Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Talks given from 22/01/89 pm to 29/01/89 pm

English Discourse series

8 Chapters

Year published: 1989

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #1

Chapter title: The opium of the people

22 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901225

ShortTitle:

CHRIST01

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

151

mins

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

ON ONE OCCASION, YAKUSAN WROTE DOWN THE CHINESE CHARACTER

SIGNIFYING BUDDHA, AND ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, DOGO: "WHAT IS THIS

LETTER?"

DOGO REPLIED, "IT'S THE LETTER FOR `BUDDHA'."

YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU ARE A MONK SO FULL OF CHATTER!"

ONCE, AT THE EVENING DISCOURSE, YAKUSAN DIDN'T LIGHT THE CANDLE

AS USUAL. A MONK CAME AND STOOD BY HIS SIDE. YAKUSAN SAID, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE. IF A BULL GIVES BIRTH, I WILL TELL IT TO

YOU."

THE MONK SAID, "THE BULL HAS ALREADY GIVEN BIRTH LONG AGO, AND

YOU JUST KEEP NOT REVEALING IT."

YAKUSAN ASKED FOR A LIGHT. WHEN THE CANDLE WAS BROUGHT IN, THE MONK RETREATED AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF

MONKS.

LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN ABOUT THIS, AND TOZAN SAID, "THE MONK

KNEW THE TRUTH -- HE JUST DIDN'T WANT TO MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE

MASTER."

Friends,

Question 1

One of the sannyasins has asked me a question.

IF THE TRUTH IS ONE, THEN WHY DO ALL THE MASTERS, ALL THE

AWAKENED ONES, SPEAK IN DIFFERENT WAYS? SOMETIMES IT EVEN

LOOKS AS IF THEY ARE CONTRADICTORY.

The truth is certainly one, but it has multidimensional reality, and every master has to choose a certain dimension. You cannot speak all the dimensions together.

Every master has his own style, his own way of speaking, his own way of conveying. The higher you rise in consciousness and awareness, the more you become unique, the more you become individual.

But let me explain to you:

Individuality is not personality.

Personality is given by the society to you. Individuality is your intrinsic nature.

Personality is fake, a fraud. Individuality is your innermost buddha, your innermost enlightenment, your innermost door to the divine.

But every master is bound to be unique in his expressions. They are all saying the same thing, they are all indicating towards the same moon, but their fingers are different. They are bound to be different. The finger of Buddha, the finger of Lao Tzu, the finger of Chuang Tzu, are bound to be different. If you pay too much attention to the finger, there is every possibility you will forget the purpose. The purpose was not the finger, the purpose was the moon.

All the differences are in the fingers, in their expressions. The experience of truth is one, but to bring it to expression, every master has to find his own device. That's why even enlightened people appear to you to be speaking differently, even contradictorily --

because existence does not have one-dimensional sources, it is multidimensional. It is comprehensive of all contradictions. All contradictions melt into one cosmos.

Now, you cannot express the whole cosmos in any statement. All philosophies fall short, and all languages appear impotent. All theologies only manage a very partial truth. And remember, a partial truth is not truth. You cannot cut truth into parts. It is one, and organically one, not mechanically one.

You can take a car apart, and you can put those parts together again, but you cannot do the same with a living organism. You cannot take a man's parts apart, and then put them together. You can do it, but the man will not be there. There will be only a corpse in your hands.

But it is one of the most difficult problems faced by all awakened ones: How to convey it?

They find devices, methods, meditations. They open doors so that you can look at the truth yourself. Of course, every master will have his own door. Existence has millions of approaches, and when a master reaches to the truth, he reaches by one path. Obviously, he will talk about the path by which he has reached to the truth.

Truth is one, but paths are many. And unless we understand it, there is going to be a constant conflict and misunderstanding in the minds of the seekers.

I am reminded of one of the greatest Urdu poets, Ghalib. Three hundred years have passed, but in three hundred years no poet so great has been born in the Urdu language. It is a very poetic language, I don't think there is any other language in the world which is so poetic. Contemporary languages are bound to be non-poetic; they have to be scientific, exact. Poetry is flexible; poetry does not say directly, it only hints.

This great poet, Mirza Ghalib, has a very beautiful statement. I would like to repeat it first in his own language, then I will translate it.

HAIN AUR BHI DUNIYAN MEN SUKHANBAR BAHUT ACHCHHE

KAHTE HAIN GHALIB KA HAI ANDAJE BAYAN AUR.

HAIN... DUNIYAN MEN SUKHANBAR BAHUT ACHCHHE

.... In the world there are many great poets, but it is said that Ghalib's way of saying, his style, his nuance, is absolutely unique.

Every master is unique, just like an Everest, standing far higher, touching the stars --

alone. Never compare two masters. Comparison is not the right thing in the world of masters. Comparison is mind-oriented, it is intellectual, and the master's realization is beyond the mind, it is spiritual. In the world of spirit, in the world of godliness, there is no question of comparison. Every one is unique, but surrendered, dedicated to the same truth from different angles. It needs a tremendous capacity of understanding, and that understanding has not to be of the mind, it has to be of meditation.

Mind can understand everything that is outside you. All that is objective is available to the mind: science and technology, philosophy and theology -- all are mind-oriented.

But that which is within you is behind the mind, beyond the mind. It opens itself in your meditations, when you start dropping your thoughts and relaxing deeper and deeper, when only a witness is left. The body is far away and no more you, the mind is just an echo in the valleys, and is no more you. In the innermost core of your being there is no thought, no cloud, a great silence.

In that silence arises authentic understanding. In that silence you are closest to the divine.

That silence is a way, a bridge, a path, a connection to the ultimate.

Once you know the ultimate, the difficulty arises: How to convey it? And there is a tremendous urge to convey it, because millions of people are living in darkness, in blindness, stumbling, finding no way out. Millions of people are born in the night and die in the night; there is no dawn in their lives.

When one comes to the dawn, when one realizes the sunrise and his whole being becomes full of light and beauty and blessings, he wants to share it. This desire to share comes autonomously.

But how to share that which is beyond words?

All masters have been struggling to find some way to communicate, to commune. That's why you find differences in their statements. Rather than thinking about their statements, it will be better to go within yourself and find the truth.

Nobody can help you. The masters can only show the way; you have to walk.

Nobody can come inside you. That is the dignity of man, a great privilege: nobody can interfere in your inner life. You are alone there, the suprememost sovereign.

But people have got into trouble because they have started imitating. You can imitate a buddha, you can have the same clothes, you can walk the same way, you can eat the same kind of food. You can follow all the moral principles, but you will still be an actor, you will not be a buddha.

It happened ... There were three monasteries deep in the mountains. All three belonged to different Christian sects.

One day it happened by coincidence that the three abbots of the monasteries had gone for a morning walk and they all met on the crossroads. They talked about matters concerning their monasteries and other problems.

Finally one of them said, "I have to tell you that as far as scholarship is concerned, my monastery is far higher than your monasteries."

The second one said, "That is true. As far as scholarship is concerned, your people are great scholars. But don't forget, as far as discipline is concerned, my monastery is far higher than yours. And also remember, scholarship is not going to help. It can make you knowledgeable, but it cannot make you wise. You have to walk the path of discipline; then only can you become a wise man."

The third was silent up to now. He laughed, and he said, "You both are right. But as far as humbleness is concerned, we are the tops!"

Humbleness ... and the desire is to be the tops.

You can be humble, you can force yourself to be humble, you can repress your ego -- but that humbleness will not be true humbleness. It will be just inverted ego. It will be low-key ego.

Once a man touched my feet. I told him, "There is no need ...."

He said, "It is not your concern. I am just the dust underneath your feet."

To provoke that man, I said, "That's right!"

Immediately he became angry. He said, "You tell me that I am just the dust under your feet?"

I said, "I have not said anything. You were saying it, I simply agreed."

Humbleness, or any other quality which makes you religious, if practiced from the outside makes you an actor. If it arises from the inside, out of your own experience of the intelligence of existence, then it has a different flavor, a different fragrance -- the fragrance of the freshly-opened rose.

Then you are neither egoist nor humble, because humbleness and ego, both are two sides of the same phenomenon. You simply are. This being, simply to be, makes you enlightened, gives you new insight into matters.

It happened in America, when they were celebrating some birth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln. They searched all over America for a man who would look like Abraham Lincoln -- and they found him. A man looked almost the same, so they chose that man, they trained him.

Abraham Lincoln used to stutter a little, so that man had to be trained to stutter. Abraham Lincoln was a little lame in one foot, so he started walking like a lame person. One year's continuous training ... and the next year they were going to celebrate the birthday the whole year, all over America.

In one year of continuously practicing and practicing and practicing, and then the second year going from one city to another city, from one part to another part, and playing the role of Abraham Lincoln, the man became so much obsessed with the idea that when he came home he came as a lame man, stuttering.

First the family thought that he was joking. The festival was over. They told him, "Now you don't have to do all this."

He said, "What do you mean? I AM Abraham Lincoln." Those two years had got into his head.

They thought he would calm down, but he did not. Those two years had been too heavy and hot. He was calm and cool, and absolutely certain that he was Abraham Lincoln.

They took him to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist tried in every possible way, but with no success at all. He was feeling very much harassed and tortured by everybody in his town, by his friends, by his family. And now the psychiatrists, psychoanalysts -- they started harassing him.

Finally the psychoanalyst he was visiting put him on the lie detector. If he was lying, the detector would show it. Because of so much harassment the man thought, "It is not worth it!" So when he was standing on the lie detector and the psychoanalyst asked him, "Are you Abraham Lincoln?", he said, "No" -- and the lie detector said, "He is lying, he IS

Abraham Lincoln!"

Acting can go so deep in your unconscious layers of the mind that it is beyond your consciousness. You have only a small thin layer of consciousness; compared to it, your unconscious is nine times bigger. If something enters into your unconscious, you will start behaving like Jesus, you will start behaving like Mohammed. But it will be just acting and nothing else, and acting is not a transformation of your being.

I am against imposing any discipline on yourself from the outside -- according to others. I am in favor, in absolute favor, categorically, that your life should arise from your own inner springs. From your own awakening the morality, the discipline will follow, just like a shadow follows you.

The world is living in tremendous misery because of your so-called moralists, puritans, who have been imposing things from the outside. Those things enter into the unconscious, and the man starts behaving in a certain manner -- but he is a robot.

Unless your potential that you have brought with you, which you have been carrying from eternity -- unless that potential, that seed sprouts and starts gathering more and more foliage, and brings blossoms to your being, then morality is a small matter.

You don't have to listen to Moses and his Ten Commandments; you will find your own commandments. Unless you are in direct contact with the divineness of existence, all that you are doing is creating a persona, a personality ... fake, fraud, hypocrisy.

I have heard that when God created the world, he went around with the Ten Commandments. He asked the Babylonians, "Would you like to have one commandment?"

They said, "What is it?" Naturally, first you should inquire what the commandment is.

God said, "You should not commit adultery."

The Babylonians said, "Forget all about it. What shall we do then? In this meaningless life, adultery is the only game. Just get lost!"

God was very angry, but what to do? If they won't take ... He went to the Egyptians, he went to other races, but everybody asked, "First tell us what the commandment is." And they all refused. They said, "We don't want anybody else to tell us what to do. We want to find from our own innermost spring what is right and what is wrong."

And then finally he came across Moses, who had been struggling in the desert of Saudi Arabia for forty years continuously to find the Holy Land, Israel. Almost two-thirds of the original group that he had taken from Egypt had died on the way.

By the time he reached Israel he was old, utterly tired, and there had grown a generation gap, because his old friends with whom he had come had almost all died; a new generation had come up. In fact, a third generation was growing up, and they didn't have any respect for Moses. They didn't know the fellow: Who is this man who goes on commanding, "Do this, don't do that"?

But it was not his fault. It was God who had met Moses, and not knowing the Jews exactly, he asked him, "Would you like to have one commandment?" -- very hesitantly, because he had been refused everywhere else.

But Moses asked a totally different question. He did not ask, "What is the commandment?", he said, "How much does it cost?" Just like a Jew ...

God said, "It is free."

Then Moses said, "I will take ten. If it is free, why take only one?"

But any commandments taken from anybody -- even from God -- are not going to give you a revolution in your being. They will only create an actor, a pretender, a hypocrite, a repressed person, inhibited, feeling guilty on every account. Whatever he does goes against the commandments.

But ten commandments are nothing compared to Gautam Buddha, who has thirty-three thousand principles for every Buddhist monk to follow. You cannot even remember them. Thirty-three thousand ...? Every detailed gesture of your life is completely controlled from outside.

I hate the very idea of being controlled from outside. I love the flowering of your being.

And I am absolutely certain -- because whenever your potential blossoms, there is no question of choice, of what is right and what is wrong. You choose the right without choosing. It is choiceless, the only alternative.

For a man of clarity, for a man of absolute perceptiveness, for a man full of light beyond the mind, life becomes a choiceless phenomenon. You simply do the right thing. It is not that you think that it is right, "That's why I am doing it."

With me, the definition of right and wrong, good and bad, sin and virtue, absolutely changes. Whatever the enlightened person does is right. Whatever the enlightened person does not do, is wrong.

So I don't teach you any discipline, any morality. I simply teach you to be awake, and in your awareness you cannot do anything wrong. You cannot harm anybody, you cannot violate anybody's freedom, you cannot interfere into anybody's territory. A great respect for life, reverence for life, arises in you, and it has nothing to do with your religion, it has nothing to do with your belief systems.

A man of awareness does not belong to any organized religion. Organized religion is against religiousness. Every organized religion kills the truth!

The ancient story is:

A man found the truth.

A little devil came running to the old devil and asked him, "What are you doing here?"

The old devil was smoking a cigarette. He said, "My son, cool down. What is the matter?"

The little devil said, "You are sitting here, and one man has found the truth! Our whole business is at risk!"

The old devil said, "Sit down. Take a cigarette. My people have already reached there."

The little devil said, "But I am coming from there, and I have not seen any devils!"

The old devil said, "Devils are not needed, my people have reached there. They are the priests, they are the rabbis, they are the popes, they are the shankaracharyas, they are the imams. They have reached there, and they will organize the truth, and once the truth is organized, it is finished! They will surround the man, and they will not allow the people to approach the man. They will interpret the man, and in their interpretation the truth will be lost."

The last commandment from the pope has been ... He has found a new sin; it is a great discovery. People have been sinning just in the old way, routine. He should be counted as a great pioneer!

The new sin is that you should not communicate with God directly; you should only communicate through the priest.

As far as I can see, that's what the devil was meaning, that "the priests are there, they are my people, they serve me." They talk about God, but talking about God, creating belief in people about God, does not help any transformation.

Belief is not needed. What is needed is knowing. Belief simply hides your ignorance, it does not make any rebellion in your being.

Once Sri Raman, one of the great seers of this age, was asked by a journalist coming from the West, "Do you believe in God?"

Sri Raman said, "No."

The man was shocked. He had heard that this man has realized God, and he says he does not believe in God! He repeated the question. He said, "Have you heard me rightly? I am asking, `Do you believe in God?'"

Raman said, "I have heard it. Do you understand what I have said? I don't believe in God, because I know. There is no need of belief. I know the whole existence is divine. There is no personal God anywhere. Every part of this universe is divine. I know it, there is no question of believing."

Beliefs are to distract people from discovering the beauty, the grandeur, the splendor, the divinity of existence. And this is what all the priests of all the religions are doing all over the world: programming people into believing certain things -- God, heaven, hell, right, wrong, what is virtue, what is sin.

I would like you to know exactly the meaning of the word `sin'. It does not mean what the Christians say, it means forgetfulness. In its root it means forgetfulness of your being.

So there is only one sin: forgetfulness of your being. And there is only one virtue: that is, remembering yourself. And the moment you remember yourself, this whole existence becomes a totally different place. A great love arises, a great compassion arises. It is not that you cultivated it, you simply found it, just as in a flower opening in the morning sun, the flower discovers its own fragrance for the first time. Amazed! -- a mystery was hidden inside him, a splendor -- he dances in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, just with the sheer blissfulness of having such a beautiful fragrance.

Remembering yourself, you don't have to be part of any organized religion. You have a direct communication with existence. No argument is needed to prove it, you know it.

Argument is needed only when you don't know it. Do you need any argument for the sun, for the moon, for the starry night? Do you need any argument for things that you know?

You need arguments for hell, you need arguments and great theological systems to prove heaven.

It is strange that all religions are concerned with hell, with heaven, with God. No religion seems to be concerned with you. They are all concerned with past, they are all concerned with future. No religion seems to be concerned with the present.

All religions are life-negative, they deny life -- and to deny life is to deny God. That is the only denial. Whoever denies life and teaches renouncing life is an atheist; he is against the divinity of existence. Whoever teaches you to live life in its totality, with great affirmation, rejoicing, singing and dancing ... then this very moment the whole existence becomes divine.

In your dance it becomes divine.

In your joy it becomes divine.

In your blissfulness it becomes divine.

In your ecstasy you reach to the highest peak of divineness.

Unless you know your own divineness you cannot know the divinity of existence. That is just the beginning: to know your divineness is the first step in knowing the divineness of the whole existence.

This existence has never been created. The whole argument is absolutely wrong. All religions think everything has to be created, otherwise from where will it come?

But they don't think, "From where does God come?" If God created the world, from where is he coming? Who created him? And if God can be uncreated, then what is the point of bringing in an unnecessary hypothesis?

This is a basic principle of all scientific research: don't bring in unnecessary hypotheses.

Work it out with the minimum of hypotheses.

If God is to be created by another bigger God, you will end in an absurdity -- what logicians call regressum infinitum. You will regress into infinity and you will not find the answer. The question will remain standing exactly where it was: Who created the last God?

Existence is enough.

Hence I teach you godliness, but not God.

God is the invention of the priest. God is a fiction to console you, to make you afraid, to make you guilty. All religions depend on your guilt, on your fear -- but that is not authentic religiousness.

Authentic religiousness will make you unafraid, fearless; not a slave, not a puppet in the hands of some unknown God, some fiction.

According to my experience, if there is God, it is against man's freedom. If God has created you, why did he create you?

According to Christianity, God created the world only four thousand years before Jesus.

It is only six thousand years ago that God created the world. What has he been doing since eternity? And what was the cause that suddenly he decided to create this world?

And if God created the world in a whimsical way, without any reason and rhyme ... For eternity he had been in a deep slumber, and suddenly he woke up, six thousand years ago.

It must have been January, the first of January, and certainly a Monday, because he worked six days, and on Sunday he disappeared for eternal holidays. Since then he has not been known.

One of my tailors, an old man, told me a very beautiful thing. I was going on a tour. I told him, "Exactly within six days you have to prepare my clothes. Saturday evening I will collect them. And I am a perfectionist ... so put aside all your other work."

He said, "Okay -- but have you had a look at the world?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "God created this world. Do you see the mess? I can make your clothes in six days, but they will be all in a mess. It is up to you to choose."

I said, "You are right -- looking at the world."

In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars. What more mess do you need?

All the nations are trying hard to become nuclear. This poor country has become nuclear.

Half of the nation is starving, but the politicians are not interested in the five hundred million people who are going to die within ten years.

This whole country will become a big cemetery. Half of the people are going to die. One will die out of two, and there will not be enough people to carry the corpses to the funeral pyres or to the graveyards. You will be surrounded by corpses. It will be impossible to live. Your whole country will be stinking of death!

But your politicians are not concerned about it. They are concerned about making the country nuclear; they have already made it.

It seems to be absolutely a mess. It is a proof that it has not been created, it is evolving accidentally. It is up to man, not up to God, to put it right. But man can put it right only if he puts himself right.

It is very difficult to convince the unconscious masses that the world is moving towards a global suicide. By the end of this century, perhaps, the only planet in the universe which has created people like Buddha and Jesus, people like Lao Tzu and Rinzai, will disappear. In the whole of existence, millions of stars and millions of galaxies are absolutely without any life. This is a miracle, that this small earth ... It is very small, you don't understand its smallness.

The sun is six thousand times bigger than this earth, and this sun is a mediocre star in the universe; there are bigger suns, far bigger. This does not count for much, this is a small galaxy.

But this earth is our home. Unless we put ourselves right, we cannot put humanity right, we cannot put this earth in such a way as to live beautifully. There is no need of nations, there is no need of religions, there is no need of races. It is one earth, it is one world, it is one truth, it is one divinity.

But one has first to search within oneself.

I have heard about a man who became mad. That was not bad -- but in his madness he started thinking that he was dead.

Everybody tried to convince him, "You are alive. You eat, you drink, you sleep, you go for a morning walk -- and you say you are dead?"

He said, "I know perfectly well I am dead! Who told you that dead people don't go for a morning walk?" It was very strange of the fellow. He argued, "Who told you that dead people don't eat? Perhaps you are also dead, you simply have forgotten to remember when you died! I remember."

He was taken to the psychiatrist. There is no other place, although psychiatry has not been of any help to anybody. But what to do? -- except psychiatry and psychoanalysis, there is nowhere to go, although they have not been of any help.

Now even the greatest psychoanalysts are saying that psychoanalysis is on its way to dying, because people have not been helped by it at all. Fifteen years of psychoanalysis, twenty years of psychoanalysis ... your whole bank account is shifted to the psychoanalyst, and you are the same -- perhaps more insane.

The psychoanalyst said, "Don't be worried. I have treated many people like this. Sit down."

The dead man sat down. He said, "Do you think you are alive?"

The psychoanalyst said, "Have you come here for treatment or to give me treatment?"

The madman said, "Just by the way, I have inquired whether you are still alive. These people think they are alive, and I am saying the truth, from the very bottom of my heart, that I am a dead man."

The psychoanalyst was a very clever, very experienced man. He took out a knife and cut the man's hand, just slightly so that blood came out. Before cutting the hand he asked the man, "Have you ever heard -- when you used to be alive -- that dead men don't bleed?"

The madman said, "That's true. I have heard -- while I was alive -- a proverb that dead men don't bleed."

Then the analyst cut the dead man's hand and the blood came. He said, "Aha! And now

...?"

The dead man said even more loudly, "Aha! That means the proverb is wrong: dead men do bleed. This is a proof!"

Now, what to do with people? If you want to help them, it is not an easy job. It is one of the most difficult things to help somebody towards spiritual exploration, to move someone towards his inner space.

That's exactly my work here.

My only concern is to make you aware of your innermost center, and then everything will follow on its own accord.

The sutras:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

ON ONE OCCASION, YAKUSAN WROTE DOWN THE CHINESE CHARACTER

SIGNIFYING BUDDHA, AND ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, DOGO: "WHAT IS THIS

LETTER?"

DOGO REPLIED, "IT IS THE LETTER FOR `BUDDHA'."

Perfectly factual and right -- but in the vision of a master it is a totally different thing.

Does Dogo think that the master does not know what the character signifies? His answer implies that the master is ignorant of the significance of the Chinese character.

If he had understood, he would have remained silent. His silence would have been the right answer. He would have remained silent, showing the master that "You know it already, why are you harassing me?" But, on the contrary, he said, "IT IS THE LETTER

FOR `BUDDHA'." He showed his knowledge.

Before a master you should show your heart, you should show your innocence, not your knowledge. All knowledge is rubbish! All knowledge is borrowed. Dogo missed the point.

YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU ARE A MONK SO FULL OF CHATTER!" -- and he had only said one word. But the master is right. One word has come out, but the chattering mind -- yakkety-yak, yakkety-yak -- goes on inside. From where has this

"buddha" come? From that yakkety-yak, he has just pulled out one word. He is not a silent man.

The master was disappointed. He hoped that Dogo would remain silent, knowing that

"The master knows, he is unnecessarily pulling my leg." Or, if he wanted to answer him, he could have touched his feet. This would have showed that "That character shows you, the buddha."

Gautam the Buddha is not the only buddha in the history of the world; there have been thousands of buddhas around the world, in different parts of the world. They may not be known as buddhas, becausèbuddha' simply means the awakened one. It is not the name of Gautam Buddha; his name was Gautam Siddharth. Buddha is his awakening, his enlightenment, his knowing himself and existence.

Anybody who becomes awakened can be called a buddha, it is nobody's monopoly. The word does not belong to Gautam Buddha, it is not his name; it is the quality that has happened to him, his awakening. Anybody awake, anywhere in the world, has the right to be called a buddha.

Yakusan was an enlightened master, with thousands of disciples. Hundreds became enlightened under his guidance. Just touching his feet would have been the right gesture of a man of understanding, that "It signifies you." But there is no need to use words. Just touch the feet of the master. Or, if you have courage enough, then slap the master: "What do you mean? You know it and still you want to harass me?"

In Zen, slapping the master is a very common routine. It is the only religion in which the master and the disciple are not inferior or superior. Sometimes the master hits the disciple, sometimes the disciple hits the master.

A great master, Rinzai, called his most intimate disciple suddenly in the middle of the night. The disciple was meditating outside the master's house. He came in.

The master said, "I had to call you. I love to hit you. As I see it, you are coming too close; by the morning you will be a buddha, and I will not be able to hit you. So this is the last time" -- and he hit him! And the disciple touched his feet in gratitude.

Zen is a very special world. It has its own ways which are absolutely unknown outside this small stream of buddhas. It is not an organized religion, it is pure religion, simple religion. The individual is far more important than the church.

It was so loving of Rinzai to call his disciple. Slapping him was sheer love and joy: "I have been enjoying slapping you for years. From tomorrow morning, I will not be able to slap you; on the contrary, if you want you can slap me."

And exactly the next morning, the disciple came in and slapped the master. The master laughed and he touched the feet of the disciple, just as in the night the disciple had touched his feet.

There is no problem of any superiority or inferiority. One is awake, one is asleep, but the asleep one can become awake any moment.

Rather than answering Yakusan, if Dogo had done something to express it -- slapping the master, touching his feet, or just remaining silent, closing his eyes and sitting in a buddha posture -- that would have given the answer.

Language cannot answer such questions. You have to show your understanding, not your knowledge. You have to show your wisdom, not your information. You have to show your transformation.

Dogo missed, utterly missed.

YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU ARE A MONK SO FULL OF CHATTER! You have not gone beyond the mind yet?"

ONCE, AT THE EVENING DISCOURSE, YAKUSAN DID NOT LIGHT THE

CANDLE AS USUAL. A MONK CAME AND STOOD BY HIS SIDE.

You never know with the Zen masters. You are absolutely incapable of predicting their behavior, because they live spontaneously, they don't have a certain ritual to repeat.

Nobody knows the reason why he did not light the candle as usual. The assembly was completely in the dark.

ONE MONK CAME AND STOOD BY HIS SIDE. YAKUSAN SAID, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE."

This is a special Zen expression. When the master says, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL

PHRASE," he does not mean he has a phrase; he simply means he has something to confer, not to convey, but to transfer.

He said, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE. IF A BULL GIVES BIRTH, I WILL

TELL IT TO YOU." Now, bulls don't give birth, so he is making an absolutely absurd statement: "IF A BULL GIVES BIRTH, I WILL TELL IT TO YOU."

The monk must have been an enlightened one. THE MONK SAID, "THE BULL HAS

ALREADY GIVEN BIRTH LONG AGO, AND YOU JUST KEEP NOT REVEALING

IT. It is time you should reveal it. What do you mean by `the phrase'? It is time you should convey, you should transfer it, you should unburden yourself, because the bull has given birth long ago."

YAKUSAN ASKED IMMEDIATELY FOR A LIGHT -- he wanted to see the monk. He had given the right answer.

YAKUSAN ASKED FOR A LIGHT. WHEN THE CANDLE WAS BROUGHT IN, THE MONK RETREATED AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF

MONKS. There were thousands of monks.

LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN -- two other masters talking about the old days with Yakusan ...

LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN ABOUT THIS, AND TOZAN SAID, "THE MONK

KNEW THE TRUTH -- HE JUST DID NOT WANT TO MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE

MASTER."

There is every possibility you will misunderstand it. You will think Tozan is saying that the monk knew the truth, but he did not want to touch the feet of the master. You will think he was an egoist. No. A man who knows the truth cannot have the ego. They both cannot exist together, there is no coexistence possible between truth and ego. Then what is the meaning? Why did he disappear?

My understanding is, he disappeared because he did not want even to be recognized, because that desire to be recognized is part of the ego. He did not even want to be grateful to the master. Not that he was not grateful -- he was so grateful that to show it by touching his feet was very miserly.

There was no way to show the gratitude to the master, and he did not want any recognition. He simply disappeared in the crowd, just as inside he had disappeared in the cosmos. He is no more, who is going to touch the feet?

In the darkness it was perfectly okay, because the master could not see him. But when the light was brought in, he simply disappeared.

This anecdote has been misunderstood by the scholars very much. I have seen their commentaries; they all think it was because of his ego. But they don't understand --

scholars cannot understand -- they don't see that the monk knew the truth; how can he have the ego? You can have either the ego or the truth.

Ego is your personality, the truth is your individuality. You have to drop the personality.

You have to stand utterly naked before existence. You have to melt down like ice into the ocean of this great divineness all around.

America has not produced any great mystic, it has not produced any great psychoanalyst.

But one psychologist, William James -- everything else about him was ordinary, but one thing he brought, a phrase, "oceanic experience." The religious experience is an oceanic experience. Just for this small phrase, this small statement, I consider him to be one of the greatest psychologists that we have produced anywhere around the globe. He has touched exactly the right point.

Religious experience is an oceanic experience, a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean -- in one way, disappearing into the ocean, in another way, the ocean disappearing into the dewdrop, both becoming one.

