OUR BELOVED MASTER
ONCE, WHEN UNGAN WAS IN YAKUSAN'S PRESENCE, THE MASTER SAID TO
HIM, "WHAT DOES HYAKUJO OSHO USUALLY TEACH?"
UNGAN REPLIED, "HE SAYS, `GO BEYOND THREE PHRASES,' OR `GO
BEYOND SIX PHRASES AND GET IT.'"
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "WITH A DISTANCE OF SEVEN HUNDRED MILES
BETWEEN US, FORTUNATELY WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HYAKUJO." BUT THEN HE
CONTINUED, "WHAT ELSE DOES HE TEACH?"
UNGAN SAID, "ONCE, AFTER THE DISCOURSE, WHEN THE
CONGREGATION STOOD UP FROM THEIR SEATS, HYAKUJO CALLED OUT TO THEM. WHEN THEY LOOKED BACK
AT THE MASTER, HYAKUJO SAID, `WHAT IS THAT?'"
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT EARLIER --
HYAKUJO IS STILL DOING WELL. THANKS TO YOU, I WAS ABLE TO SEE HYAKUJO."
Friends
The Christians have been claiming that they have discovered the
world. It is just holy shit. Columbus never discovered America, he re-discovered it. It
had been discovered many times before, and there are valid evidences for it.
In Turkey, there is a map which has been decided by scientists
to be seven hundred years old. It is a world map, with America included in it, and it
looks so contemporary. Everything we see in the modern maps is available in that map.
Not only does it mean that America was known to the man who made
the map, it also implies that such a map cannot have been made without a flying machine.
Without any airplane, such a map is impossible. You cannot see a bird's-eye view of the
whole continent, of the whole world, from every angle ... you cannot make a map of India
sitting here. Every nook and corner is drawn so clearly on the map.
So it is a propaganda of the Christians that Columbus discovered
America. Before him, America was perfectly well known, and not only America, but the whole
world as we know it today. The maps have not changed at all.
But this was not the first time that a map was made of America,
seven hundred years ago. Five thousand years ago, one of the great warriors of India,
Arjuna, married a Mexican woman. In Sanskrit the name of Mexico is Makshika. From
Makshika, Mexico is derived.
One of the most scholarly Buddhist monks, Bhikshu Chimanlal, has
written a book that Christians go on ignoring. The name of the book is HINDU AMERICA --
because everywhere in Mexico and other parts, Hindu gods have been found, temples devoted
to Hindu gods, statues of Hindu gods. The shape of the temples is the shape of the Hindu
temple.
But not only has Chimanlal proved definitively that there was a
time when the whole of America was converted to Hinduism, he has also found places which
Christians will be shocked to know about.
There are fields in many forests of South America which have
strange signs on them. Those signs can be understood only if you are high above in the
sky, from an airplane -- and the fields look exactly like airports. It has been said that
those symbols are simply made so the pilots understand that they are above the airport;
that there was no other use in making them if there were no airplanes. The signs are so
big you cannot make any sense of them, standing on the ground you cannot see the whole
sign. And such vast fields, so clean, that even now after thousands of years, it is as if
airplanes could use them.
In Sanskrit, the airplane is called viman, and there are so many
descriptions in so many scriptures that they have to be understood. The airplane is
described with great detail in the MAHABHARATA, and perhaps a far better version than we
know of yet, because it was not fueled by petrol. It used to have a certain precious stone
on top of it, which absorbed the sun's rays, and through those sun rays the airplane was
fueled. That was a far more developed version than our airplanes. We are wasting all the
petrol on airplanes, on cars.
In the MAHABHARATA, which is five thousand years old, it is
shown that they had found how to use solar energy. And the Christians go on insisting that
"We have civilized the world."
Socrates was not civilized? Gautam Buddha was not civilized? Lao
Tzu was not civilized? Confucius was not civilized?
Even before Jesus Christ was born, three thousand years before,
India had discovered the alphabet. China had discovered gunpowder and all kinds of
technological devices -- before the birth of Jesus, thousands of years before.
In the MAHABHARATA, all kinds of weapons were used which are not
available to our intelligence. We thought they were just mythology -- but atomic energy
has proved that they were not mythology, they were atomic weapons.
Mahavira was five hundred years before Jesus, and he was the
twenty-fourth tirthankara of the Jainas. The first tirthankara of the Jainas, Adinatha, is
mentioned in the ancientmost book in the world, the RIGVEDA, with such deep respect. That
was culture.
It was Adinatha who founded Jainism and separated from Hinduism,
but the Hindus' most sacred book does not condemn him, does not criticize him. He
criticized everything that the Hindus had believed for centuries. He was against the caste
system; he was against Manu and his commandments to the Hindus. He was against the brahmin
priests, but still ... This was culture.
In the RIGVEDA they have very respectfully remembered Adinatha,
that he was a unique man, a great man, a man of tremendous understanding: "It does
not matter that we don't agree with each other, but we can respect each other."
And you say "we" civilized the world! Christians! You
don't know about anything before Jesus Christ.
China was already a civilized country. India was always, for
thousands of years before Jesus, absolutely a civilized country.
Christians have to come down from their propaganda machine. What
do they know of culture?
In India there flourished hundreds of philosophies, and every
philosopher criticized others as severely as possible, but with great respect. It was not
a question of criticizing the other philosopher, it was a question of finding the truth --
and that is the aim of all thinkers and philosophers and theologians. So you may disagree,
but you cannot be disrespectful.
Jainism and Buddhism are the most civilized religions of the
world. They have not killed anybody, not a single person, in an effort to convert him.
And the Christian church calls itself the militant church.
Military and church ...?
Certainly Christians have killed more people in the world than
any other religion. It is a militant church. It used to have great armies, it used to send
armies to convert pagans. Pagans were beautiful people, far more beautiful than any
Christian.
Pagans were nature-worshippers. They loved the trees, they loved
the rivers, they loved the mountains, they loved the stars, the sun, the moon ... that was
their world. There was no God, there was no hell, there was no heaven. This very life was
paradise. What Buddha said, pagans would have said. But Christianity has killed them or
converted them. Now there are no more pagans. They were the most joyous people, who loved,
who lived abundantly, without any fear and greed.
But Buddha has made a statement which is certainly a pagan
statement. Buddha said, "This very body the buddha, and this very earth, the lotus
paradise." That statement contains the whole philosophy of the pagans. But Christians
treated pagans as a subhuman race; they were not human beings, so to kill them was just
like hunting, killing animals.
What Christians have done is exploit the whole world, not
discover it.
What have they done in Australia?
They used to kill the natives just as hunters kill animals. They
have almost destroyed the native population of Australia -- killing human beings as a
game. And the people who went to Australia were the criminals expelled from England. They
had committed murders, they had committed rapes and all kinds of heinous crimes. They
needed crucifixion. But rather than crucifying them -- because they were English --
England simply sent them out of the country. And these people became in Australia the
president, the prime minister, the super-rich people, the most cultured ... and they were
killing human beings like animals.
The same has happened in America, not on such a vast scale, but
still the same. Criminals went to America, criminals expelled from England. Two states
they founded, and of those two states they were the governors. They simply killed people.
And when other people came from other European countries, they destroyed the Red Indians,
the natives of America. Those who survived have been forced into deep forests. They call
them reservations, but it is a sheer change of the word. They are concentration camps with
a sophistication that Adolf Hitler was not aware of.
Adolf Hitler had to create electric barbed wires around the
concentration camps. The people who reached America managed in a far more beautiful way.
First they killed most of the natives. Then small pockets of natives were given pensions,
so they don't come into the mainstream life of America. They have to remain on the
reservations. They are not educated, but they are given good pensions because their land
has been taken. On the surface only it looks very civilized; inside the story is totally
different.
