
But a double bed!
-- that proves absolutely that God was a Jew, and it is not an accident that he has chosen
the Jews as his own people. Rather than making a double bed, he chose to kill his own
daughter. But it is not only killing Lilith, it is killing the very idea of equality. And
these Christian monks say religion has done great service to humanity! And the Christians
have followed it, and all the other religions have followed it also.
China does not
believe that a woman has a soul. It is just as though she is furniture: since thousands of
years in China, if a husband kills his wife, the husband is not committing a crime. The
wife was his possession. You can destroy your chair, you can destroy anything that you
possess, it is not a crime. Because the woman has no soul, nobody is murdered.
Thailand also
believes there is no soul in the woman, and Christianity down the ages has been killing
millions of women, burning them alive for a simple reason that was far more ancient than
Christianity itself. They were called witches.
Christianity has
turned the word `witch' into an ugly thing. `Witch' means a wise woman, not a woman who is
having intercourse with the devil. That is a Christian invention. They could not tolerate
wise women, because wise women mean ... then what about the priest, and the bishop, and
the cardinal, and the pope? A woman can be wise? -- never! Only man can be wise. And
because those women were certainly wiser than men -- it was a long heritage -- the only
way to destroy them was to find an excuse.
Anybody could
report to a special court, a grand jury, the pope had created; Anybody -- X,Y,Z -- could
simply inform the court anonymously, "I suspect a certain woman in my neighborhood is
a witch." That was enough. The woman would be caught, tortured for days on end,
beaten, sexually abused, till she accepted that yes, she is having intercourse with the
devil.
Naturally, you
cannot suffer infinitely. There comes a point when your spine is broken. And what is the
point? These people will go on beating you, will go on torturing you, will go on not
giving you food, not giving you water -- so what is the point? It is better to accept what
they want. Death was better than to be in the prisons of the pope.
They chose death
knowing well that once you accept in the court that you are having a love affair with the
devil, it is a very summary trial. The woman confesses, the judge immediately orders that
this woman should be burnt alive in the marketplace so everybody can see, and everybody
can find out if there are other witches in the village, in the town, in the city.
Just the idea that
a woman could be wise was unacceptable to man. And the root goes to God himself. God
killed Lilith, and this time he did not make Eve from the same earth as he had made Adam,
because that same earth had created the idea of equality.
So this time he put
Adam in a coma and took out -- the first surgery in existence -- a rib bone, and out of
the rib bone he created Eve. She will never claim to be equal to man; she is just a rib
bone. She will serve man, surrender to man, obey man, worship man.
And every church
goes on saying that God created Adam and Eve. Their own scriptures say something else, but
that is not being told. Centuries of repetition that God created Adam and Eve in the
beginning has made the lie appear, at least, as if it is the truth.
A God who has
created the whole world could not create a woman without taking a rib from Adam? It is
very strange, but the idea is that the woman is nothing but a bone, nothing but a body,
and she is secondary to man, and she has to be a slave to man. This idea is found in all
the religions in different ways.
The woman cannot go
to heaven from the body of a woman. First she has to be virtuous, chaste, dedicated to the
husband absolutely; then she may be born as a man in the next life -- out of this
virtuousness of being a slave. Slavery is virtue! Obedience is virtue!
The husband may be
a drunkard, the husband may be a murderer, the husband may be a rapist, the husband may be
doing all kinds of crimes, but the woman has to accept the husband as her god.
This you call
civilization?
One of the monks
has said that Christianity created civilization. Absolute nonsense and absurdity!
According to
Christianity itself, God created the world six thousand years ago.
In India we have
excavated Mohanjo Daro, a huge city just like Bombay, and Harappa, again another big city
which even Christians ... The man in charge of the excavation was a Christian named
Marshall. Even he had to accept that "We cannot date them at less than seven thousand
years. That would be absolute nonsense, it would not fit with my conscience. Although as a
Christian I should put them at less than six thousand years old, as a scientist I can only
bring them at the least to seven thousand years old."
And those cities, I
have to tell you, had as big roads as New York or San Francisco. That shows that those
cities must have had vehicles with great speed, otherwise those roads would not have been
needed. Just for people to walk on them, or bullock carts, such big roads were not needed.
Even today our
biggest cities don't have roads that big, and on both sides, pavements for people to walk
on. It is an indication that they must have had some kind of vehicles run by engines, some
kind of petroleum, gas.
Not only did they
have big roads, they had huge buildings. Now only ruins are there, but the ruins show
great stories. Such huge bedrooms! They had public swimming pools, they had a water
system, a very strange water system, to connect every house with pipelines. Every house
had a bathroom, a toilet -- and you think Christianity has civilized the world?
Just one hundred
years ago, in the American Supreme Court, there was a case against a man who had just come
from Europe and had found that in Paris people had bathrooms attached to their bedrooms,
so he had made the first bathroom attached to his bedroom. The whole of Christianity was
against him, and there were great protests: "This is absolutely dirty, to have a
bathroom attached to the bedroom. Bathrooms, toilets, have to be far away, at the back of
the house." And the man had to fight up to the Supreme Court to win the case, just
one hundred years ago!
Seven thousand
years ago in Harappa and Mohanjo Daro, they had attached bathrooms, toilets, to their
bedrooms. They had a water system making water available to every house, every bathroom,
making water available to public swimming pools. And there were private swimming pools
also in very big houses, which were certainly of rich people, kings and queens.
And seven thousand
years is the minimum. The likelihood is that they are more ancient than seven thousand
years, because there is no mention in Hindu scriptures about Harappa and Mohanjo Daro.
Such huge cities, and no mention of those cities? -- and the RIGVEDA, the most ancient
book, is, with valid evidence, ninety thousand years old. Even the RIGVEDA does not
mention those cities. Perhaps those cities are more ancient than RIGVEDA, perhaps they
disappeared in a catastrophe, natural or man-made, before the Aryans came to India!