The monk simply disappeared into the crowd because he did not want to be recognized.

He did not want even to pay obeisance to the master, because that would also be in some way a hidden desire to be recognized by the master.

But a man who has understood the truth needs no recognition. He becomes a nobody. In Buddha's language, he becomes anatta, he becomes a no-self.

He is no more; only the existence is.

It is a beautiful anecdote for you to meditate, to contemplate on.

Sampu wrote:

CHILD WAITING EARTHBOUND.

CLOUD SPARROW

HIGHER AND HIGHER.

It is a small haiku. It says, CHILD WAITING EARTHBOUND ... a child in the mother's womb is waiting to come to the earth. First one has to get roots into the earth; only then you can spread your branches into the sky like wings. Unless you have roots, you cannot spread your wings into the sky. The deeper the roots, the higher goes the tree ... almost reaching to the stars.

Only one painter in the West, Vincent van Gogh, a Dutch painter, had such tremendous insight -- almost the insight of a mystic, very close to being a buddha. He always painted his trees surpassing the stars. The stars remained underneath the trees, and the trees went beyond the stars. Whenever he was asked, "What are you doing? This is simply insane.

No tree can reach beyond the stars!" ...

The closest star is four light years away -- the closest. You have to understand four light years. Scientists had to find a new measurement; yards and feet and miles would no longer do. This is the measurement for the stars -- the distance is so vast. What is a light year? A light year is: light travels in a single second one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles -- in one second, one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles. Now multiply it by sixty, that will be one minute. Multiply it again by sixty, that will be one hour. Multiply it by twenty-four, that will be one day. Multiply it by thirty, that will be one month.

Multiply it by twelve, that will be one year -- one light year! The nearest star is four light years away.

If we can ever in our wildest dreams think of a rocket moving at the same speed as light, which is impossible ... It is impossible because at the speed of light everything becomes light. That very speed turns everything into light, so you cannot have a rocket moving at the speed of light. You and the rocket both will become light.

But just to help you understand: if you move at the speed of light, you will take four years to reach to the closest star -- and there are already four million stars counted in the universe, and this is not the end; this is the end of our instruments. Beyond those four million stars there is still infinity. We can never reach to the boundary line, because there is no boundary line to existence.

Van Gogh was asked again and again, "Are you mad?" But he said, "I have been sitting by the side of the trees, listening where they are going, and I have always heard that the trees are our earth's ambition to reach to the stars. My paintings are not factual, they are poetic. They are the ambitions of the earth to reach to the stars."

He is the only man, a very rare man, who looked at stars not the way we look. He looked at stars as spirals. Nobody had ever looked at stars as spirals. People asked him, "What are you doing?" He said, "What can I do? Whenever I close my eyes I see the stars as spirals."

It took one hundred years, but just now physicists have come to the point that stars are spiral. Van Gogh was right, although he had no instruments, and eyes cannot see it.

He was so much obsessed with the sun ... he wanted to paint the perfect sunset. The whole day he would wait under the sun, watching and watching and watching. And then all the psychedelic colors on the horizon, and the sun setting ... He painted for almost one year, but rejected all those paintings because nothing was coming close to the beauty and the ecstasy and the silence, and the birds returning home, and the sun setting. And those psychedelic colors on the clouds, on the horizon ... never repeated again, always original.

The day he finished his painting to his satisfaction -- he was only thirty-three years old --

he wrote a letter to his brother saying that "My work is done. Now I don't have unnecessarily to be a burden on the earth" -- and he committed suicide.

He painted thousands of paintings, but not a single painting was ever sold, because nobody could understand his paintings. They were so strange, but they were absolutely real to him.

Sampu is saying, "Child waiting in the mother's womb" -- for what? -- earthbound, he wants to get to the earth, to get his roots deep into the earth, because unless you have roots in the earth you cannot rise into the sky, you cannot be a cedar of Lebanon, four hundred feet high. Then you need four-hundred-foot-deep roots. A balance is needed, otherwise the tree will fall.

This is one of my basic and essential approaches, that unless you are deeply rooted in materialism you cannot rise into spirituality.

The East has committed one mistake: it has been trying to reach to the stars without going deeper into the earth, and it has been a complete failure. The West has committed another mistake: it goes on growing the roots into the earth, into matter, and it has forgotten completely about the stars.

Hence my continuous emphasis that every one of you has to be a Zorba the Buddha.

Zorba is the roots in the earth, and the buddha is a longing to fly into ultimate freedom, to reach to the space which is unbounded.

CHILD WAITING EARTHBOUND.

CLOUD SPARROW

HIGHER AND HIGHER.

... And a bird, a cloud sparrow, goes on higher and higher into the sky. Both need a great synthesis.

Our world is suffering because we have not been able to create a synthesis between East and West, between earth and sky, between spirit and matter, between your inner and the outer. Unless this great synthesis is achieved, humanity has no hope.

Question 2

A question from Maneesha:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

YOUR MASTERLINESS LAST NIGHT WAS AWE-INSPIRING.

IT SEEMS IRONICAL, BUT DOES THE DISCIPLE ONLY REALLY COMPREHEND

THE MASTER'S COMPASSION WHEN HE IS ENLIGHTENED AND THUS NO

LONGER SO DEPENDENT ON IT?

Maneesha, here nobody is dependent on me. You want to be dependent, but I won't allow it. It is because of your desire to be dependent that you have created organized religions.

You have become enslaved by all kinds of churches, cults and creeds, because of your desire to be dependent. It is a father-fixation, in the terms of psychoanalysis, because the child is so dependent on the mother and the father.

If it is a boy, he becomes fixed on the mother, and that is a great trouble. If it is a girl, she becomes fixed on the father. Every girl her whole life will be trying to find a father-figure in her husband -- and that is impossible. Nothing is being repeated. You cannot find your father as a husband. Hence, every woman is frustrated, no husband seems to be right.

Every man is disappointed -- because no woman is going to be your mother.

Now, it is a very strange problem. The husband is trying to find his mother in the wife, the wife is trying to find her father in the husband. There is constant struggle, fight.

Marriage is hellfire.

How do people manage to live together? It is a miracle. Because they are miserable as a husband, as a wife, they have to find some consolation somewhere else -- in God, in the priest.

It is not without any reason that Christian priests are called "father" -- even Catholic priests. Do you see the contradiction? They are unmarried, and you call them father. Now they are trying to find mothers, to become really fathers, but the Vatican is against it.

Why do you call God, "the Father"? And there are Mother Goddesses also ....

These are fixations of childhood. You were dependent then. How long are you going to be parasites on your parents? Twenty-five years ... Up to the time you become a Ph.D.

from the university, you are a parasite. The father and mother want you to be independent

-- now it is time! -- but in twenty-five years without being aware of it they have taught only one thing: be dependent.

Now you are thrown into the world. Your whole psychology demands somebody to be your savior -- a Jesus. You are ready to become sheep, some shepherd is needed --

somebody to console you, "Don't be worried. Just believe in me and I will save you. I will take care of you."

Some God is needed who is omnipotent; he has to be, otherwise how will he take care of so many billions of people? He has to be all-knowing, present everywhere -- omnipotent, all-powerful; omniscient, all-knowing; omnipresent, everywhere available. This is our desire. And the priest certainly exploits humanity because of this dependence. The priest consoles.

Karl Marx was right when he said that religion is the opium of the people. The organized so-called religions are certainly the opium of the people.

I will not call religiousness the opium of the people. That is a totally different phenomenon. No God, no fathers, no priest, no rabbi -- you are standing on your own feet. Your trust is in existence itself -- no mediator.

Maneesha, my whole effort is that you should not be dependent on me, whether you are enlightened or not. If you are not enlightened, it is needed even more -- no dependence --

because a dependent person is spiritually a slave, and a slave has no right to become enlightened.

You have to declare your independence, your freedom, even while you are not enlightened, because this freedom, this independence will pave the path towards enlightenment.

Of course, after enlightenment there is no need to be dependent. Because there is no need to be dependent, you can be grateful, you can have compassion, and you can understand the compassion of the master. It is difficult in your darkness, in your unconsciousness, to understand compassion and love.

But that should not be your concern at this moment. At this moment, your sole concern is meditation. Go deeper into meditation and you will find compassion, and you will find understanding of compassion. You will find freedom, and you will find that freedom does not mean ungratefulness, unthankfulness.

There is no need to show it; your heart will beat with it, your heart will continuously ring a bell of great blissfulness, benediction, and of gratitude for the master. But it is not dependence.

No master who is authentic will ask your surrender, your commitment. These are the frauds who ask your surrender, who ask your commitment, who ask that "You have to be under my control, under my instructions. You cannot leave the fold."

This is not a fold, this is purely a gathering of individuals. It is not a society, neither is it a club, nor a church. It is not an organization.

I love to share! -- and you are thirsty, and I have enough water to share with you. Because I know the secret, the more I share the more I have, so I am not a loser -- and you will be gaining deeper and deeper insights into existence and its mysteries.

But there is no question of any dependence on me. I am just your friend. It is your love if you call me your master. You are not commanded to call me your master. You can call me your friend, you can even ask the question without addressing me. The address is not the point.

You are related to me in deep love, without any conditions -- either from your side or from my side.

I have to explain it to you.

Whenever you make somebody dependent on you, you also become dependent on that person. Have you ever thought about it, that dependence is a mutual phenomenon? The master of a slave is also a slave of the slave. The leader of the people is also a follower of the people. The leader is continuously looking where the masses are going; he jumps ahead, to remain the leader. He goes on saying what the masses want to hear, and whether that is harmful or poisonous does not matter. Whatever the masses want to hear, he goes on saying it.

Never make anybody dependent on you -- your wife, your husband, your children --

because the more you make them dependent on you, the more you are becoming dependent on them. Allow freedom to your wife, to your husband, to your children. Help them to be independent, and that will help you to be independent of them.

And if we can teach independence and freedom to people, all fictions in religion will disappear.

I have heard ...

One rabbi and one Christian bishop were very friendly. They used to go to the golf course together. They had made arrangements for the coming Sunday, but the bishop said,

"There is one difficulty. If many more people come for confession I will be late. I will do it as quick as possible; you wait just in front of the church."

The rabbi was waiting and waiting and waiting, and it was getting late. Finally he got out of his car and went from the back door into the church to the confessional booth, where the bishop was listening to the confessions of people, and giving them punishments.

The rabbi said, "We are getting late, and there is a long queue; it won't be finished by the evening. So I propose one thing: just let me see how the confession is being done. You do just two cases, and then you go and get ready, and I will finish this whole lot within minutes!"

The bishop said, "That's great!" -- so he showed him how.

One person said, "I have committed a rape."

The bishop said, "Ten dollars in the charity box, and five Hail Marys."

The rabbi said, "That's enough! You go and get ready" -- and he sat in the bishop's chair.

There is a curtain and a small window so the identity of the person is not known, only the voice is heard.

Another man came, and he said, "I too have committed a rape."

The rabbi said, "Twenty dollars into the charity box, and five Hail Marys."

The man said, "The rates have gone higher within seconds! I heard ... just now you have told the other person to give only ten dollars and five Hail Marys, and suddenly you are telling me twenty dollars?"

The rabbi said, "Don't be worried, my son. Ten dollars are in advance. You can commit one rape more, no need to confess. I am in a hurry, just pass on." And he finished the whole queue within minutes. He did not hear what they were saying; he said, "I already know. Rape, theft, murder -- what else can you do? So just name the crime, don't describe it to me, don't go into details. I don't have much time. Just say, `Murder'; ten Hail Marys and thirty dollars in the charity box, and get lost!"

The Christians thought, "It is very strange. Our bishop never behaved like this!"

But by the time the bishop came he could not believe it. The booth was empty.

The rabbi said, "This is a small business, but you are doing well. In the synagogue we don't have such an institution. This is absolutely against economic progress! I will try to start confession in the synagogue."

But all the rabbis said, "Nonsense. That is Christian, that cannot be done here."

So he went to meet the chief rabbi, and he told him, "They are doing so much business.

And Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew; he was never a Christian. He was our son! We should be the inheritors of all his business."

The chief rabbi said, "Cool down." His assistant was also present. The chief said, "We do business in a different way. Look at me: my synagogue is the most ultra-modern."

Both the rabbis said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "I allow people to smoke cigarettes, or bring bottles of wine or beer -- whatever they prefer. Everything inside the synagogue becomes holy. So people are coming ... the synagogue is packed."

The assistant said, "I have never told you, but I am doing better. I allow them to bring their girlfriends also -- or boyfriends, as the case may be. And all these things are ordinary, beer and wine and cigarettes -- that's okay. They can even make love, because that is what our basic teaching is: love -- and not only your wife, but also your neighbor's wife: love! So there is such a crowd, and people are queueing outside, so we have to run the synagogue in shifts! Inside the synagogue everything is holy."

The third man, who had come to find business, said, "I have understood. Now I am going to do something even better."

They said, "What will you do?"

He said, "I am going to put a board in front of the synagogue that on every Jewish holiday the synagogue will be closed. Let people enjoy! That is the basic principle --

enjoyment. And for this enjoyment I am going to charge. I am giving them one holiday completely -- no sermons, no sitting in the cold seats, that is unnecessary trouble for people. So they have to pay, and the synagogue will be closed on all Jewish holidays. It will be open otherwise -- but only on Jewish holidays would the Jews come; on other days, nobody comes."

Religion has become a business -- all religions -- and it has become a business because you are searching dependence. Now, giving ten dollars and saying five Hail Marys, you feel unburdened -- unburdened to commit another rape. It is cheap.

And that's why the pope says, "Don't communicate directly with God, it is a sin!"

Obviously it is a sin, because how will the priest live? How will the Vatican bank live?

Its turnover is perhaps the greatest of any bank: one hundred billion dollars per year --

and all the money is heroin money.

The Italian government has issued an arrest warrant for the bishop who was running the bank. They turn black money into white, it is the biggest mafia. But the Vatican, although just eight square miles, is a sovereign country, and the pope is not only the head of the Catholic church, he is also the head of the Vatican sovereign country, just eight square miles. The Italian government cannot enter there. So they were just waiting for that manager to come out -- but he would not come out once he knew.

And do you know what the pope has done to him? Rather than delivering him to the Italian government, because he is committing the greatest crime, and the pope goes on speaking against drugs and his bank is dealing only in drugs ... All the money that he is spending on his tours ...

When the pope went to Australia, he spent eight million dollars. Just before him the queen of England had gone there, and she spent only two million dollars. From where is this money coming?

Rather than giving him to the Italian government, he has made the bishop a cardinal, promoted him because he is the source of money.

It is true not only about the Catholic church, it is the situation with all religions. But why do people give? They need consolation, they need somebody to look up to, somebody who can promise them that they will be saved from hell and hellfire.

Here, in this place, you have to learn to be dependent only on you. Just search out your own sources. I can help you to be free, free from everybody, including me, because I think freedom is the ultimate value.

Now it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

Sardar Gurudayal Singh has a special time (SARDARJI GIVES A SPECIAL WHOOP

AT THIS, AND EVERYBODY LAUGHS WITH HIM) because he is a special man.

(SARDARJI RELEASES AN EVEN LONGER "WHOOOOOOO!" ACCOMPANIED

BY MORE LAUGHTER.)

His speciality is -- there are many new guests so I want to tell them -- that he is the only man in the whole world who laughs before the joke is told!

And these jokes have a certain spiritual purpose. We have been serious .... (SARDARJI PUNCTUATES AGAIN.) Before going into meditation, you have to calm down, relax, laugh, forget all about religion .... (THIS TIME, SARDARJI REALLY ENJOYS!) It is a dark and stormy day at the Vatican. The bells are tolling ominously, as inside, on his deathbed, lies Pope the Polack, breathing his last.

At the bedside there is a crowd of bishops, cardinals, priests and other homosexuals, moaning and chanting. Cardinal Cats-ass is crying his eyes out, as he is bent over the pope's face.

"Ah! Don't be upset," gasps Pope the Polack. "Don't cry. The Vatican council will surely find a great man to take my place. As a matter of fact, I am sure he will do much better than me."

"But," whimpers Catsass, "that is just what they promised us last time!"

Dan Quayle, the vice president of America, gets called into George Bush's office one morning.

"Dan," says Bush, handing him a box of business cards, "Dan, these are your personal vice-presidential business cards. They help you to remember who you are."

"Gee! Thanks, Mister Bush!" says Quayle. "I shall always treasure them!"

"No, Dan," says Bush. "You use them ... these cards are to influence people and show them how important you are."

"Gee! Thanks, Mister Bush!" says Quayle. "I guess I really am important now!"

"Right, Dan!" says Bush. "Now I want you to get out there and help the American farmers. Go out and visit some farms, Dan. Just show them your card, Dan, and they will be able to get things done! Take the bull by the horns, Dan!"

"Gee! Okay, Mister Bush," says Quayle. "Here I go!" And he walks out.

Some time later, Dan Quayle finds himself at old Farmer Zeke's place in Georgia.

He drives into the farmyard to find old Zeke puffing on his pipe and leaning up against the railing. The old farmer can recognize an idiot when he sees one, and he refuses to let Quayle look around the farm. So Dan Quayle reaches into his pocket and pulls out his business card. Zeke inspects the card closely.

"What is this?" he asks.

"Well," explains Quayle. "Mister Bush said, `Just show them your card and then you will be able to get things done.'"

"Okay," says old Zeke, shaking his head, "if that is the way you want it!"

Ten minutes later, old Zeke is still leaning against the railing, smoking his pipe, when he suddenly hears loud screams coming from the field. He looks around just in time to see Dan Quayle running for his life across the grass. Right behind him, snorting furiously, comes Rambo, the big black bull.

"Hey! You idiot! What are you doing?" shouts old Zeke. "Just show him your card!"

Bishop Ballsoff has a beautiful parrot called Lucy, who knows all sorts of Catholic sermons and songs. However, Lucy does not really care for the Catholic religion, and secretly learns to say, "Down with the Polack pope!"

One day, Lucy is sitting by the open window when she starts screaming in a loud voice:

"Down with the Polack pope. Down with the Polack pope!"

Before long, the Catholic church committee is told about this outrageous noise coming from the bishop's house. They immediately summon Bishop Ballsoff to appear before them to explain himself.

The scene is tense in the church courtroom, with Bishop Ballsoff and Lucy, the parrot, sharing the witness stand. Bishop Ballsoff is testifying that it is Lucy who has been been causing all the trouble.

The prosecuting priest approaches Lucy and tries to get her to speak.

"Down with the Polack pope!" hisses the prosecutor.

But Lucy sits silently.

Cardinal Fizz, the judge, comes down from his high-chair and approaches Lucy. He too tries to get her to speak.

"Down with Pope the Polack!" he says.

But Lucy just blinks and keeps quiet.

The twelve priests and nuns in the jury leave their seats and approach the witness stand.

"Down with Pope the Polack!" they shout in unison.

But Lucy remains silent.

Soon the whole Catholic courtroom is full of noise as everyone tries to get Lucy to say the offending words.

"Down with Pope the Polack!" they shout. "Down with the Polack pope!"

Suddenly Lucy flaps her wings, and a deathly silence falls over the courtroom. The parrot looks this way and that, inspecting the Catholics closely. "Okay!" says Lucy, holding up one wing. "Then may God answer your prayers!"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards.

Gather all your life energy, your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment of life -- only with such urgency you can rush towards your being, towards your very center.

Faster and faster ...

As you come closer to your center, a great silence descends over you. Fountains of peace spring within you. Suddenly a great ecstasy possesses you.

This is the moment you are the buddha, the awakened one.

At the very center of your being, the buddha has been hiding since eternity. You have never looked inwards. Otherwise, you have there all the treasures of the world, you have all that existence can offer you.

The buddha is nothing but a door into eternity, into godliness, into the divine existence.

The only quality the buddha has, has to be remembered: it is witnessing.

Just witness ... the body is not you.

Witness ... the mind is not you.

Witness ... the astral, the other bodies, the subtle body, are not you.

These are all just layers upon you. Hidden behind all these layers is your real being. That being is a pure witness, a watcher on the hill.

Buddha knows no other quality. He consists only of pure witnessing.

Witness all the experiences that will be happening at the center of your being: the serenity, the calmness, a very cool breeze passing through you, an unknown fragrance filling your being, a blessing that you have never known, a benediction that you can share with the whole world and it will be inexhaustible.

Witness: this moment you are the most fortunate people on the earth, because everybody is looking out, and you are looking in.

Everybody is looking at things, you are looking at godliness, your very subjectivity.

Everybody is concerned about trivia, you are concerned with the essential core of existence.

Collect as much as you can ... the flowers, the fragrance, but remain a witness.

To make the witness even deeper, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ...

Let go ...

Just be a witness.

Slowly slowly your body will start falling into deep rest, your mind will be a faraway echo -- nothing to be concerned with.

Silence deepens and you start melting. Your separation from others disappears. The Buddha Auditorium becomes an ocean of pure consciousness without any ripples.

You are the whole existence, not part of it.

Everybody is the whole existence.

To me, to be one with the whole is the only way to be holy.

Collect whatever experiencing is happening. You have to bring it with you.

And you have also to persuade the buddha to come along with you. He is your very nature, hence there is no problem why he should not come into your ordinary day-to-day activities, in your gestures, in your words, in your silences of the heart, in your love.

Chopping wood, he will be standing within you.

Carrying water from the well, he will be watching silently from inside.

Persuade him. Inch by inch we are bringing him closer and closer to your ordinary simple existence.

The day you disappear and only the buddha remains will be the most blessed day of your life.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ... But come back as buddhas, with grace, with silence, with great beauty.

Sit down just like the buddha for a few moments, to remember where you have been, the source, its juice -- it was your life's juice -- the flowers of eternity, the fragrance of the beyond.

And the buddha has come, he is just behind you. Soon he will become your only reality.

This I call, "straight to the point of enlightenment."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #2

Chapter title: Service with a smile

23 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901235

ShortTitle:

CHRIST02

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

148

mins

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

THERE WAS A MONK WHO HAD STAYED WITH YAKUSAN FOR THREE

YEARS AND SERVED AS THE HEAD COOK. ONCE, YAKUSAN ASKED HIM,

"HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE?"

"THREE YEARS," THE MONK REPLIED.

"I DON'T KNOW YOUR FACE AT ALL," SAID YAKUSAN.

THE MONK DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YAKUSAN MEANT, AND, OUT OF

RESENTMENT, LEFT THE MONASTERY.

ANOTHER MONK ONCE SAID TO YAKUSAN, "I HAVE A DOUBT. PLEASE, MASTER, CLEAR IT AWAY."

YAKUSAN SAID, "THEN COME TO ME AT THE REGULAR DISCOURSE."

THAT NIGHT, SEATED FOR DISCOURSE, YAKUSAN ADDRESSED THE

ASSEMBLY OF MONKS IN FRONT OF HIM, SAYING, "TONIGHT A MONK WILL

CLEAR HIS DOUBT AWAY. WHERE ARE YOU? COME UP HERE!"

THE MONK AROSE AND CAME FORWARD. NO SOONER HAD HE REACHED

THE MASTER THAN YAKUSAN KNOCKED HIM DOWN AND IMMEDIATELY

RETURNED TO HIS ROOM.

Friends,

Question 1

One sannyasin has asked me:

CANNOT WE DISAGREE WITH YOU? CANNOT WE CRITICIZE YOU?

A significant question for everyone.

This is not a debating club. Neither your agreement is needed, nor your disagreement.

What is needed is your right hearing. If you hear rightly, it will be decisive. Agreement is just a mind thing, and disagreement is also the same. Neither of them is going to help you. What is going to help you is to experiment, to experience, but that comes only when you have heard me.

The greatest difficulty is to hear rightly, to hear silently. If you are thinking to agree or disagree, then you cannot hear me. Your prejudices are there functioning as a curtain, they will distort everything.

I don't ask you to agree with me, and I don't ask you to disagree with me. Our whole approach is beyond the mind.

You have to learn how to listen, how to be silent and let your silence decide. Let your no-mind decide. And I know that your no-mind will be in absolute synchronicity with what I am saying to you. I will not use the word agreement -- that word belongs to the mind --

nor disagreement. They are two polarities of the mind -- positive/negative, theist/atheist, believer/nonbeliever.

I am trying to approach your no-mind, where it is never a question of choice. No-mind functions choicelessly. Once I have approached the no-mind, if you have allowed me, putting your prejudices aside, you won't have to agree or disagree, you will find an immense synchronicity. You will be in absolute harmony with me. And only that harmony can help your evolution.

What will you do with agreement? Just a belief will be created, and I am against all beliefs. What will you do with your disagreement? Your prejudice will remain, and your prejudice is your problem. You will remain within the boundaries of your past upbringing, your programming by the family, by the school, by the society, by the church.

This is not an intellectual discussing club; this is a place for seekers. It is a totally different phenomenon than you will come across anywhere else around the world. Here, we are searching to find a deep harmony. If you can be harmonious with me -- it is not agreement -- you are one with me. Agreement needs two. If you can be harmonious with me, I can transfer much that cannot be said. And only that which cannot be said is going to help your growth.

The other night, those Christian monks were here. They behaved in a very mannerly way, but they said at the gate when asked by Narendra ... one man told him, "I like everything, and I have been doing Dynamic and Kundalini Meditation for four and a half months, and I have been immensely helped in dropping my tensions, my mind stress. But then I felt suddenly, something is missing ...." And what is missing? -- service, service to the poor.

Now this is his upbringing, continuous Christian teaching, which becomes a barrier.

Although he meditated here with me, I don't think he was hearing me.

You cannot serve anybody unless you have found yourself. Who are you to serve? Your service will be dangerous. You are in absolute darkness and unconsciousness. Out of your unconsciousness any action is going to be harmful.

Let us contemplate a little more about this word `service'.

All the religions have been serving the poor for thousands of years, and poverty goes on growing. Is this authentic service? Then in thousands of years poverty should have disappeared. In fact, you are feeding poverty.

Real service will be that the poor should be told that "You are being exploited, and you have to revolt against the vested interests." Unless the poor understand that their poverty is caused by a few people who are exploiting them, sucking their blood ... It is not caused by your past lives and bad acts, it is caused by the social system which depends on exploitation.

The religions have to be made aware of the fact that they have been doing this service for centuries. What is the result? -- because a tree is known by the fruit; if the fruit is rotten, the tree is not worth much. Service seems to be a beautiful word to hide an exploiting social structure. It appears so good -- serving the poor -- it seems a great virtue.

But why are the poor there in the first place? Who has made them poor?

On the one hand you go on serving the poor and converting them into Catholics. The service is not in the service of the poor, the service is to increase the power of the Catholic church. You go on finding orphans and converting them. How have Catholics increased to six hundred million? -- by serving the poor. The service is motivated.

If you are really interested in destroying poverty you will look into the roots. You treat only symptoms. Giving food to the poor, or clothes to the poor ... how is it going to help?

It will only keep them at survival level, and it will allow the vested interests to continue exploiting them. You see the vicious circle?

The capitalists go on donating to the church. The church goes on helping the poor at least to live, because laborers and slaves are needed. Even slaves were fed by their masters.

That was not service. If you don't feed your horse, if you don't feed your cow, you will lose much money. If you don't feed the poor, the capitalist will disappear. Who is going to work for him? Whom is he going to exploit?

So it is a very cunning game. The rich man goes on donating a small portion of his exploitation to the church. The church goes on bringing up the orphans, aboriginals, poor people, to the survival level. They are needed alive, because without them the whole system will collapse.

So on the one hand, the capitalist goes on giving money in charity; on the other hand, he goes on exploiting the poor. And between the two, the priest has his own percentage -- he is a mediator -- so he is living beautifully. Millions of missionaries are there around the world, but they are serving the exploiters in the name of service.

I don't want to be in this vicious game.

I want poverty to be completely removed.

There should be no person who needs service.

A society that needs service is sick.

But its prejudice about service has prevented it from hearing me.

I am reminded of a case in Jesus' life. Most probably it is simply mythology. Not most probably -- it is certainly mythology.

Jesus brings Lazarus back from death. Now, the question is: is Lazarus going to live forever? He will die again -- so Jesus has given him two deaths instead of one. The arithmetic is absolutely clear. He will suffer poverty, and one day he will die again.

But I don't think this happened, because if it were true, why could Jesus not perform any miracle on the cross?

On the cross he became angry with God. He shouted, "Have you forsaken me?" He felt utterly helpless. This man who used to raise the dead, who used to walk on water, could not fly with the cross? It is absolutely inconsistent. With the man's miracles, he could not manage any miracle on the cross?

And that was the place where he was expected ... Then the Jews would have accepted him as their last prophet. He was put on the cross as a test, that "If you are really the son of God, now let us see. If you really walk on water, if you really raise the dead to life again, then we will put you on the cross and see what miracles you can do, or God can do on your behalf."

Nothing happened. He shouted at the clouds; there was no God. But what is the need of God if a man walks on water, feeds people -- thousands of people -- with one loaf of bread, wakes up the dead? There was no need to call for God. He could have flown away with the cross, and that would have proved absolutely without doubt to the Jews that he was their last prophet, he was the only begotten son of God. His helplessness on the cross shows that all the stories of miracles are simply invented -- because no contemporary source even mentions Jesus' name.

Can you think that a man who walks on water, a man who raises dead people back to life, a man who restores the eyes of the blind, the limbs of the crippled just by his touch, was not able even to carry the cross up the hill? Three times he fell -- the cross was too heavy

-- and three times they gave him a good beating to get up again and carry the cross. And this is the prophet, the only begotten son of God!