They have been given pensions and no work. Now what will they do
with their money? They gamble, they drink, and in their drunkenness their whole life is
wasted. And they go on creating more and more children, because each child brings more
pension money.
They are uneducated, they are not allowed to enter into the
mainstream world of America, and they are given so much money -- such a cunning strategy.
With so much money what will they do? They will gamble, they will rape, they will have
prostitutes, they will drink their whole life away. They don't think at all that America
is theirs; they don't have that much consciousness left. That's why they cannot revolt. In
fact, revolution will be dangerous to their pension.
So this is a far more sophisticated electric barbed wiring
around them. They can't even raise their voices for liberation, for freedom, because
freedom will mean ... who will give them the pensions without work? So it is better to
keep silent and just go on drinking and raping and gambling. That is their whole life.
Much land was acquired by killing, but just to show it to the
world, a few pieces of land were purchased. You will be surprised: they were purchased
with a loaded gun at the chest of the man to whom the land belonged. This way New York was
purchased for ninety dollars, the whole city of New York. Ninety dollars? Can you conceive
of it? Just three hundred years before ... And most of the land that has been purchased
has been purchased the same way as New York. But they had the satisfaction that they were
paying for the land.
When I was investigated in America, they asked me questions. I
had to answer them by other questions. I told the man, the chief of the immigration
services, "What do you think about yourself? You are a foreigner, I am a foreigner.
You are a little older foreigner -- you came three hundred years ago, I am new -- but
don't think that this land belongs to you. And who is to judge? -- you?
"You entered this country without any visa and without any
entry permit, and you entered this country as invaders. I am entering this country with a
visa, with an entry permit as a tourist. If you have any honesty, about which Christians
claim so much, you should leave this country immediately! It is not your land, and your
hands are covered in blood.
"You are deceiving the whole world, and deceiving
yourselves! You made the Constitution in somebody else's land, and you talk about freedom?
And you talk about freedom of speech, and you talk about respect for the individual: what
have you done to the natives? That was respect?
"Against your own Constitution you are keeping those people
as slaves, and you are occupying their country. And you want me to ask for a permit to be
a resident here? Foreigners asking foreigners?
"And I have purchased the land! -- and not like you. You
have paid ninety dollars for New York. We have paid six million dollars for
Rajneeshpuram" -- and we invested in the commune three hundred million dollars --
"and we have not invaded anybody."
But the commune which was flourishing ... the whole of America
was shaken by the commune. Most shaken were the Christians, who think they are civilized.
It was the fundamentalist Christian President Ronald Reagan, acting under the influence
and pressure of the church to destroy this commune: "It is dangerous, because it is
taking young people from the Christian fold."
You go on taking people from the Hindu fold, from the Mohammedan
fold, from the Buddhist fold, and that is absolutely alright. And if I had been ... I was
not converting anybody into any religion. Only the very intelligent people had come, on
their own accord, and they were free to leave any moment.
This is not a religion, it is a caravan of seekers of truth.
Nobody is converted, everybody has joined the caravan, the commune, on his own accord. His
freedom is intact, his individuality is respected.
It has been asked of me, "Before you there have been Hindu
monks, Jaina monks, Buddhist monks, but nobody was so much condemned. Why was your commune
destroyed by America by force?"
The reason is clear.
Vivekananda was the first to enter America from India, but he
behaved like a politician: he praised Christianity, and he said, "All religions are
one" -- and he did not take anybody out of the Christian fold. He never criticized a
single Christian dogma, so naturally there was no question. He had no commune, he was just
a visitor, praising. People loved him, because their religion was being praised by an
outsider.
The same was done by Ramateertha, and the same has been done by
Maharishi Yogi and other sannyasins of Hinduism. They all praise Christianity, so
Christians are happy.
I am not going to praise any lies, any poisons, any untruths. I
am going to say straightforwardly what is what. That was the problem for them. They could
not understand how to argue with me.
I was in America for five years, fighting in all the courts. In
the end my visa had expired long before, I had no visa, no entry permit -- but they had
not the guts even to come into the commune. They surrounded the whole commune -- the
commune had one hundred and twenty-six square miles -- they surrounded the whole commune
with the National Guard with machine guns, but they did not dare to enter into the
commune.
And we had nothing -- just thirty semi-automatic guns, which are
available in America to any citizen. These belonged to the police force of the commune,
which was paid by the American government because the police force was part of the
American police force, even though all the people were sannyasins who had taken the police
training. So they were afraid that "Although the police force is ours, it is going to
fight for the commune, not for us."
The greatest power in the world was afraid of thirty
semiautomatic guns. They were planning for years and years how to arrest me -- and I don't
have even a paperknife!
To arrest me is so easy .... There was no need to handcuff me,
there was no need to put chains on me. You could just have told me, "You are invited
to the presidential guesthouse -- the jail," and I would have gone with them. There
was no question about it.
But you will be surprised .... They asked the FBI to arrest me,
and the head laughed. He said, "A single individual who has not committed any crime,
and you ask us to arrest him? We will not." Even the head of the army was asked. He
simply laughed: "Have you gone mad? Has the army ever been called to arrest a single
individual who has nothing in his hands with which to fight? You will make us a
laughingstock all over the world." He refused.
All the government agencies refused to arrest me, for the simple
reason that they could not show any reason why I should be arrested. They could not say
that I didn't have a visa, although my visa had expired long before. They could not say it
because I had applied for renewing the visa, and they had not answered. They were afraid
that if they said no, I was going to take them to the court, up to the Supreme Court, and
it would take twenty years at least to decide the matter. So "No" they could not
say; "Yes" they would not say.
So they did not tell the army or the government agencies that
"The only reason to arrest him is that he has been living in America without any
visa." It was their fault, not mine. I had asked them again and again that
"Either you say no, or you say yes" -- but they could not say either.
They could not say yes because the Christian church was
pressuring them that I should be thrown out of the country; once I am thrown out of the
country, the commune will disperse. The commune had gathered out of love and gratitude
around me, otherwise there was no reason to be in that desert.
We transformed the desert into a garden. It was for sale for
forty years, and nobody was ready to purchase it -- at any price. What will you do with
that desert? But our creative people made houses, made dams, created small rivers. We had
enough water in our reservoirs so that even if for five years there was no rain, we had
reserves of water. We had planted so many trees that it was not going to be long before
the trees would attract the clouds.
We were cultivating in the desert enough food for the commune.
Five years more and the commune would have been absolutely independent. We had our own
cows for milk, we had our own hens laying eggs for people's breakfast. We had our own
fields, we had our own greenhouses -- because in the desert the sun is so hot, and unless
you make a greenhouse ... We had our own greenhouses for vegetables, for fruits. And this
all was happening while we were fighting with the government in every court. They were
putting imaginary cases ... but once they put a case against you, you have to fight it.
We had the greatest law firm in the whole world. Two of the
attorneys are here: Anando, Sangeet, and I think Niren was here just a few days before --
perhaps he may be here. We had four hundred people in the law firm, four hundred people
continuously working on every aspect of American law and the Constitution.
If they had depended simply on law, there would have been no way
to destroy the commune. But they dropped all law, all Constitution, they were simply mad!
And that madness is not part of a cultured religion. It is not civilization.
We have not thrown out the Christian missionaries from India.
They go on converting people to the Catholic fold -- but if people want to be Catholics,
it is perfectly okay. It is their choice. The government has no objection; it has given
freedom of religion.
The American Constitution also makes it clear that the state
should not interfere in religious matters -- but they interfered. They crushed and
destroyed our commune.
Just now I have received a few pictures. Even after five years
in the desert, the trees that we have planted there are so green, they have achieved such
great height, and with such beautiful shade underneath. They are still waiting ....