Those cities did
not belong to the Aryans, because not a single statue of Hindu gods has been found there.
Yes, one statue has been found which proves that Jainism must have been prevalent in those
cities. One statue only has been found of a naked Mahavira. But nobody can say whether it
is Mahavira, or any one of the twenty-three other tirthankaras of the Jainas.
That statue proves
that before the Aryans came to India, there was flourishing a great civilization. And that
also proves that Jainism is far more ancient than Hinduism, because no Hindu temple has
been found, no Hindu statue of Shiva, or Vishnu, or Brahma -- nothing.
And you will not
believe it, but these two cities went through seven periods of destruction. It is now just
guesswork what happened to these cities. When they first excavated, they thought that this
was all, a great city. But Marshall was interested to dig more, because he suspected that
such a big city could not have come into existence from nowhere; there must have been
other big cities.
So he started
digging outside Harappa and Mohanjo Daro, and he was surprised: there was another layer of
thick mud -- perhaps from volcanic eruptions -- and under that mud another similar kind of
city, with the same facilities.
Then he became
interested to dig more, and now seven layers have been found. It seems for thousands of
years Harappa and Mohanjo Daro were going into convulsions. Destroyed, they were made
again; destroyed, they were made again -- seven times.
It must have taken
thousands of years for those cities ... And ultimately they were destroyed. It is just for
us to guess whether it was nuclear weapons those people were accumulating -- because all
their cities show scientific technology -- or it was nature. But nature cannot be so harsh
that seven times it will destroy a city ....
Most probably it
was man himself. Perhaps Harappa and Mohanjo Daro were at war, and they were destroying
each other and building again -- whoever had survived -- another city on top of the old
city which had been destroyed.
Now Christians have
to answer: Were Harappa and Mohanjo Daro created before God created the world?
RIGVEDA was written
ninety thousand years ago, and God created the world only six thousand years ago. The
Christian eyes are very blind. They cannot look into existence because of their
scriptures. The scriptures prevent them from seeing the reality.
Now it is
absolutely certain that the RIGVEDA is ninety thousand years old, because in RIGVEDA a
certain constellation of stars is described in absolute detail. That constellation has
never happened again. It happened, according to astronomers, scientists, ninety thousand
years ago. So the people who wrote RIGVEDA must have watched it; their description is in
such exact detail that it cannot be that they were imagining it -- there is no possibility
-- and that constellation has never happened again! Perhaps in the future sometime it may
happen again. That is a scientific proof of RIGVEDA'S ancientness.
Those monks have
written to me that "We brought culture to the world."
While the RIGVEDA
was being written, where were you, and where was your God? When Harappa and Mohanjo Daro
were destroyed and built again and again seven times, where was your God, and where were
Christians? While the UPANISHADS were being written, Europe was barbarious.
You will be
surprised to know that arithmetic was born in India. Gunpowder, machine guns, were created
by the Chinese, before the birth of Christ. The alphabet was born in India, astronomy was
born in India.
But why did these
people stop? They could have moved towards nuclear energy ....
The reason why
China did not move -- knowing these secrets they did not create machine guns, although in
their scriptures absolute details are given -- is that they were stopped by their sages,
that "These things will lead to more destructive weapons. One thing leads to another.
You just stop. Keep a record of it, but don't produce such dangerous weapons."
Why did arithmetic
not reach to the point of Albert Einstein in India? It was stopped for the simple reason
that our genius should not be wasted in objective things; our genius and our life is too
small. It is enough to create a comfortable life outside, and then go inwards. The
ultimate journey is inwards. The same was true in China. These are the most ancient
civilized countries.
And the original
sin -- according to Christians -- was committed by Adam and Eve. According to me, the
original sin was committed by the Christian God.
When he created Eve
from the rib bone of Adam he told them both, "In the Garden of Eden, the garden of
paradise" -- God's garden was huge, there were millions of trees, and God pointed to
two trees -- "you should not eat from these two trees." One tree was of
knowledge, the other was of life eternal.
What kind of father
is this who prevents his own children from being wise, intelligent? and prevents them from
being eternal, from going beyond the circle of life and death? What kind of God is this?
Even the Christian
God is not civilized. He does not deserve to be called a father. No father will deprive
his children. Every father, even the poorest father, is trying for his children to become
educated, to become more intelligent, to become more wise. And every father is trying to
pray for his children to have a longer life.
God, as far as
Christianity is concerned, is absolutely barbarious. And the devil was right, not God,
when he persuaded Eve and told her the reason why God had prohibited them: "These are
the most precious trees. If you eat the fruit of knowledge, and if you eat the fruit of
eternal life, you will become exactly equal to the gods. That is his fear, because what
more has he? He is afraid and jealous of you, and he does not want you to become gods in
your own right. He wants you to remain buffalos chewing grass -- real grass."
I want to tell the
Christians of the whole world: If the devil had not inspired Eve, you, your popes, your
cardinals, your bishops, archbishops, your Jesus, your Moses -- all would be chewing grass
in the Garden of Eden, just like buffalos, utterly content. Only grass was left for them
to chew, not even chewing gum!
And it is a strange
fact, but the mythology has some truth in it, a shadow of truth. God caught them
red-handed, eating the fruit of the tree of wisdom -- and it was nothing but an apple.
Avoid apples! -- that is original sin.
For three years I
remained only eating apples, just to see. Because they had eaten only one apple -- half
was eaten by Eve, and half was eaten by Adam -- so I said, "Let us see!"
For three years my
family was mad at me: "What are you doing?"
But I said, "I
have to complete three years at least, to see how I become a sinner" -- and nothing
happened! In three years I must have eaten as many apples as any man in the whole of
history! Just apples and nothing else ...
This is called the
original sin, that they did not obey God. And because they committed the original sin of
disobedience, you are all original sinners, because you all have come from their blood.
They were the original founders of humanity.