With Jesus the idea of service has come into existence: serve the poor. But why? In fact, logically, he said, "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." If that is true, make more people poor. The rich people cannot enter into paradise. A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot enter into the gate of paradise.

If that is the case, why serve the poor? If anybody needs service, it is the rich. Steal their money, make them poor, so they can inherit the kingdom of God.

Poverty is perfectly right, according to Jesus' own statements. It is good to be poor --

according to Jesus -- it is great to be poor.

I hate poverty! And I hate Jesus for making such statements, consoling the poor and protecting the rich. It seems that Jesus is on the side of the poor ... and what help has he given to the poor? And what help has Christianity given to the poor?

Even in Christian countries there is immense poverty. Even in the richest country, America, there are three million people on the streets; in this cold winter they are dying.

What are the Christians doing for those people? And they are Christians, but nobody is interested in them. They are already Christians, they will inherit the kingdom of God.

And America goes on sending missionaries around the world to help the poor. Strange ...

They cannot help their own poor because they are already Christian. So that is the criterion: service is meant to convert poor people, because just bread and butter and clothes and medicine will purchase them.

Mohammedans used to do the conversion in a different way, a very short cut -- by the sword. Either be a Mohammedan, or the sword is going to cut off your head. Because the Koran says, "The more you convert people to Mohammedanism, the more virtuous you are -- and only Mohammedans will be saved," so they are cutting off your head in service. They were trying hard to make you a Mohammedan, because that is the only way to reach to God -- and you refused. "It is better for you to die than be a Hindu, a Christian, a Jew. Be born again and we will see. If not in this life, then in another life, you will be converted to Mohammedanism."

Their way was short, just a simple sword hanging over your neck. And they converted many; they are the second greatest religion. Christians have the most people, and the second most are Mohammedans.

Christianity persuades people with a little sophistication. Mohammedans were absolutely in a hurry. Christians take time: they adopt orphans, they find leftover children in Calcutta. They bring them up, they give them education -- but all for the purpose of increasing the power of Christianity. The whole earth has to be turned into a Christian world; then only people will be saved.

Even if it is true that Jesus walked on water, what is the point of it when boats are available? It is simply stupid. What is divine in it? Even if he had managed to raise Lazarus from the dead ... then nothing more is heard about Lazarus, only that story is there. What happened to Lazarus? He must have lived in misery and poverty, and would have died in sickness, disease, old age. What is the point of your service?

A similar case will help you to understand.

A woman's husband died. She was young, had only one child. She wanted to commit sati, she wanted to jump in the funeral pyre with her husband, but this small child prevented her. She had to live for this small child.

But then the small child died; now it was too much. She went almost insane, asking people, "Is there any physician anywhere who can make my child alive again? I was living only for him, now my whole life is simply dark."

In India you cannot marry again, and particularly in those days it was absolutely impossible. A woman cannot marry again. Man's possessiveness is such that "Even if I die ... you suffer, but you should not marry anyone." Such jealousy -- and this is called the "Indian heritage" by Mr. Rajiv Gandhi.

It happened that Buddha was coming to the town, so people said, "We don't know any physician, but Buddha is coming. That is a great chance. You take the child to Buddha, and tell him that you were living for this child, and the child has died, ànd you are such a great enlightened person, call him back to life! Have mercy on me!'"

So she went to Buddha. She put the dead body of the child at Buddha's feet, and she said,

"Call him back to life. You know all the secrets of life, you have attained to the ultimate peak of existence. Can't you do a small miracle for a poor woman?"

Buddha said, "I will do it, but there is a condition."

She said, "I will fulfill any condition."

Buddha said, "Settled. The condition is: you go around the town and, from a house where nobody has ever died, bring a few mustard seeds." That village was cultivating mustard seeds, so Buddha told her, "Just go around ..."

The woman could not understand the strategy. She went to one house, and they said, "A few mustard seeds? We can bring a few bullock carts full of mustard seeds if Buddha can bring your son back to life. But our mustard seeds will not be of any help, because not one, but thousands have died in our family. Since eternity we have been here. We have seen our great-grandfather dying, we have seen our great-grandmother dying, we have seen our grandfather dying, grandmother dying. We have seen so many deaths in our family. These mustard seeds are useless. Buddha's condition is, `from a house where nobody has ever died.'"

It was a small village, and she went to every house. Everybody was ready: "How many seeds do you want?" But the condition was impossible because "so many people have died in our family."

By the evening she became aware of the fact, and of the strategy of Gautam Buddha. She understood that whoever is born is going to die, "so what is the point of getting the child back again? He will die again. It is better for you yourself to seek the eternal, which is never born and never dies."

By the evening she came back empty-handed. Buddha asked, "Where are the mustard seeds?"

She laughed. In the morning she had come crying; now she laughed, and she said, "You tricked me! Everybody who is born is going to die. There is no family, not in this village, nor in the whole world, where nobody has died. So I don't want my son to be brought again back to life -- what is the point? After a few days, or a few months, or a few years, he will have to die again. And all these years he will live in misery, in all kinds of anguish and anxiety. Your compassion is great that you did not bring him back to life!

"Forget about the child. Initiate me into the art of meditation, so that I can go into the land, the space of immortality, where birth and death have never happened."

Buddha said, "You are a very intelligent woman. You understood the point."

I call this a miracle, not Jesus' waking up Lazarus. I don't call that a miracle. Apparently that looks like a miracle, but appearance is not the reality. I call Buddha's strategy a miracle. Everybody is going to die, there is no point ... One has to get out of birth and death.

Buddha initiated the woman, and she became one of the enlightened ones among Buddha's disciples. Her urgency was such ... she knew that "My husband has died, my child has died, and now it is my number. Any moment and I will be a victim of death, so there is not much time. I don't know at what moment death is coming, so I have to be totally involved in the search, in what Buddha is telling me to do: `Go inwards. Go to the very center of your being, and you will be beyond birth and death.'"

This I call an authentic miracle: cutting the problem from the very roots.

I am serving, but my service is very subtle. I am serving by waking up people to their innermost being. That is the only miracle I consider of any worth.

And I am serving the poor by not deceiving them that "You will inherit the kingdom of God." I am constantly saying to the world that the poor are our creation. Those who are giving charity to the churches, they should stop exploitation. Charity won't help. What charity are they giving?

It is a very cunning device. They are not giving a single rupee. They are earning so much, and income taxes go on becoming more and more as your income increases. There comes a point when you have to pay one hundred percent income tax, and if you go on increasing your income, you may have to pay one hundred and twenty-five percent, one hundred and fifty percent; you have to pay to the government more than you have earned.

So this device helps after the point you feel it is good to pay to the government. Ten percent, fifteen percent, okay; when it comes to the point of paying one hundred percent, it is better to give in charity rather than giving it to the government. It is people's money: if they had not given it to charity, they would have had to give it to the government.

So on the exploitation of people they are securing their bank balance in paradise. It is not their money; nobody gives his own money. In fact, all rich people all over the world have many charity trusts of their own.

Just here, in India, Tata is one of the richest people, amongst the three richest families.

He has a great charity trust worth forty crore rupees, and he goes on pouring money into the trust. It is the people's money, it should go to the government, but he siphons off the money.

Every rich person around the world is doing the same. Give it to the church, or make your own trust. Open a school in the memory of your father. Open a hospital and become a great man of charity in the memory of your dead mother. At least there will be the name of your mother, there will be your name, that you have made it in your mother's memory.

And this is the money that is making people poor.

The church is made happy by receiving charity.

When I was arrested in America and without any reason they, in their minds, harassed me

-- I was not harassed, I enjoyed the whole trip. I saw the other side of the world which I would never have seen -- twelve days being a guest of President Ronald Reagan!

They dragged me from one jail to another. I covered almost half of America traveling in the government airplane. I passed over a city, and I loved the lights of that city. I have been telling Anando that when we have more houses -- and soon we will have, because more people are going to come, and we have to make arrangements for them -- then we will make our own street lights.

I passed over a city called Salt Lake City. It is a city whose founder was killed just as they wanted to kill me, because we were also creating a city, and far bigger than Salt Lake City. We had one hundred and twenty-six square miles in our hands; we could have made three New Yorks or three San Franciscos!

Salt Lake City was made by a special cult of the Christians which separated from the Vatican. They are called the Mormons. I don't agree with them, but I love their city.

Their founder was murdered by the American government, shot dead -- but Mormons were Christians after all, so they could not kill all the Mormons. They are the most intelligent people in the whole Christian fold, and they have this city, Salt Lake City.

Ninety-eight percent of the people in that city are Mormons, and they have a special arrangement ....

Every day, every Mormon around the world should send one dollar to their capital, Salt Lake City. So they receive one million dollars every day, and that's how they are enlarging their city in such a beautiful way. Such great planning and architecture! Roads for the future! Six cars can move abreast, at least, and a road runs just in the middle of the city straight across the whole city, so wide. And from that road, not as it happens in old cities ...

It was a different world then, because the vehicles were different. Now, in all the cities of the world, roads meet directly with the main road; that is dangerous. Most of the accidents are caused because roads meet directly, and from both sides, neither this side nor that side can see who is coming on the other road, the main road. If they are both moving at speed, then a clash is bound to happen. And when a clash happens between two cars ... it is never just between two cars, it is at least between eight cars, because the cars are moving bumper-to-bumper.

In Salt Lake City they have made a futuristic plan. The roads do not meet directly, but first the small road runs by the side of the big road for almost half a mile, so the main-road traffic knows perfectly that one car is moving by the side, and then it merges slowly slowly into the main road, not directly.

They are the most intelligent people, and they have put such beautiful green and blue lights all over the city that I forgot for a moment that my hands were handcuffed, that my feet were in chains, that my waist was surrounded by a very thick chain. And my hands were not only handcuffed, they were fixed with the chain surrounding my waist so I could not even wave my hand to friends. Even walking was difficult, because they made the chains too tight on the feet.

When I saw the beautiful Salt Lake City underneath me in the night, I forgot completely.

Everything is fresh and new; they have changed everything that used to be in the old cities. Their lighting has consideration for people's eyes; it is blue, it is green, it is soft. It is not dangerous and hazardous for people's eyes. Their roads -- you can move at as great a speed as you want, not fifty-five miles per hour!

Have you ever considered ...?

I have been caught twice in America speeding, because I cannot drive at fifty-five miles per hour when the car is made to go one hundred and forty miles per hour! Do you see the inconsistency of the governments? You make the car to go a hundred and forty miles per hour, and you make the rule that nobody can go faster than fifty-five. Then why do you create these cars? -- just let them go fifty-five miles per hour. There is no need to make any law, there is no need to put signs on every crossroads that you should not go beyond fifty-five. And you are allowing car factories to create cars which are meant to go one hundred and forty miles per hour ....

What kind of intelligence is ruling the world?

I was moving as fast as the car could go, and when I was stopped by the police, the cops, they said, "You are going beyond the speed limit."

I said, "Look at my speedometer. I cannot move beyond the speedometer."

They said, "We are not concerned with your speedometer. Don't you see the sign boards?"

I said, "When I am driving I look ahead! And when a person is moving at one hundred and forty miles per hour, do you want him to look sideways?"

They said, "You are a strange person."

I said, "Ask your government that all factories should create cars which go only fifty-five miles per hour. There will be no question of so many cops on the road. I listen to my engine, not to your signs!"

They talked with each other, "What should we do?" They gave me a ticket, that I had to be present in court.

I said, "It is better I don't appear in the court; otherwise your judges will be embarrassed just as you are embarrassed. So my attorney will deal with it. It is not much of a matter --

fifty dollars."

And exactly fifty dollars I was fined.

I said, "That does not matter. Once in a while you can catch me. And why bother the court? -- I can give you fifty dollars on the spot. But my speed will remain according to my speedometer!"

Then I made arrangements for one car ahead of me, one car behind me. And I had made arrangements ... There are mechanical devices which give you a signal when the cops are around. I continued to move at my speed!

Only in Salt Lake City you can move freely ... or in Germany. Adolf Hitler will be remembered in history for making the greatest road, for the first time, on which you can drive at any speed you want.

Rather than increasing the roads, making better roads, you prevent people from speeding.

And unless the car moves beyond one hundred, you don't have the feeling of a great ecstasy: you are almost flying!

In fact, Japanese scientists have discovered that if four hundred miles per hour is allowed, the car will rise one foot above the ground. That will be a real joy, because then there will be no bumps, no stones, you will be almost flying like a plane, just one foot above the ground.

Japan has in fact invented a railway train .... But Japan has not enough land, because that railway train moves at four hundred miles per hour, one foot above the tracks. It can't stop at every station -- and Japan has only the possibility of having two stations: one from where it starts and one where it stops, the beginning and the end ... the alpha and the omega!

The sannyasin also wanted to know whether he is allowed to criticize me.

I have no control over you, but any criticism is going to be against you, not against me. It is not going to harm me at all. The whole world is criticizing me, and I am not even touched; there is no question of being harmed!

So you can criticize, but remember it will harm you. Your criticism will take you away from me. Your criticism will create a wall between me and you, and a bridge is needed, not a wall.

You can criticize so many things .... The whole past of humanity is available for you to criticize, and the whole world is there to criticize me. Why bother to criticize me? You are here not to criticize, you are here to find out the truth. Criticism is very easy.

Understanding needs intelligence, criticism does not.

I have told you the story by the great Russian novelist Turgenev, THE FOOL.

In a village there was a poor man who was thought by everybody to be an idiot, and because everybody told him that "You are an idiot," he also started believing it. What to do? -- if everybody is saying it, everybody cannot be wrong. So he had accepted the idea that "I am an idiot."

He would open his mouth and immediately somebody would say, "Stop! You are an idiot, you don't know anything. Keep quiet!" But it was hurting him very much.

A sage was passing by the village. He went to the sage, he told his miserable story. The sage said, "Don't be worried, my son, it is a very simple problem. All you have to do is this: whenever somebody says something ... don't say anything from your side; just watch others saying things.

"When somebody says, `Look what a beautiful sunset!', then you criticize. You ask,

`What is beauty? Why do you call this sunset beautiful? I don't see any beauty. Where is beauty?' Just remain consistently criticizing. If anybody says, `Look at that woman! How beautiful!', then criticize: `What is beautiful in that woman? Just a skeleton covered with flesh in a bag of skin? What do you mean? What is beauty? That stinking woman? Just open her up!'"

God was not very clever, otherwise he would have made us with zips! You can open the zip and look inside, and that will be enough. All beauty will be finished. You will run away so fast you won't look backwards. What happened to the beautiful woman? or the beautiful man? Inside you are just bones, blood, flesh. What is beauty?

That sage said, "Remember one thing: don't make any statement on your side, otherwise they will criticize. You just for one month persist in criticizing. Just move around the town, and anybody saying ANYthing ...

"Somebody says, `Service to the poor is good.' Ask them, `What is good? Why are there poor? What do you mean by service?'"

If death is the end, then what is the difference between the saint and the sinner? Both will die and be finished. There will be no account taken that this is a saint, don't destroy him; this is a sinner. If death is the end, as the materialists believe, then there is no question of being saintly or evil. It is all the same. Death equalizes everybody.

For one month he practiced what the sage had said. The whole town was amazed how intelligent he had become. "What has happened? What a miracle! Nobody can answer his questions!" They started saying about him that he is no more an idiot, he has become a sage.

After one month the sage came back. He called the young man, and he said, "Are things okay?"

The young man said, "Great! Things are not just okay, but absolutely great! You have given me such a secret. I have criticized everybody -- the priests, the professors, the poets, the scholars -- and they are all defeated. Now they have changed their idea; they think that some miracle has happened to me: `His whole personality has changed, he is no more an idiot. He is the most intelligent man, a wise man we should be proud of.'"

The sage said, "That's good. Now keep it up. Don't make any statement on your own, just go on criticizing."

Criticizing is so simple. It does not need any skill, any art, any intelligence. What will you gain by criticizing me? You will simply lose me.

I am not preventing you, I am simply making things clear to you. Are you here to learn criticism, argument, logic? Or are you here to learn the art of going beyond the mind? It is your freedom. You can choose the mind, or you can choose meditation.

This place is for meditation.

If you choose the mind, this is not your place. Perhaps in some future life ... maybe you will become more mature and understand the futility of all criticism, all agreement, all disagreement. They are all mind-fucking! You have to go beyond it.

The sutra:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

THERE WAS A MONK WHO HAD STAYED WITH YAKUSAN FOR THREE

YEARS AND SERVED AS THE HEAD COOK. ONCE, YAKUSAN ASKED HIM,

"HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE?"

"THREE YEARS," THE MONK REPLIED.

"I DON'T KNOW YOUR FACE AT ALL," SAID YAKUSAN.

THE MONK DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YAKUSAN MEANT,

AND, OUT OF RESENTMENT, LEFT THE MONASTERY.

The master was too compassionate on him -- but he missed the point, the poor monk.

Yakusan has asked him, "HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE?" He is not asking how many years, his emphasis is on the point of here: "How long have you been here?"

In Zen, language takes a totally different nuance. The master is asking, "How long have you been in the time which is called now, in the space which is called here? How long have you been here?" He is not asking how many years you have spent here.

Perhaps the man had not even touched the space called here, the time called now. So he said, "THREE YEARS." That was factual, he had been in the monastery as a cook for three years -- but that was not the question.

Yakusan was not interested how many years he had been in the monastery; he was interested that "Have you touched the point here, or not? Have you learned the art of being here, or not?"

To be here and now, you have to be in meditation, beyond mind. Then suddenly all time disappears, you are in eternity. The very present moment becomes eternal. That was the question.

When a master asks anything, it is never an ordinary thing. The words may be ordinary, but you have to listen very carefully: Where is his emphasis? Why is he asking suddenly?

And because the monk said, "Three years," the master saw that he could not understand even a simple statement in the world of Zen. That's why he said, "I DON'T KNOW

YOUR FACE AT ALL."

Again, he gave another opportunity to the person. "Have you discovered your original face? -- because I don't see it. I see the persona, the personality, but I don't see your original being, your original face. I DON'T KNOW YOUR FACE AT ALL." And he was the cook, and the master was seeing him every day, because he was serving his food. So it had nothing to do with factuality, it had something to do with absolute truth.

Yakusan was saying, "You don't know how to be here, you don't know how to be in the now. That means you don't know who you are. That means you have not looked inwards, behind the personality, into your original face."

The original face is the face of the buddha.

The original face is the face you had before your father was born.

The original face is the face you have had since eternity, and you will have till eternity. It is your very being, it is your very life source.

But instead of understanding the master's compassion, the monk did not understand what he meant, and he felt resentment: "What kind of man is this? I have been serving food to him for three years, and he says he has not seen my face." He thought, "It is very insulting, humiliating." Out of resentment he left the monastery.

So many poor people -- poor in the spirit -- by chance, by accident, come across a master, but they are bound to miss.

For three years the master has not asked him anything. He gave him enough time. Three years is thought to be enough time for anyone to get into the center.

It is a very strange phenomenon, and perhaps you may have observed it. If you move your house, it takes three days to be at rest in the new house.

Gautam Buddha and Mahavira, two great awakened people, did not allow their monks to stay in one place more than three days, because if you stay more than three days friendships arise, you can fall in love, you can start loving the place, you can start loving the food that you are getting in the place. You can become acquainted, you are no more a stranger. It takes three days for a stranger to be absorbed by the masses. So Buddha and Mahavira were in absolute agreement on the point that no sannyasin should stay in one place more than three days; three days is the limit. After the third day he should leave, so no attachments, no possessiveness, arise.

It is my experience that it takes three years for the laziest person. To those who are faster, it can happen in three seconds, but even to the laziest, if he goes on meditating, in three years he will find his original face. That is a finding of thousands of meditators.

So after three years -- the man had been with the master, he had been cooking, he had been listening to the master's discourses -- it was time to ask him: "HOW LONG HAVE

YOU BEEN HERE?"

He understood how long but he forgot the word `here'. The emphasis was not on how long, the emphasis was on `here'. But out of compassion a master gives as many chances as possible. He asked another question.

"I DON'T KNOW YOUR FACE AT ALL -- and you say you have been here for three years. Where is your face?"

Now the man became resentful. He is standing before the master, and what kind of madman is this? -- he is asking, "Where is your face?" He is asking about your original face -- not this face that is reflected in the mirror, but a face that is reflected in the heart of the master.

The master knows when he encounters his disciple whether his heart reflects his original face or not. The original face is your consciousness, your witnessing, your buddha.

But this is the poverty of humanity, that you may come across -- which is very rare -- a master, and you will misunderstand and misinterpret, and what was compassion may look to you like humiliation, insult, and you may leave the master with resentment, with anger.

Being with a master one has to be very patient and one has to listen correctly. One has to watch where the emphasis is. The master has no concern how many years you have been here. What is he going to do with counting the years? Certainly he is not asking about the years; he is asking about this moment.

Are you here?

Factually you all seem to be here, but if your mind is wandering somewhere else, then in truth you are not here.

This face that you see in the mirror is not your original face. The original face is only a symbolic word. It does not mean `face'; inside there is no face. It simply means your originality, your individuality, your essential consciousness, your very nature of being a buddha. That is your original face. It is a metaphor.

I am talking about these anecdotes not for the sake of the anecdotes. I am talking about these anecdotes for you to become aware:

You are with a master.

You have to listen rightly.

You have to listen silently.

No agreement is needed, no disagreement is needed, no criticism is needed. Just listening peacefully, a synchronicity arises. Suddenly you feel a merger, a meeting -- so deep a meeting that you don't know who is who, who is the disciple and who is the master.

It happened to Chuang Tzu, a great master, perhaps one of the very rarest ones ....

His disciple Lieh Tzu one day came and sat on the seat of the master. Then came Chuang Tzu and sat on the floor. The gathering of hundreds of monks could not believe what was happening. The master is sitting on the floor, a disciple is sitting on his seat!

The master said to the head monk, "Ring the bell for discourse" -- and Lieh Tzu gave the discourse.

The master, Chuang Tzu, clapped and said, "Perfectly right. From now onwards I don't have to come. You take my seat. You are my successor."

Zen is such a unique phenomenon. There is no question of inferiority or superiority. The master is not offended. He could see the face of Lieh Tzu for the first time. The original face has arisen, the buddha is awakened, that's why he has taken the seat. It does not matter. When the buddha has arisen in a disciple, the master can retire.

Chuang Tzu never came back again to the assembly hall. Lieh Tzu continued.

I have told you another story about Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu. It is worth remembering again in this context.

One day Chuang Tzu woke up in the morning .... It was after this incident that I told you about. Although he was not coming to the assembly hall, his disciples were missing him.

Lieh Tzu had become awakened, but he was not of the same quality. He was still new, he was not so articulate. He had entered into buddhahood just now, while Chuang Tzu had been living in that state for many many years.

So the disciples would listen to Lieh Tzu but would still go to Chuang Tzu's room just to touch his feet or just to sit by his side.

One morning Chuang Tzu woke up and almost a dozen disciples were there, because he was late. It had never happened before. "Is he sick?" He was getting old, so they were concerned. But he woke up and he called the disciples in.

He said, "I am in a difficulty, that's why I am late. Do you promise to help me to get out of the difficulty?"

They said, "We will do anything. Even if our life is needed, it is in your hands. Just tell us."

He said, "No, it is not a question of taking your life. In the night I dreamt that I had become a butterfly."

All the disciples laughed. They said, "This is not a problem. We all dream of many things. A butterfly? -- now you are awake, there is no question ... it is finished. The dream is no more."

Chuang Tzu said, "No, it is not finished. Now it starts -- the question. If Chuang Tzu can dream in his sleep that he has become a butterfly, cannot the butterfly in her sleep dream that she is Chuang Tzu? Now who am I? -- a butterfly dreaming of being Chuang Tzu or am I really Chuang Tzu? That is the problem."

It is absolutely right. If you can dream about being a butterfly, what is wrong in a butterfly dreaming about being you?

The disciples looked at each other. What to do? -- this is nonsense, but you cannot tell the master that this is nonsense. He is making out of this nonsense a very sensible question.

They said, "If you cannot solve it, you cannot expect us unenlightened, unconscious people to solve it."

He said, "Ring the bell and call the whole monastery."

There were at least fifteen hundred monks, and they came running. What has happened? -

- because it was very rare: the bell was rung always in the assembly hall, not in the cottage of the master.

They all surrounded him. Those twelve disciples told them, "Our master is in a difficulty." First they all laughed. The twelve said, "Don't laugh. We also laughed, but he is really very sad, very serious. We have never seen him so serious. He is not a serious man at all but his question seemed to be relevant as we pondered over it. It looks absolutely right to wonder."

Fifteen hundred monks looked at each other. There was a great silence. Lieh Tzu was not present, he had gone to the city for some work. He came back right at this time. The gathering of the monks allowed him to enter.

He said, "What is the problem? Why are you gathered here?"

They told him the problem. He did not enter into the cottage, he went outside. As he was going out, the monks said, "Where are you going? You are needed, you have to help the master."

He said, "I am going to help him."

He went to the well. It was a cold winter morning, and he pulled out ice-cold water in a bucket and went into the cottage and poured the whole bucket on Chuang Tzu.

Chuang Tzu jumped out of the bed. He said, "Wait! The problem is solved! I am Chuang Tzu. But where have you been? If you had not come here I would have remained in my bed the rest of my life. Where have you been?"

Lieh Tzu said, "Are you awake, or do I have to bring another bucket?"

Chuang Tzu said, "No, there is no need for another bucket. One bucket is enough to prove that I am not a butterfly. The butterfly would have died! I am certainly Chuang Tzu. Just tell all the monks, `Don't be worried, the problem is solved.'

"But you should not be so strange -- bringing such cold water! At least you could have warmed the water. I am an old man. You don't understand .... I was just waiting for you, to see whether you could solve it or not. You are really my successor. You have rightly taken my seat. Don't be worried, slowly slowly you will learn and I will manage many situations for you to learn."

This was one of the situations.

The master functions in different ways on different people. Different masters are creating different devices, but all for the sake of finding the truth.

Never get resentful, never be angry, never feel insulted. The master never means to humiliate anyone. He wants everyone to be elevated to the ultimate status of a Gautam Buddha.

ANOTHER MONK ONCE SAID TO YAKUSAN, "I HAVE A DOUBT. PLEASE, MASTER, CLEAR IT AWAY."

YAKUSAN SAID, "THEN COME TO ME AT THE REGULAR DISCOURSE."

THAT NIGHT, SEATED FOR DISCOURSE, YAKUSAN ADDRESSED THE

ASSEMBLY OF MONKS IN FRONT OF HIM, SAYING, "TONIGHT A MONK WILL

CLEAR HIS DOUBT AWAY. WHERE ARE YOU? COME UP HERE!"

He is telling the same monk who had asked him in the morning, "I HAVE A DOUBT.

PLEASE, MASTER, CLEAR IT AWAY."

Yakusan is so certain of clearing it away that without clearing it he is telling the assembly, "TONIGHT A MONK WILL CLEAR HIS DOUBT AWAY. WHERE ARE

YOU? COME UP HERE!"

THE MONK AROSE AND CAME FORWARD. NO SOONER HAD HE REACHED

THE MASTER THAN YAKUSAN KNOCKED HIM DOWN AND IMMEDIATELY

RETURNED TO HIS ROOM.

The doubt is cleared, the ego is shattered. Returning to the room has been a symbol in Zen almost since Bodhidharma. It means: doubt is part of the mind; I have shattered it. I am returning to my room, you return to your own inner shrine.

From different angles, for different kinds of people, the master manages. He has only two hands, but he functions almost like thousands of hands. He has only two eyes, but functions like thousands of eyes.

Shohaku wrote:

CUCKOO CALLING

TODAY OF ALL DAYS

WHEN NO ONE IS HERE.

Shohaku was meditating for many months on a koan: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Now, one hand clapping cannot make any sound. The very word clapping means two things are needed. Two hands can clap (THE MASTER CLAPS HIS HANDS), but one hand ... These are called koans. They are not puzzles that you can solve, they are unsolvable. You can dis-solve them, but you cannot solve them. Meditation dissolves them.

So for months he had been meditating, and every once in a while he would hear something -- a cool breeze passing through the pine trees making a subtle sound and music -- and he would think, "Perhaps this is it."

He would run to the master, but before he had uttered a word, the master would just close the door in his face and shout from inside, "Go back and meditate. This is not the sound!"

Shohaku would think, "What is the matter? I have not even said anything and he has refused already!"

But the master is right, because no answer can be right. There is no question, so whatever he brings is wrong, till he stops bringing. Many times the master would slap him. When he would say, "This is the sound I have heard: bamboos cracking," the master would say,

"Go back."

And this day it happened!

CUCKOO CALLING ... At another time he may have run to the master saying to him, "It is the call of the cuckoo, the sound of the cuckoo."

But today it was different. CUCKOO CALLING TODAY OF ALL DAYS WHEN NO

ONE IS HERE.

He has dissolved his mind, and with the mind the koan is dissolved. There is no question to be solved. He is no more here.

He did not run to the master, but the master in the middle of the night suddenly ran towards Shohaku, when the cuckoo was still calling. The master was waiting that he may come, but he has not come. That means he has dissolved the question.

The master reached to Shohaku, who was sitting silently, and the cuckoo was still calling

... and Shohaku was so silent and so peaceful, surrounded by such serenity.

The master shook him. Shohaku opened his eyes, didn't say a single word, just touched the feet of the master.

The master said, "So you have heard! Come on, now you can stay with me in my cottage.