But the government has not only deported me for five years, it
has also made arrangements for another five years' suspended jail sentence. If I enter
America after five years, they can put me in jail on any excuse -- imaginary -- and I will
not have any recourse to appeal for five years. So, in fact, they have prevented me for
ten years.
In ten years those trees won't survive. Those three hundred
peacocks in my garden, they have been catching them and selling them. They could get only
one hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty have escaped into the mountains. They will
not be able to survive.
The dam needs continuous care. In ten years it will not be able
to contain the overflow of water. We were continually on guard that no water overflows the
dam. Once the water starts overflowing, soon the dam will be destroyed -- and all the
commune land is below the dam, so it will be flooded with water. That will destroy all the
houses that we made for three thousand people to live in, all the roads that we created.
And we were not employing any laborers. Doctors, surgeons,
professors, teachers -- all kinds of educated people were creating roads, making houses,
making gardens, lawns. We had one of the best hotels, with two hundred and forty rooms --
a five-star hotel in the desert. The whole commune was centrally air-conditioned .... Now
what will happen to all that?
Just a few months ago -- a picture has been sent to me by a
sannyasin .... They did not allow me to stay even one day after I was released. They told
me that I had to leave immediately. They were afraid that if I stayed even one more day,
there was a possibility I might be able to appeal to the high court, to the Supreme Court.
Fifteen minutes ... and my jet plane had been kept with the engine running, so that
immediately I should be taken to the airport and taken out of America. I could not go back
to the commune just to say goodbye to my people.
Even when they gave me bail it was prohibited ... they made it
absolutely certain that I didn't leave the commune. Every day a phone call would come and
I had to answer the phone. I could not use the airplanes -- we had five airplanes in the
commune.
I wanted to go to the commune to at least tell my people,
"Don't be worried. Even if I am not here, you continue, you will feel my presence.
And ten years will pass" -- five years have already passed, five more years will pass
also -- "I will be back." But they did not allow me even to go back to the
commune.
And just a few months ago I received a picture. We had -- those
who were in the commune will remember -- just in front of the assembly hall, we had the
sign of two birds flying, just as you entered from the road towards the assembly hall.
A picture has been sent to me: some fanatic Christian has shot
those symbolic birds, made twenty holes, with a gun. These are civilized people? And they
were only painted birds, not even living birds -- but such anger, such violence!
They must have robbed every house, everything that they could
carry. They must have destroyed everything that we had managed so beautifully, with so
much care and love. People were working ten hours, twelve hours a day. A great dream was
about to be realized.
And these people call themselves the ones who have civilized the
world! They are not themselves civilized. They need civilization.
Perhaps, in the whole history of the popes, only one pope was
honest. This pope was Pope Leo the Tenth in the sixteenth century. He is reported to have
said, "It has served us well, this myth of Christ." I am not saying it, it is a
statement from an infallible pope: "This myth of Christ has served us well."
Certainly, it has profited you well.
They have been talking about truth, but they have been hiding
immensely important things. They have changed all the gospels, they have edited everything
that was going to be difficult for them to argue for, to defend.
In the oldest versions of the gospels, you will be surprised to
know, Judas was one of Jesus Christ's brothers. He had two brothers and two sisters -- but
to keep Jesus' mother, Mary, without sin, they have dropped those daughters and those
brothers completely. Either they would have had to bring the Holy Ghost five times -- that
would be too tiring for the Holy Ghost, and it is a remote-control operation -- or they
would have had to accept that Mary gave birth from Joseph, her legal husband; that this
Holy Ghost is illegal, and that Jesus is an illegitimate child.
They have dropped from the gospels the very idea that Jesus had
any brothers or any sisters. They had to keep Mariam, or Mary, or Maria, or whatever name
you give to Jesus' mother ... Mohammedans call her Mariam, which looks to me the most
beautiful. Greeks call her Maria, ordinary Christians call her Mary. But to keep Mary
without sin was necessary for a certain reason.
Why had God chosen Mary to give birth to his only begotten son?
-- because she was without sin. It means that on the whole earth there was no other virgin
girl; only Mary was virgin. It is such a condemnation of the whole of humanity.
I have heard: in a Christian church the priest was saying that
virginity is one of the foundations. There were more women present than men.
Men don't go to churches or temples, or any other holy places.
It is the women, because that is the only place where they can gossip with each other.
They don't have any clubs, they cannot go to the restaurants, to the pubs. They have no
social mobility, only the church. So they go out of necessity, because that is the only
place where they can show their ornaments, their beautiful clothing, the fur coats, and
all kinds of gossips that are boiling within them. They don't go for Jesus Christ, for
sure!
And a few husbands go there -- not for Jesus Christ, but either
to keep an eye on their wife or to keep an eye on somebody else's wife!
When the priest asked, "Out of all you women, how many are
virgins? Stand up!" nobody stood up. The priest said, "My God! Nobody is a
virgin?"
Then a woman with a small baby stood up. He said, "You
idiot! I am asking about virgins. You already have a baby!"
The woman said, "The baby cannot stand, and that is the
only virgin in the church. I am not virgin, but this baby is six months old; she is still
a virgin, believe me, but she cannot stand on her own!"
They say they are defending truth.
They are defending lies.
They don't mention in the gospels that Judas was Jesus' brother.
And one thing is certain: they go on condemning Judas, that he betrayed Jesus for thirty
silver pieces -- but in the gospels themselves there is not a single word of condemnation
of Judas.
My own understanding is that he never betrayed Jesus. It was
Jesus himself, in his fanatical hallucination. Judas was trying to convince him,
"Don't go at this moment into Jerusalem. It is the Jewish holiday, and this is the
time of year when people are crucified. You will be caught, there are rumors all around.
It is better not to go to Jerusalem at this moment. Let this festival pass, then you can
go."
But Jesus was absolutely fanatical. He said, "Don't you
trust in God? This is a chance for the Jews to know that I am the only begotten son of
God. Let them crucify me, and God will do a miracle!"
And you have not been told that Judas was so sad and sorry when
Jesus was crucified that the next day he committed suicide, hanging himself from a tree.
But Christians will not talk about the truth. They have to throw
the responsibility on someone, but without any evidence from ancient scriptures ... It is
one of the most poisonous religions.
It says that one of the pillars of Christianity is forgiveness.
It looks beautiful when you hear the word `forgiveness', but the implications are very
evil.
A man rapes a woman. The man will be forgiven by God, but what
about the woman? The criminal is forgiven, what about the victim? There is not a single
mention that the victim will be rewarded or anything.
A man murders, and he simply goes to the priest and confesses,
and the priest gives him a simple method, so cheap: "You have murdered a man. Put ten
dollars in the charity box and say five Hail Marys, and your sin is forgiven. God is
compassionate."
But what about the murdered? Nobody has asked the question to
the Christians, "What about the murdered? What is God going to do with the murdered,
the raped woman, the molested child?"
And, strangely enough, the same man will commit another murder,
because now he is fresh, clear; the old murder is erased, forgiven for ten dollars and
five Hail Marys. Now he can commit another murder, he can commit another rape. All he
needs is to go and confess to the priest and give some money, and the priest will give him
a prayer to do five or ten times.
There is no mention of the person who has been committing crime
after crime. He is not being punished, he is being continuously forgiven. And all those
people who have suffered from this man's crimes, there is not a single mention of them in
the whole Christian religion. It seems God is in favor of criminals, but not in favor of
the victims.
Now look again at the idea of forgiveness, and you will see that
it is ugly.
In other religions, Jainism, Buddhism, there is no God -- and it
is good that there is no God. Nobody can forgive, so there is no question of forgiveness.