God caught them
red-handed and did not let them remain in the garden, because soon they would eat the
other tree's fruit: eternal life. He just threw them out of the Garden of Eden and closed
the door. He wanted them to remain ignorant, and he wanted them to suffer the pangs of
birth, life and death, eternally.
Who is committing
the sin, God or the devil? or Adam and Eve?
Being without any
prejudice, you can see that God is the criminal. And God does not know even the abc of
psychology. If he had not prevented them from eating from these two trees -- he had
pointed out the trees -- the garden was so huge, we may not have discovered even up to now
which were the trees. We had no idea. He gave them the provocation.
Just tell a child,
"Don't look inside the room!" -- and even the retarded child will look inside
the room, to say nothing about the intelligent one. He will find ways to look in the room.
"What is the matter? Why not look in the room?"
In one family --
of course a Christian family -- a boy was coming of age and needed some sex education. The
mother felt embarrassed to tell him, so she said, "You go to your father and ask him
about the birds and bees."
He said, "But
I don't want to know about the birds and bees."
That is a metaphor
for sex: birds and bees.
So the boy went to
the father and said, "My mother has sent me, and she wants me to ask -- although I am
not interested at all what the birds and bees are doing, but just because of her I am
asking you."
The father was also
embarrassed. It is such a strange situation, created by religions, that we cannot talk of
natural things!
The father said,
"Why are you not interested in the birds and bees?"
He said, "I
know exactly what they are doing, and I know exactly what you and mother are doing! The
same: birds and bees!"
The father said,
"You know what we are doing? How did you come to know?"
He said, "From
the keyhole I see everything that goes on inside the bedroom. First I used to think that
my father seems to be very barbarious, holding my mother under himself, huffing, puffing.
What is going on here? Is he going to murder my mother? Then later on I asked older boys
in the school. They laughed. They said, `He is not murdering your mother, he is loving
your mother!'
"So I know
everything. You don't have to waste your time teaching me about the birds and the
bees."
Every intelligent
child looks through the keyhole to see what is going on, for the simple reason because he
is prevented.
Prevent anybody and
you create a provocation. This is the simplest psychology! No Sigmund Freud is needed,
just a little intelligence. Just tell people not to do a certain thing and they will
become interested. There must be something, or else why are they prevented? And they will
try. They would not have tried, perhaps, if you had not prevented them.
So God is not only
an idiot, but he does not know even a small portion of psychology -- and he is a male
chauvinist. He killed his own daughter, he is a murderer. And he threw Adam and Eve out
from the garden out of the fear that they might eat the fruits of life eternal.
I consider the
devil to be the first revolutionary in the world. I consider Eve to be the first to be
convinced of the revolution. I consider Adam as the third, for being persuaded by the
wife.
Obedience has been
the fundamental virtue. Why? To perpetuate the past, to keep the status quo of the society
as it is, with no change, to keep millions of people in spiritual slavery: that is
obedience.
Get exploited, but
don't disobey. Behave like a sheep, not like a lion; that has been the teaching of
Christianity and other religions.
Jesus insults
humanity so much that I had to burn the whole Bible. When I was very young I burned it,
and my father asked me, "What are you burning?"
I said, "It is
none of your concern."
But he said,
"At least I can inquire."
I said, "Yes,
you can inquire. It is the Bible -- and the same is going to be the fate of your
religion's books. Whenever I find something ugly, I don't miss the opportunity to destroy
it."
Jesus says to
people, "You should behave like sheep, and I am your shepherd. You should obey me,
and you should be loyal to me, and you should believe in me. That's all that you need, and
I will save you. At the last day of judgment I will choose my sheep and tell God that
`These people belong to me, let them in! And the others have to be thrown into
hellfire.'"
What is the value
of obedience? Yes, every politician wants obedience, every priest wants obedience, every
general wants obedience; every rich man wants obedience from the servants; every husband
wants obedience from the wife, from the children. All vested interests are based on
obedience.
I teach you
awareness, and if your awareness feels things are right, obedience follows. If your
awareness feels things are not right, disobedience follows. I don't teach you obedience or
disobedience. I teach you simply awareness, clarity of your vision, so you can see for
yourself.
Obedience has done
much more harm to humanity than disobedience would have done. If all the armies disobey,
there will be no war. Five thousand wars ... humanity has been fighting continuously
somewhere or other. There is not a peaceful moment on the whole earth. Somewhere or other
killing goes on, continues as if this is our whole purpose for being here. On what are all
these armies based? Obedience.
One of my friends
was a colonel in the army, and his wife was my student in the university. She introduced
me to the colonel, and after Jabalpur, where I was a teacher, they were transferred to
Poona, so I used to come here and always used to have at least one meal in their house.
The colonel was
very much influenced by me, and he had a big regiment in Jabalpur, so he invited me one
day.
His wife said,
"Do you understand what you are doing?"
He said, "He
is a nice fellow."
The wife said,
"That's true, he is a nice fellow, but he will teach disobedience to your
regiment."
He said, "Are
you going to teach my regiment disobedience?"
I said,
"Certainly!"
He said, "Then
the program is canceled. My God! If my wife had not told me ..."
I said, "I
want to teach all the armies of the world disobedience. If they disobey, then let the
presidents and prime ministers have wrestling matches, boxing matches. They can enjoy, and
we will enjoy on television -- but there is no need for millions of people to be killed
continuously."
Big wars you know:
you know the first great world war, you know the second great world war, and you are
waiting for the third. Since the second world war, up to now there have been one hundred
and twenty-five small wars. But even small wars kill millions of people. You don't call
them world wars just because they are located in a small area and nobody cares about them.
Nobody counts how many people are killed daily because of obedience.
Obedience teaches
you blindness.
Obedience teaches
you unintelligence.
Obedience teaches
you that "You don't have any responsibility on your own, just follow the order!"
-- but the order is to kill people.