I have been looking towards you with great hope. All those slaps -- you know I am old and it hurts my hand more than your face. All those beatings ... and you don't understand that my hand hurts the whole night! You are young. I am in a hurry. My death is very close. Before my death I wanted ...

"You have dissolved the koan, the sound of one hand clapping. Today it happened of all days: the cuckoo is calling ... but now I can see you are no more there. Your mind is silent, your ego is gone. A peace, a great peace, a tremendous transformation from mind to no-mind has happened. I declare you my successor."

Shohaku's master died the next day. He was hanging around just hoping and waiting and hitting hard for Shohaku to understand. He had many disciples, but Shohaku was the most promising because he had taken every hit with great gratitude, bowing down, touching his feet, with never a single resentment, never anger, never a feeling of humiliation, never a feeling of frustration that "For months together I have been coming and coming and coming and he goes on rejecting. Even though he does not hear my answer, already he rejects it before I have opened my mouth. Now I know, no answer was going to be the answer. Only no-mind could be the answer. No-mind is the sound of one hand clapping."

CUCKOO CALLING

TODAY OF ALL DAYS

WHEN NO ONE IS HERE.

A beautiful, very beautiful haiku to remember.

Question 2

Maneesha's question ...

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

IS IT BECAUSE OF A REFUSAL TO ENCOUNTER THE REALITY OF DEATH

THAT THERE IS A RELUCTANCE TO MEDITATE?

Maneesha, yes, because meditation and death are very similar. In death you enter reluctantly, unwillingly. That's why you fall unconscious, in a coma. In meditation you are going with full consciousness, with great totality of being, on your own accord. It is the same point that you will pass in death also, but if you have moved to the center before death, then death is no more a fear. You know it. You have died many times whenever you touched your center, and you have gone again into a resurrection.

Every meditation is a death and a resurrection.

You go to the point where death takes people unconsciously. You go consciously, that is the only difference. The point is the same. From the same center, death will take you into another womb if you are unconscious.

If you are conscious, doing meditation, then death is the same .... You will not resist death. You will go dancing with death to the center. It is a well-known path, you have traveled on it thousands of times. It is a well-known door, you know it perfectly. Where death is going, you are going rejoicing, dancing, singing, because you know that door leads you into eternity, into the cosmos.

If you die consciously you will not enter into another womb, you will not be born again, because birth is nothing but the beginning of death. You will not be reborn; that means you will never die again. You have reached to your original being. You have become a buddha.

The fear of death prevents people from inquiring deeply into themselves.

I came across a man; his wife had brought him to me. He looked very nervous. The wife told me that something has happened to him: "He does not sleep, and he does not allow anybody else in the house to sleep. Even the neighbors are getting tired. Just to keep awake he goes to every room, knocks on the door, asks the wife or the son or the son's wife or the daughter, Àre you asleep?'"

But when you ask somebody, "Are you asleep?", you have broken the person's sleep. He has to answer: "Yes, I was asleep but now I am awake!" And he would put the radio on full volume just to keep himself awake and he would walk on the veranda and keep the neighbors awake. They would shout and he would shout back at them.

I said, "What are you afraid of?"

He said, "I am afraid that if I go to sleep, what is the guarantee that I will wake up? I may die in my sleep. I want to keep awake. Death is my fear."

I had to teach him meditation. Six months he continued to come to my meditation class, and once he started feeling himself touching some inner space he became absolutely unafraid.

His wife came to me. She said, "What a miracle you have done! You have not given him any medicine ...."

I said, "I have given him some medicine" -- because the word meditation ... Meditation and medicine come from the same root. Medicine cures your body; meditation cures your consciousness. They are both treatments. One is physical, the other is spiritual. I said, "I have given medicine. He will sleep now."

And I inquired after a few days when I was passing by his house. It was afternoon, and the wife said, "Now he sleeps even in the day! You have created another trouble!"

Now his small children were looking after the store that he runs, and he said, "I don't bother. Sleep is so good, and I have learned the art of transforming the sleep into meditation. The whole night I am rejoicing -- and I cannot miss my afternoon nap. It is a meditation. And the store ... The children are taking care of the customers perfectly well, in fact better than me. With me the customers were haggling about prices; with the children they don't haggle."

The poor children ...! First the father was mad, he wouldn't sleep; now he is more mad.

He sleeps in the day, he sleeps in the night -- and the poor children have to take care of the shop so the customers will not haggle. The children were earning better, getting higher prices, so he said, "Things are going perfectly well. Why do you bother me? And if you bother me much more I will take you all to my master!"

You have to learn how to sleep, and you have to learn how to meditate. Both are the same. In sleep also you go to the same depth, but not the whole night. In eight hours sleep, six hours you dream -- not continuously, but with a few breaks here and there, for two hours. For two hours you are at the very center of your being. That's what rejuvenates you, that's what brings a new freshness to your face and to your eyes in the morning.

I myself cannot sleep at all -- the whole night, not a wink. That reminds me of a beautiful anecdote -- in the margin!

One English lord, a member of the British parliament, was suspicious that another lord was having a love affair with his wife. But the English are very mannerly. Even in situations where one forgets -- tends to forget -- men go on etiquette, they will manage.

He asked the lord, "Did you sleep with my wife last night, sir?"

And his friend said, "Not a wink!"

That is my situation.

My personal physician, Amrito, has managed a CD player that plays music continuously the whole night so that I can at least enjoy music. Otherwise I am just lying down. For thirty years I have not slept -- but do you see my eyes tired or anything?

My own understanding is that sleep is a habit. It is not a necessity, it is a habit. For millions of years man remained in dark caves in the night with no fire, no light. There was no other alternative than to fall asleep. Those millions of years the habit has become so deeply rooted that we go on sleeping.

But my own understanding is that I have not slept for thirty years, not dreamt for thirty years -- and it has not in any way disturbed anything in me. The whole sleep is a silent meditation, and with beautiful music in the background, the whole night is such a blissful, such an ecstatic experience!

Maneesha, it is because of the fear of death that people avoid meditation -- but it is only meditation that can take you beyond the fear of death, that is the irony of the case. You are afraid of meditation because of death, but you don't know it is only meditation that can make you fearless of death -- because to the meditator there is no death, but only life, and life divine and life eternal.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

It is the last day of the holiday season in Goa, and tomorrow Gorgeous Gloria and Sardar Gurudayal Singh will be going their separate ways as their seaside friendship comes to an end.

That night, in Sardar Gurudayal Singh's hotel room, Gloria leans close to Sardarji's ear and whispers, "Since this is our last chance together, I would like to do something different tonight!"

"Okay," agrees Sardar Gurudayal Singh. "Then you try to kiss me, and I will slap your face!"

Jimmy Bakker's "Praise the Lord!" TV church has not been making much money ever since Jimmy got out of jail. He is sitting in his living room one day when his wife, Tammy, comes home wearing an expensive new dress.

"My God!" shouts Bakker. "You know we are broke. You promised not to buy any new clothes this month. What made you do it?"

"I'm sorry, sugar," replies Tammy, "but the devil tempted me." ... It is the same Bakker, you know, who has been tempted by the devil to make love to his secretary and to make love to his assistant priest. Now he is trying hard to get back, but it is difficult.

The whole country knows that this man has been deceiving for years, teaching celibacy to the television onlookers. He had millions of people listening to him ... one of America's most prominent TV preachers.

The wife said, "I am sorry, sugar, the devil tempted me" -- just the same as the devil tempted you!

"The devil?" shouts Jimmy. "So why didn't you say to him, `Get thee behind me, Satan' --

like a good Christian woman?" ... That's what Jesus used to do. The devil used to tempt him .... It is strange, I have been looking for the devil my whole life and I have not found him. I wanted to tempt him. But Jesus was continuously tempted by the devil, and he always said to the devil, "Get behind me!"

So Bakker told his wife, "Just like a good Christian, why did you not say to the devil,

`Get thee behind me, Satan'?"

"I did," replies Tammy, "but then he whispered to me, `Honey, it fits you beautifully from behind'!"

Avirbhava!

Avirbhava is going on a shopping trip. The devil will tempt her. So remember ...!

When Gautama the Buddha Auditorium becomes too small to contain all the seekers coming to Poona, our Beloved Master goes on a tour of the universe looking for a new site.

At one stop, he arrives at the Pearly Gates and is greeted by Saint Peter. The Christian saint takes one look at the man before him, and nearly faints.

"My God! You? Up here? And you want a two-week tourist visa?" cries Peter. "I must have a talk with God first." And Saint Peter scuttles away to find God Almighty.

God is not very pleased at Saint Peter's news, and after a lot of deep thought, he tells Saint Peter, "Okay ... He can stay for a short while, but only on one condition: no discourses!"

A couple of weeks later, God runs into Saint Peter again.

"How is everything going with `You-know-who'?" asks God. "Is everything all right?"

"Just great, Swami-ji!" replies Saint Peter. "Everything is YAA-HOO!"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards with your whole life energy, with your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment on the earth.

Faster and faster ...

The closer you come to your center, the closer you are to yourself, the closer you are to the godliness of existence, the closer you are to your original face, the buddha -- centered.

You are the most blessed people on the earth this moment. A great silence descends over you. A deep peace arises within, and flowers start showering like rain.

You have found your nature, your buddha -- your door to the cosmos.

Remember only one thing, the only thing that makes the buddha, and that is witnessing.

Witness ... you are not the body.

Witness ... you are not the mind.

Witness ... you are not the seven subtle bodies inside you. You are only a witness, purely an awareness.

This awareness will bring you the transformation, the truth, the beauty -- all the splendor of existence.

I can see your original faces.

I can see you are here and now.

Just keep this status around the clock.

Whenever you remember, be here and now.

Sometimes you will forget. Don't repent, don't waste time in repentance. When you remember again, start being here and now.

When you are twenty-four hours here and now, you will be enlightened, you will be the buddha -- not only for a few moments, but for eternity.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ...

But remember to continue witnessing.

This witnessing is the secret, the most golden key, the master key that opens all the doors of the mysteries and the secrets of existence.

As you relax, as your consciousness becomes more and more settled, your separateness starts melting.

Gautama the Buddha Auditorium is turning into an ocean, ten thousand buddhas melting into the oceanic experience of one cosmos. This is the only religious experience -- the oceanic experience. There is no religion other than this.

All the scriptures are just commentaries, non-essential. The essential phenomenon is this oceanic experience of dissolving yourself into the ultimate.

A great song will arise in you, and without any movement you will feel a great dance.

You will hear the one hand clapping. You are no more, only the existence is.

Gather as much flowers and fragrance and blessings and beatitude and benediction as you can. You have to bring them back. You have to bring them from your center to the circumference of your life.

And persuade the buddha. Inch by inch he is coming closer. It is your very nature.

One day, one golden day, you will disappear and only the buddha will remain in place of you. That will be the greatest height of your blossoming, the greatest golden moment of your thousands of lives. Beyond that is only the cosmos.

First, become the buddha. This is called nirvana. Then take a jump into the cosmos, and disappear into the blue sky. This is called mahaparinirvana -- the great enlightenment.

The first is called enlightenment, the second is called the great enlightenment. Then you are not, even the buddha is not. Only the existence is, with all its glory, with all its majesty, with all its flowers blossoming, its beauty, its truth, its divineness spread all over the cosmos.

Then you will become one with the whole, not part of the whole. To become one with the whole is the only holiness.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ...

But come back as buddhas, with the same gestures, with the same grace, with the same silence, with the same ecstasy.

Just sit down for a few seconds to remember the golden path you have traveled, to remember your original face that you have encountered. And watch ... the buddha has come a little closer to you. It is not long before the spring will come ... you will melt away, and only the buddha remains.

Then the second step is very simple.

I teach only the first step. The second step you can take anytime, or if you want to wait, the second step will happen in your death.

This I call, "straight to the point of enlightenment."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #3

Chapter title: The sword and the lotus

24 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901245

ShortTitle:

CHRIST03

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

206

mins

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

YAKUSAN TALKED WITH MEIKEI OSHO AND LATER TOLD UNGAN: "MEIKEI WAS ONCE A GOVERNMENT SUPERINTENDENT IN HIS PAST LIFE."

UNGAN ASKED, "OSHO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN YOUR PAST LIVES?"

YAKUSAN REPLIED, "BEING AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF

UGLINESSES AND THOUSANDS OF CLUMSINESSES, I SOMEHOW HAVE

MANAGED TO LIVE LIVES."

UNGAN LATER REPEATED THIS TO DOGO, WHO COMMENTED: "IT IS A GOOD STORY, BUT ONE QUESTION IS MISSING."

"WHAT, MAY I ASK?" INQUIRED UNGAN.

DOGO SAID, IN THE MANNER OF LITERARY, SCHOLARLY CHINESE: "HOW

DID YOU BECOME LIKE THAT?"

UNGAN TOOK THE QUESTION TO YAKUSAN, USING THE SAME SCHOLARLY

CHINESE.

YAKUSAN ANSWERED, "I NEVER OPEN ANY BOOKS."

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, YAKUSAN ASKED UNGAN, "A HORSE HAS HORNS; CAN YOU SEE THEM?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "IF IT HAS, THERE IS NO NEED TO SEE."

"THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY," ADDED YAKUSAN.

UNGAN REPLIED, "IF THAT IS SO, I'LL TAKE IT."

Question 1

Friends,

One sannyasin has asked that his parents, and particularly his mother, harass him very much while he is meditating. She says to him, "Why are you wasting your time sitting here, doing nothing? Who are you bluffing by closing your eyes? It is better to read the Bible, or go to the church and pray to God, or do some virtuous actions. This -- what you call meditation -- is simply selfishness."

The sannyasin has asked me, "What is your answer?"

It has many implications to be understood.

First, in one's unconsciousness one cannot do any virtuous act. Virtue comes out of deep meditation. Virtue is a flower of your realization that you are eternal, immortal, that you are divine. Sharing that divineness is virtue. There is no other virtue in existence.

But all the religions, particularly Christianity, go on emphasizing, "Do virtuous acts.

Don't sit silently, it is selfish."

I have to ask, first: when you succeed as a rich man nobody says to you that it is selfish.

Everybody praises you: that is great. When you succeed as a politician and become a president or a prime minister nobody says it is selfish, everybody praises you.

Thirty million dollars are being spent celebrating President Bush's success. Success is not selfish -- do you see the point? -- being super-rich is not selfish, creating materials for destruction of the world is not selfish, accumulating nuclear weapons is not selfish ....

And what is your virtue? Is it unmotivated? Are you not being virtuous doing service to the poor, or the sick, or the orphans, in order to get into paradise with all its pleasures? It is simply business. Who says it is virtue?

I am reminded of an ancient Chinese parable ....

There used to happen in the capital of China every year a festival. Millions of people gathered -- the fair lasted for one month -- and even the emperor used to come to inaugurate it. But in those days, in China, the water wells were not protected by walls. In darkness one could easily fall into a well, because there was no wall as a protection.

A man fell into a well. It was getting dark and his eyesight was not good, he was almost blind. He shouted for help, but with millions of people there was so much noise -- who is going to hear him?

A Confucian monk passed by the side of the well and he heard the noise of the man asking for help, to be taken out of the well. The Confucian monk said to him, "Don't be worried. Our master, Confucius, has written in his books that every water well should have walls, and I am going to create a tremendous uproar in the country!"

The poor man said, "By the time you create the great uproar in the whole country and all the wells start having protecting walls, I will be dead. Just think of me first!"

The monk said, "Individuals don't matter, what matters is society." That is the Confucian idea. That is the idea of all socialists, that the individual does not matter.

The reason for China becoming communist -- nobody has explored the reason why India has not become communist -- is Confucius. For twenty-five centuries Confucius had been held in tremendous respect, so when Karl Marx became available to the Chinese, it fitted very well with the Confucian idea: the individual does not matter, what matters is the society.

The Confucian monk said to the man, "Anyway, any day you are going to die, so why not now? I cannot waste my time! I am going to create the revolution that will bring walls to every well in the whole country. Think of your children!" And the man went away.

The man in the well thought, "Strange ... I am dying here, and that idiot is going to create a revolution!"

A Buddhist monk passed by. He looked in the well. The man said, "Buddha has taught compassion. You should save me, I am dying! And it is getting darker and colder."

The Buddhist monk said, "Be patient. It is because of your past lives' evil acts that you have fallen into the well. Millions of people are here, and nobody else has fallen into the well. You must have committed very evil acts -- murder, rape. It is better to clear the account.

"And Buddha has also said, `Never interfere into anybody's life!' Just forgive me, I cannot interfere into your life. If I pull you out, you will fall again, because your punishment for the evil acts of the past life is not complete -- so what is the point? Just die and be reborn, fresh, without any past evil acts hanging around you."

The man was so amazed, "These people are religious people?" And the Buddhist monk went away.

This is the logical consequence of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna. All the Indian philosophies teach it.

You will not believe it .... One of the Jaina sects, Terapanth, whose head is Acharya Tulsi, has seventeen hundred monks and three times more nuns. It is one of the very strongest folds; very rich, super-rich people belong to that sect.

The original man who created the sect separate from mainstream Jainism, his basic point was that if somebody is drowning you should not interfere. That is the logical consequence of believing in the past life and evil acts and their punishment. If somebody is hungry, you should not interfere. If somebody is thirsty, you should not even tell him the way to the river.

And, moreover, interfering in nature's course will create bad karmas for you. For example, if you pull a man out from the well, and tomorrow he commits a murder, do you think you are also responsible for it or not?

Logically, it seems to be perfectly right. If you had not saved the man, he would not have committed the murder. You are fifty percent responsible: you saved him, he committed the murder. Now you will have to suffer for saving the man. Whatsoever he does from now onwards, you will be responsible -- for his whole life. You have unnecessarily disturbed his finishing of the punishment, and you have created on the other hand evil acts for which you will suffer in your future life.

The statement, the philosophy, is logical, but absolutely against life. Is logic more important than life?

And as far as I am concerned, every act brings its punishment just as a shadow. You don't have to suffer in your future life. Right now you murder; why should nature wait that long for punishment? You put your hand in the fire ....

I have told this to Acharya Tulsi -- and he has been angry with me since then, speaking every kind of lie against me. The reason is personal, because I told him, before fifty thousand people, "Your whole philosophy is absolutely ugly and obscene. You put your hand into the fire right now, and let us see whether your hand burns now or in the future life!"

He had nothing to say. And his own people -- those fifty thousand were his own people --

they laughed and they clapped. That hurt him very much.

Action brings its reaction immediately, it follows without any gap. Why should there be such a long gap? But the reason is ... You see right now all kinds of mean people being successful. How do you explain it? -- all kinds of cunning people being prime ministers, becoming presidents, becoming super-rich right now, just by sheer squeezing people's blood! How do you explain it?

The religions have been saving the vested interests. They had to find some way, and this was a good strategy: nobody is making you poor, you are suffering from your past life's acts, evil acts. And the rich? -- they are enjoying their past life's good acts, virtuous acts.

Do you see the cunningness of the argument? Neither do you know anything about your past life, nor do you know anything about your future life. Your real problem is dissolved into smoke, so thick a smoke that you cannot see beyond it.

The Buddhist monk moved on from the well, and he was followed by a Christian missionary. The Christian missionary was carrying a bucket and a long rope. He immediately threw the rope and the bucket into the well, and pulled the man out.

The man said, "You are the only religious man."

The Christian missionary said, "In fact, I should be grateful to you, because unless you fall in the well I cannot earn virtue. I am against the Confucian idea that every well should have a wall. Then nobody will be falling in! -- and for whom am I carrying the bucket and the rope? No walls are needed; otherwise, all virtue, all morality, all service will disappear from the world."

Bertrand Russell has made a very important statement: "If there is no poverty, there will be no religion. Whom are you going to serve?"

If there is no death, all churches, all religions will become absolutely useless, invalid, out of date. They are surviving because of poverty, because of death, because of disease, because of orphans. That's why they are all against birth control -- because birth control can destroy all poverty, and all the orphans can be stopped from coming into the world.

What will happen to poor Mother Teresa? Who will give her a Nobel Prize?

Orphans are absolutely needed, otherwise Mother Teresas will disappear. Poverty is needed, that's why they go on continuously being against all birth control methods. It has nothing to do with God -- they need the poor people, because their religion teaches them that if you serve the poor, if you open hospitals for the poor, if you open schools for the poor, you are earning a great bank balance in paradise.

This is not unselfishness. Who says it is unselfish? It is more selfish than anything else you can find in the world -- a motivation to exploit poor people, people who have fallen into the well, people who are dying, people who are sick, people who are orphans. You are taking great advantage.

All religions say that you will have great pleasures in heaven; beautiful women will be available to all the saints who have done virtuous acts. Strange ... Here you talk about celibacy, and in all the paradises of all the religions, celibacy is no longer applicable. Do you see the contradiction?

If a man has been celibate here for sixty, seventy years, he will become habitually a celibate. Then he goes into heaven and finds beautiful girls .... They remain always at the age sixteen; through eternity, they have never grown up. They don't perspire, they don't need any deodorant; their breath does not smell, they don't need any mouthwash. It seems they are made of plastic. No perspiration? -- do you know the meaning of it?

If you paint your whole body, leaving only your nose to breathe, paint it thickly so that all the pores in your skin are completely closed, you will die within three hours. Just your nose is not enough. Every pore in your skin is breathing, in and out. Your whole body is a breathing system.

Perspiration is a protection. You will die without perspiration. The function of the perspiration is to keep your inner temperature always the same. If you start getting hotter inside -- and the span is very small, twelve degrees, from about ninety-eight to one hundred and ten -- if there is no perspiration and there is a hot sun, how are you going to keep your temperature at ninety-eight perpetually?

The perspiration helps you. It distracts the heat from entering into your body. It distracts it in a beautiful way: it cheats and deceives the sun. It gets the rays engaged in evaporating the perspiration. So the more heat is there, the more you will perspire. The heat is taken up in evaporating that perspiration, and not letting it in. If you let in that much heat, you will burst immediately. By the time you reach one hundred and five, you will fall into a coma; by the time you reach one hundred and ten, you will become a beloved of God!

Stupid ideas! And if in heaven you are going to give people beautiful girls ... In the Mohammedan heaven even beautiful boys are available for homosexuals, because they should not be deprived -- and most of the saints are homosexual, perverted; some provision has to be made for them in paradise.

The women are called houris, and the homosexual boys -- beautiful boys, they always remain young, no mustache, no beard, so the saints can exploit them for their sexuality --

they are called gilme. Strange ... Here you condemn sex, and there you make available not only heterosexuality, you make available homosexuality.

And there are rivers flowing of just pure French wine. Get drunk, get drowned, swim, take a bath in it. And here? -- religions condemn all pleasures. Here you have to be a self-torturer.

All religions are exploiting your tremendous greed, in the name of virtue, in the name of unselfishness.

As a fundamental principal, I want you to remember that an unconscious man cannot act without motivation, and motivation is selfishness, whatever you do.

I used to live in a city, teaching in the university, and a beautiful marble temple was being made there. For years I used to pass it on the road. Nine years I lived in that city, and the temple was just coming up, coming up, because they wanted to make something rare. Some super-rich man's father had died and it was his memorial.

I had no idea about it, so one day I stopped my car and went inside where hundreds of marble workers were working. I asked the chief, "For what is this temple being raised?"

A man of great intelligence, he did not take me to the statue of Krishna which was placed in the middle of the temple. I was thinking he would take me to the statue, saying that the temple is being created for Krishna -- but he took me behind the temple.

I said, "Where are you taking me?"

He said, "To the right place."

There was a big marble slab with the writing: "This temple is created by so-and-so in the memory of his great spiritual father."

He said, "For this stone the whole temple is being created. Krishna is just an excuse."

The unconscious mind cannot do anything without motivation. What will I get? And religions promise that in the future life, when he reaches to the pearly gates, Saint Peter will be standing there with all the angels singing "Alleluia!", playing on their harps in your welcome. It seems to be worthwhile to give something in charity, to do some virtuous act.

Unless an act is done without any motivation, it cannot be unselfish.

I want you to understand that except meditation there is no act which is unselfish, because it is only meditation which is going to dissolve your self, which is going to dissolve you into the whole. And once you are no more, whatever you do is going to be without motivation. Virtue comes out of a person who has become one with existence.

Meditation is the door.

Meditation is the only unselfish act.

But it appears that people who are engaged in meditation are just thinking of themselves, not bothering about the whole of humanity. Absolute nonsense!

The people who are engaged in meditation are the only people who will find a place where there is no self, and all selfishness disappears. Then their whole life, their whole love, their whole compassion will be unmotivated. Whatever they will do will be virtuous, because virtue can come only out of a conscious mind, an absolutely conscious mind.

In the conscious mind, totally conscious, there is not a single shadow of self. The totally conscious mind becomes qualitatively different from your unconscious mind. Hence it has been called no-mind, just to show the difference, otherwise you will get confused.

Mind is what you have. No-mind is the search of meditation. And from no-mind blossom flowers of unselfishness, of love, of compassion, of sharing.

I repeat Basho, the great Zen master, and one of the greatest poets of the world: "Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."

This sitting silently is not avoiding life. Sitting silently is searching for life, the very source of life. And the moment you have found the source, everything grows by itself, just like when spring comes, the grass grows by itself.

Virtue, truth, compassion, love -- everything you can conceive of arises out of meditation, and there is no other source for it. They do not arise from prayers, because prayers are addressed to a fictitious God, who does not exist.

It happened in America: a poor man ... his wife was dying, and he had no money to purchase medicine or call a doctor, or have her admitted to a hospital.

In desperation he thought of a great idea: "Why not write a letter to God, just for fifty dollars, not much. And for a God who is almighty, omnipotent -- everywhere present, omnipresent; omniscient, knowing everything, past, present, future -- he must know that my wife is dying and I need fifty dollars right now."

So he wrote a small card saying, "You know everything, you are all-knowing; I don't have to say it to you. I need fifty dollars for my wife who is almost on the verge of death.

Send it to me by telegram."

But then he was at a loss: What is the address of God? That he had completely forgotten in his anxiety and misery. When he turned over the postcard, the address had to be written.

He said, "My God! Nobody knows his address. Whom to ask? When you don't know the address, the only way is to send it `Care of the Postmaster General.'" So he wrote: "To God the Almighty, c/o Postmaster General of America."

The letter reached the Postmaster General. He read it, and he said, "What an innocent man, and what great trust! Because he does not know the address, he has sent it care of me. I don't know the address of God myself!"

I don't think anybody has ever known his address. Before he went on holiday after creating the world in six days, he did not leave any address with Adam and Eve: "Go on giving it to your children, from generation to generation. They will know where God is, and whenever it is needed you can write." He simply disappeared. Nothing has been heard about him since then.

So the Postmaster General asked all his colleagues, "Why shouldn't we collect fifty dollars and send them to this poor man?" So they made a collection, but they could manage to collect only forty-five dollars, not fifty. So he said, "Even forty-five will be helpful right now." He immediately sent it by telegram.

The poor man received the telegram and the forty-five dollars. He looked up towards heaven and he said, "Almighty God, next time don't send it through the Postmaster General! That son-of-a-bitch has taken his commission -- five dollars! Send it to me directly! You are present everywhere, why not hand it to me directly? If you don't want to do it face to face, you can drop it on my roof very easily. It is not a problem for you. You have created the whole world, you can create fifty dollars, although they will be fake!"

But there was no reply.

So again he wrote another letter, thanking God: "You have sent me fifty dollars, but that son-of-a-bitch, the Postmaster General of America, has taken his commission, five dollars, from a poor man whose wife is dying!"

And again it had to be sent "Care of the Postmaster General of America."

When the Postmaster General received this letter, he said, "My God! We helped him with forty-five dollars and he is calling me a son-of-bitch!"

In Surat, in India, there exists one of the richest Mohammedan cults. The Aga Khan is the head priest of that cult. The cult is called Khoja. Here, just by the side of the river on the other bank, there is an Aga Khan palace.

The Aga Khan is one of the richest men in the world. He has palaces in every great city all over the world, in all the hill stations, on all the beautiful beaches.

And how has he become so rich? What is his strategy? The strategy is: if somebody dies, in the dead person's memory you send him the money, and the money will be sent into your account in paradise. Millions of dollars he accumulates, and the blind believers think that the money is reaching into their bank accounts.

I was staying with a friend in Surat, who is a Khoja, a follower of the Aga Khan. I asked him, "Your father has died. How much money have you sent?"

He said, "Three lakh rupees."

I asked, "Have you got the bank account number?"

He said, "The account number?"

I said, "When you reach to paradise, how will you find which is your bank account where the money is deposited?"

He said, "That's right."

And I said, "You are a well-educated man, a doctor, and you could not think of a simple thing? You could not see how the Aga Khan goes on throwing money all around the world? From where does this money come? From which account?"

The Aga Khan's hobby is racehorses. He is the greatest bidder all over the world, and wherever there is a race meeting, he immediately rushes to that place. This palace here has been made because Poona has a race meeting every year, a great competition. All these houses you see belonged once to all the maharajahs of India, because while the horseracing was going on, all the maharajahs were here. That's why this is a protected area.

Now the maharajahs have disappeared, it is not much of a joy. Ordinary people are going to the race course, and the Aga Khan no longer comes here. He has informed me that if I want the palace he is ready to sell.

There is another sect I have come across which is even more stupid. At least this money reaches to the Aga Khan, it does not go further -- but that cult puts the money in the coffin. Your father dies, you put ten lakh rupees into the coffin, and it goes into the graveyard.