These religions are more scientific. Every action will have its reaction, nobody can
prevent it. You put your hand in the fire and you will be burnt. No God can prevent it.
You rape a woman and you will suffer a deep wound of guilt. You may go mad, but you will
have to suffer. Only suffering will cleanse you, not forgiveness.
These religions are far more scientific: Taoism, Buddhism,
Jainism. These three religions don't have any God, they don't have any hell, any heaven.
They are purely scientific: live according to your awareness and there will be nothing
like sin committed by you. Live unconsciously and you will suffer.
It is unconsciousness that suffers. There is nobody who can
forgive you; that forgiveness is in itself a criminal act, because the raped woman is
suffering. Perhaps she gets pregnant, she has a child which she cannot love. She hates it.
It is out of rape that the child has come to her.
There is no discussion at all about the very fundamental
problem. Forgiveness is not the right thing.
One who commits anything against existence has to suffer. One
who helps existence to grow towards more beauty and more consciousness, and more joy and
more dance, should be rewarded -- not by any God, but by his own act. In fact, when you do
something good out of your awareness, the very action brings such blissfulness to you,
such peace, such joy; you are rewarded in the action itself.
And if you do evil ... that is only possible if you are not
meditative. If you are an unconscious being, in blindness you may commit something which
hurts someone -- but then you have to take the responsibility, and you have to suffer the
reaction that is produced by your action.
Christianity is absolutely unscientific.
There is no future for Christianity.
They say that they have given a sense of morality to the world.
These are their questions they have sent to me.
"We have given a sense of morality to the world" --
and they don't read, it seems, even their own Bible.
The Old Testament is full of pornography, far worse than any
PLAYBOY, PLAYGIRL, or PENTHOUSE. Of course there are no psychedelic colors in the
pornography, so you don't see it, you have to read it.
There are three hundred and eighty-eight pages of pornography in
the Old Testament. This is the biggest pornographic holy scripture. One of my friends, Ben
Akerley, has pulled out those three hundred and eighty-eight pages and created a book
called THE X-RATED BIBLE. Now Christians all around the world are trying to ban the book,
but it has already gone underground, it is circulating. I have it; I would not say
anything for which I don't have the right evidence!
Just one instance of the pornography ... Three hundred and
eighty-eight pages will be too long, it will make the record!
According to the book of Samuel, King David -- no ordinary
person, but very much respected in the Old Testament -- King David saw Bathsheba bathing
from the roof of the palace -- a great king! -- and thought she was beautiful, so he had
her brought to him so that he could sleep with her.
When she became pregnant, David called her husband back from the
war -- he was a soldier in David's army -- so that the husband could sleep with her, and
believe the child was his.
But the husband did not sleep with her, so David had the
husband, Uriah, sent to the front of the hottest battle, so that he was killed. Then he
married Bathsheba.
As a punishment for this, the Lord threatened that he would take
David's wives from him and give them to his neighbor who would sleep with them in public
view.
A great punishment! God also seems to be pornographic.
This is the old jungle law: an eye for an eye. You have slept
with somebody else's wife; all your wives, not just one -- David had many wives, he was a
great king -- all your wives will be taken away from you, and in public view they will
have to make love to your neighbors.
This is forgiveness? And what is the justification? David has
slept with only one wife; now all his wives ...? And what have the wives done? They have
not slept with the soldier, why are they being punished?
It is strange: David commits the sin, his wives will suffer the
punishment. Great justice. Even an idiot can understand that this God is retarded.
The Christian monks have asked me, "We have given the sense
of morality to the world ...." Then what was Gautam Buddha doing five hundred years
before Christ? What was Mahavira doing? What were the twenty-four tirthankaras of the
Jainas doing? What were Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu doing? They were all before Jesus
Christ.
And, in fact, Jesus Christ had come to India, hearing about
Gautam Buddha. Although Gautam Buddha was dead, he had left enlightened people, "and
there may be some few still who are enlightened."
Enlightened Buddhists had created two great universities,
Nalanda and Takshashila. Those were the first universities in the world. Oxford is only
one thousand years old, and Oxford has only ten thousand students. Nalanda had fifty
thousand students; Takshashila had one hundred thousand students.
They were not ordinary students, they were sannyasins, and they
were not learning scriptures, they were learning meditation. They were learning how to
enter into past lives and to find out what they had done in the past lives. Those were
great universities which were destroyed by the Hindus.
But Jesus came at the right time. He could meet enlightened
masters in Nalanda, in Takshashila. He went to both the universities, it is on record. And
far away in Ladakh, in the Himalayas, there is a Buddhist monastery which has a record of
all the visitors. One of the visitors to the monastery in Ladakh was Jesus.
One hundred and fifty years ago a Russian explorer reached to
Ladakh, and he has copied the whole page that was written about Jesus: "A man who was
a Jew, a young man, came and remained in the monastery. He was tremendously beautiful and
he tried to learn everything of what Buddha had been teaching. He has visited Takshashila
and he has visited Nalanda, and he has seen enlightened people and learned many things
from them."
These are the seventeen years that are missing from the Bible.
Seventeen years he was here in India, in Ladakh, in Tibet, so whatever he was teaching was
borrowed from the East.
You have not given a moral sense to humanity; even Christ has
borrowed it from the East. There is great similarity between his statements and Gautam
Buddha's, but Gautam Buddha's statements have an authority which Jesus' do not have.
For example, "Do unto others as you would have others do
unto you" is an ancient Buddhist proverb, but Christians brag about it very much. As
far as I am concerned, whether it is Buddhist or Christian does not matter. It is wrong.
It is wrong on psychological grounds.
"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
If everybody were equal, similar, had the same desires, then perhaps this principle would
have been right. But everybody is different, your taste may not be the same as mine.
"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" -- that's perfectly okay,
but others' tastes may be different. Everybody has a unique personality, so I may do
something which I like, but you may not return it. Your taste, your personality may be
different.
For example, take a masochist who loves to be tortured. That is
his greatest joy: to be tortured. He reads this statement, "Do unto others as you
would have others do unto you," and what will happen? He will start torturing you,
hoping that you will, in return, torture him. But it is not necessarily so. You may be a
weaker person, or perhaps you may be yourself a masochist, enjoying his torture and not
doing anything.
It is said that the best couple, the most perfect couple in the
world, is one in which one partner is a sadist and the other partner is a masochist. They
fit. But it is very difficult to find such a perfect couple, where one loves to be
tortured, and the other loves to torture ....
So if by chance it happens that you meet a sadist and you are a
masochist, then this principle on that rare occasion will be right. Otherwise, it is not
the rule. It looks beautiful, but it is unpsychological. It does not touch the depth of
human psychology. People's tastes differ.
They have asked what I want to say about this: "Sanctify
the Lord, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread."
On the one hand they go on talking about his forgiveness, his
compassion, his love, and in this statement they are saying, "Let him be your fear,
and let him be your dread." This is sheer exploitation of man's fear and dread, to
terrify him, to make him tremble.
It is a well-known documented fact that in the Middle Ages there
used to be Christian missionaries .... They created such fearful scenes of hellfire --
eternal fire, the devil torturing everybody in every possible way, and it is never going
to end -- and they shouted and they beat the table, and they slammed the Bible on the
table. They created such fear amongst the women that after their sermon, the measure of
their success was to count how many women had fallen unconscious, foaming, in a coma. The
whole picture was so colorfully painted that the women started trembling, because they all
knew they had committed sin. They have loved a man -- that is the greatest sin. They have
not only loved their man, they have even desired other men.