The man who bombed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- the pilot of the plane -- killed within ten minutes more than
two hundred thousand people, and he slept perfectly well in the night, with not even a
little prick of conscience, that "What have I done?"
No, the army is
prepared just to follow. You are not responsible for what action is going to take place
and what the consequences are going to be. The next morning the pilot was asked by the
journalists, "How do you feel?"
He said,
"There is no question, I am feeling perfectly good that I followed the order."
Truman was the
president of America who had ordered that Nagasaki and Hiroshima should be destroyed --
without any reason or rhyme, because Germany had surrendered and Japan too was going ....
The papers were being got ready, just the signature was needed of the emperor of Japan.
Within two or three days, or at the most seven days, agreements would have been completed
and Japan would have surrendered.
Seeing that Japan
was going to surrender, Truman was very quick. Before Japan surrendered -- because then he
would not be able to test his atom bombs -- he gave the order. Even his military experts
said to him, "This is absolute wastage. It is unnecessary murder -- and not of one
man, but more than two hundred thousand people!" Hiroshima and Nagasaki were big
cities.
But Truman did not
listen to his military experts. He said, "You don't know politics, you keep quiet. An
order is an order. You send the order that immediately, tonight, the bombs have to be
dropped, before the agreement is signed." And when the order comes from the
president, the commander-in-chief immediately gives the order to the lower -- to the
people trained just to follow, because obedience is the greatest virtue.
Truman was also
asked the next morning, "It was your order, how do you feel about killing so many
people unnecessarily?" The whole world could see that Japan was going to surrender,
there was no need at all. The war had almost stopped; the commanders from both the sides
were having discussions and making arrangements how to surrender.
Truman said,
"I had to test the atom bombs. We have wasted so much money in creating atom bombs
.... I am perfectly happy that the bombs worked, and now we will be growing more into
atomic technology."
And Truman was
blessed by the pope. Churchill was blessed by the pope, and Eisenhower was blessed by the
pope, and MacArthur was blessed by the pope -- and these were the killers.
But on the other
side also, you will be surprised: God is one, and the archbishop of Germany blessed Adolf
Hitler in the name of the same God. The archbishop in Japan blessed the emperor in the
name of the same God.
Mussolini was a
partner with Adolf Hitler and Emperor Hirohito of Japan, and the pope's Vatican is a small
thing -- eight square miles inside Italy -- and Benito Mussolini was Italy's dictator; the
pope had to bless him!
It is such that one
does not know whether to weep or to laugh.
Before the war, the
pope blessed Benito Mussolini, his counterpart in Germany blessed Adolf Hitler, and his
counterpart in Japan blessed Emperor Hirohito for victory. And when they saw that these
people were drowning after five years, the pope blessed Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower,
MacArthur -- the other party. He blessed both, and he asked God to help both!
Great! There seems
to be no logic at all.
Obedience is not a
virtue. In the name of obedience more people have been killed, burned alive ....
But I don't want
you to react and become disobedient. I want you to grow beyond the dualities of obedience
and disobedience. You should have a bird's-eye view of the whole situation, and according
to your awareness, consciousness, your meditation, you should respond. Whether it is
obedience or disobedience does not matter.
They have said in
their questions that Christianity has given the world faith, hope and charity.
What is faith? It
is always blind.
A man who knows
does not need faith.
I don't ask you to
have faith in me.
Jesus asks, Krishna
asks, "Have faith in me."
You are utterly
ignorant. In your ignorance, whatever you believe in, whatever is your faith, is a
by-product of ignorance, of fear, of society, of respectability.
Faith is not a
virtue, and it is not a great contribution to humanity's evolution. Faith is the greatest
hindrance in people's search for truth. Before you go in search you have already been
handed a secondhand dirty faith, and you are told that just this much is enough; you don't
have to search, Jesus has done it for you, Buddha has done it for you.
But Buddha has been
drinking water, and my thirst does not get quenched. Jesus has been drinking wine, and I
don't get drunk. How can Jesus help you by just having faith in him?
Faith simply means
hiding ignorance, and it is very cheap. Truth needs great energy, great urgency, and a
total involvement in the search.
Truth is within
you, faith comes from outside. Anything that comes from outside is not going to help you.
You cannot take it in. Truth is already alive in you, you don't need any faith. It is
faith which has kept humanity ignorant. It is not a contribution to evolution, it is a
contribution to INvolution. Involution means going backwards, not forwards.
Faith is always in
the other -- in Jesus, in God, in heaven, in hell. It is always outside you, and truth is
within you. Having faith, you are moving outside, farther away from the truth.
I am absolutely
against faith, against all belief systems, because they have been preventing humanity from
discovering their own buddhahood, their own godliness. But no priest wants you to discover
that you are divine. Every priest of every religion wants you to go away, far away from
yourself so he can exploit you.
The moment you know
that you are yourself part of this existence -- and not only part but the whole of this
existence -- that you are in your own right a buddha, no priest can exploit you. Faith is
needed for exploitation.
Religions teach
faith because they cannot help you to find the truth. They themselves don't know where
truth is.
The
commander-in-chiefs of the world want their armies to have faith. Faith in whom? Every
Christian army carries, even to the battlefield, a small Bible. Just one time it worked --
in the whole of history -- and that was just a coincidence, but it has been quoted again
and again by Christian missionaries around the world.
One soldier was
keeping his small Bible in his pocket in the first world war, and a bullet hit the Bible
and missed his heart. They said, "This is God's miracle!" But it only happened
to one man, and since that time all soldiers have been carrying a small Bible in their
pocket. It does not work.
Even an ordinary
person can understand that exceptions are not rules. The exception is an accident, it was
just by chance. If he had been carrying a PLAYBOY magazine, it would have done the same
work. And I wonder whether his Bible did not have a PLAYBOY magazine inside! All soldiers
are interested more in PLAYBOY than in the Bible, because they are deprived of women. That
too has a reason, why they are deprived of women.