Again, I was a guest in a house with a friend, who was a professor and had been my colleague. I said, "You also think that money will enter into heaven with your father's soul?"

He said, "Yes. My whole religion believes it; so many people cannot be wrong."

This argument I have heard so many times that I have made my own argument: If there are so many people agreed on something, they must be wrong! So many people cannot be right. Right belongs to very rare people; crowds cannot be right, they cannot have the truth.

So I said, "We shall do one thing. Tonight we will go and dig your father's grave!"

He said, "What?! But that is criminal."

I said, "I will do it, you just stand by, just to see whether those rupees that you have put are still there, or your father has taken them."

He said, "But if anybody comes to know ..."

I said, "You are an educated man; it is a simple experiment to expose your belief. And I am ready to take all the blame!"

So I dragged him in the night to the graveyard of their religion, and I had to dig -- that was the first and the last time I have done any digging! -- and I pulled the coffin out. It was stinking of the dead body -- only bones had remained, everything else had gone rotten -- and I said, "Look, those notes are here. You are an idiot, and your whole religion is stupid! Take these notes!"

There was a moment of grave silence. I said, "You take them or I will take them!" He immediately took them out, and I said, "Now you do the remaining work, you have taken the money! I am going. You push the coffin in, put in the mud, cover it, do whatever you want -- but I have proved absolutely that your whole religion is stupid! And you think this is a virtuous act? You are being conned by your priests!"

What is selfish in meditation? Just because you are sitting alone, closing your eyes, going inwards to find out the very source of your existence, is it selfish?

By the time you find your authentic source of life, your self will have disappeared like a dewdrop in the early morning sun. You will come out without a self, just as a pure presence. Out of this pure presence radiates all that is virtuous.

Without meditation there is no virtue; there cannot be any virtue! And when I say anything like this, I say it with absolute authority, and I challenge every religion of the world to prove that unconscious people, sleepy people, can do any act without motivation.

Selfishness means motivation, you are thinking of some reward. An unselfish act means with no motivation, you are not thinking of any reward. You are doing it out of your abundance. You have too much, you are a rain cloud, you have to shower.

And the more you share, the more starts coming to you. It is almost like a well of water: the more you draw the water, fresh water is coming into the well from all directions. If you become afraid that "If we take out the water, that much water is gone," it is better to keep the well closed.

It happened once ... Kahlil Gibran has a beautiful story.

In an ancient village there were two wells. One was in the palace, which was not available for anybody else than the royal family, and the other well was in the marketplace, which was available for everybody else except the royal family.

But one day a witch came into the town, and she chanted some gibberish and threw something inside the well. People watched but they could not understand what was happening. But by the time the sun was setting, everybody had drunk water from the well

-- except the royal family -- and everybody had gone mad. The whole capital was mad, from the smallest child to the oldest man -- except the king and the queen and the prince.

And a strange thing happened .... The whole crowd gathered around the palace and they started shouting that the king has gone mad. They were all mad, obviously, and they all agreed on the point that "The king does not seem to be the same as we are."

The king immediately asked his prime minister what to do. "Even our armies have gone mad. They are all dancing and they are asking, `Come out of the palace! We will choose a new king who is sane just like us!'"

The prime minister was very old, an ancient wise man. He told the king, "The only way is to run from the back door. I will keep them engaged at the front door, telling them that Ì

am bringing the king, he is getting ready.' You run to the well that they have been drinking the water from. Drink the water -- you, your wife, your son -- and you all get drunk. Unless you are mad this crowd is going to kill you!"

The advice was absolutely correct. The king and his family ran from the back door, drank quickly the water of the well that the witch had changed with a certain alchemical phenomenon. They did not come to the back door, they came dancing and rejoicing to the front gate, and the crowd was very happy that their king had become sane.

That night there was a great festival in the capital. "Our king, our queen, our future king -

- all have become sane!"

The crowd is living so unconsciously. You cannot expect from this crowd any act of virtue, any act of unselfishness. It is simply not possible. It is categorically impossible.

First comes meditation, then everything else follows.

So when your parents or your priests tell you that you are doing a selfish act, tell them clearly that you are the only one who is going to drop the self, and there will be no selfishness left, and out of that state virtue will follow -- "not from your prayers, not from your Bible or your Koran or your Gita, not from your teachings, but from my own exploration into whether there is a self."

The self is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness. It has never been found by those who have entered deeper into themselves.

Just a few days ago there were twenty-one Christian missionaries here. They have been at a seminary for seven years in Poona. Poona is one of the centers for creating missionaries for the whole of Asia.

For seven years they were not allowed by their principal even to come close to the ashram. That day when their course was finished, and they were ready to leave to their places, they did not miss at least one chance to hear me. And they have come here, but they must have been very much puzzled. I could see it on their faces: their seven years of seminary training was erased within three hours!

To one sannyasin they said, "Everything seems to be good, but your master is taking only the negative side of religion and condemning it. There are many beautiful things that religion has done to humanity, and he is not taking them."

Now I am going to talk about "all the beautiful things that religion has done to humanity."

By the way, the same person quoted what seems on the surface a beautiful sentence: "It is better to give than to receive." Ordinarily you will agree with it -- it is better to give than to receive ....

I don't agree with it.

Why is it better to give? -- because it enhances your ego. You are the giver, you are higher, your hand is upper. Why is it good to give? You are reducing the other man's dignity, you are making him a beggar, you are insulting him. You are not really giving, you are rejoicing in your ego being bigger and bigger. The more you give, the bigger ego you will have, the more respect, the more prestige, the more honor.

What is good in giving? It is a sin, because it enhances your ego.

And what is not good in receiving? In fact, the receiver has not to be obliged to you; he is unburdening you, you have to be obliged to him. That is authentic spirituality. You give, and you touch the feet of the person to whom you have given, to thank him that he received your gift and did not reject it. He could have rejected it, and you would have been insulted -- but he received it.

I say to you that these kinds of statements, which look very good if you don't have a sharp intelligence to go deeper into them, are all over, in all the scriptures of the world.

And anyway, if it is better to give than to receive, then who is going to receive?

Everybody is going to give -- it is better to give -- but to whom? Everybody will reject, because it is better to give than to receive.

"Why are you insulting me?", everybody will ask you. "Do you want to insult me, humiliate me by giving me just a few coins? Throw away those coins in the river and get lost!"

Gautam Buddha is far more right. He has made it very clear to his sannyasins and to his lay-disciples. Because the sannyasins will be going to beg their food one time a day from the lay-disciples, he has made it clear to his lay-disciples, "Don't feel that you are great because you are giving. Remember the humbleness of the other person who is receiving.

So first you give the food, then you touch the feet of the person who has received the food, and you give some other gift as your gratefulness."

So two words are used: giving is called bhiksha, and when somebody has received bhiksha, then you have to be grateful to him. The second word is dakshina; to show your gratefulness, you present something else, a shawl -- the winter is coming -- or a new set of clothes. An old set of clothes you can preserve as a memory from a man of meditation; something of his meditation must have touched those clothes.

When you pass through a rose garden, you may not touch the roses, but some fragrance is caught by your clothes. If a man has been meditating -- and if by chance you come across an enlightened person -- having his clothes in your house, your house becomes a holy temple. His clothes have been receiving radiation continuously, of a different world, vibrations .... So give him a new set of clothes, his old set is torn, too old. This will be your gratitude.

So Buddha's statement will be, "It is better to receive than to give." The giver is a poor man, he has nothing else than money.

I was in Jaipur, one of the most beautiful cities of India. The man who was making Jaipur, Maharajah Jai Singh -- it is named after him -- the British government dethroned him and put his son as the king. The reason was that he was creating Jaipur, a totally new city. His idea was to have a better city than Paris, and certainly whatever he had built before he was dethroned has a tremendous beauty.

The whole city is made of one single-colored stone, red stone. All the houses are similar.

No city in India has such wide roads -- wide roads, and by the side of the roads, pavements with the same red stone, covered pavements for people to walk. Nobody need walk on the road; the road is for the vehicles. People have to walk on the pavement. But on the pavement you are in shadow; you can walk in cool shade in the summer, you can walk in the rains. You don't have any need of an umbrella in Jaipur. And all the shops, for miles and miles, are just exactly the same.

The British government became worried that his capital would look better than New Delhi, better than London, better than Paris. It was not a crime; he was creating a beautiful city, he should have been helped -- but this is not the way of the world.

I was lecturing in Jaipur, and the richest man of Jaipur was Sohanlal Dugar. He was so rich, he was far richer than the king. In creating Jaipur, the king had borrowed much money from Sohanlal Dugar. Nobody knew how much money that man had, because he had no books.

He told me, "I don't have any books, so I don't pay any income tax. Nobody knows how much I have." And then I found out where his books were. He had written them in his bathroom on the walls, in a language which is no more used, old Rajasthani. It is very difficult to read, and those were short notes; you could even read them, but you would not be able to figure out what they meant. He was the only man who knew.

He had come with me to the meeting in his beautiful limousine, and he heard me for the first time. After the meeting, he had come to take me -- but before taking me to the car, he poured almost ten thousand rupees at my feet. He said, "You have to accept them!"

I said, "But I don't need them right now. You can keep them on my behalf. Whenever I need them I will inform you, `Send me the money.'"

He said, "That cannot be done -- because I am a gambler. Today I have, tomorrow I may not have."

He was one of the greatest gamblers you can conceive of. He was known as the Silver King of India. Once he purchased all the silver available in India, and raised the rates so high, and then started selling slowly from different places at a high rate. He accumulated millions and millions of rupees. And that was his strategy: to purchase anything wholesale from all over the country, and then automatically the price would go ten, twenty times higher. Then he would start releasing it very slowly in different places, so the prices don't fall.

He said, "Today I have, tomorrow I may not have, so I cannot take that responsibility.

You have to accept them right now."

Seeing that I was not interested in accepting the money, because I don't have even pockets to keep it, so where to keep it? -- just to carry ten thousand rupees in my hands?

... I don't have anything: no pockets, no wallet, no bag, just a robe without any pockets.

And I have lived without pockets, because my hands are always in other people's pockets.

Why bother? -- there are so many millions of pockets around, what is the need of having separate pockets? I believe in one humanity!

So I told him, "It will be very difficult for me. Tonight I am leaving, and ten thousand rupees will be sitting by the side of my couch in the train. Anybody can take them; I cannot just remain watching them."

He said, "Listen ..." He had tears in his eyes, and he was an old man, more than seventy.

He said, "Listen, just look at my tears. I am a poor man, because I don't have anything except money."

I have not forgotten his statement, I have not forgotten his tears. I have nothing to say to such a man who says, "I am so poor, I have nothing but money, and if you reject money you reject me. Please don't reject me. It will become a wound in me. Nobody has ever rejected me!"

So I said, "Okay. For your sake I take the money." I gave half the money to the organization that had arranged the meeting and had been arranging meetings for me for years, and the other half I gave to Jaipur's library to purchase more and more agnostic literature, which is neither theist nor atheist, but purely of those who are inquirers, seekers.

He came with me to leave me on the railway station. He said, "I am so happy that you accepted, although you gave it away -- but that is not my problem. It was your money, you have given it. You have accepted it, so I am at ease. I have never felt so happy. You have made me so blissed out, I am grateful to you. Just one promise I want ..."

I said, "You are now getting greedy!"

He said, "I am greedy, otherwise why should I collect so much money? Just one promise

..."

I said, "Let me first hear it."

He said, "No. Do you want me to cry again?"

I said, "No, I don't want that. Granted ... your wish is granted. Just tell me what is the idea behind it."

He said, "Just one thing: whenever you come to Jaipur or to Calcutta, you have to inform me, and you have to stay with me -- I live sometimes in Jaipur and for longer periods in Calcutta -- you have to be with me. When are you coming again to Jaipur?"

I said, "I will be coming after three months."

He said, "Promise that you will stay with me?"

I said, "Promised."

He said, "Great. That means at least three months I am going to live."

I said, "That is a great idea!"

"For three months no force can kill me. I have to survive three months, at least, and then I will take another promise."

And while he lived I had to stay with him in Jaipur and I had to stay with him in Calcutta.

I had to inform him continuously that I was coming here, I was coming there -- "so you be there!" And he used to come immediately from wherever he was to receive me in Calcutta or in Jaipur. And he would always give me a send-off with the words, "One promise ...? Because," he said, "I am living on your promises. I cannot die if I know that after three months you are going to be my guest."

But the way he said, "I am the poorest man in the world because I don't have anything else than money. If you reject the money, you reject me. Don't do that to an old man, the wound may be fatal" -- this is far greater than this Christian statement: "It is better to give than to receive."

I have a friend in Jabalpur, who is the richest man in that state, and the biggest manufacturer of beedies in the whole world. He used to come here, he used to come to my camps, and then he became a minister. Then he started becoming afraid of me. All politicians are afraid of me -- and I am not even going to touch them; they are untouchables to me! They are unnecessarily afraid.

But I can understand their fear. Anybody coming to me will lose his votes. The public, the crowd, is not going to support him if they see him entering the Gateless Gate. Since he became a minister he disappeared. Otherwise he used to travel with me ....

Once, traveling in an air-conditioned coach, he told me his heart, which was troubling him very much. He had been seeing me for years and he had never told me. People don't want to share their misery, they hide it. They cover their wounds, and by covering the wounds they create cancers.

But sometimes it happens, particularly in railway trains or in airplanes, people become more intimate. Strange ... even with strangers, you don't know who the person is -- the next station he will get down and perhaps you will never see him again -- and you start telling him your most secret things you have not told even your wife, not even your mistress!

He told me, "I have been suffering from one thing, and I cannot find any solution.

Perhaps you can be of some help."

I said, "Open your heart, just let me see the wound. Tell me what the problem is."

He said, "The problem is that I was born in a poor family, then I was adopted by a super-rich family because they had no son. I was a faraway relative, but seeing possibilities they adopted me, they educated me. Now they are dead, and I am the sole owner of a great empire. Because I have so much money, I have raised my old family also to be very rich, my brothers, my cousin-brothers, my friends. The people I knew I have helped as much as possible. Whatever they wanted ... they all have beautiful cars, they all have beautiful houses, they have beautiful businesses, very prosperous, because I have so much.

"But one thing is strange: they are all against me. Even if I am sick, nobody comes to see me. It hurts me very much. I have done everything in my power to help them and they have all turned their backs on me."

I said, "It is not a difficult problem. It is very simple. Have you ever received anything from them?"

He said, "No, I don't need to."

I said, "That is not the problem. By giving to them, you have insulted them. You don't understand the subtle psychology. By giving to them -- always giving, a one-way traffic -

- you have never allowed simple things. You could have asked one of your friends to whom you have given millions of rupees, Ì was passing by the side of your house and I saw such beautiful roses. Can you bring a few to me? I will be so grateful.' And immediately that man would have become your friend. He can also give something to you. He can be equal.

"When you were sick, you could have phoned anybody whom you have helped: Ì am feeling very sick and I have been remembering you so much. You must be busy, but find just five minutes to come and sit by my side. One never knows whether I will survive or not ....' That man would have come, putting everything aside, and would have felt immensely friendly towards you because you remembered him, you called him in your deepest moment of need -- only him and nobody else. He would have felt so gratified.

"But you have never done that. Just giving and giving and giving is insulting and humiliating. Your ego, your pride -- this is your unconsciousness. You thought you were doing great service to your friends and family and acquaintances, but why have they all become your enemies if the service was so great? They have seen in your eyes that you give, but you give from a very high superiority. They are all inferiors, receivers."

He said, "I never thought about it."

I said, "This is the state of the whole of humanity -- the unconscious humanity. They never understand that receiving is far greater, it needs a far greater heart than giving.

Anybody can give. For receiving you need such a consciousness that cannot be humiliated. You need such greatness of being that `Who can insult me?'"

I disagree absolutely with this good Christian teaching: "It is better to give than to receive." And I will take one by one now what they call their good principles.

I have not seen a single thing done by the religions which has been good for humanity.

One Christian monk told to a sannyasin, "Your master speaks from bitterness, not from love."

It is true -- but he is wrong.

I speak with great love for all those women, millions of women, who have been burnt alive by the popes. With great love I speak for those women -- but I cannot speak without bitterness for all these popes who have been nothing but murderers.

More people have been killed by religions than by wars. Political wars are number two; more people have been killed by religious wars, crusades, jihads. Mohammedans killing Christians, Christians killing Mohammedans, Christians killing Jews, Hindus killing Mohammedans, Mohammedans killing Hindus, Hindus killing Buddhists ... The whole history of religion is so bloody that I don't see why I should not be bitter against these criminals.

Yes, I am speaking with great love for the victims, but I cannot speak with love for the murderers in the name of God -- pious murderers, virtuous murderers. Yes, I am bitter --

because I see the crime that religions have been committing against humanity. I speak with love for humanity, but I cannot be in favor of the criminals.

My situation is simple and clear. With whoever has harmed humanity, I am bitter; and whoever has been harmed, I am full of love for him. For all those women you called witches and burned them alive, I have tremendous love. For all those people you killed because they were Mohammedans, they were Jews, I have tremendous love and respect --

but not for the criminals.

For the criminals I am a sword, and for the victims I am a lotus. I am both together. In one hand I have a sword, in the other hand I have a lotus flower. Everybody according to what he deserves.

So I say his statement is right, but he is wrong. Do you understand what I mean? The statement is right because I am speaking with love on the one hand, and on the other hand I am speaking with great bitterness for all those people who have been preventing human evolution towards buddhahood. I cannot forgive them, neither can I forget them.

And these people should look at Jesus, then they will understand me more clearly. When he overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the great temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, and started beating them and throwing them out of the temple, was it out of love or bitterness?

When he called his own mother ... She was waiting outside the crowd; she had not seen him for years because he had been traveling to the East. He had been to India, to Ladakh and Tibet. That's why where he has been for seventeen years is completely missing in the Bible. And he lived only thirty-three years; there is one instance when he was thirteen, and then the story jumps suddenly to thirty -- and he lived only thirty-three years. Where have those seventeen years disappeared to? What was he doing and where has he been?

Christianity has no answer.

His mother had not seen him for years. When she heard that he was speaking in a nearby village, she rushed there, the poor old woman, and a man in the crowd shouted to Jesus,

"Your mother is waiting outside the crowd. She wants to come close to you and to see you."

Jesus' statement has to be remembered. He said, "Tell that woman" -- he did not even use the word `mother' -- "Tell that woman there is nobody who is my mother, who is my father, on this earth. My father lives in heaven." And he did not see her, and he did not call her close. Was it love?

He talks about loving your enemies and he could not love even his own mother. And he talks about loving your neighbors, which is far more difficult than loving your enemies.

Enemies are far away, who cares -- but neighbors ... Mere talk!

People think that what he preached he practiced. That is wrong.

One day he was very hungry because a village had turned his gang out without giving them any food or even water, and they had been traveling for three days. Then they came to a fig tree, and you can see the insanity of the man -- not only anger but insanity, pure insanity: he cursed the fig tree.

"Did not you know that the only begotten son of God was coming towards you? Where are your fruits?" -- and it was not the season for the fig tree. The poor fig tree, what can she do? And he is cursing a tree, and this man talks about loving your enemies and even your neighbors! Was he not cursing out of bitterness and out of madness? Was it love?

I am a very straightforward man. I have people I cannot love, I know they are poisonous; I will be bitter against them. They are very few, but they have been exploiting and distracting humanity onto wrong paths.

I have all my love for those who have suffered, who have been oppressed, who have been exploited -- but I cannot love the priests, I cannot love the politicians, I cannot love the exploiters and the oppressors.

I am absolutely clear, and I want you also to be absolutely clear. Meditation brings such clarity that you know what is a thorn and what is a rose. Only a blind man can be mistaken, thinking of the thorn as the rose and the rose as the thorn. When you have eyes, you know what is a thorn and that it has to be avoided, and what is a rose, and that it has to be loved.

As Yakusan says: Isness is my business.

Now the sutra:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

YAKUSAN TALKED WITH MEIKEI OSHO AND LATER TOLD UNGAN: "MEIKEI WAS ONCE A GOVERNMENT SUPERINTENDENT IN HIS PAST LIFE."

UNGAN ASKED, "OSHO" -- Osho is a word of honor, of tremendous honor, of infinite honor -- "OSHO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN YOUR PAST LIVES?"

If you can see other people's past lives that you say Meikei was once a government superintendent in his past life ... I want to know, Ungan says, "When you can see other people's past lives, you must be seeing your own past lives.

"OSHO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN YOUR PAST LIVES?"

YAKUSAN REPLIED, "BEING AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF

UGLINESSES AND THOUSANDS OF CLUMSINESSES, I SOMEHOW HAVE

MANAGED TO LIVE LIVES."

So true, so truthful -- this is what comes out of meditation.

I have heard of many people in India and outside India who have remembered their past lives, but strangely enough, somebody in his past life was Alexander the Great, somebody in his past life was Ivan the Terrible, somebody in his past life was Napoleon Bonaparte. It seems in his past lives everybody has been some great historical figure, and it is strange to see that the Alexander the Great is a beggar today. One goes on evolving: from Alexander the Great you will become a greater Alexander -- but you are a beggar.

I have been going around the country for twenty years continuously and I have come across at least half a dozen cases of people who remember their past life. Somebody has been a Krishna, somebody has been a Rama. It seems everybody in his past life has been a great historical figure -- the founder of a religion.

These are all imaginations. These are all people's wishfulfillments, and people's unconscious minds are such that they can supply any idea to console you. If you are very inferior in this life, it is hurting. You are not rich, you are not beautiful, you are not a great celebrity; you are just nobody. It hurts. It starts hurting so much that the unconscious mind creates an imagination, a projection that "Don't be worried, in the past life you were Cleopatra -- the most beautiful woman ever born. You have enjoyed it, now let others enjoy. Don't suffer, just remember your past life.

"You have been Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah -- these were the people who were never defeated in their whole life. You have lived so much, now let others have little bits of victories. A football player -- you should not be jealous of a football player because thousands of people think of him as a hero. You have been Alexander the Great. Don't be bothered by Sophia Loren -- she is nothing, just a wretched woman -- you have been Cleopatra!"

This gives great consolation. One feels, "That's perfectly right. I have already enjoyed.

Other people also need some chances." It helps you to forget your inferiority.

But a man like Yakusan will not say that. He says exactly what he has seen in all his past lives: "BEING AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS OF UGLINESSES AND

THOUSANDS OF CLUMSINESSES, I SOMEHOW HAVE MANAGED TO LIVE

LIVES."

Only a master, only a man who is fully awakened can see so clearly. Nothing has to be hidden, there is no need to hide. He has reached to the highest peak of consciousness from where he can see far away, thousands of lives, very clearly. Not a single instance of any projection, of any imagination, of any wishfulfillment; just a simple, factual, actual truthfulness. Everybody is shaky.

When the Christian monks went out of the door, Narendra was watching. Two or three were Westerners, the others were Indians. The Westerners were very shaky. The Indians are converted Christians. They are not converted because they feel Christianity is a better religion than Hinduism; deep down they know Hinduism is far superior. It is because of poverty, need for more education, to be somebody in life, that they have converted to Christianity.

Narendra was puzzled: "Why are all the Indians feeling happy?" There were eighteen, they were all happy, and they told Narendra, "Thank you, and we will be coming again and again!"

The three Westerners immediately rushed to the bus and were feeling very shaky and trembling, because they are not converted Christians, they are born Christians. They think Christianity is their religion. Those eighteen converted ones know perfectly well that they were born Hindus and that Hinduism is their religion, but for economic reasons they have created this Christian personality around themselves.

When the pope came to India he had to make concessions for Indian Christians. Never had such concessions been made before ... because poor Indians, just because of poverty and starvation, had become Christians. But their whole programming is Hindu, so when they go inside the church they burn incense, they bring flowers and coconuts to the poor Jesus Christ who is hanging on the cross. You don't bring flowers; it will be very embarrassing to offer a garland and coconuts -- and they are breaking coconuts under the feet of Jesus Christ and bringing sweets, just the way they have done to the Hindu gods.

At first the pope was very much shocked that this is happening, but then he saw that most of the Christians come from the lowest strata of Hinduism and it is difficult to change their upbringing. Somebody has become a Christian at the age of fifty; now, fifty years upbringing and he cannot conceive, "Why not coconuts? -- all gods love them; why not sweets? -- all gods love them!"

You just look at the Hindu gods -- for example Ganesha, who is the most cherished god all over India, and for a strange reason. Just look at his belly! He goes on eating sweets and sweets. His belly has become so big, I don't think he can see his own legs!

Ganesha is worshipped, and every businessman begins his books when the new year starts ... the first line has to be written: "Shree Ganeshaja namah -- victory to the god Ganesha." Why? Because in the ancient scriptures, Ganesha was a very mischievous god.

He enjoyed teasing people, disturbing their ceremonies, disturbing their worship. People were afraid that if he comes, everything will be topsy turvy. The only way was to start worshipping him.

He was a rascal, but to bring the rascal down to the earth, to some gentlemanliness, they started worshipping him. His name has to be taken first in every ceremony -- in every marriage, in every festival, everywhere. First you have to remember him, otherwise he will disturb. Because of his rascaliness he has become the chief god of the Hindus -- and he loves sweets ....

He should have been born in America -- with an inbuilt fridge rather than a belly! His belly is big enough to have a fridge inside, so take the food from the inside and put it in the mouth, and it goes back into the fridge! That would have been perfectly scientific!

In the second world war, it happened ... A man was shot in his neck. His throat was cut; now he could not drink anything or eat anything. Because of the fear of poisoning spreading, the doctors had to cut the whole throat out. That door to the belly was closed.

Now they had to make a new door, so they made a hole in his belly, at the side, and fixed a plastic pump so that he had to put everything into the plastic pump, and from there it went into the belly.

But the man was very frustrated. What is the point of putting ice cream into the tube?

You don't have any taste of it. It does not matter what you are pouring into it, it doesn't have any taste. So finally the doctors had to suggest to him, "First you put the ice cream in your mouth, chew it, enjoy the taste, and then vomit it into the tube." And the poor fellow had to do that!

So I am not talking off the wall!

UNGAN LATER REPEATED THIS TO DOGO, another master, WHO COMMENTED:

"IT IS A GOOD STORY, BUT ONE QUESTION IS MISSING."

"WHAT, MAY I ASK?" INQUIRED UNGAN.

DOGO SAID, IN THE MANNER OF LITERARY, SCHOLARLY CHINESE: "HOW

DID YOU BECOME LIKE THAT?

"If you have been in all your past lives, AFRAID AND SHAKY, WITH HUNDREDS

OF UGLINESSES AND THOUSANDS OF CLUMSINESSES ... how have you become a buddha now? Where is the bridge?"

That question remains to be answered. Certainly Dogo is pointing to an immensely important fact: "If this is your whole past, how did you become a buddha?" Yakusan was a buddha, an awakened master.

"But if only this is your past, then how out of this past did you manage to blossom into a buddha?" This past has no potentiality .... Dogo asked a very pertinent question.

Ungan took the question to Yakusan. He himself had not thought about it, but Dogo had pointed out rightly that there is a missing link. "You should have asked the question: How have you become like this? Your past is absolutely contradictory. Out of this past a buddha cannot be born."

UNGAN TOOK THE QUESTION TO YAKUSAN, USING THE SAME SCHOLARLY

CHINESE.

YAKUSAN ANSWERED, "I NEVER OPEN ANY BOOKS."

He is saying, "I never tell any secrets. I NEVER OPEN ANY BOOKS. I have told you my miserable past which can be told, which can be managed in language. But the secret of how I became a buddha cannot be expressed in language. It is a closed book, it is a secret. You have to find it within yourself."

That is my link also, and that is the link of every buddha. Don't ask about it, it is a mystery. You just enter into yourself and you will find how one becomes a buddha, how a lotus flower comes out of dirty mud.

Dirty mud I could talk about, but about the beauty of the lotus I am helpless. I cannot say anything about it. I cannot open the book. You will have to face the lotus yourself and see how out of dirty mud a lotus arises -- the most beautiful flower in the whole world.

Yakusan talked only about the dirty mud. "I accept that one thing is missing, and Dogo is right, but that thing you can find only by going in. The moment you find yourself becoming a lotus flower out of the mud, you will know my secret too. But as far as I am concerned, I never open any books, any secrets, any mysteries."

In fact, nobody can do it. But he said it in a very beautiful way.

In our meditations we are trying to find the same missing link. I call it witnessing; hence my continuous emphasis on witnessing. That is the missing link. Once you are a witness, suddenly, out of the mud, the dirty mud, centuries old, a lotus flower bursts with a fragrance which is almost not of this world, but something that belongs to the beyond.

Yakusan is right. Nobody can say exactly what it is. No explanation is ever complete, only experience ...

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, YAKUSAN ASKED UNGAN, "A HORSE HAS HORNS; CAN YOU SEE THEM?"

Now, no horse has horns -- you know it. But this is the world of Zen, where strange things happen.

YAKUSAN ASKED UNGAN, "A HORSE HAS HORNS; CAN YOU SEE THEM?"

Ungan replied -- just a masterly reply -- "IF IT HAS, THERE IS NO NEED TO SEE. If you say it has horns, there is no need to say. I trust."

But Yakusan was far greater a master than Ungan:

"THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY," ADDED YAKUSAN.

UNGAN REPLIED, "IF THAT IS SO, I WILL TAKE IT."

A strange dialogue. But I would like you to know that everybody who is unconscious has horns -- horse or man, it does not matter. Your anger, your violence, your rage, your tendency to destroy -- that is what is represented by horns.