Because the Bible says, "Even your dreams will be
counted." If in a dream you make love to your neighbor's wife, don't think God is not
watching! He is the perfect witness of everything that is happening in the world. He is
looking through every keyhole. He is looking even in your dreams, you are not even free to
dream. You are not doing anything, just dreaming, but even your dreams will be counted on
the day of judgment as sins. There is no difference, it is equal. Whether you have
actually committed a sin or you have just dreamt about it, imagined about it, the
punishment is equal.
The whole of Christianity lives on fear and greed. Those are
human weaknesses. Man is afraid of death, man is afraid what is going to happen beyond
death. Man is afraid of his own desires, his tendency to love. Christianity exploits them,
and all other religions also exploit them in a minor way.
Make people afraid and they will fall down on their knees,
foaming at the mouth and raising their hands to God: "Forgive us ...." They will
"sanctify the Lord" out of their fear and dread.
And create greed in them: "If you don't commit the sins, if
you are afraid of God, all the pleasures that you can dream about will be yours in
paradise."
So on the one hand there is fear, which is one of the basic
paranoias of man, and on the other hand, greed. Fear is for hell, greed is for paradise.
The word `paradise' comes from Persian. In Persian it is
firdaus, and firdaus means a walled garden where kings used to enjoy hundreds of women,
wine -- a pleasure garden. Paradise is nothing but a changed form of firdaus: a walled
garden of pleasure.
So give people a carrot, hanging far away beyond death, so they
go on moving. Nobody knows whether that carrot exists or not, because nobody has returned
from paradise to inform you what is true and what is untrue. And nobody has returned from
hell either -- so both are fictions, with not a single witness.
But by creating more fear, more dread, more greed, you can
manipulate humanity into slavery. This is not morality, this is sheer slavery. You are
taking the dignity of human beings and you are destroying their beauty, their joy, their
life, and filling it with all kinds of rubbish, poisons. They have poisoned almost the
whole of humanity.
Even Mahatma Gandhi ... I have looked deeply into his life and
his actions. Perhaps not even his followers have gone so deep into his mind. He was one
percent Hindu, he was born a Hindu, and he was nine percent Jaina, because he was born in
Gujarat which is under the impact of Jainism -- even Hindus are under the impact of
Jainism -- and he was ninety percent Christian. At least three times in his life he wanted
to become a Christian but was persuaded by his friends, "That would destroy our whole
political fight for freedom. If you become a Christian, Hindus will not be with you, and
neither will Mohammedans participate under your guidance. So please don't do this."
But what was the reason? Why did he want to become a Christian?
In his prayers he continually says, "I am not afraid of anything except God."
That is a Christian idea that has become conditioned in his
mind. He was educated in England for his law degree, and then he was in constant
companionship with the Christians in South Africa. He came back to India when he was forty
years old, almost completely programmed by the Christians. And here in India a great
Christian missionary, C.F. Andrews, was continually nagging him to become a Christian.
"Without being a Christian you cannot reach paradise" -- and who would not like
to reach paradise?
Jesus says, "Anybody who goes to paradise goes through me.
There is no other way. There is no other alternative."
I had one of Mahatma Gandhi's sons, Ramdas, as my friend, and I
used to talk to Ramdas whenever I went to Wardha to deliver lectures. I asked him,
"Did not your father ever think about what Jesus says? -- that God is love. How can
you be afraid of love? You can be afraid of everybody EXCEPT God. Jesus was saying just
the opposite."
But Christians are doing the same. Gandhi was just repeating
Christian theology like a parrot. On the one hand God is love; on the other hand,
"Fear God and feel the dread." Then God is not love.
Love dispels fear. Love dispels dread. Love is the only thing in
the whole world which destroys all fear, all death. Love is the only alchemy that
transforms you into an authentic religious person, not fear. Fear creates only slaves.
Fear and dread are the reasons for all psychopaths; the whole
pathology that psychiatrists and psychoanalysts are treating is created by some kind of
fear. But from the very beginning the children are told, "Be afraid of God. He sees
everyone."
I have heard about a Christian
nun who used to take her bath in a closed bathroom, keeping her clothes on. When the other
nuns found out, they said, "Are you mad? The doors are closed and there are only nuns
around here; there is no man in the monastery. Why do you take your bath keeping your
clothes on?"
The nun said, "God is omnipresent. He is in the bathroom
too; so I am afraid."
Such conditioning is bound to create pathology.
I have told you about militant Christianity. It is said,
"Fight the good fight! Onward Christian soldiers!" Is it a religion or an army?
But it has been killing millions of people -- and Christians call them religious wars,
holy wars, crusades. Mohammedans call their holy wars jihads, wars for God. Does God
require that millions of people should be killed? Does this statement come from God or
from Jesus Christ, who talks continuously of love? But now it is militant Christianity:
"Fight the good fight" -- because it is a fight for God. "Onward Christian
soldiers!"
Christianity does not create sannyasins, it creates soldiers,
and these are the polar opposites.
The monks who had come here belong to a certain sect of
Christianity, Jesuits. They say to every parent, "Give us a boy of seven" ...
not a girl. That's why you saw twenty-one soldiers, all male, and not a single woman
soldier.
"Give us a boy of seven years and we will turn him into a
good soldier of Christ."
On the one hand they go on saying that Christ is the pacifier,
that he came to make the world at ease and in peace, and on the other hand they are asking
for seven-year-old children. Why? -- because after seven years you can start conditioning
and programming perfectly. The boy will be able to understand it, and by the age of
twenty-one the programming will be complete.
The time between seven and twenty-one is the most vulnerable
time, because after seven, sexuality starts in a very small way. By the age of fourteen it
is ripe. And as sexuality is your life energy, when it is beginning, that is the right
time to fill your life energy with certain programs. Your mind is growing with your sex.
It is not a coincidence that millions of people around the world
have the mental age of only seven. From there they have been filled with beliefs -- Hindu,
Christian, Mohammedan -- and they lost their intelligence. There is no need of
intelligence. They are given everything as a belief, they don't have to explore, so they
lose their growth of intelligence.
In America, I called Oregonians -- where our commune was --
retarded people. The attorney general, Frohnmeyer, became very angry when he heard my
statement, but the University of Oregon became interested in whether there was some truth
in what I had said. When I returned to India, the results of their research and their
survey came. They had done the survey of the commune while I was there, and then they
surveyed all cross-sections of Oregon society.
They were absolutely puzzled how I came to say it. The
Oregonians' average mental age was seven and the commune's mental age was double --
fourteen. Those idiots destroyed an intelligent commune.
This fourteen years is also because you are coming from
conditioned families. I go on sharpening your intelligence, but you are already
conditioned. That conditioning takes a little time.
A man is capable of growing hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder
-- his physical age and his mental age together. When he is fourteen his mental age is
fourteen, when he is twenty-one his mental age is twenty-one, when he is seventy his
mental age is seventy. That will be the right growth program.
But no religion wants people of such intelligence, because then
they will see all the contradictions and all the superstitions and all the stupidities of
your religion.
And why are they asking for seven-year-old children? -- because
after seven years of age it is possible to program the child easily. He becomes
vulnerable. He is growing in his sexual life. He becomes open. You feed him, can fill him
with any kind of nonsense and he will accept it. It will become his bones, it will become
his blood, it will become his marrow, it will become his mind -- and he will never grow
beyond the age of seven.
They are ready to return the child by the age of twenty-one,
because at that time ... Sexual energy comes to the highest peak when you are seventeen
and a half; that is when you have the greatest power. After seventeen and a half you are
on the decline, and by twenty-one you have become too ripe. Now to change you is very
difficult. So they are ready to return the children by twenty-one; now nobody can change
them, they have prepared them into good soldiers of Christ.
But the very word `soldiers of Christ' is so ugly. I teach you
to be sannyasins -- and not my sannyasins. It is your sannyas, it is your investigation
into truth. To be a soldier needs your mind to be stopped at the age of seven.