As sexual energy
accumulates, one becomes irritated. If your sexual energy is satisfied, you don't feel
like fighting. But when your sexual energy is repressed, you are ready to destroy
anything. You are in anger, in rage; you are blind, you don't know why you are killing the
other person. The other person also has a wife, a child, a mother, an old father to look
after, and he has not done anything bad to you. You have not even been introduced. You are
killing a person just because your commander has ordered it.
Better to kill the
commander. Millions of people at least will be saved by killing one man. Just kill all the
commander-in-chiefs of the world -- maybe one hundred, two hundred; that does not matter
in a world where Adolf Hitler kills thirty million people in a war. And he does not even
go to the war ....
It is the
commander-in-chiefs who don't go to the war; it is the lower officers who go to the war.
It is a hierarchy. The poorest soldier at the bottom end of the hierarchy goes to the war.
He receives orders, and he does not know from where those orders are coming.
President Truman is
in Washington, in the White House, and the order comes to MacArthur, who is in a warship
outside the area of Japan. Then the order goes to a pilot, and the pilot does not know
from where it is coming.
And Truman is a
religious man; he goes every Sunday to the church. The White House has a special church
for the presidents. What kind of religious people are these? Even his name should be
changed! Tru-man -- he is not even man, and you are calling him "true man"!
He is the greatest
murderer in history. Nobody has killed so many people simultaneously. Within three minutes
Hiroshima was finished, and within three more minutes, Nagasaki was finished. Within four
minutes the pilot was back. In ten minutes the whole massacre was complete.
I say absolutely,
no faith is needed.
I teach you trust,
not faith, not belief, because faith and belief are in others; trust is in yourself. I
want you to trust in yourself. The existence has brought you here, you are still connected
with existence; otherwise you will die. Have faith in you, and search your roots with deep
trust. But it is not in somebody else -- not in some scripture, not in some shepherd, not
in some messiah, not in some prophet. No, absolutely no.
This faith has been
the greatest obstacle for seekers and searchers of truth.
Hope is another
danger .... And these monks have sent me these words: they don't know me at all.
Hope is called by
Karl Marx, in other words, the opium of the people. And he is right.
Who needs hope? The
rich man does not bother; it is the poor, it is the sick, it is the dying, it is the
starving, the beggars who need hope -- hope in a future life where they will be rewarded
immensely. For what? -- for being poor and beggars. For producing dozens of children and
creating more poverty in the world, they will be rewarded in heaven.
It seems God wants
this world to be turned into slums, then he will be very happy. Everybody will have faith,
everybody will be obedient, everybody will go to the church, and God will be immensely
happy.
But if people are
having trust in themselves, who cares about God? You are coming closer and closer to your
own godliness. You have found your own shrine inside. The outside God becomes a fiction.
Hope is always for
the future, and the reality is always in the present. Hope deprives you of the present,
and the present is the only moment you can explore your reality, your beauty, your truth,
your divineness. Hope is a very cunning strategy.
Once I was going to
the university, and a beautiful young woman waved to me to stop my car. I thought perhaps
she wanted a ride, so I stopped the car. I opened the window and asked her, "What is
the matter? What do you want?"
She said, "I
don't want anything, I simply want to give you this pamphlet. Just read it. And it has the
phone number, so if you want more of this kind of literature I will send it to you, or I
will come myself to deliver it."
As I was moving
off, I started looking at it, because just on the outside cover there was a beautiful
bungalow made of pure Italian marble, and by the side and behind the bungalow, a huge
mountain capped with snow. From the mountain a great waterfall came down by the side of
the bungalow, becoming a river just in front of the bungalow lawn.
The gate opened on
a bridge -- because the waterfall had become a river, and around the river were huge
trees, lush and green. And in the bungalow's garden were so many roses, such a beautiful
lawn, such a beautiful fountain ....
I said, "I
have never seen this house here or anywhere in India." I turned the page, and there
it was written: "If you believe in the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, you
will have such bungalows available for you in paradise." So cheap!
This is all
business. This is giving people hope. Now, a man who has no house and lives on the street
will treasure this pamphlet in case he reaches paradise -- and perhaps he will reach,
because Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor. They shall inherit the kingdom of
God." The man will think, "Who can be more poor than me? So I will keep it,
because paradise will be vast -- so many millions of saints of the past -- and I would
love to find this bungalow."
What is hope? To
whom do you give the hope? To the hopeless one who has lost all hope, seeing the life and
the competition and the continuous struggle for survival -- to the one who has become
hopeless.
Karl Marx says
also, "Religion is the hope of the hopeless." It gives a certain consolation
that, if not in this life ... And this life is not much; most of it is already gone, maybe
a few years more. Just a little patience and prayer and faith, and you will receive such
beautiful bungalows -- without any cost. Only faith is needed.
Again, hope is not
a contribution to humanity's progress. It prevents progress. It makes people believe in
dreams. They don't start creating reality, transforming reality, changing the social
structure, changing all institutions which create only misery and nothing else. Hope
prevents them! Why bother?
Revolution may
come, but you will be gone. And in revolution, getting involved, you will not be able to
pray, you will not be able to go to the church, you will not be able to have enough faith.
If you have enough faith, then this society, this structure, is made by God; you have to
be patient, it is a fire test for you -- your poverty, your sickness, your death,
everything. Just be quiet and have faith in God.
Just today I have
received such an ugly story, you will not believe it.
In Pennsylvania,
U.S.A., a former Seventh Day Adventist priest, who had been out of work for months, chose
to starve himself and his family to death rather than spend money which he had put aside
for God. He had four thousand dollars with him, but he had put it aside for God.
So, rather than
feeding his children, his wife -- they were starving ... How can he touch the money once
he has committed it to God? That will be betrayal, that will be not being faithful.