So when Yakusan said, "A HORSE HAS HORNS," he was saying that "A horse is here which is very violent, very furious, very terrible."

Ungan understood the symbol; that is why he said, "IF IT HAS, THERE IS NO NEED

TO SEE."

And in fact, nobody can see your horns, although everybody has them. You only depict horns on the head of the devil, but everybody has horns -- in his violence, in his anger, in his murderous possibilities, in his destructiveness.

Yakusan said, "THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY."

In fact, if you have a horse which is really wild, furious, violent, it is a great horse in war.

It will trample thousands of people. You have just to rush towards the army of the enemy

.... In the past, the horse was the only nuclear weapon.

So Yakusan said, "THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY."

UNGAN REPLIED, "IF THAT IS SO, I WILL TAKE IT."

This whole dialogue is not what it appears. It is a dialogue about your unconsciousness, out of which all that is violent, all that is destructive, all that is ugly, arises. Your unconscious has horns. In other words, your unconscious is the only devil; there is no other devil anywhere else.

But when Yakusan said, "THAT HORSE IS OF THE BEST QUALITY ..." Your unconsciousness has two possibilities: if it remains unconscious, it is destructive, dangerous to you and to others. But if you bring light to it, if it turns into consciousness, that is its other possibility. Then it has the best quality in the world. You become a buddha.

That's why Ungan said, "IF THAT IS SO -- that it is of the best quality -- I WILL TAKE

IT. I am ready to become a buddha."

It would have been difficult for you to enter into this dialogue. You would have thought,

"It seems to be absurd!" It is not. These people are meditative people, who have been meditating for years. They understand the symbols, they understand the deeper psychology, the parapsychology and beyond psychology, so their dialogues are not ordinary dialogues.

Even the dialogues of Socrates are ordinary; ordinary not in the sense that you will be able to understand them, but ordinary in the sense that they are only logical dialogues --

very refined logic, very sharp, and very complicated, but after all, that is the function of the mind. Socrates could not reach to the function of no-mind. He was unaware of the Eastern search.

There were contemporaries of Socrates who had reached the East, like Pythagoras.

Pythagoras became a buddha. Socrates had every possibility, but he remained confined in the mind. He went on sharpening the sword of logic. He cuts very fine arguments, he is very convincing, but as far as awakening is concerned, he is as fast asleep as anyone else.

His contemporary, Pythagoras, moved from Athens to Alexandria, and from Alexandria to India. It was the time when Buddha was alive, when Mahavira was alive, when six other great thinkers of the same quality as Gautam Buddha were alive, all in the small state of Bihar. And Pythagoras traveled to Bihar, met all the great enlightened people.

He was young, but he reached to India at the right time, just as you have reached to India at the right time.

Ekon wrote:

WHO SHALL HALT THE SWAN

IN ITS FLIGHT?

OR LIFE IN ITS FLOW?

I have been telling you: everything is moving so fast -- and there is nobody who is capable of preventing a swan in its flight.

The great swans live deep in the Himalayas, in the highest lake in the world, Mansarovar.

Mansarovar remains frozen for nine months of the year, you can drive a car on it. It is a lake miles and miles long, but the snow becomes hard as stone.

The swans leave -- they have to leave because there is no water to drink, no fish to eat, they cannot penetrate the thick layer of hard snow -- and three thousand miles they fly over the Himalayas and come to small lakes, rivers, around North India. It is a very mysterious phenomenon.

In those nine months ... nature has such balance, such harmony, that those nine months are the months for their mating also. So they mate and they lay the eggs, but before the eggs open and their children come out, nine months are over. Now Mansarovar will be melting. They fly again, leaving the eggs in the plains of North India, a three-thousand-mile flight -- thousands and thousands of swans disappearing into the Himalayas.

The miracle is, when the parents are gone, then the eggs open and those small swans immediately start moving towards Mansarovar. They don't have any map, no guide, no parents to tell them which is exactly the same route the parents have taken for millions of years. Every year the miracle happens: those small swans start flying three thousand miles high above the Himalayan peaks where the snow has never melted since eternity, and they take the same route and they reach to the same Mansarovar lake.

And people think nature has no intelligence!

Nature has tremendous wisdom, just we have forgotten to listen to it. The only way for you to listen to nature is by going deeper into yourself, because there are roots which are spread into existence. Those roots still understand the language of existence.

Far away from the roots, you are hung up in the head. You don't know anything about the wisdom of existence. That's why you ask questions which are not needed at all. You need only one thing: to find a connecting link with existence, and all questions disappear.

My new symbol is going to be a flying swan.

WHO SHALL HALT THE SWAN IN ITS FLIGHT OR LIFE IN ITS FLOW? -- but people try hard.

Just look at women ...! They halt again and again, although life goes on, it does not listen.

A sixteen-year-old woman will take almost three years to become seventeen, and as the age grows the gap becomes bigger. Never ask a woman her age. Always tell a woman,

"You look very young!"

Even if the woman has one foot in the grave and another foot in the church, still you have to say, "You look so young, so fresh, so radiant" -- and even an old, dying woman will have a blush of youth on her face! Sometimes I think perhaps even a dead woman, if persuaded rightly, will start blushing -- I just think, I have not tried! -- but there is every possibility of it being true.

At the age of thirty-six -- that is the finding of the psychologists -- women stop, because now this is very dangerous. To go beyond thirty-six ... it will take almost four years to become thirty-seven! Now things are dangerous ahead. A woman becomes forty with great difficulty, great reluctance, because the dangerous time is coming when people will start telling her, "You look much younger!"

Nobody tells that to a young woman, there is no point. A young woman is young.

Whenever somebody tells you, "You are looking very young," take it for granted --

Avirbhava! -- that you have gone beyond; people are being very nice to you. People try ...

but nobody succeeds.

One has to become old, and when you are becoming old reluctantly, old age becomes ugly. When you are becoming old joyously, old age has a beauty of its own, a grandeur of its own, a ripeness, a maturity, a centering. Young people have nothing compared to the experienced, who have lived life and who know it is all just a game.

The moment a person comes to the point where the whole life is just a game, his old age is so beautiful, so graceful; no young person can be compared to it. His white hairs will look like white snow -- just on the highest peak of the mountains. He will die with joy.

He has lived his life, now he is entering into a new phase -- death. He will not be reluctant.

If he was not reluctant for old age, he will not be reluctant for death. If he accepted old age joyously, he will accept death also dancingly. He will go with death dancing.

If a man can go joyously with death, there is no death for him, he enters into eternal life.

Then there is no birth, no death. He has gone beyond the circle of birth and death.

Question 2

Maneesha's question:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

ARE THERE CERTAIN CONDITIONINGS -- SUCH AS GUILT, FEAR, JEALOUSY -

- THAT ARE NOT PECULIAR TO CHRISTIANITY ALONE BUT HAVE BEEN

ENDORSED BY ALL RELIGIONS, IN ALL CULTURES SINCE TIME

IMMEMORIAL?

Maneesha, no religion can exist without guilt. It is an absolute necessity for a religion that people should feel guilty.

No religion can exist without creating fear in people -- fear of hell, fear of punishment, fear of eternal fire.

No religion can gather masses and exploit them without guilt and fear.

A guilty person feels somehow to find a savior. He has committed sin, and all religions create as many sins as possible. In fact, everything that makes you happy is a sin.

Everything that makes you a long-faced Englishman is virtue.

Guilt is needed absolutely -- but how to create guilt? First you have to indicate to people that all these things are sin. If you commit these things, you will be guilty and you will suffer immensely for it -- eternal hellfire. So guilt creates the fear that, "My God, I have loved a woman!" -- and all the religions say the woman is the gate to hell.

I have always been wondering: If the woman is the gate to hell, then no woman can go into hell; she is the gate, and gates don't move, gates don't walk. Only man can go into hell, the woman remains outside hell. She may not enter into heaven, but outside hell -- I think this is a perfectly good position! Allow as many men to go into hell, the poor creatures, and you need not be afraid: you are the gate!

Don't love a woman, otherwise you are finished. Don't dance, and don't sing, and don't look happy. Look miserable. The more miserable you look, the more religious you are.

And miserable people are created by the same strategy: they cannot commit the sin and they have every desire to commit it. So everything is propelling them to commit the sin and they cannot, because hell is there. This creates such a dilemma that half of them are ready to commit, and half of them are escaping -- so they are stuck. They cannot move towards sin, they cannot move towards paradise. In this stuck stage, they feel utterly miserable.

These miserable people gather into churches, into temples, into mosques for the priest to guide them, to help them. If they have committed some sin, that makes them guilty and miserable: "I have committed ..."

Religions relish and get nourished on your guilt, on your sins. Christianity has made them more emphatically clear than other religions, but other religions also have the same strategy.

Jealousy is created by religion's continuous emphasis on monogamy, and monogamy means -- not in the dictionaries, but in life -- monotony. Nobody wants to live in a monotonous life. Marriage is a great strategy. Married couples are the most miserable people in the world and religions insist, "No divorce, divorce is a sin!" In this way prostitutes are created. This is the by-product of religion.

These are the good things that religions have done. First, create monotony -- that is, marriage -- then prostitutes are bound to come, because man is a polygamous animal.

You cannot change his nature, it is an inbuilt process.

So is woman polygamous, but it does not appear to be so. The reason for it is that the woman has been deprived of education, of economic freedom, of movement into society.

So, rather than being polygamous, her security is in remaining monogamous -- although she suffers as much as the man, or perhaps more, because man has created prostitutes.

You will be surprised to know that in India there were pious prostitutes called devadasis.

They still exist in South India -- beautiful girls, and the parents would dedicate those girls to the temple. They become servants of God. Actually they are prostitutes for the priests, first; second, they are prostitutes for the rich people who can pay the priests. Every great temple has hundreds of devadasis, even today, in the name of religion.

And why do parents, knowing perfectly well, go on giving their beautiful girls? -- only beautiful girls are chosen by the priests, by the saints -- because, in India particularly, to have a daughter is to have a catastrophe. To get her married you may have to sell your house, your business, your land, everything. You have to give so much money, because the parents of the boy to whom you are marrying your daughter ask for money. They have brought the boy up for twenty-five years, then he became a professor. For those twenty-five years you have to pay, because now he will not be any more with the parents, he will belong to the wife. There is some logic in it.

So even though the constitution prohibits it, it continues in indirect ways. A car is needed, a house is needed, and where will they live? And if you cannot give, then keep your daughter. And Indians are very much afraid: if the daughter goes on becoming older, the less are her chances for marriage. Because every man wants a woman in every way inferior, she should be smaller in height than the man, she should not be so educated as the man, she should not be as strong as the man. This is the masochist, male chauvinist society. So man has to find prostitutes, just once in a while, to get out of the monotony.

Religions create great things -- marriage, prostitutes, devadasis. Now the women's liberation movement has started creating male prostitutes in Europe, and particularly in London. Now in London you can find male prostitutes. This is a new phenomenon. Now women can also have a holiday from the husband!

And if you cannot go to the prostitutes because it is so unrespectable -- a red-light district

... You cannot even pass by there. You may not be going to the prostitutes, you may be just passing by the street, but you cannot enter in case somebody sees. So there are freelance prostitutes, without any licence; they are called call girls. You don't have to go anywhere. In every hotel, in every room, there is a Bible. Open the Bible, and on the first page you will find, "Look on page ninety." You open page ninety and you find the address and phone number of Gorgeous Gloria! Just give a call and she will come to your room number directly -- no question of being disrespected, dishonorable.

So judges, politicians, the super-rich, they stay in five-star hotels, and every Bible has the address -- just give a call. Perhaps now in London they will have also the address for male prostitutes -- call boys!

These are all the great things that religion has done. And because of marriage, jealousy arises. These are all linked with one another. When you feel unhappy with your wife you start looking around in the neighborhood, and the wife is constantly watching where your eyes are moving, why you are always sitting by the fence reading the newspaper. That newspaper is just to prevent the wife so she cannot see your face, where you are looking -

- making signs, smiling. The newspaper is a great help.

And wives are very angry. They snatch the newspaper immediately. I was wondering why wives are so much against newspapers, but by and by I found out the reason. Now jealousy arises. The man is frustrated, his wife is frustrated, you are also frustrated, and your wife also is frustrated. All these frustrated people -- created by religion -- and then they are jealous!

The wife is afraid. She is uneducated, has no financial position and has children. All the money is in the hands of the husband; she is just a commodity. Because you have reduced the woman into a commodity she is constantly watching where you are going, what you are doing. She is looking into your pockets, she is even watching when you are sleeping.

I have heard: a woman was watching the husband while he was sleeping. Now, in sleep he cannot go anywhere -- but in his sleep he was talking to some woman: "Maria!

Sweetheart, sugar pie!"

The woman immediately shook the husband and asked, "Who is this Maria?"

Husbands have also become clever .... He said, "Maria? It is a horse. I am thinking to bet on the coming horse race, and Maria seems to be the right horse!"

The wife said, "Okay."

In the morning Maria phoned. The wife immediately took the phone -- she never allows the husband to take the phone -- and she told the husband, "The horse is calling!"

Unless marriage disappears from the world, jealousy cannot disappear.

But religion is very insistent on marriage. It is not worried about the suffering of millions of people unnecessarily. People are driving each other mad with their jealousy, with their new girlfriends. And men are also jealous, it is not that only women are jealous.

Men are jealous because they want their wives to be absolutely dedicated to them. They know they are not dedicated, but they are men -- boys are boys; all this dedication and surrender is for the woman. Boys are boys and will remain always boys.

But I say to you: girls are girls!

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

Harry Manners, a very proper British gentleman, is in the habit of taking his wife, Mabel, on holiday to France every year.

This year they are staying, as usual, in their little seaside cottage, when Mabel becomes suddenly ill and dies.

Harry is very upset but manages to keep the British "stiff upper lip" and decides to have Mabel's funeral there, in the French village.

Monsieur Felix, the mayor, lends Harry a black suit for the funeral, but being British, Harry feels it would not be proper to go without a black hat. He feels that his wife, Mabel, would expect it of him.

So Harry goes into town to the local men's shop and tries in his best French to ask the salesman for a black hat.

"Have you a capot noir?" asks Harry.

The salesman thinks Harry is mad, because in French, capot means condom. So he points to the pharmacy across the road, and sends Harry there.

"Have you a capot noir?" asks Harry, wondering why the French keep black hats in a pharmacy.

"Monsieur," replies Madame Fifi, from behind the counter, "we have pink ones, blue ones, green ones and ones with feathers -- but no black ones."

"That is too bad," thinks Harry to himself, wondering how he is going to get a black hat.

"But, monsieur," asks Madame Fifi, "may I ask you why you want a black one?"

"Oui! Oui!" replies Harry, hopefully. "It is for my wife; you see, she is dead!"

"Ah!" gasps Madame Fifi, with admiration, "you British -- so cultured!"

Jack and Jill Jerk are sitting in their living room one evening, talking about the future of their young son, George.

"Gee, Jack," says Jill, "I wonder what little George will grow up to be."

"I know how we can find out," says Jack. "Watch this." And Jack pulls a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, setting it on the table. "If he takes this money," says Jack smiling, "then he will grow up to be a banker."

Then Jack takes a dusty old Bible off the bookshelf and sets it on the table next to the money.

"Now," says Jack excitedly, "if he takes the Bible, for sure he will grow up to be a great TV evangelist like Jimmy Bakker!"

Next, Jack pulls out a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and sets it on the table alongside the other items.

"And," says Jack seriously, "if he goes for this whiskey bottle, then he will just turn out to be a bum!"

Quietly, Jack and Jill Jerk go and hide in the next room when they hear little George coming in. George is whistling happily when he suddenly sees all the articles sitting on the table. He looks around to make sure that he is alone, and then he walks over and picks up the ten-dollar bill. He holds it up to the light and fingers it gently. Then he puts it down, and picks up the Bible. He blows the dust off and thumbs through a few pages, and puts it back down.

Little George looks around again, then he quickly uncorks the whiskey bottle and sniffs the contents.

Suddenly, in one motion, he stuffs the money in his pocket, sticks the Bible under his arm, grabs the whiskey bottle by the neck and walks out of the room, whistling.

"My goodness," says Mrs. Jerk, "what does that mean he will grow up to be?"

"Ah!" cries her husband, "it means he is going to be a politician!"

Justice Dung is the presiding judge in a case where Paddy is called as a witness. The judge is asking Paddy some questions.

"Did you see the defense witness fall over in the street?" asks Justice Dung.

"Who, me?" asks Paddy.

"Yes, you," replies the judge.

"No, not me," says Paddy.

"Did you see the witness at all?" asks Justice Dung.

"Who, me?" asks Paddy.

"Yes, you!" replies the judge.

"No, not me," says Paddy.

"Then why are you here?" asks the judge.

"Who, me?" asks Paddy.

"Yes, you!" replies the judge.

"To see justice done," says Paddy.

"Who, me?" asks Justice Dung.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your bodies to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment you can enter in. Look inwards. Gather all your life energy and your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment on the earth ...

Faster and faster ...

Deeper and deeper ...

As you come closer to your center, a great silence surrounds you, and flowers of blissfulness start showering like rain. The moment you reach to the center you have found your original face.

The East has called the original face the buddha, the awakened one. The buddha has only one quality -- witnessing.

Witness that you are not the body.

Witness that you are not the mind.

Witness that you are not the seven subtle bodies behind the body, layer upon layer.

Witness that you are only a witness, and nothing else -- a pure consciousness.

Suddenly, out of the dirty mud the lotus starts growing -- a sunrise, and the lotus opens its petals, and on its petals you can see beautiful dewdrops shining in the morning sun with such glory, such splendor, that even pearls will feel jealous.

At this moment you are the most blessed people on the earth. The whole world is looking for mundane things -- for very ordinary, mediocre, outward commodities: money, power, prestige.

All these will be left when you die.

Only witnessing will go with you.

Just like wings ... your consciousness will fly into eternity. You will be a swan going to its home, disappearing into the blue sky, into the ultimate cosmos.

We have called the awakened ones by another name also: paramahansa, the great swan, who flies alone into the unknown and disappears into the cosmos, becomes one with the cosmos -- not a part but the whole.

To make it more clear, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ... but go on witnessing.

Go on remaining the buddha.

Such great ecstasy, such deep divine drunkenness, and your consciousness is melting.

Gautama the Buddha Auditorium is turning into an ocean of consciousness without any ripples.

Collect as many flowers of the beyond as possible, as many fragrances of the lotus that is growing at the center of your being, and on the lotus the buddha is sitting.

Persuade the buddha to come along with you. He is your very nature.

This is the first step into religiousness -- to bring the buddha so close that you disappear and only buddha remains.

Then the second step is very easy, no guidance is needed. You can take the quantum leap from buddha into the cosmos -- either now or at the time of your death.

But bring him closer and closer, inch by inch. Every day he is coming closer. Soon you will find him just like a shadow always following you, first. Second, you will become the shadow following him.

I am so tremendously happy seeing your sincerity, seeing your earnestness, seeing your total inquiry into your own nature. This is the ultimate science.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ...

But come back as a buddha, with all the flowers and the fragrances, with all the grace and the beautitude, with all the poetry and all the songs.

Just sit down for a few moments to recollect where you have been, what path you have followed, what has been happening at the center of your being. The center of your being is the very door to existence.

It is not only Yakusan who says, "Isness is my business"; I also say to you, "Isness is also my business."

Isness simply means to be here and now.

Be here and now, and you are the buddha.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #4

Chapter title: This you call civilization?

25 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901255

ShortTitle:

CHRIST04

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

149

mins

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 ùseless 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!

Question 1

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!

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Keep your eyes closed.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to enter in.

Gather your whole life force. Collect your total consciousness, with an immense urgency as if this moment is going to be your last moment, then rush towards the center as fast as possible.

As you go deeper a great silence descends over you. A little deeper and fountains of peace start bringing your whole inner space to a coolness you have never known before.

Deeper still, and you will see for the first time your real nature -- the buddha, the awakened one -- and around the awakened one, all is ecstasy, all is joy, all is blissfulness.

Just remember one thing, just the one thing that is the only quality of the buddha --

witnessing.

Witness that you are not the body.

Witness that you are not the mind.

Witness that you are not the other subtle bodies, layer upon layer. You are only a witness, nothing else.

The moment you are simply a witness, you are a buddha.

This buddha has been hiding deep within you for millions of lives. He has to be brought out. He has to change your whole life. He has to bring his grace to your gestures, beauty to your eyes, agelessness to your being, to your feeling. But first make sure that you are simply a witness.

Being simply a witness you are at the highest peak of consciousness, and when you are at the highest peak of consciousness, from there you can look at the deepest depth of your being -- the very abysmal depth. You have moved from a horizontal into a vertical being.

To me the vertical being is the superman, the new man which is going to come into the world if the world is to survive. The horizontal man is going out of date; it has lived long enough. Now comes the age -- the new age -- for the vertical man to appear on the horizon.

I want my people to be the first vertical people -- the highest and deepest together.

To make your witnessing more clear, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ... Let go ... But only remember you are a witness.

Slowly slowly, by and by, your consciousness starts melting like ice into the ocean.

I can see around me ten thousand buddhas melting into an ocean. Gautama the Buddha Auditorium has become an ocean without any ripples -- such peace, such silence, such isness transforms you.

Only this isness creates wisdom in you.

Wisdom is a shadow of meditation. In fact, all so-called virtues, without meditation, are fake. With meditation, authentic virtues start arising all over your inner space.

You have to face a tremendous revolution.

You become a garden, and all kinds of flowers, strange unworldly fragrances, fill your inner space. To me, to know this space is to know godliness. I call godliness, the buddha.

Now, before Nivedano calls you back, collect as much experience of the center, as much juice ... drink of it. Collect all the wildflowers of the beyond. You have to bring them back. They have to become slowly slowly your blood, your bones, your very marrow.

And persuade the buddha. He is coming every day, inch by inch, closer to you. It is your nature. He has to come to the surface just like a lotus flower comes from the dirty mud, rises above the mud, above the water, and opens its petals to a new sunrise.

You are all facing a great dawn, very close. You are the most blessed people at this moment on the earth. The whole of humanity is entangled with trivia, useless furniture.

To me, according to my experience, this is the only religiousness there is.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ... But come back with the joy, with the silence, with the serenity. Sit down for a few moments just to recollect the golden path you have traveled -- and look just behind you: the buddha has come closer to you.

First he will be a shadow behind you, and then you will be a shadow behind him. That will be the greatest blissful day in your life.

Yakusan says, "Isness is my business."

That is my business also. That has been the business of all the buddhas -- a single business, bringing people to isness, to here and now, and the doors are flung open to all the mysteries and all the miracles of existence.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #5

Chapter title: Turning lions into sheep

26 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901265

ShortTitle:

CHRIST05

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

200

mins

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

ON A RAINY DAY, MONK GAO VISITED YAKUSAN, WHO COMMENTED,

"TODAY IT'S QUITE HUMID."

"I WILL BEAT THIS DRUM," SAID GAO.

UNGAN SAID, "THERE IS NO LEATHER -- WHAT DRUM DO YOU BEAT?"

DOGO ADDED, "THERE IS NO DRUM -- WHAT LEATHER DO YOU BEAT?"

AND YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "TODAY, THE MELODY IS VERY GOOD."

ONCE, AT THE MEALTIME, YAKUSAN HIMSELF BEAT THE DRUM, AND

MONK GAO ENTERED THE HALL, DANCING. YAKUSAN DROPPED THE

DRUMSTICK AND ASKED, "WHICH PIECE IS THAT?"

"THIS IS THE SECOND PIECE," SAID GAO.

YAKUSAN ASKED, "WHAT IS THE FIRST PIECE?"

GAO TOOK THE SEAT, HELPED HIMSELF TO SOME RICE, TOOK THE BOWL

OF RICE WITH HIM AND LEFT.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK CAME TO YAKUSAN FOR GUIDANCE.

"WHO ARE YOU?" YAKUSAN ASKED HIM.

"JOTAN," REPLIED THE MONK.

YAKUSAN SHOUTED, "LAST TIME IT WAS JOTAN AND THIS TIME, TOO, IT IS

JOTAN!"

Friends,

First I have to answer the Christian monks who have sent many questions. Only twenty-one have come here, but now the whole seminary is agog and talking only about what I have said.

Question 1

They have sent a monk here today asking for the video; the whole seminary wants to see it. I am sending it with Prasad, and he has to inform them that this is only the beginning. I have been speaking continually since then, answering their questions. If they have any more questions, he should collect them. He should not enter into any dialogue, he should only collect the questions. I am going to answer them.

The first question today is: THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH DEFENDS TRUTH, HONESTY, AND LOYALTY ....

In the first place, does the Christian church know the truth? It believes in a fictitious God, it believes in a fictitious devil, it believes in heaven and hell, and it has no evidence for them. What truth does it guard?

It has, in fact, no way to reach to the truth. Prayer is not the way, because prayer is based on belief in a God. You have already accepted a belief. A belief is not a truth. You have not to believe in a truth; truth overwhelms you. You become it! It is not a question of faith or belief, it is a question of deepest inquiry into your own being, into your own consciousness. It is an inward journey.

Christianity still hangs around the objective world. Its God is an object outside, its heaven is outside, its hell is outside. The prayer is for an outside God; it has not yet learned that there is an inner space in human beings, and unless you touch the very center of your consciousness, you don't have the truth.

What are you guarding? -- all kinds of lies!

Virgin birth -- is it a truth?

Only amoebas have immaculate conception. Except amoebas, nobody can have a virgin birth. Amoebas are very strange people, celibate. In fact they don't have any sex; nobody is male, nobody is female. You will be surprised: how do they go on multiplying?

Their process is very simple. They go on eating, and there comes a time when they become fat in the American way. There is a limit beyond which they cannot go on eating.

They divide themselves in two. One amoeba becomes, at a certain stage, two amoebas.

They are immortal unless they are killed. Then two amoebas go on eating more and more, and soon there will be four amoebas. This is the only animal in existence which has no sexuality.

Why this insistence on immaculate conception? -- just to make Jesus a very special human being, far above, beyond the ordinary mankind.

I have heard ... A psychoanalyst was dealing with a young girl. Her mother had brought the girl to him. The girl was pregnant, she was almost ready to give birth. Nine months were over, and it was so apparent, but the girl denied absolutely that she was pregnant.

She said she had not even touched any man, she had not been in company with any man; how can she be pregnant?

The psychoanalyst tried in every way to persuade her to tell the truth, but she simply denied it: "How can I be pregnant? I have no relationship with anybody -- and particularly a sexual relationship."

Finally the psychoanalyst got very irritated. He went to the window, opened the window, and stood there looking far away towards the horizon. It had not been more than five minutes, but it felt as if years had passed. The mother and daughter both could not believe it: what is he doing there?

Finally the mother asked, "What are you thinking? What are you doing standing there facing towards the horizon?"

He said, "I am watching for the three wise men from the East! -- because this is the second case of immaculate conception. But I don't see any camels carrying the three wise men from the East, I don't see any star moving towards this place where this pregnant girl is saying that she is a virgin."

To make it a little bit rational, Christians have gone into an absurdity which they don't understand. Because they could not prove how a woman without sexual contact with a man could become pregnant, they brought in the idea that she became pregnant by the Holy Ghost.

Then it is no more an immaculate conception, and the Holy Ghost is no more holy. He is the most unholy ghost in the whole world, making a poor girl pregnant. And the absurdity does not end here, it goes on further. Asked, "Who is the Holy Ghost?" they say, "It is part of God."

Which part? -- the hand? the head? By hand you may tickle her, but you cannot make a woman pregnant; neither can you do the job with your head. It is absolutely obvious which part the Holy Ghost is: God's sexual machinery! ... And not an ordinary sexual machinery, but portable. God remains where he is in the heavens, and the portable machinery comes and makes poor Mary pregnant!

These are the truths you are guarding? Then what can be a bigger lie?

Christianity doesn't have any approach towards truth, because truth is intrinsic in your consciousness, beyond your mind. It is not a thought. It is not a question of philosophy, nor a question of theological discussions. It is a question of deep meditation that leads you beyond thinking, beyond mind, and you become simply a witness, a pure witness.

That witness is divine because it is eternal. It is the ultimate in intelligence, it is the greatest clarity of vision. It takes you away from all dualities. Even the true and the false are a duality, just as birth and death are a duality, just as light and dark are a duality.

Passing beyond the mind, you have passed beyond duality.

Mind functions by dividing everything into polar opposites; that is the functioning of the mind. The no-mind functions totally differently, by bringing both contradictions closer and merging them into one. No-mind knows only one existence, in which everything is dissolved. You are no more you, I am no more I. This immersion into existence is the ultimate truth.

But it is not God, it is divine. It is godliness. That's why there are religions like Buddhism, Jainism, who don't believe in any God, but they believe in godliness. That is a totally different concept.

God is a person; godliness is a quality. You cannot become God, but you can be godly.

H.G. Wells has written in his world history that Gautam Buddha was "the most godless man and yet the most godly."

What truth is Christianity defending? First you have to have the truth, then you can defend it.

And defending against whom? Your God is false, your devil is false. Once you know the truth, truth defends you, not that you defend the truth.

Truth is far bigger than you, it is infinite, it is eternal. You are just a dewdrop, and it is a vast ocean without any boundaries. The dewdrop is defending the ocean -- do you see the nonsense intrinsic in the concept?