Only retarded people can be soldiers -- good soldiers. They
won't ask any questions, they will simply follow the orders. Every religion wants people
who don't ask awkward questions, embarrassing questions which they cannot answer.
I am here to answer all of your questions. You can find from any
nook and corner of the world any question, and I am ready to answer, because I have no
investment in you and I have no investment in any fold, any cult, any creed, any religion.
My only love is to share the truth, the beauty, the godliness
that I have found. It is overflowing.
All I need is just a silent receptivity, a silent listening, and
you will not be turned into soldiers of anybody. You will be an individual on your own
feet -- a sannyasin in your own right.
A little biographical note before I start the sutras:
UNGAN WAS BORN IN 782 AND DIED IN 841. HE HAD ENTERED HYAKUJO'S
MONASTERY AT THE AGE OF TWELVE. LATER HE LEFT HYAKUJO, GOING TO YAKUSAN, THROUGH WHOM HE
REALIZED HIS ENLIGHTENMENT.
UNGAN'S OLDER BROTHER, DOGO, JOINED UNGAN AS A MONK WHEN HE WAS
FORTY-SIX. HAVING STUDIED WITH THE MASTER NEHAN -- A DISCIPLE OF MA TZU -- DOGO WENT TO
YAKUSAN. HE INVITED UNGAN, HIS BROTHER, TO COME AND LIVE AT YAKUSAN'S MONASTERY TOO.
UNGAN ANTICIPATED THAT HYAKUJO WOULD BE RELUCTANT FOR HIM TO
LEAVE, BUT HYAKUJO SAID, "THAT'S RIGHT. AN OLD SAYING RUNS: `PARENTS GIVE ME BIRTH --
FRIENDS GIVE ME GROWTH.'"
"It is perfectly good. You can go. I have given you birth,
now find friends who can help you to grow."
This is a beauty in Zen: no competition. Hyakujo does not know
about this master Yakusan -- they lived seven hundred miles apart, their monasteries were
far away -- but there is no question of fear. It is always good. Ungan will learn
something. Yakusan may have a different angle of approach, and that will make him richer.
HYAKUJO SAID, "THAT'S RIGHT. AN OLD SAYING RUNS: `PARENTS
GIVE ME BIRTH -- FRIENDS GIVE ME GROWTH.'"
Do you understand why I call myself your friend? Parents have
given you birth, now I am going to give you growth. Only friends can give you growth,
because they don't have any conditions, their love is unconditional. They don't ask
anything in return, not even gratitude.
"YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAY WITH ME" -- you have stayed
long enough, you are ready to move -- "NOW YOU CAN GO!" A LETTER FROM HYAKUJO
WITH HIM, UNGAN LEFT IMMEDIATELY FOR YAKUSAN'S MONASTERY.
The sutra:
OUR BELOVED MASTER
ONCE, WHEN UNGAN WAS IN YAKUSAN'S PRESENCE, THE MASTER SAID TO
HIM, "WHAT DOES HYAKUJO OSHO USUALLY TEACH?"
He does not know anything about Hyakujo, but still a great
respect: "Osho." Hyakujo, that great man, that great master, "What does he
teach?" He has become "Osho" because he has allowed Ungan to go, without
any interference: "There is no need. I am an enlightened master, where are you
going?" No, Hyakujo simply said, "It is perfectly good. You go. Be as rich as
possible. Learn from as many masters as possible. It is a question of truth, not of
belonging to me. You are not my possession. I love you, I want you to grow higher than me,
I want you to be richer than I am. Take every opportunity -- never miss it."
This statement and the letter made Yakusan call Hyakujo
"Osho." The man is certainly great.
"WHAT DOES HYAKUJO OSHO USUALLY TEACH?"
UNGAN REPLIED, "HE SAYS, `GO BEYOND THREE PHRASES.'"
What are the three phrases? All Buddha's scriptures are divided
in three sections, called tripitak, three baskets. These are called in Zen, three phrases.
Buddha is saying the same thing in all the scriptures again and
again in different ways, different language, from different angles, talking to different
people -- and certainly with different responses. This Tripitak is known in Zen only as
three phrases -- three different phrases.
So Yakusan said, "What does Hyakujo Osho teach you?"
Ungan answered, "HE SAYS, `GO BEYOND THREE PHRASES.'"
Go beyond all the scriptures that Buddha has left behind him.
Don't get caught into phrases, into words; you have to go beyond words. Scriptures are
beautiful, but they cannot give you truth. First find the truth, and then, if you want to
enjoy the scriptures, you can enjoy. But first be rooted in the truth, and that rooting
happens only when you drop your mind.
Those three baskets of Buddha's phrases are contained in your
mind. Go beyond.
And sometimes Hyakujo also said,
"GO BEYOND SIX PHRASES AND GET IT."
What are the six phrases? -- because Buddha made only three
types of statements which have been collected into three scriptures. They are vast. Even
one scripture is at least one thousand pages. But in India it has been a tradition that
whenever enlightenment happens to a man, whatever he says is so beyond the ordinary mind
that it has to be interpreted so that the ordinary human masses can understand it. So the
three scriptures have three commentaries; that makes six phrases.
So Hyakujo sometimes says, "GO BEYOND THREE PHRASES"
... but if somebody is a scholar and has learned not only the original Buddha statements
but also the interpretations of the scholars, then he says, "GO BEYOND SIX PHRASES
AND GET IT."
It is within you, you just have to pass beyond all the words and
it is already there, radiant, alive from eternity, waiting for you.
Yakusan commented, "WITH A DISTANCE OF SEVEN HUNDRED MILES
BETWEEN US, FORTUNATELY WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HYAKUJO."
Hyakujo is unnecessarily harassing his disciples by telling
them, "Get beyond the three scriptures. Get beyond the three scriptures and their
three commentaries." A simple statement is enough: "Go beyond the mind."
How are you going to calculate how much is in the mind? There may be those six and there
may be many other scriptures. Why bother about it?
Just a simple statement, "Go beyond mind," and you
have gone beyond all scholarship, all language, all intellectuality. You have entered into
the no-mind.
So Yakusan said, "There are seven hundred miles between me
and Hyakujo. We don't have anything to do with Hyakujo."
BUT THEN HE CONTINUED, "WHAT ELSE DOES HE TEACH?"
He suddenly must have remembered: "This may not be the
whole teaching. What else does he teach?"
UNGAN SAID, "ONCE, AFTER THE DISCOURSE, WHEN THE
CONGREGATION STOOD UP FROM THEIR SEATS, HYAKUJO CALLED OUT TO THEM. WHEN THEY LOOKED BACK
AT THE MASTER, HYAKUJO SAID, `WHAT IS THAT?'"
The sermon was finished; people were leaving. Their backs were
towards Hyakujo, and Hyakujo called out to them. When they looked back at the master,
Hyakujo said, "What is that looking back? WHAT IS THAT?"
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT EARLIER --
HYAKUJO IS STILL DOING WELL. THANKS TO YOU, I WAS ABLE TO SEE HYAKUJO."
Just look back and you will find the buddha. When Hyakujo called
the monks who were leaving the assembly hall -- their backs were towards him and he simply
called them -- they turned to look back at the master. Hyakujo said, "What is that
looking back?"
This is the beauty of Zen. It does not get entangled into any
unnecessary hypotheses. Just looking back ...
And Yakusan said, "My God! Why did you not say it before? I
was having a wrong understanding about Hyakujo, that he is still concerned about the
scriptures although he is saying, `Go beyond the scriptures.' But even going beyond is a
concern about the scriptures. Why not just forget them and go beyond the mind? This
statement is tremendous!"