His only son died
of starvation. Then he was caught by the police, and asked how the son had died. Now he is
in jail. The police went into the house -- a beautiful house, with good furniture,
everything perfect, only no food -- and found the wife was almost dying, the daughter was
almost dying, and the priest himself was on the verge of death after three weeks of
starvation.
All those people of
the house were taken into the hospital, and the priest was asked, "You had money in
the house -- because the police found those four thousand dollars."
He said, "I
would rather die, and I would rather my wife and my children die, but I cannot betray my
faith." And even in this situation -- he is in jail, in the jail's hospital, he is
being charged with murder -- he says ... Certainly he had murdered the son, and he was
going to murder his wife and his daughter, and he was going to commit suicide himself.
Even in this situation, the priest says, his faith in God was not shaken.
Faith is blind,
utterly blind.
Hope is blind. And
I have talked about charity to you, but I will tell a small anecdote.
A Christian mother
was telling her small son, "It is your duty, being a faithful Christian, to share
whatever you have with others. Charity is the foundation of our religion."
The little boy
said, "That's perfectly good. I will give whatever I have to others. What will they
do?"
The mother said,
"What will they do?"
He said, "I am
asking that am I the only faithful Christian in the world? Is not somebody else going to
give his toys to me when I have given my toys to somebody else in charity?"
The mother said,
"God will take care."
He said, "This
seems to be very unmathematical." He was learning mathematics.
The mother said,
"What do you mean?"
He said, "It
is so simple that there is no need for me to explain. It is an absurd idea: I give to
others, they give to me, somebody else gives to somebody else, he gives to somebody else.
What is the point? I have my toys, they have their toys. I take care of myself, they take
care of themselves. Why make a clumsy and messy affair of the whole thing? What is the
point?"
And that is what
charity is -- absolutely meaningless. Give to the poor, but first you have to create the
poor, otherwise to whom will you give? So first create the poor, then give to the poor;
then God will be very happy with you.
In a small school,
a Christian teacher was giving the students a one-hour-long sermon on "How to get to
heaven." Finally she asked a boy, a little older, "Stand up and tell me how to
reach heaven."
He said,
"First you have to commit sin."
She said,
"What?!"
He said, "Yes.
According to your sermon I have concluded that first you commit sin, then God forgives
you; otherwise, whom will he forgive? He will feel very miserable if he has nobody to
forgive. Make him happy, commit as many sins you can. God is kind, God is love, God is
compassion, so he will forgive. And he is sitting there since eternity just for one
purpose: to forgive people. Have mercy on God, commit sin! That is the way to
heaven." A clear-cut arithmetic.
But the teacher was
shocked. She could not believe that boys, small boys, can come to such conclusions. But it
is not only small boys ....
Omar Khayyam, a
great Persian poet, has written in his RUBAIYAT, which FitzGerald has made world famous by
translating it into English ... RUBAIYAT means poetries. It is a very special kind of
poetry, rubaiya; just like haiku is in Zen, rubaiya is in Sufism. In one of his rubaiyas
he says, "Don't be worried, enjoy women, enjoy wine. God is compassionate."
GUNAH KYON NA KIYE?
KYA KHUDA RAHIM NA THA?
Why did you not
commit the sins? Were you not sure that God is compassionate? Commit as many sins as you
can. Give God a good opportunity to show his compassion, love, forgiveness.
So it is not only a
small child, but a very great poet also has the same idea.
All these ideas --
original sin, faith, hope, charity -- have not made the world better. They have prevented
the world from growing in consciousness, growing in its experience of the real existence,
and transcending all poverty, all birth, all death, and becoming part of, one with, the
eternal life.
We are searching
for the same tree that Adam and Eve missed: eternal life.
Christianity has no
meditation, because meditation will take you in. It has prayer; prayer takes you out.
Prayer is towards a fictitious God. Meditation is deep into your own existence, it is not
fiction.
You are a reality.
God is only
invention.
I will take one by
one their other questions.
They have come into
the clutches of a lion.
The sutra:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
ONCE, WHEN YAKUSAN
WAS RECITING A SUTRA, A MONK ASKED HIM: "YOU DON'T USUALLY ALLOW US TO RECITE SUTRAS.
WHY DO YOU YOURSELF RECITE A SUTRA?"
The question seems
to be relevant. Yakusan prevents monks from reciting sutras, and a monk found him ... he
himself was reciting a sutra. Obviously, it is contradictory to his own teachings.
Yakusan said,
"I JUST WANT TO ENTERTAIN MY EYES. These beautiful sutras ... I relish their beauty,
their composition, their music, their truth; I feel fresh in their immense implications.
My eyes become sharper. It is just an entertainment for my eyes."
THE MONK ASKED,
"CAN I ALSO RECITE SUTRAS LIKE YOU?" Again you will feel the question seems to
be relevant, but now it is no more so.
When the master
recites the sutra, he already knows the truth, hence he finds the truth in the sutra. A
man who does not know the truth will be simply wasting time. He will not find any truth in
the sutra. He will become knowledgeable, but he will not become enlightened.
It is strange ...
but I also insist on the fact. Don't read scriptures now, but when you have become a
buddha, then enjoy the scriptures. There are many diamonds here and there, and many rubies
and many emeralds, much treasure -- but first you should find yourself. First you should
find your clarity of vision.
An ignorant man, an
unconscious man, will stuff sutras into his mind, borrowed, meaningless. But a man who has
realized, who has come to his very center, a man who does not need to read the sutras --
he knows the truth -- can entertain himself.
It is almost like a
bank, the same principle. If you have money the bank is ready to give you a loan. If you
don't have money, no bank is ready to give you a loan. Strange! The ordinary logic will
be: the man who has no money, give him the loan; and the man who has money, there is no
need to give him a loan. But that is not how banks work.
The same is true on
a higher level. A man who has the truth has no need to read the sutra, and can enjoy it.
It is a beauty. He can find nuances which you will never find, he can find diamonds which
you will pass by because you don't know what a diamond is. You have known only stones,
colored stones.