The ocean can protect the dewdrop, just the dewdrop has to slip from the lotus leaf and melt into the vast ocean. Religiousness is an oceanic feeling, an oceanic experience. The whole cosmos is one, and the whole cosmos has immense intelligence, multidimensional.

But Christianity is stuck with prayer. Any religion that is stuck with prayer is not a religion in fact. Only meditation makes the door open to religiousness, to godliness.

Prayer is moving again outwards, looking upwards beyond the clouds. The more you pray, the further away you are from truth.

Meditation is not a prayer, it is utter silence. Prayer is gibberish. To whom are you talking? -- it is insanity, there is no God.

I have heard that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel for years on end. Now he was painting the roof inside the chapel on a long ladder.

He used to lie down and paint, and one day an old woman came to pray. She was not aware of Michelangelo on the ladder far away, and she was too old; perhaps she could not see that far either. But she was praying to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Michelangelo was bored with the work, and just wanted to have a little break. She was praying again and again, so he boomed like God from far away on the top of the ladder,

"I am here! I am Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God! You tell me and I will tell my mother and my father: What do you want?"

The woman was a very fanatical Christian. She looked up, but she could not see because she was almost blind. She said, "You shut up! I am talking to your mother!"

Michelangelo writes in his diary, "I could not have believed that this could happen!" --

and the woman continued her praying.

To whom are you praying? To whom is it addressed?

Meditation is not addressed to anyone; it is a pure inquiry, an exploration of your ultimate depth and of your ultimate height. The moment you know your ultimate height and your ultimate depth, you know the very secret of existence. That secret is not a person, that secret is enlightenment. That secret makes you a buddha, a godly man.

Buddha can say anything about truth, but not Jesus. Jesus lived in hallucinations himself.

To the modern, contemporary psychiatrist or psychoanalyst, he will look like a lunatic.

He was.

His disillusionment came at a very late stage. When he was crucified he was still faithful, was still believing that his father, God, was going to come on a white cloud and save him.

But no white cloud came, and nobody came to save him. Finally, in despair and frustration he shouted at the sky -- again at the sky -- "Why have you forsaken me?"

This is the end result of believing, of having faith in a truth that you have not realized yourself. It is hearsay. You have heard other people saying that there is a God, but have you met anyone who has seen God?

What truth are they defending? and against whom?

Truth is self-evident. It needs no defense, it is our ultimate being. Neither a sword can destroy it nor nuclear weapons, nor fire can burn it, nor death can touch it. There is no question of defending the truth.

The question is knowing the truth.

The moment you know the truth you are no more. The dewdrop has slipped from the lotus leaf into the ocean. Now only the truth is. And all around, everywhere, from the smallest leaf of grass to the greatest star far away, millions of light-years away, it is the same one existence, one cosmos of tremendous intelligence.

You disappear. You are no more a Christian, you are no more a Hindu, you are no more a Mohammedan. You are not, truth is.

Meditation brings you to this space, where you are not and truth is. Prayer is a fallacy, it is a consolation, it is hallucination.

And the second thing they say ..."honesty."

All Christian values are imposed from the outside. It is a programming of the mind, which is a biocomputer. From the very childhood you start telling the child, "Be honest, be truthful, be this, be that ...." Continuously, from the church, from the school, from the family, from the neighborhood, he is being programmed.

All religions have been doing this programming for centuries. They are not allowing the person to know the truth. They are not allowing the person to be really honest, they are forcing values from outside.

When you force a value from outside it remains only skindeep. Just scratch the skin and all honesty disappears, and the barbarious, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, comes out.

Jesus says that if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other cheek too ....

A Christian monk was wandering and teaching in different villages. In every sermon he would quote Jesus, "If somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other cheek too."

Ordinarily people think it is a great commandment. It is not -- but I will discuss it just a little later.

What happened to the monk? In one village there was a wrestler, an agnostic -- he did not believe, he did not disbelieve, he was an inquirer. And when the monk said his familiar quotation, "If someone slaps you on one cheek, give him the other too," the wrestler stood up and said, "Wait!"

He came forward and he slapped the monk really hard on one cheek. The monk almost got dizzy, he had never expected such a response, but he remembered even in his dizziness that he had to give the other cheek. So he gave the other cheek, hoping that the man would not hit it.

But that wrestler was not a believer, he was an inquirer. He was inquiring, "What happens then?" So he hit even harder on the other cheek.

And what happened? The skindeep morality dropped. The monk jumped on the wrestler.

Although the wrestler was a very heavy and strong man ... in his rage, in his anger, even the weaker man can be ferocious. He started hitting the wrestler.

The wrestler said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Jesus has said only up to the second cheek, and I don't have a third cheek! Now I am free from Jesus, and I will show you what I mean!"

The wrestler said, "Where has your great statement gone?"

The monk said, "It was only true about the second cheek. Now you have the third and the fourth. From the second, one has to move to the third; it is simple arithmetic!"

I appreciate Friedrich Nietzsche more on this point than Jesus Christ. Perhaps in the whole of history, only Friedrich Nietzsche has got the point. He says, "When somebody hits you on one cheek and you give him the other cheek you are insulting him. You are saying Ì am holier-than-thou. You are just an ordinary human being; I am a superman, I am divine. You hit me, but I will still love you and give you the other cheek.'"

Friedrich Nietzsche's argument is that this is humiliating the other person. It is a very pious way of insulting the other person, forcing him to be subhuman, and raising your ego to a superhuman level.

Nietzsche's advice is: when somebody hits you on one cheek, it is your duty to hit the other cheek of the person who has hit you. That makes you equal; that does not insult the other person. That is not a humiliation, you are not reducing him into a subhuman being.

You are respecting him man-to-man.

But Jesus was pretending that he was not an ordinary man; he was the only begotten son of God -- and he was calling the whole of humanity just a crowd of sheep.

You may not have gone deep into the logic, but it is absolutely clear that he was an arch-egoist. He did not talk man-to-man; he was talking from a high, very high space, and you were just creatures crawling on the earth. You were sheep, and he was your shepherd.

All values imposed from outside never get to your center. The only authentic values are those which come from your center and spread outwards, not vice versa. That's exactly the meaning of education: drawing the water out from the well.

Education means drawing your inner being into expression in your living, your day-today life. Your honesty, your love, your compassion, should come from your inner being, not from teachings and scriptures, not from rabbis and bishops and shankaracharyas and Ayatollah Khomeini.

Who are these people? Pretenders, hypocrites.

And as far as honesty is concerned ... Because of thousands of years of conditioning, you have never thought what it means. It means not to live moment to moment. What was honest yesterday may not be honest today. What is honest today may not be honest tomorrow. Life is a flux.

The real honesty is not towards the society, towards the church, towards God -- no. The real honesty is a responsibility to the present moment. It needs tremendous awareness.

You have to be honest to the present moment, not to the past, not to the future. And the present moment is changing ....

A truly honest person will go on changing with every moment. He will keep in tune with existence -- that is what I call honesty -- he will not lag behind. He will be always harmonious and in deep synchronicity with existence. If existence is moving and changing like a river, he will be moving and changing like a river.

But Christian honesty does not mean responsibility. I want to break that word in two: response and ability.

Christianity has also responsibility as one of its pillars, but their meaning of responsibility is duty: responsibility to your parents, responsibility to your friends, responsibility to your neighbors, responsibility to the church, responsibility to God, responsibility to everybody. But their meaning is `duty'.

To me, responsibility is not one word, it is two words, response ability, and only a man of deep awareness has the quality. He can respond to everything, but his response is not a reaction, his response is not out of his conditioning. His response comes from his very being.

One day a man asked Gautam Buddha in the morning, just as the sun was rising, "Is there a God?"

Buddha said, "No, there is no God."

In the afternoon another man asked, "What do you think about God? Is there a God or not?"

Buddha said, "Yes, there is a God -- not as a person, but as a quality."

By the evening a third person came and asked Buddha, "I don't know anything, I am utterly ignorant. Will you please help me to inquire into the truth of existence, or, in other words, into the reality of God? I don't know anything."

Buddha did not answer. He simply closed his eyes, sat in a lotus posture. There was utter silence under the tree where he was sitting. The man also sat. He thought, "Perhaps he is showing the way -- sit in the lotus posture." So he sat in the lotus posture, he closed his eyes, and the silence deepened.

There was also a third man present, Ananda, who was Gautam Buddha's constant companion his whole life, who took care of his food, his clothes, his shelter. He was also present while all these three answers were given. He was in deep confusion. To one man Buddha says that no, there is no God; to another man Buddha says yes; and to the third he does not speak at all. That silence went on deepening, and it lasted almost one hour.

Finally Buddha opened his eyes, and what was strange for Ananda -- the moment Buddha opened his eyes, the other man also opened his eyes. They looked into each other's eyes, and the other man touched Buddha's feet and he said, "I am so grateful for your teaching." And Buddha had not spoken a single word.

When the man was gone, Ananda was furious. He said, "You are creating confusion in me! You have no consideration for me! I have been continuously with you since the morning, and to one man you said no, to another you said yes, and to the third you didn't say anything. That guy simply followed you, sat in the lotus posture, closed his eyes --

and the most mysterious thing was that when you opened your eyes, he opened his eyes immediately. Nothing was said. You looked into each other's eyes, and the man was so grateful for your teaching -- and you had not spoken a single word!

"The man touched your feet and he said, `Whatever I was seeking, I have found. My search is finished, I have come home.' Now please explain it to me before you go to sleep."

Buddha said, "Those questions were not yours, you need not be worried. I have not answered you, neither have you asked."

Ananda said, "That's right -- but I have ears, I can hear! I am following you like a shadow!"

Buddha said, "Listen. The first man who had come to me was an atheist. The second man was a theist. The third man was just an innocent man.

"I function like a mirror, I don't have a prejudice of any kind. I don't have a philosophy, or dogma, or creed, or cult. I reflect just like a mirror. This is my honesty, this is my response ability. I responded to the different people according to their needs."

He said, "Ananda ..." Ananda was his cousin-brother, elder brother, and they both had been educated in the same school where all the princes of India used to be educated. They had learned swordsmanship, archery, riding on the fastest horses -- because they were going to be the successors of their fathers.

So Buddha said, "Perhaps you will understand .... There are different kinds of horses. The first kind needs beating, otherwise he will not move; the second kind needs just the sound of the whip, you don't have to beat him, and he will move; and there are horses which need only the shadow of the whip, not even the whip. The moment they see the whip's shadow in front of them, they go as fast as they can.

"The same is the situation about mankind. There are different kinds of people, and I cannot strictly follow any dogma; otherwise I will not be responsible, and I will not be honest to the person. I will be simply repeating a program, not caring at all to whom I am talking and what is his need. I respond to the needs. They change moment to moment."

When you look into the mirror you see your face. When a donkey looks into the mirror, the donkey sees his face. The mirror has no idea of its own, it is simply reflecting.

The truly honest person is simply a reflecting mirror. He will do whatever the moment demands, not according to some promises given in the past. The past is no more. A man of true honesty never gives any promises, because promises are given for the future -- and who knows about the future?

An awakened man simply lives moment to moment in pure honesty. But the honesty is not according to the past, according to any promise, according to the church, to the scripture. It is according to the moment. He responds with his total consciousness, he does not hold anything back.

But the Christian honesty and the honesty of other religions is a reaction, not a response.

They have been told, and they are following the program. They are robots, not even human beings. Your mind is a robot. Just feed it with information and it will follow that information. Go on telling it to be honest and it will be honest, but that honesty is very superficial and meaningless.

One of my friends was visiting the Soviet Union, and he asked a small boy, "Do you believe in God?"

The small boy laughed, and he said, "God? In the past, in the dark ages of humanity, people used to believe in all kinds of stupid things. Do you want to see God? It is in the museum."

Don't think that this boy is responding. This is another conditioning. When the friend reported to me -- and he was a great scholar, Rahul Sanskritayana, he was teaching Sanskrit in the Moscow University -- when he reported to me, I said to him, "You have misunderstood the whole situation."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "That boy has been fed with atheism, no-God. God is out of date, it is a superstition of the past, of the dark ages. He is repeating his program.

"In India, if you ask any boy, he will say, `Yes, there is God.' But there is no difference between the two, they are both reacting according to their programming."

A Christian will say that yes, there is God; a communist will say there is no God. The Christian believes, the communist disbelieves -- but beliefs and disbeliefs are in the mind, they are not your experience. You have not known even yourself, how can you be honest? One has to know oneself, one has to be oneself, only then there is a possibility of honesty.

Socrates is right: "Be thyself." But he was not complete, because he was not a meditator.

This conclusion was a logical, rational conclusion. First, be thyself.

But all the mystics of the world say, first be thyself, then dissolve thyself also into the eternity of existence. Then whatever comes out of that eternity, you are just a vehicle, you are just a hollow bamboo. Whatever song is sung on the hollow bamboo, it becomes a flute. It does not obstruct, it allows the song to flow through it. Whatever existence wants to sing through it, you are just a hollow bamboo -- no self, no I, just a pure passage for existence to respond.

Then there is honesty, there is truth, there is morality -- but of a totally different coin, a totally different quality. It is individual, it is your own in a way. You are not following anybody -- all following is wrong -- you are simply being in tune with existence.

And the third thing they have asked about is loyalty. Loyalty to whom? To a God which you don't know? To the church?

And remember perfectly: Jesus Christ was a Jew. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died as a Jew. He had never heard the word Christian, he had never heard the word Christ. It was three hundred years later when the gospels were translated into Greek ....

Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew `messiah', and from that Greek word `Christ'

comes `Christian'.

Christianity was not founded by Jesus Christ, it has to be remembered. It was founded eighty years after his death, by people who had not directly known him.

Now even Christian scholars have come to the conclusion that the Christian gospels were not written by the apostles but were written by somebody else, because the mountains described are not in the same place where they are described in the gospels. The rivers described are not in the same place where they are described in the gospels. The lakes ...

Everything was written by people who had not known Jesus Christ, and neither had they lived with Jesus Christ.

Christianity is one of the most fake religions of all. Jesus has nothing to do with it. And the pope represents Jesus, and the pope wants you to be loyal to him. The pope wants you to be loyal to the vested interests.

The whole of Christianity is a very dangerous, poisonous phenomenon, because it teaches people that God made the world perfect, you don't have to change it, no revolution is needed. Be loyal to God, and be loyal to everything as it is. The capitalist has to remain as a capitalist -- that's the way God wanted it, and nothing can happen against the will of God. If you are poor, that's how God wanted you to be. If you are a woman and you are not equal to man, that's how God wanted it to be. God created the world as it is.

Christianity does not believe in evolution, it believes in creation. You should understand the difference clearly.

President Ronald Reagan has tried to ban all the books of Charles Darwin, because Darwin preaches evolution. He wanted to completely remove Charles Darwin's books from all the universities, all colleges, all schools, all libraries. Why? -- because his theory goes against the idea of creation. That was President Ronald Reagan's fundamentalist Christian mind.

God created the world as it is, it is not a question of evolution. So you should settle with the world as it is, you should settle as you are. If you are poor, you should settle as you are. If God has made somebody a king and somebody a beggar, he knows best; you are not to change anything.

Christianity is absolutely against any revolution in the world, any change in the social structure. That is what is hidden behind the word `loyalty'. You should be loyal to God and his creation, you should not try to improve it. Do you think you are wiser than God?

You should understand that God is perfect, and whatever he creates is perfect. Out of perfection only perfection comes. So this world of misery, poverty, starvation, has to remain as it is.

Because God has told Adam and Eve, "Multiply, produce as many children as you can,"

the Christian church still goes on insisting that no birth control methods, no condoms, no pills should be used -- because God wants you to multiply.

We have multiplied enough.

Just in this country, when it became independent forty years ago, the population was four hundred million. Now the population has gone beyond nine hundred million, and by the end of the century it will go beyond one billion. For the first time, India will be the greatest nation in the world! Up to now China used to be the leader.

But what kind of greatest nation? Half of the population will have to starve, and die from starvation, and the Christians go on saying, "Multiply! That is a commandment from God. Be loyal to God and never think of changing anything in the world."

Galileo was called by the pope because he had written against the commonly accepted idea which was that the sun goes around the earth. Galileo, in his scientific investigations, found just the reverse: it is the earth that goes around the sun. But the Bible says the common sense idea ....

The pope said to Galileo, who was old and almost on his deathbed -- he had been dragged to the court of the pope -- "You have to change your book. You have to write that it is the sun that goes around the earth, because that's how it is written in the Bible. The Bible is a divine scripture written by God himself, and God cannot commit a mistake." Even the pope cannot commit a mistake, he is infallible.

Galileo must have had a very great sense of humor. He said, "There is no problem, I can change my book. I can write that the sun goes around the earth, but remember, it won't change anything. The earth will still continue to go around the sun. The earth is not going to read my book, and neither is the sun going to listen.

"But why are you so much afraid? I can prove it scientifically."

The pope said, "I don't want to listen, because if even one thing is found to be wrong in the Bible, people will start thinking that if one thing can be wrong, other things can also be wrong. And if the Bible can be wrong, what will happen to my infallibility?"

The question is not of truth, the question is of dogma. You have to be loyal to the dogma whether the dogma fits with reality or not, and you have to be loyal to superstitions, all kinds of superstitions, which are killing humanity.

The Bible says, "Spread the word, even if you have to fight. The pagans are subhuman, they have to be changed into Christians, otherwise they will never be saved." That's how crusades were created.

The Christians have killed more people in the world than any other religion. Second to the Christians are the Mohammedans -- but the Christians are at the top, and for very good reasons. They have been killing people in order to force them to become Christians.

Obviously, if it is a question of choice between death and Christianity, any fragile human being will choose Christianity rather than death. So create the fear that "You will be killed. The only other way is to be a Christian."

And it is not only Christians ... Even Jesus says, "Anybody who goes to God's paradise goes through me, via me, there is no other way. I am the way. Bring people on the way, even if you have to force them."

It is done with great good intentions -- and that is the problem to be understood.

An old proverb is very relevant. It says, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions."

Now, the Christian crusades against the pagans are with great good intentions. They want them all to go to paradise. Because they are resistant, they have to be killed. That will be an example for other pagans: "If you don't want to be killed, become a Christian!"

Jesus talks about loving your enemies, and loving your neighbors. That is all talk.

Christianity has proved that killing your enemies ... And Jesus Christ himself is responsible for it, because he says, "Who is not with me is against me." Now this is a very ugly, political statement. Do you call it religious?

"Who is not with me is against me."

It can be said by Adolf Hitler, by Joseph Stalin, by Benito Mussolini, but not by a religious person. Because the person may not be with me, but it is not necessary that he should be against me. He can be indifferent. Why are you leaving out the category of the indifferent? This is dictatorial.

This is not religious, this is against humanity. You are not allowing people to be free to choose what path they want. You are forcing them to be Christians -- and you are forcing the whole of humanity into loyalty, when loyalty in fact means a slavery to the status quo

-- if the society is divided into classes, you should not change it. If a few people go on becoming rich and creating millions of poor people, this is how God wants it. You should not interfere in the work of God.

It is not a religious idea; it is a very cunning strategy to keep the slaves slaves, to keep women subhuman, to keep the poor poor, and to keep the rich rich. It supports all that is ugly in a beautiful name: loyalty.

I say unto you: Find out the truth in yourself, and be loyal to your truth. That truth will bring a revolution in the world. And that loyalty will not be for any status quo, that loyalty will be for making a better world, a new humanity, a new man -- more joyous, more healthy, more blissful.

It is time -- a very decisive time. All religions are out of date, particularly Christianity. It is the largest religion -- half of the world is Christian -- and they talk all kinds of nonsense.

Their pillars are the resurrection of Jesus Christ ....

He never died on the cross, how can he resurrect? His grave is in Kashmir, in India. It was because of a conspiracy to save him, a conspiracy between one rich disciple and the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, that the crucifixion was to be delayed as long as possible. The crucifixion was fixed for Friday, because Saturday is Sabbath for the Jews; they don't work at all. The idea was that because the Jewish cross kills very slowly ... It takes forty-eight hours for a healthy man to die on the Jewish cross. It is a very torturous thing. An electric chair is far more merciful, but God never created the electric chair.

So the crucifixion was delayed for this excuse, that excuse. Finally, Pontius Pilate wanted to see Jesus Christ before he was taken to the cross -- just to delay it -- and he talked to him. Then the procession was going uphill to where the crucifixions used to happen.

There were thousands of people, and Jesus ...

He was only thirty-three, healthy, was a carpenter's son, was accustomed to carry wood from the forest, so it is easy for him to tell people, "Carry your cross on your own shoulders." He carried his.

The cross was very heavy, and he fell three times on the way. I suspect that perhaps it was also part of delaying -- because he was thirty-three and he used to carry big logs. He was not a man like I am, who has never done anything in his life, good-for-nothing!

When Rahul Sanskritayana came back from Russia, he shook hands with me, and he told me, "Never go to Russia."

I said, "What?!"

He said, "Your hands are very bourgeois."

I said, "They have to be, because I have never used them. I don't carry anything, I don't do anything."

From my very childhood, my father, my mother, everybody used to tell me, "You will turn out good-for-nothing!" I have fulfilled their promise, their prophecy. You will not find another man in the world who is so good for nothing. I teach nothing.

Jesus was on the cross for only six hours. In the whole of history nobody has ever died on the Jewish cross in six hours. He was too young, healthy. And after six hours, as the sun was setting, all work had to be stopped -- that was the conspiracy -- and Jesus had to be brought down. He could not remain on the cross on the Sabbath. So he was brought down, put into a cave, and the guards were Roman, not Jews.

In the middle of the night he was taken out of Judea by his richest followers -- Judea was a small place -- and he healed within a week. There was not much wrong, just a little blood had flowed out. Once he was healed, his friends and followers suggested to him not to go back to Judea, "otherwise you will be killed again. It is better to move far away from Judea."

Jesus must have heard about Moses -- because he was a Jew -- that Moses had gone in search of a lost tribe in the desert. When all the followers had reached Israel, which took forty years of wandering in the desert ... The Jews can never forgive Moses because he passed by Saudi Arabia and all the oil countries, and went on wandering in the desert --

hungry, starving, thirsty. Three-fourths of his people died on the way; only one-fourth of the original lot ...

New people had come into being, because for forty years you cannot keep people celibate. So new children were born, even a third generation had come into being, and Moses experienced the first generation gap. The people who had come with him were no more there, and the new generation had no idea about Egypt, no idea about slavery, no idea about the meeting of Moses with God, and the Ten Commandments, and they did not care about this old fellow.

Just to escape ... The situation was becoming hotter and hotter against Moses, because the new generation was talking, saying that "This ugly place is the Holy Land of God? For this place our forefathers died in the desert in tremendous misery, poverty, hunger, thirst.

This place ...?"

Moses must have been worried. To escape from Israel, he had the excuse that "One tribe of the Jews has lost its way somewhere in the desert. You settle down, and I will go and find the lost tribe."

The lost tribe reached Kashmir, which is really, one can say, a holy land -- the world's most beautiful place. When the first Mogul emperor, Babar, came to India, he passed through Kashmir. He could not believe his eyes. He said, "If there is any paradise anywhere, it is here, it is here!"

Moses died in Kashmir. His grave and Jesus' grave both are on the same hillside, under the same old trees, and still today a Jewish family takes care of both the graves. Those are the only two graves on which the inscription is in Hebrew.

Now, in India there are no Jews. The other Jews in Kashmir have been converted by the Mohammedans, forcibly, into Mohammedanism. But because Mohammed had accepted Moses and Jesus as prophets of God, they did not destroy the two graves, and they did not convert the family who was taking care of those two graves. Descendants of the same family -- that is the only Jewish family in Kashmir -- are still taking care of them.

I have been to the graves. They are nearby a village which is called Pahalgam. In Kashmiri, Pahalgam means the village of the shepherd; it must have been named according to Jesus' claim that he was the shepherd. There is no other reason for it to be called the village of the shepherd.

I asked the guardians of those two graves what is written on them. On one is Moses'

name, on the other is Jesus' name, in Hebrew -- in Hebrew it is Joshua -- "Joshua, who claimed to be the last prophet of the Jews."

Resurrection never happened -- and those kinds of things are the pillars: virgin birth, resurrection, creation of the world as opposed to evolution.

If it is true that God created the perfect world and there has been no evolution, then all the popes, the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops and the priests would have been naked just like Adam and Eve. Or they may have been hiding their private parts, either with big leaves, as they hide them on the statues, or by hunting animals and using their skins.

Certainly God did not create railway trains, airplanes, cars, electricity, post offices. All this has come as part of the evolutionary program. Whether science believes in Charles Darwin's idea of evolution or not is not the question. Christianity will have to believe in evolution. It may be a different version, but evolution is the scientific truth. You can see it all around ....

And I am seeing immense contradictions. On the one hand they say, "You should not change anything, God is more wise than you" -- then why are you converting people to Christianity? God made them pagans, and you are converting them to Christianity. You are converting the poor, the downtrodden, the beggars, the orphans, to Christianity -- and particularly to the Catholic sect. It is against God, against the Christian God.

Creation is a dead word. It is just like a pond, it does not flow. And a pond has as its destiny only death. Its water will evaporate, and soon there will be mud and nothing else.

A river is life. Everything is moving, everything is evolving.

God has not created a Gautam Buddha, and God has not created a Mahavira. Adam and Eve he has created -- and even he could not tolerate Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He threw them out because they had committed the fundamental sin of disobedience -- his own children, naked, thrown out into the world.

God created only one couple. Now there are more than five billion people on the earth.

By the end of the century there will be seven billion people on the earth. And you say things are not moving, everything is static?

Christians say that death is the punishment for your sins. I wonder that even intelligent people go on reading such rubbish. Then why do saints die? If it is because of sins that people die, then why do popes die? Why did Jesus die? And according to Friedrich Nietzsche ... why has God died?

Either everybody is committing sin, or the whole idea is absolutely wrong. Death is a natural phenomenon, it has nothing to do with sin.

In fact, everything that is pleasant has been destroyed by Christianity. It is said that you cannot be rejoicing and enjoying life when other people are suffering. What do you mean? -- if other people have cancer, you should have cancer also?

If other people are suffering, that does not mean that you should suffer also. You should help the suffering to cut the roots of their suffering. That you don't allow: God has made them to suffer; they are suffering because it is the will of God, so don't change their suffering but change your joyousness, your cheerfulness, your laughter, your blissfulness.

While other people are suffering you are laughing? you are dancing? you are singing?

Christians have made the whole world miserable. The churches are the most sad places; even graveyards are more joyous, with flowers and beautiful trees. Churches ...? I have been into churches. As you enter a church it feels as though you are entering hell -- just the fire is missing, so it is all cold. Perhaps the fuel is finished in hell! -- there is an end to everything. Now be careful: when you go to hell, take woolen clothes with you, because there is no more hellfire, just an eternal winter which goes on getting colder and colder.

What kind of nonsense is this? If other people are sick, do you have to drop your healthiness? If other people are stupid, idiotic, retarded, do you have to drop your intelligence? This is a strange theology of destroying people's happiness. If people are suffering, share your happiness with them, make them also laugh. Cut the roots of their suffering. That seems to be human.

This teaching is absolutely inhuman! A few are suffering because God wants them to suffer -- and you have to suffer because Christianity wants you to suffer. Don't laugh, don't smile, don't enjoy anything, don't rejoice .... Then why not commit suicide? For what are you living? Just to watch the suffering of others, and your own?

Christianity leaves no other alternative than suicide. It is not an accident that the Western philosophers have come to the point of existentialism, which preaches that suicide is the only way out. It is Christianity deep down which has made the whole world so miserable that there seems almost to be no need to wake up tomorrow morning. For what? just to continue this misery?

And it is strange: on the one hand they say, "Know thy place. God makes everyone as they are ...." Do you see the contradiction? If God has made you a laughing, enjoying, rejoicing person, then this principle does not apply. It only applies to the sufferers: "Don't change your place, suffer. God makes everyone as they are." If it is true, then God has made many people loving, laughing, rejoicing, dancing. Who are you to prevent them?

But no, it is not applicable as far as joy is concerned, only suffering. What can be the reason behind it?

The reason is clear. Only the people who are miserable will seek the advice of the priests and the popes. Only the people who are miserable can be enslaved, can be told that "You are sheep and we are the shepherds." Only miserable people need salvation. A happy person, a blissful person does not need any salvation.

I don't need any salvation! I have solved all my problems. I have found myself. I have found the door to the divine. I don't need any shepherd, and I don't want to be called a sheep. If I had been present I would have slapped Jesus Christ.

Christianity has turned lions into sheep.

I want you to roar in laughter and joy like lions. Cut the roots of misery, suffering, slavery, all kinds of exploitation.

We need a classless society, and ultimately we need a world without any government.

As I entered America, the first question they asked me was, "Are you are a communist?

Are you an anarchist?"

I said, "Both, and something more."

They said, "Something more?"

I said, "Yes. Communism is only a step. The Soviet Union has missed, it is just clinging to that step ...."

Karl Marx's idea was that as communism settles down, the government will disappear; otherwise, the bureaucrats become the new bourgeois. That is what happened in Russia, that is happening in China. That is going to happen in every communist country. The Communist Party takes the place of the capitalists -- no change. The poor remain the poor. Of course, they are equally poor. The only equality that communist countries know is equality of poverty.

I want equality of richness, a rich world -- which is possible, because if we use science and technology not to exploit people but to create more and more wealth, more and more nourishment for people, scientists say we can support through science and technology a seven times bigger population than exists today.