When they all looked back, HYAKUJO SAID, "WHAT IS
THAT?" And in that small statement -- "WHAT IS THAT?" -- in that small
gesture of looking back towards the master, the whole of Zen is complete.
Just looking back, you face the buddha.
Hyakujo is a buddha. Every enlightened person is a buddha. All
that you need to do is look back. What are you doing in your meditation? Looking back --
and the deeper you look, the sooner you reach to the buddha.
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT EARLIER. You
gave me a misunderstanding about Hyakujo. HYAKUJO IS STILL DOING WELL. THANKS TO YOU, I
WAS ABLE TO SEE HYAKUJO. Although the difference of seven hundred miles is there, now
there is no difference. Hyakujo is a master of the same caliber and status as I am. Seeing
myself, I see Hyakujo. There is no difference."
It is a beautiful anecdote.
Basho wrote:
LOATHE TO LET SPRING GO,
BIRDS CRY, AND EVEN FISHES' EYES
ARE WET WITH TEARS.
The spring is going away. The birds are crying -- AND EVEN
FISHES' EYES ARE WET WITH TEARS. What is Basho saying? Just as spring is so much loved by
the trees and the birds and the fish ... You don't know your inner spiritual spring. It
has not come yet, you have not invited it. And the outer spring comes and goes, comes and
goes, comes and goes, but the inner spring only comes and never goes.
It is eternal spring.
Its flowers are flowers of eternity.
Once you are enlightened you are enlightened forever. There is
no way of going back. How much more splendorous and how much more miraculous will be the
inner spring! Even the outer is so great; the inner is not only quantitatively great, it
is qualitatively great too.
The search for truth is the search for inner spring.
Maneesha's question:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
BODHIDHARMA TOOK ZEN FROM INDIA TO CHINA AND JAPAN; YOU HAVE
BROUGHT IT BACK TO INDIA, COMPLETING THE CIRCLE. IS THERE SOME SIGNIFICANCE IN THIS?
ALSO, ALTHOUGH INDIA HAS BEEN THE STARTING POINT AND PERHAPS THE
COMPLETION OF THE JOURNEY OF ZEN, IN NEITHER INSTANCE, IT SEEMS, HAS INDIA ITSELF BEEN
RECEPTIVE TO ZEN.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT?
Maneesha, Zen is the ultimate flowering of consciousness. It
started with Gautam Buddha giving a lotus flower to Mahakashyapa. In the statement he made
to all the sannyasins who were present, he said, "Whatever I could say through words,
I have told you. Whatever I could not manage to bring to language, I am transfering to
Mahakashyapa."
With these words, visibly only the lotus flower was given to
Mahakashyapa, but invisibly Buddha transferred his unexpressed experience to Mahakashyapa.
Mahakashyapa was the first Zen master.
But neither was Buddha understood by India ... and the reason is
clear. India is a land of great scholarship, it is a land of great scriptures. It is the
ancientmost land of the brahmins. For ninety thousand years they have been philosophizing;
they have reached great intellectual heights. Buddha jumps out of the Hindu fold -- and
not only jumps out of the Hindu fold, he jumps out of the mind.
The whole of Hinduism is mind-oriented. It is very intellectual,
but it has no understanding of no-mind. Through intellectual argument it has come to the
conclusion that there is a soul -- but it is not its experience, it is a philosophical
hypothesis.
Buddha, for the first time, makes religion experiential, for the
first time transforms religion into a science of the inner. Just as objective science
depends on experiments, not on intellect, the inner science depends on experience, not on
intellect. So he went too far beyond the Hindu conception, which was so ancient and so
old, and the brahmins were living on it.
I have just quoted the pope: "The myth of Christ has
profited us well."
The whole brahmin caste is one-fourth of the Hindus. It has been
exploiting this country for centuries after centuries. Listening to Buddha would have been
a chaos for the brahmins. Scholarship will be thrown, mind is no more needed, only
meditation. It was a question of their livelihood, it was a question of millions of
priests who had been exploiting, and who had been sitting at the top of the Hindu fold as
the superiormost class, the superman.
Now Buddha was asking them to drop a great investment. They
could not manage it. Rather, they dropped Buddha. Buddha disappeared from India. And if
they could not understand Buddha, who had been talking for forty-two years, arguing,
making it as easy as possible for others to understand even that which is beyond the mind
-- he was trying to bring it into language, into logic -- if they could not understand
Buddha, how could they understand Mahakashyapa?
Mahakashyapa never said a single word, he simply laughed. That
laughter was coming from beyond; only Buddha could see it, and he had amongst his ten
thousand sannyasins so many giants of intelligence.
Mahakashyapa was very innocent, just like a child. Only he could
understand, because there was no thought, no mind, no prejudice, no philosophy. He simply
enjoyed being by the side of Buddha. People asked him, "Everybody is asking
questions, why don't you ask?" He would not even answer them.
Finally, people had completely forgotten about him. He had a
small tree which had become absolutely his. He had not said it to anybody, but everybody
knew, "Don't sit under that tree, Mahakashyapa will be coming. He has been sitting
there nobody knows how long. He never asks anything, he never has any friendship with
anyone, he has no social life, but he seems very joyous. Either he is mad, or perhaps he
has become enlightened -- but Buddha has not confirmed his enlightenment."
That day when he laughed, Buddha confirmed absolutely his
enlightenment -- and not only his enlightenment, but he confirmed that among ten thousand
people, this was the only mystic present who could understand a gesture. The lotus flower
was a gesture. Hidden in the lotus flower, Buddha gave him everything that a master wants
to share with his closest disciples.
Zen was born in such mysterious circumstances -- and nobody
knows, there is no scripture that mentions any other instance about Mahakashyapa. Of
course, Mahakashyapa could not be understood by a nation which had been dominated by
intellect and mind and priesthood for century after century.
But China was a better ground, because of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu
and Lieh Tzu. They had prepared the ground. They were people exactly like Mahakashyapa, so
when Bodhidharma reached to China, the ground was ready. There were many people who could
understand Bodhidharma's silence.
And then Rinzai took it to Japan. Japan was even more innocent.
Its ancient religion is Shinto; it is a very innocent religion, with no dogma, doctrine,
but just a pure love for existence.
This strange woman, Ishida, who is coming here soon, within two
or three days, is a seeress in an ancient Shinto temple. She is not a Buddhist. But Shinto
is so innocent and simple that when Rinzai brought Buddhism, particularly Zen, from China,
Shinto had no problem. It agreed absolutely that it is only innocence that knows the
truth. "We have not been so articulate as Zen masters are, but what they are saying,
we know in the depths of our hearts."
So Shinto had no obstruction, no competition with a foreign
religion, no struggle. Shinto and Zen have grown together, side by side. Zen masters go to
Shinto temples and monasteries and live there. Shinto masters come to Zen monasteries and
live there. Japan was even more peaceful and innocent.
China had Lao Tzu, but it had also Confucius. Confucius has
confused the whole problem. He was just a moralist, he knew nothing about the inner, but
he was a predominant figure. Kings and princes, emperors, asked his advice. He was a great
intellectual. Because of his dominance, China was not so innocent. The small stream of Tao
immediately welcomed Bodhidharma as if Lao Tzu had come back, their old master. They saw
in Bodhidharma's eyes the same shine, the same depth, the same mystery, the same dance.
Tao, and whatever Bodhidharma had brought -- in Pali it is
called jhan, in Sanskrit it is called dhyan -- jhan and Tao met, and out of their meeting
Zen was produced. Zen is a crossbreed, and the crossbreed is always better than the
parents -- both the parents.
In China jhan became chan, and in Japanese it became Zen. And
when Rinzai took it to Japan, it came back again very close to Buddha's word, jhan.