I am reminded of a
story.
A poor man, a
potter ... In India, potters use the donkey to carry their pots to the marketplace to sell
-- mud pots. He was coming back after selling all the pots, himself sitting on the donkey,
and then he saw by the side of the road a huge stone, shining, radiating.
He said,
"Great! My donkey will enjoy it. I have never given him anything." So he got
down and he picked up the stone. It was not a stone, it was an unpolished diamond.
But he was very
happy sitting on the donkey. He told the donkey, "When we reach home I will make a
hole in it and hang it around your neck. I have never given you anything -- I am poor, you
are poor -- but this is a beautiful thing, it radiates. You will be the only donkey in the
whole world with such a beautiful stone hanging around you."
Just then a jeweler
passed by in his chariot. He stopped the chariot, and he could not believe his eyes. A man
was sitting on a donkey, holding such a huge diamond -- many times bigger than the
Kohinoor, which is now in the British Museum, given by the queen as a gift. It was a gift
from the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Hyderabad has the
greatest quarry of diamonds; all the big diamonds have come from Hyderabad. The name of
the village is Golconda. The Nizam presented that diamond, Kohinoor, to Queen Victoria.
Then it was polished and cut, and now it is one third of its weight, but a thousand times
more valuable, because the more it is polished and cut, the more it shines, radiates. It
is the purest diamond in the world. You can see through and through, there is no flaw in
it. India has been asking for it back, because it was a present, and the British Museum
has no right to keep it.
But that diamond
the potter was holding in his hand was far bigger than the Kohinoor. The charioteer
stopped, the jeweler got down. He asked, "How much will you take for this
stone?" He did not say diamond; he knew perfectly well that this fellow did not
understand that it was a diamond.
The poor man said,
"Four annas will do. I will purchase something for my poor donkey."
Four annas? -- the
jeweler became greedy. He said, "Just for a stone ... I will give you two
annas."
At that moment a
king had come by on his horse for hunting. He stopped his horse, and he looked at the
diamond. Because the king had come, the jeweler moved his chariot, just slowly, thinking
that the potter would understand who was going to give him two annas. "If he does not
come back to me I will raise the price to three annas. Or if the worst comes to the worst
I will give him four annas."
But when he came
back, the king was there, and the king said, "How much has that jeweler offered for
this diamond?"
The potter said,
"Diamond? I thought it was a stone, so I asked him for four annas, and he offered me
two annas."
The king said,
"Its worth is one million rupees at least. I will give you one million rupees."
At that time the
jeweler came running, because he knew it was worth almost ten million rupees. He said to
the potter, "I am the first customer, and you have offered it to me for four annas. I
am ready to give it."
The potter said,
"Now it is too late. I was an ignorant potter, I had no idea that it was a diamond.
But you are a jeweler, and your greed is infinite. You could not give even four annas. The
king has given me the order to take it to the palace for one million rupees."
The question is of
recognition. A master like Yakusan can read the sutras because he can recognize what is
true and what is not true. He can enjoy the ancient buddhas and their statements, their
articulateness, and how they expressed such mysterious phenomena in simple words.
But the monk's
asking, "CAN I ALSO RECITE SUTRAS LIKE YOU?" is absolutely wrong, because unless
you are like the master, you cannot read the sutras like the master. From where will you
get the eyes? From where will you get the consciousness to find the diamonds?
Yakusan said,
"IF YOU WANT TO RECITE SUTRAS LIKE ME, YOU MUST PIERCE EVEN THROUGH THE HIDE OF A
COW." First have that much clarity of eyes that your eyes become almost X-rays, they
go through and through the hide of a cow. First get that eye, and then you can read the
sutras, not before that.
ON ANOTHER
OCCASION, YAKUSAN WAS ASKED BY GOVERNOR RI, "WHAT ARE THE PRECEPTS, MEDITATION AND
WISDOM?"
YAKUSAN ANSWERED,
"THIS POOR MONK HAS NOT SUCH USELESS FURNITURE." He is calling the great
precepts, meditation and wisdom, just useless furniture.
RI SAID,
"DON'T BE SO MYSTERIOUS!"
YAKUSAN SAID,
"IF YOU WANT TO HAVE WHAT I HAVE, YOU MUST SIT ON THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN, GO DOWN TO
THE BOTTOM OF THE DEEPEST SEA.
"YOU DON'T
THROW OFF YOUR BURDENS EVEN WHEN YOU GO TO BED; YOU ARE BUSY WITH YOUR ILLUSIONS.
"This is not
the right time for you to ask about meditation and wisdom. That's why I have called it
`useless furniture.' It will not be of any use, it will be just another weight on your
head. You have already enough weight -- so many illusions, so many desires, so many
ambitions, so much greed. What will you do with meditation and wisdom? They will become an
unnecessary load on your head. You cannot even go to bed without all kinds of tensions,
anxieties, anguish, angst.
"Wisdom and
meditation are a totally different world. That's why I said, `THIS POOR MONK HAS NOT SUCH
USELESS FURNITURE.'
"I cannot give
you wisdom and meditation. If you want them, then you will have to sit on the highest
mountain" -- the highest mountain is your consciousness. "YOU MUST SIT ON THE
HIGHEST MOUNTAIN, GO DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE DEEPEST SEA."
Your consciousness
is both: it is the highest mountain and it is the deepest sea. Its roots go to the deepest
being of your existence, and its branches reach to the stars. Unless you have both, you
should not ask about meditation and wisdom.
Meditation takes
you to the roots of your being, to the very bottom of the sea, and then suddenly sprouts a
tremendous flowering tree which reaches to the stars. You can have both together.
Meditation takes you deeper, and wisdom takes you higher.
This is the
vertical dimension I have talked to you about, the whole expanse of the vertical
dimension: as deep as the bottom of the deepest sea ... For example, the Pacific Ocean is
five miles deep; that is nothing, you are going to be deeper. You are going to be higher
than Everest in the Himalayas.