Certainly I am bringing Zen back to India, and the circle is
complete. If it started with Mahakashyapa, it is coming to its ultimate flowering with me.
But neither has Mahakashyapa been understood, nor am I going to be understood. This
misunderstanding of the masses is a proof that I am talking something valuable, something
of the ultimate truth.
I used to know a very strange man, Mahatma Bhagwandin. In India
there were only two mahatmas: Mahatma Gandhi and Mahatma Bhagwandin. I am absolutely
against Mahatma Gandhi on every point. Sometime I am going to take care of him!
But with Mahatma Bhagwandin I had a deep friendship. He was old,
I was very young, just a student in the university when we met. He had come to give a talk
in the university where I was a student, and he was talking and quoting from the
scriptures, and he was a very great orator of his time.
But I have always been a difficult person. I stood up in the
middle, and I said to him, "Stop for a moment." He looked at me. I said,
"Do you have anything to say on your own authority, or are you still going to quote
from the scriptures?"
There was a great silence. The vice-chancellor felt bad; he knew
that I could not resist the temptation.
Mahatma Bhagwandin was shocked. For the first time somebody had
interrupted him in the middle. But he was an honest man, and he said, "You are right.
I don't have anything to say on my own authority." That was the beginning of a great
friendship of a young man with an old man.
We used to meet often. He used to stay with me in my house, and
I used to stay with him in his house. It was not far away, it was only six hours by car.
Any moment I wanted to go there, I would simply drive from Jabalpur to Nagpur; he lived in
Nagpur.
We forgot completely that I was too young and he was too old.
Even his host -- because he had no home, he was a sannyasin, so he was living with a
friend -- even his host used to say, "It is a strange kind of friendship. You are so
young, he is just going to die ... but when you both talk together, even we who listen
forget the difference between your ages."
And by chance, the day he died I was present just a few hours
before. I was coming from Chaanda, and just in the train one man, Kamalnayan Bajaj ... He
was the son of Jamanalal Bajaj, and Jamanalal Bajaj was the host of Mahatma Gandhi; he had
taken him from Sabarmati, Ahmedabad, to Wardha. Wardha is just between Chaanda and Nagpur.
I was coming from Chaanda. On the station of Wardha, Kamalnayan
entered into my compartment. He was a member of parliament. He told me, "Do you know
that Mahatma Bhagwandin is very seriously ill?"
I said, "I had no idea."
He said, "I am going to see him."
I said, "I will then get down in Nagpur." I had not
intended to get down in Nagpur, I was going directly by train to Jabalpur.
So I got down, I went to see him, and I could not believe my
eyes. I had not seen him for almost one year. He had become just a skeleton, just skin and
bones, nothing else was left, and he was continuously coughing, coughing blood.
He looked at me and he smiled. He said, "This was my last
wish, that if existence has any compassion on me, somehow I would like to see you. That
was my continuous heartfelt desire this last day. It is a miracle: you have come. I wanted
to say something to you, because I know I am not going to stay much longer, maybe a few
hours." And, in fact, after three hours he died.
He said to me, "You had asked a question while you were a
student many years ago in the university, and I had to confess before thousands of
students and hundreds of professors that I didn't have anything to say on my own
authority.
"I want you to know that I still don't have anything of my
own to say. I remained a scholar. I am dying in deep misery. I did not listen to you, I
argued and argued and quoted scriptures, and never took the point although I felt you were
right. But my age, my prestige, prevented me from asking you how to know it, how to get to
it. It was a simple question and you were always available, but because I never asked, you
never said anything. We discussed and discussed, but that was all intellectual."
I said, "I was waiting. Without your being thirsty for it
... it is not possible for anyone. You can take the horse to the river, but you cannot
force the horse to drink the water.
"I have tried in every way to take you to the river. That's
the end of the master's work. Now the river is ahead of you: if you are thirsty, drink; if
you don't feel thirsty, I am helpless."
He had tears in his eyes, tears of a long life wasted in words.
Because of his scholarship he has been called Mahatma, great soul, but he had no idea of
any soul as an experience.
This country is too full of knowledge, too much burdened with
scholarship, too much dominated by the priests.
One thing he said, the last thing before I left him. He said to
me, "If the crowd agrees with you, know you are wrong. Just remember it as advice
from an old friend. If the crowd disagrees with you, there is a chance of your being
right."
The crowd has never been right, hence you don't see the Indian
crowd here. You see individuals from all over the world, and a few individuals from India
too -- but this is not a crowd. This is a meeting place of seekers. You have come on your
own in search.
India is too egoistic because it has all the great scriptures,
and all the great priests who parrot-like go on repeating great words -- and they are
satisfied with those words. They will die a miserable death like Mahatma Bhagwandin.
Maneesha, nothing can be done about it, but it does not matter.
The crowd has never mattered as far as ultimate truth is concerned. It is an individual
search, and the people who are in search have come to me from all over the world. Neither
did Buddha have such an audience -- it was confined to the state of Bihar, not even the
whole of India -- nor did Mahakashyapa have such an audience, international, nor
Bodhidharma, nor Rinzai.
I am the most blessed one in the sense that I have the chosen
few of the earth from all over the planet. It is a gathering to be rejoiced with. I am
absolutely blissful to have you here.
This is certainly a good completion of Mahakashyapa.
He started the circle, I am completing it.
You are the witnesses of a great phenomenon.
Now it is the time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. He has started
laughing, not even before the joke but in the middle of the sutra! He is very sensitive!
And he trusts me: "My time is coming."
Finally, Ronald Reagan is
retired into private life. After leaving the White House, he and Nancy return to living
normal lives on their ranch in California, and are just as happy as little rats.
One day, Ronald decides he wants to take Nancy shopping, so he
gets her into the car and they drive to the local shopping mall. Then Reagan takes Nancy
into the huge Dingbat's Department Store.
As they walk in, Ronald looks up and sees a sign by the door
that reads: "Please leave your bag outside."
"Gee, Nancy," says Ronald, turning to his wife.
"Sorry, but you will have to wait here!"
Bonzer, the British bulldog, is sniffing his way around the
neighborhood when he recognizes the smell of Alvin, the American airedale.
After the two dogs have met and sniffed each other thoroughly,
Alvin, the American dog, starts to speak.
"The trouble with you British," barks Alvin, "is
that you are far too tribal and interbred. There should be much more intermingling. For
instance, in my blood there is British, German, Spanish, Italian, French and a touch of
Chinese."
"I say, old chap," replies Bonzer, "how jolly
sporting of your mother!"
Little Bungee Barfi finds himself being sent by his Catholic
Indian parents to the Holy Jesus Jesuit Seminary in Poona. Life is tough in the seminary
for Bungee and he has a lot of trouble adapting to life related to Christianity.
Everywhere there are crosses on the walls with Jesus hanging on
them. There are pictures of Jesus everywhere, on the walls, in the windows, and in all the
books. Jesus is omnipresent, in all sorts of postures and poses. The monks who run the
seminary talk all the time of Jesus.
One day, Little Bungee has a problem. "Can you help me fix
my bicycle, Father Feekal?" he asked one of the old priests.
"My son, Jesus loves you!" replies the priest,
pointing at a picture of Jesus riding a donkey. "Just trust in Jesus! Jesus will find
a way!"
The next day, Little Bungee is sitting in the schoolroom during
nature class, thinking about his broken bicycle. Suddenly, Father Fellini asks Little
Bungee a question.
"Now tell me, Bungee," says Father Fellini, "what
is brown, has a long bushy tail, jumps through the branches of trees and eats nuts?"
"Well," replies Bungee, "in the real world it is
obviously a squirrel -- but in this place, things are so fucked up, it is bound to be
Jesus!"
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