And this is your
possibility, which Christianity and other religions have been preventing you from. They
are calling you to the church; I am calling you to your own potential.
I am persuading you
to reach to the highest consciousness and the deepest meditation, and you will have all
the splendor of existence in your hands.
Santoka wrote a small, very small haiku:
I HAVE NO HOME;
AUTUMN DEEPENS.
Just visualize a
homeless wanderer -- that's what a seeker is, a homeless wanderer -- in search of the
home. He has not reached yet.
But a homeless
wanderer has no attachment, has no possession, has no burden, has no tension, has no
anxiety. The homeless wanderer slowly slowly relaxes in a deep let-go.
Sitting under a
tree, perhaps, near a river or a mountain, he says, "I HAVE NO HOME; AUTUMN
DEEPENS" -- but it does not matter. The autumn is so beautiful, and it is deepening
every moment.
"I have no
possessions, no home, no barriers, no blindfold on my eyes. I can see the autumn is
deepening. I am so clean and clear ... that autumn deepens."
That reminds me of
one of the questions of those Christian monks. They were very much concerned with the
marble of this Buddha Hall. They are not at all concerned with all the marble in the
Vatican; they are not concerned about the great cathedrals around the world with all their
architecture and marble and statues. They are concerned with this small amount of marble
in the Buddha Auditorium.
That's what I call
blindness.
If you can see this
marble, how can you not see the Vatican? All the churches of the Vatican, all the statues
of Jesus, are made of purest Italian marble. Great sculptors for centuries have been
working at creating cathedrals, churches.
And as far as this
commune is concerned, I have to remind them ... They must have heard from their childhood
that cleanliness is second to God. Here, there is no God. Cleanliness comes first! And
there is nothing more clean than marble; it has a tremendous beauty, cleanliness, purity.
It symbolizes beauty, architecturally.
We are putting
marble on the commune roads. We have put marble in the public toilet -- I don't know, I
just imagine, but my imaginings come true!
Maneesha has asked
a question:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
A VISITOR HERE
OBSERVED THAT THERE IS AN AGELESSNESS IN THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU. WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION
FOR THIS?
Maneesha, the
explanation is very simple. I have never felt my age. I still feel like a child. As I
close my eyes I don't see any difference in my innocence, in my mischievousness. I am the
only rascal saint in the whole world.
I sometimes wonder
whether I am aging or not. My beard has become white, but it is not because of my age. It
is due to the courtesy of President Ronald Reagan's poison. One of the symptoms of the
poison thallium that he has given to me is that it turns your hair white. It would have
turned ten years later, but he helped me, he saved ten years. He has given me a beautiful
beard. The whole credit goes to him!
When I look into
the mirror, into my eyes, I see the same eyes I have always seen from my very childhood. I
close my eyes, I look inside, and I am the same -- just ageless.
That's why I go on
forgetting how long I have been speaking to you. Last night, it was really too much! I
have a watch, but I don't want to offend you so I don't look at it. Looking at a watch
means I am tired of you. I am never tired.
On the way back,
Anando and Avesh said that "This was the record!"
I said to myself,
"Just wait! Someday it will be the record!"
It is true,
Maneesha, it is an ageless campus. Here the old are just as innocent as the children, or
even more so -- because your inner being is ageless. Once you come in touch with it, it is
timeless, it never grows old or young or anything. It is just the same from eternity to
eternity. Once you start coming closer and closer to your eternity, a certain agelessness
starts radiating from your eyes, from your faces.
And the person who
observed this must have a very clear vision.
I can see it
happening: you are becoming every day younger. Sometimes I wonder, if everybody becomes
too young, it will be very difficult to explain to them the sutras!
It is time for
Sardar Gurudayal Singh ....
Pope the Polack
gets an invitation from the Chinese government to spend twenty million dollars on a
ten-day tour of China. He is the first pope ever to make the trip to China, and is amazed
to find that nobody there knows anything about Christianity. The Polack pope makes a great
effort to explain to Prime Minister Wu, his host -- who speaks little English -- something
of the basics of Christianity.
"You
know," says Pope the Polack, spreading his arms wide, and rolling his eyes, "you
must have heard about it -- man-die-on-cross!"
"Ah! Velly
good!" replies Wu. "Yes, me see the movie!"
Jose, the Peruvian
farmer, has a donkey called Pedro. One day he lends Pedro to his mother-in-law, Mama
Enchilada. That evening, when Jose goes to collect Pedro, he finds that the donkey has
managed to kick his mother-in-law down the village well. The next day, at Mama Enchilada's
funeral, the entire male population of the village flocks to the church. After the
ceremonies, Father Gonzalez approaches Jose and says, "Your mother-in-law must have
been liked very much. I have never seen so many people in my church."
"Ah!"
says Jose, "they did not come to bury Mama Enchilada -- they came to borrow
Pedro!"
Unsuspected by the
American public, President George Bush has a grave problem. He has secretly been going to
see Doctor Mindbender, the White House psychiatrist, for some intense therapy. One
morning, George Bush is lying on the shrink's couch, just babbling away.
"I am a nice
man, really I am," says George, in his best TV voice. "I am the ex-director of
the CIA. I have a college degree; I am a respectable, quiet family man. I lead an
unblemished life. I always contribute to Mother Teresa's charity fund, and I often visit
Father Fungus to have a heart-to-heart chat. I have nothing to reproach myself with, yet I
keep having this disturbing delusion, this nagging feeling, that I am a violent mass
murderer."
"Hmmmm,"
says Doctor Mindbender, as he quietly locks the door, and pulls down the blinds. "You
must not worry, George. This is quite common among many mild-mannered, quiet people like
yourself. But before we proceed, would you mind putting down your sub-machine gun?"
Do you get it? --
you will get it in the middle of the night! |