But they are being prevented by the churches, by all the religions, by the capitalists. The fear is that if there is nobody poor, who is going to go to the church? If there is nobody poor, who is going to pray to God? If there is nobody who is suffering, the priest is not needed.

A rich world, an equal world, a world without government, without crime, a world of meditators, a religious world, will not need three hundred religions as they exist today.

And Christianity is the biggest religion, of course, and the biggest crime against humankind.

A MAJOR CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS IN AMERICA HAS

PRODUCED A VIDEOTAPE ON PRIESTS WITH AIDS, THAT CANDIDLY

DISCUSSES HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG THE CLERGY. EXPERTS ESTIMATE

AS MANY AS FORTY PERCENT OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS ARE GAY.

ON THE TAPE ONE PRIEST CONFESSES TO BEING GAY SINCE HE WAS

SEVENTEEN. HE TRIED TO RENOUNCE HIS DESIRES AFTER BECOMING A PRIEST, BUT FAILED. "I COULD PRAY ALL DAY, AND A HANDSOME MAN

WOULD STILL CATCH MY EYE," HE CONFESSED.

THE TAPE ACKNOWLEDGES THERE IS AN INCREASING NUMBER OF

PRIESTS WITH AIDS, AND ADVISES OTHER PRIESTS HOW TO HELP THEM

PSYCHOLOGICALLY AND MEDICALLY.

ONE FORMER JESUIT, WHO IS NOW A NEW YORK PSYCHOTHERAPIST, SAYS

HE HAS A DOZEN PRIESTS WITH AIDS AS HIS CLIENTS.

AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK DENIES THAT ANY PRIESTS HAVE

AIDS.

In fact, in the oldest monastery of Mount Athos ... It is near Greece, a sovereign country, it has its own government. It is a thousand-year-old monastery. Once a man becomes a monk in this monastery of Mount Athos, he cannot leave the monastery alive, only his corpse will come out.

This they call loyalty.

I call it slavery. I call it absolute destruction of freedom of choice -- because tomorrow I may not feel like being in Mount Athos, but I have no choice. They have not only taken my present, they have taken my future also.

It is the ugliest place in the world, because no woman has ever entered, has ever been allowed to enter, Mount Athos. You will be surprised: what kind of people are living there? Even a six-month-old baby girl cannot be allowed in Mount Athos. Are these monks or monsters?

But that is not the end of the story.

THE MONASTERY AT MOUNT ATHOS, AN INDEPENDENT CHURCH STATE IN

GREECE, STRICTLY FORBIDS THE ENTRY OF FEMALES OF ANY KIND ....

Have you known females of any kind? I was surprised, I have known only one kind.

When I first heard it, I could not believe that there are other kinds of female also. But then I understood there are. ... EVEN BABIES, PET DOGS, CATS OR PARROTS

WHICH ARE FEMALE. This can give you a clear-cut indication what kind of people are living there. They are not only homosexuals; the fear is that if even animals enter there which are female, these monks are not going to leave those animals alone. They will commit sodomy. Sodomy means making love to animals.

And this you call religion? This you call transformation of human beings?

One journalist who has just visited there found that "THERE ARE SOME MEN WHO

WERE TAKEN THERE IMMEDIATELY AFTER BIRTH, HAVE NEVER SEEN A WOMAN IN THEIR LIVES" -- not even their mothers. As they were getting out of the womb, they were immediately transferred to Mount Athos. They have never seen that any kind of woman exists in the world.

One monk stated to the journalist, "IT TOOK ONLY ONE WOMAN TO UNDO THE

GARDEN OF EDEN. IT WOULD TAKE THE SAME NUMBER TO DAMN MOUNT

ATHOS." Just one woman, he is saying, destroyed the Garden of Eden; one woman will destroy Mount Athos. And these are great monks, holy people, loyal to God, constantly praying.

But nothing seems to have changed in their biology, nothing seems to have changed in their minds, in their dreams, in their imagination. But they are forced, they cannot go out

-- that's why Mount Athos has its own government, its own police, its own guards continuously guarding the monastery. Nobody can escape out of the monastery. Do whatever you want to do, but do it in the monastery.

I have heard a few days ago about another monastery where there are one thousand monks who were divided with a wall, because fifty percent want homosexuality to be accepted by the church, and fifty percent are against it. Not that they are not homosexuals, they just don't want to make it public. Keep it quiet.

Christianity and other religions have helped all kinds of sexual perversions in the world --

and they think they have been very beneficial? they have been a blessing to the world?

They are absolutely a curse, categorically a curse, and unless they disappear, man cannot live in peace.

The sutra:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

ON A RAINY DAY, MONK GAO VISITED YAKUSAN, WHO COMMENTED,

"TODAY IT'S QUITE HUMID."

"I WILL BEAT THIS DRUM," SAID GAO.

The drum is beaten in a Zen monastery, or the bell is rung, only to gather all the monks.

Gao said, "I WILL BEAT THIS DRUM so everybody comes here. It is a very humid day."

He was making an ordinary statement, but in the world of Zen, when you are talking to the masters, everything is taken to the highest potentiality. Even ordinary statements are given a golden touch.

UNGAN, a master, SAID, "THERE IS NO LEATHER -- WHAT DRUM DO YOU

BEAT?"

He is giving him a koan. Zen has thousands of koans, and this is one of the koans. He changed the whole topic. The drum was there -- but he is a master, he said, "THERE IS

NO LEATHER -- WHAT DRUM DO YOU BEAT? Meditate upon it. If there is no leather, can you beat the drum?"

A koan is a puzzle which has no solution. A koan is a puzzle which is never solved, but as you go on meditating and becoming silent and silent and more silent, it dissolves.

Suddenly there is no puzzle, no problem, nothing to solve. The koan disappears in deep meditation with all other thoughts. It is a thought.

DOGO -- another master who was present -- ADDED, "THERE IS NO DRUM -- WHAT

LEATHER DO YOU BEAT?"

Meditate upon it. Both are similar, you cannot find a solution. If you try to think you are lost. If you get out of thinking there is a possibility to rise above the koan, but only if you rise above the mind.

Zen is the small stream of masters who are teaching the no-mind. All other religions are confined to the mind. In that way, Zen is not an ordinary religion. It is a totally unique spirituality. It teaches you to drop the mind, because the mind has all the programs, it has all the conditionings, it has the whole past in it.

The moment you drop the mind, put it aside, a clearing opens, a door widens into the mystery of existence. Suddenly there is no problem and there is no answer either, but a great contentment, a tremendous fulfillment arises in your being.

And the third master who was also present, Yakusan, commented, "TODAY, THE

MELODY IS VERY GOOD."

What melody? A small statement from a disciple, "I will beat the drum," is completely forgotten. One master has given him a koan, another has turned the koan upside down, and the third is saying about his no-mind, "TODAY, THE MELODY IS VERY GOOD. I am feeling in deep synchronicity with existence. Everything is song, everything is dance."

Yakusan is perhaps the greatest master among these three. He is saying, "Don't bother about the drum." The first man is trying to beat it, the second one is giving him a koan:

"How will you beat it if there is no leather?" The third person is turning the koan upside down: "How will you beat it if there is no drum?"

Yakusan says, "Today, this moment, the melody of existence is too good. Forget all this nonsense about the drum. Listen to the melody of existence. It is a silent, soundless music."

In a madhouse it happened once, a madman was listening, keeping his ear just by the side of a wall. The superintendent came, went, came again, went, came again .... For almost five hours the man was listening, and he wondered what he was listening to. He opened the door, went in, and said, "What are you listening to?"

The madman said, "Come close. You can also listen."

The superintendent put his ear to the wall for a few moments and there was nothing to hear. He said, "I don't hear anything."

The madman said, "Neither do I!"

Five hours have passed, and nothing is heard ....

But that's what Zen says: "If you can hear the nothing ..." Break the word in two: if you can hear no-thing, if you can go beyond things, a melody without sounds, a music without instruments, a poetry without words, a dance without movements ...

The whole existence is in continuous celebration, just we have to drop our constant traffic of the mind, which goes on keeping us away from existence. It is far thicker than the China Wall, thousands and thousands of thoughts, layer upon layer -- dreams, imagination, feelings, emotions, sentiments. They all constitute the mind -- and you are not the mind.

That's the fundamental finding of the East: you are not the mind, you are no-mind. You are pure consciousness without any thoughts. Then everything is joy, then everything is blissfulness, then everything is a benediction.

ONCE, AT THE MEALTIME, YAKUSAN HIMSELF BEAT THE DRUM, AND

MONK GAO ENTERED THE HALL, DANCING. YAKUSAN DROPPED THE

DRUMSTICK AND ASKED, "WHICH PIECE IS THAT?"

"THIS IS THE SECOND PIECE," SAID GAO.

YAKUSAN ASKED, "WHAT IS THE FIRST PIECE?"

GAO TOOK THE SEAT, HELPED HIMSELF TO SOME RICE, TOOK THE BOWL

OF RICE WITH HIM AND LEFT.

This will look very mysterious to you.

Yakusan was beating the drum, and the same monk, Gao, who wanted to beat the drum on that humid day, came dancing. YAKUSAN DROPPED THE DRUMSTICK AND

ASKED, "WHICH PIECE IS THAT?" He is not asking about the drumstick, although it appears he is asking about the drumstick. He dropped the drumstick and asked, "WHICH

PIECE IS THAT?" He is asking about the dance: Which piece is that? Why are you dancing? What has happened?

"THIS IS THE SECOND PIECE," SAID GAO.

Now he has entered the world of no-mind. He is no more the same Gao who wanted to beat the drum in the first instance. Maybe years had passed between these two occasions.

He said, "THIS IS THE SECOND PIECE -- my dance."

YAKUSAN ASKED, "WHAT IS THE FIRST PIECE?"

The first piece is that Gao is no more in his mind. He has become equal to the master. He has attained to enlightenment.

To show it, GAO TOOK THE SEAT -- of the master -- HELPED HIMSELF TO SOME

RICE, TOOK THE BOWL OF RICE WITH HIM AND LEFT.

By his gesture he is saying, "First I attained to no-mind -- that was the first piece. Then came the dance, the celebration -- that was the second piece."

But he did not say it. Now he understands the language of Zen just as Yakusan understands it. Without saying anything he took the seat of the master, sat on the seat --

this is not expected of a disciple unless he becomes a master -- and without any fear he took some rice, HELPED HIMSELF TO SOME RICE, TOOK THE BOWL OF RICE

WITH HIM AND LEFT. He did not say a single thing about the first piece.

Nobody can say. One can act it, one can show it. It is a gesture. But it is not an absurd anecdote as ordinarily people will understand. It says that once you enter into the no-mind the whole of life is just a dance.

This is not Christianity -- where dancing and rejoicing and blissfulness are banned. This is the only authentic religion in three hundred religions of the world. It does not call itself a religion because that will give a misunderstanding to people. It is a science of transformation of consciousness.

Yakusan understood. He did not prevent him from sitting on his seat. He did not prevent him from helping himself and taking his rice. He did not stop him. He is taking Yakusan's bowl full of rice and leaving the place. He is showing that "I am now exactly where you are." That is the first piece.

The dancing was the second, the shadow of a meditative state. "You heard that day the great melody; today I am dancing it." It is not said .... There are things in Zen which are not said but only understood. It is the most subtle way of communication.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK CAME TO YAKUSAN FOR GUIDANCE.

"WHO ARE YOU?" YAKUSAN ASKED HIM.

It is not that he does not know him, he knows him perfectly well; but whether he knows himself or not, that is the question.

"WHO ARE YOU?" YAKUSAN ASKED HIM.

"JOTAN," REPLIED THE MONK.

YAKUSAN SHOUTED, "LAST TIME IT WAS JOTAN AND THIS TIME, TOO, IT IS

JOTAN! You are not changing! Are you dead? Life knows only change. Last time you were Jotan and this time also -- so what happened in between? All that time is lost. You have not reached to some new peak, to some new depth. You have not gone beyond your personality that you call Jotan. Jotan is only your name, you are not it."

That's why he shouted.

Jotan must have been at a loss. Certainly the master is right. All this time he has been involved in trivia, all this time he has not meditated. All this time he has not inquired into his innermost being. All this time he has been asleep, a robot, a dead man.

Zen wants you living, living in abundance, living in totality, living intensely -- not at the minimum as Christianity wants you, but at the maximum, overflowing.

Your life should reach to others. Your blissfulness, your benediction, your ecstasy should not be contained within you like a seed. It should open like a flower and spread its fragrance to all and sundry -- not only to the friends but to the strangers too.

This is real compassion, this is real love: sharing your enlightenment, sharing your dance of the beyond.

Basho wrote a haiku:

STILLNESS EVERYWHERE.

THE CICADA'S VOICE

PIERCES ROCKS.

Always remember, haikus are not to be understood as words but as pictures. Haikus have never happened anywhere else than China and Japan, and that happened particularly because both the countries don't have the alphabet. They have pictures for everything, characters for everything; hence they are very difficult to learn. To become a scholar it will take almost twenty to thirty years of your life, because you need to know millions of characters.

Alphabetical languages are simple. You have to learn twenty-six letters. The greatest number of letters is in Sanskrit -- fifty-two, double the number in English. Its expressiveness is also double, its beauty and its poetry are also double. You cannot believe that medical books in Sanskrit are written in poetry, you cannot believe that books on astrology are written in poetry. In Sanskrit anything can be written in poetry, even mathematics. It has such a poetic humming sound that each word in itself is a part of a poetic line.

But Chinese and Japanese are more vast; their world is far bigger than any alphabetical language. Their language is pictorial, and the difference is the same. While awake you think -- that is alphabetical. While asleep you dream -- that is pictorial. Nobody dreams alphabetically.

Have you ever thought about it? Your dreams are pictorial, so colorful -- but very few people's dreams are colorful. Most people's dreams are just like their mundane existence -

- in black and white. Poets, painters, dancers, all creative people dream in psychedelic colors.

Haikus have to be understood as pictorial. Just visualize them as a dream, not as alphabetical. That is the trouble: how to translate them into alphabetical languages.

STILLNESS EVERYWHERE ... make it an experience.

STILLNESS EVERYWHERE. THE CICADA'S VOICE ... hear the voice of the cicada

... PIERCES ROCKS. It is so intense it almost becomes an arrow and comes with such intensity that it pierces rocks.

These are expressions of meditative people. When they open their eyes out of meditation the whole world looks psychedelic. The trees are more green than they have ever been, and they have been seeing the same trees always. The roses are more rosy.

You have heard the phrase, A rose is a rose is a rose. It is not so. After meditation a rose is much more rosy than it was before. It is not the same experience, not the same fragrance. Your sensitivity has grown deeper, your nose is more receptive, your eyes are clearer, your silence so deep that everything around you ...

Do you hear the noises of the night?

As your silence deepens the noises become more and more clear. The whole night seems to be humming .... Small insects creating all that music around you ...

When you listen after meditation ... you will see today that the sounds have become a great melody, because you have become deeper. You are not superficial. Your meditation has taken you beyond the body and beyond the mind, beyond the bones and beyond the marrow, and when you come out of meditation you are as fresh as a newly-born child.

A newborn child sees colors you cannot even imagine. What a tremendous world opens to him! He does not know anything. He cannot say what is green and what is yellow and what is red, but the way he sees them is far deeper and clearer than you can see. In fact, the more you become acquainted, the less you see, the less is your clarity. You become more dull.

Just ask a husband to describe his wife and he will be at a loss. For the first time he will remember: "My God! For thirty years I have not looked at her. On the contrary, I have been avoiding her by my newspaper -- remaining longer in the office, going to the pub, coming home late in the night, just to avoid her!" The same is the situation with the wife.

Ask her.

You can experiment. Do you remember exactly the face of your mother? First you will think, "Yes," but as you go deeper the face of the mother fades. You are not certain how she looks, what color her eyes are, how old she is. How many wrinkles are under her eyes? -- you have never seen. Who sees one's mother? Who sees one's father? We are too much acquainted with each other, there is no need.

It happened in America ... it could have happened only in America. A man married for the twelfth time, and after three days of honeymooning he remembered that "I have married this woman one time before!"

But who remembers ...? Twelve wives ... she may have been the second or the third.

Neither had she recognized him. Meanwhile she had also gone through many husbands.

But after three days -- for three days he enjoyed a new woman, and the fourth day he was feeling to divorce her.

Our dullness of senses is great!

Meditation sharpens every sense -- not only the eyes, not only the ears, but every sense, even your touch. A meditator's touch will be so full of warmth and love, you will feel something is flowing through him towards you. He has so much joy, so much contentment, he cannot contain it. It goes on flowing all around him. He creates a certain feel. If you come closer to a master, into his field of energy, suddenly you will feel a change.

Have you ever observed it? When you come from the outside, from the city, and enter the gate, you suddenly feel a different breeze, a different freshness. People's faces look so joyous, so un-Christian. You have entered into a different world.

Question 2

Maneesha's question:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WORKAHOLIC

AND SOMEONE WHO IS TOTAL IN THEIR WORK?

Maneesha, the difference is very great. The workaholic is not total in his work. The workaholic is addicted to work, he cannot sit silently. He has to do something; whether it is needed or not, that is not the question.

Now in Japan they are trying more and more for robots to work in the factories, because the robot can work twenty-four hours a day, with no strikes, no trouble with the labor unions, not constantly asking for a raise in the wages, no holidays. Robots are not religious anyway! But the workers are absolutely against it -- and the government is only asking them to take one day off in seven.

In Japan, even on Sunday people work -- there is no holiday as such -- and people are resisting the government, there is great turmoil. They are not ready to take one holiday per week. They will be paid for it, what is the problem? They are addicted. They say,

"What will we do at home? No, we don't want such trouble. At home there will be fighting with the wife, with the children -- and we are addicted to work.

"We will open the bonnet of the car, although everything is alright, and we will destroy the car by trying to refine the engine. We will open the television set and destroy it. We have already done it! Sometimes when a national holiday comes, we have done it --

destroyed our old grandfather clocks, and they were working perfectly well, but something had to be done!"

These are workaholics -- addicted to work just as people are addicted to drugs. Work is their drug. It keeps them engaged. It keeps them away from their worries, it keeps them away from their tensions. It keeps them just like any drug: it drowns your worries, tensions, anxieties, sufferings, Christianity, God, sin, hell -- everything is drowned. A miserable person suddenly starts laughing, enjoying.

You just go in a pub and see. A pub is a far more joyous place than a church. Everybody is laughing, enjoying, fighting, punching each other's noses, and when they get back home ... it is late in the night, they are staggering, falling on the road.

One man came home and he was trembling so much, so drunk he could not manage to open the lock, because the key and the lock ... The key was in one hand, the lock was in the other hand, and there was no meeting, no dialogue!

Finally, the policeman on the street saw the poor fellow, so he came. He said, "Can I help you?"

The drunk said, "Yes, just hold the house steady. There seems to be such a great earthquake!"

They have forgotten everything ... the world and its troubles and the third world war. But you can use anything as a drug -- just become addicted.

A few people are just chewing gum. You take their gum and see how miserable they become! Immediately they start thinking, "Life is useless. There is no meaning in life.

Where is my chewing gum?"

The chewing gum keeps them engaged, and that's how cigarettes keep them engaged.

That's how people go on gossiping with each other. That keeps them engaged. Nobody bothers whether it is true or false, that is not the point. The question is: How to keep engaged and away from yourself?

So the workaholics are against meditation. Every addiction is going to prevent you from becoming a meditator. All addictions have to be dropped.

But to be total in your work is a totally different thing. To be total in your work is not addiction, it is a kind of meditation. When you are totally in your work, your work has a possibility of perfection, you will have a joy arising out of a perfect work.

If you can be perfect and total in work, you can be total in no-work -- just sitting silently, totally silent. You know how to be total. You can close your eyes and you can be totally in. You know the secret of being total.

So to be total in work is helpful in meditation. The workaholic cannot meditate, he cannot sit silently even for a few minutes. He will fidget, he will change his position, he will do something or other -- look into this pocket or that pocket, and he knows that there is nothing in those pockets. He will take out his glasses, clean them, put them away, and he knows they are clean.

I have been traveling for twenty years around this country, continuously, on the train, on the plane, and I have seen people opening their suitcases, looking into them, closing the suitcase -- as if there was something to see. They are just at a loss what to do. They will open the window of the train, close the window, they will lie down, close their eyes, open their eyes.

I used to tell people in trains ... In India, if you are going from Bombay to Calcutta it will take forty-eight hours. I would enter into my air-conditioned coupe -- mostly I was alone, but once in a while there was somebody else, because the coupe can have two persons --

and I would immediately tell my name, my father's name, my grandfather's name, from where I come, without being asked. They would be shocked. I would say, "I am finishing my whole autobiography so that you need not ask anything."

And then I would sit and that man would look very strange .... He would say, "What kind of man ...?"

I would tell him, "Now keep quiet, I have told the whole autobiography, there is nothing more!" And I would sit and look at him -- forty-eight hours -- and whenever he would start opening his mouth I would say ... Then he would start doing things. He would read the same newspaper again from the very beginning, the name of the newspaper, to the very end, the publishers, the editors -- and once in a while he would look at me.

It happened many times that he would call the conductor and say, "I want to change from this compartment."

The conductor would say, "Why? You have a very good companion. I know him because he is continuously traveling. He is a nice man. You be here."

He would say, "It is not a question of a nice or a good man. He is too nice -- but please put me into some other compartment where there are people to talk to! This man is dangerous. He goes on staring at me without blinking, and I become afraid. I have taken three showers since the morning just for no reason at all. Just to avoid him I go into the bathroom; then I say, Ìt is better to take a shower. At least a few minutes will be passed.'"

But forty-eight hours ... and he would start seeing his insanity, that he is unnecessarily opening the window, closing the window, unnecessarily lying down, turning this side, that side -- and I am watching! Then he would sit down, then he would go on the upper berth. I would keep my hand up, so that he could see my hand, because I could not say it:

"I am here! You go on doing all your insanities!"

These are the workaholics.

But a man who is total in his work is not a workaholic. He can be total -- in anything, he will be total. He will be total while he is sleeping, he will be total while he is going for a walk. He will be just a walker, nothing else -- no other thoughts, no other dreams, no other imaginations. Sleeping, he will simply sleep; eating, he will simply eat.

You don't do that. You are eating and your mind is doing hundreds of trips ....

I have been seeing -- in every bed there are never two people, but a great crowd. The husband is making love to his wife but he is thinking of Sophia Loren; the wife is not making love to her husband, she is making love to Muhammad Ali. In every bed you will find such a crowd! Nobody is total in any act, not even in love.

So be total in everything that you do or do not do. Be total -- then your whole life becomes a meditation.

Now it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

Grandpa Babblebrain is going deaf, so he is sitting on the couch watching the TV at full volume. Suddenly Boris, his wife and their kids all come bursting into the house, returning from their vacation in Hawaii.

"Hi, Grandpa," shouts Billy Babblebrain, jumping into the old man's lap. "We are back from our vacation!"

"What?" shouts Grandpa, holding his ear.

"We are back!" shouts Billy. "We saw that famous volcano!"

"What?" shouts Grandpa.

"VOLCANO!" shouts Billy. "You know, one of those things that belches and spits fire!"

"Oh, yes," says Grandpa, shaking his head. "I married one!"

Rambo Retard, the American, and Boris Bog, the Russian, are sitting in MacDonald's hamburger restaurant in Santa Fe, discussing communism.

"In America we have such freedom," claims Rambo Retard, stuffing his mouth with a cheeseburger. "For example, any man who wants to can walk right up to the steps of the White House and call President Bush an asshole!"

"Ah!" retorts Boris, the Russian. "We have equal freedom in Russia. Any man who wants to can walk right up to the steps of the Kremlin and call President Bush an asshole, too!"

It is quiet in the Kremlin, in Moscow, one morning, and Mikhail Gorbachev is just finishing his black bread toast when the phone rings.

"Hey, Mikey," comes the voice of George Bush on the other end. "You must come here right away -- I have something to show you!"

So Gorbachev finishes his breakfast, flies over to America, and arrives at the White House. He is escorted to George Bush's office, where Bush shows him a large black machine with three buttons sitting on a table.

"You must try this," says Bush. "It is our latest American technology. Just push one button."

Gorbachev steps forward with a big smile on his face, pushes the first button, and a giant red boxing glove springs out and POW! -- punches him on the nose.

Laughing, George Bush picks Gorbachev off the floor. "That was very good, Mikhail; now try button number two!"

Dazed, but still smiling, Gorbachev pushes the second button, and POW! -- a huge white boxing glove belts him on the nose, knocking him to the floor.

"Just great!" giggles Bush, lifting Gorbachev again. "Come on now, be a sport. Try number three!"

Stunned, but in the interest of friendship, Gorbachev pushes the third button. A massive blue boxing glove jumps out and POW! -- cracks Gorbachev on the chin.

An hour later when Gorbachev wakes up, he flies back home to Moscow.

Two weeks pass, and George Bush is in the bath, when he gets a phone call from the Kremlin.

"Hey, Georgie," says Gorbachev. "I have something you must see. Come right away!"

Bush gets into Air Force One, the presidential jet, and flies directly to Moscow. When he arrives at the Kremlin, Gorbachev excitedly shows him a huge black machine with two buttons sitting on his desk.

"Go on, George," says Gorbachev. "Try it! It is our latest technology."

Smiling nervously, Bush steps forward, touches the first button, and ducks his head to one side.

Nothing happens.

"Well, okay," says Gorbachev, "then try the second button."

Bush edges towards the machine, reaches out, touches the second button, and quickly leans back.

Again, nothing happens.

"Very good, Mikhail," laughs Bush. "I enjoyed that very much. But I am a busy man, and I must get back home to America!"

"America?" says Gorbachev. "What America?"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel the body completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards. Gather your whole life energy, and your total consciousness. With an immense urgency you have to reach to the center of your being, just like an arrow.

Faster and faster, deeper and deeper ...

As you come closer to yourself,

a great silence descends over you.

A little closer and you can see flowers from the beyond showering on you like rain.

A little deeper and you can see fountains of peace all around you. The coolness becomes cooler.

The moment you reach to the center, you are no more. You find for the first time your original face. I call that original face the buddha, the awakened one.

At this moment,

the Buddha Auditorium is filled with ten thousand buddhas.

At this moment

you are the most blessed people on the earth.

Just remember one thing:

at the center you can be only a witness.

Watch.

As a witness you are not the body.

Witness ... you are not the mind.

Witness ... you are not other subtle layers of astral bodies inside you. There are seven bodies inside you, very thin layers. Just go on watching: you are none of them.

And finally, witness that you are only a witness. This is your buddha nature. This is your ultimate nature.

To make the witnessing complete, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ...

But remember that you are only a witness, nothing else.

Silence gathers more and more around you.

This is the peace that has been called "the peace that passes understanding."

Slowly slowly your consciousness starts melting like ice. All separation from others dissolves. The Buddha Auditorium becomes an ocean of consciousness without any ripples ... utter silence, ultimate beauty, a feeling of divineness, of godliness, that you are one with the whole.

This whole cosmos is nothing but a womb, and we are all in it -- not separate, but utterly melted.

This is the first step of meditation: to reach to the center, to become the buddha.

The second step is very simple, I don't have to teach you. The second step depends on you. Whenever you want, you can take a jump from the buddha and disappear into the blue cosmos, opening your wings, flying to the ultimate freedom. This freedom is the final goal of all religiousness.

Gather as much experience of the center ... all the flowers, all the fragrances, all the juice that you can find only at the center.

It is your life, it is your love, it is your laughter.

And before Nivedano calls you, do one thing more. Persuade the buddha to come along with you. He has to become one with you, so much so that one day you are no more, only your ultimate nature, the buddha, remains.

First he will become your shadow; second, you will become his shadow. That day will be the greatest day of celebration in your life.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ...

But come back as buddhas, with the same peace, the same silence, the same grace, the same blissfulness. Sit down for a few seconds, just to remind yourself of the golden path that you have traveled, the great experience that you have gone through.

And see? -- the buddha is coming closer and closer to you every day, inch by inch. He is just behind you. One day you will be behind him.

Remember around the clock that essentially you are a buddha. Behave as a witness, with great grace. And by and by, even your ordinary activities of day-to-day life will become divine.

Unless we can transform the mundane into the sacred, your meditation is not complete, is not perfect.

To be here now,

to be totally here now, and you are the buddha,

the ultimate perfection humanity has ever achieved.

You have the same potential, the same height and the same depth. It is only a question of taking the challenge and exploring your own inner sky, and you will be surprised.

Outside you have been a beggar -- even the richest man is a beggar because he still wants more. When you get settled at the center, for the first time you are an emperor, because everything is fulfilled. There is no desire for more, there is no desire at all, but a pure isness, a transparent isness.

Here you will find the truth.

Here you will find the beauty.

Here you will find the meaning of godliness -- and you don't have to defend them. They are eternal, they have always been here now, only you have not looked in.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #6

Chapter title: Good soldiers of christ

27 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901275

ShortTitle:

CHRIST06

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

180

mins

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.

Question 1

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!"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

(drumbeat)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your body to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to look inwards.

Gather all your life energy, your total consciousness, and rush towards the center of your being with an urgency as if it is going to be your last moment on the earth.

Faster and faster ...

The closer you come to yourself,

the deeper becomes the silence.

The nearer you reach to your center ... a great peace arises within you. And the moment your arrow of consciousness penetrates into the center, for the first time you encounter your original face. The other name of your original face is the buddha, the awakened one.

The only quality of the buddha is witnessing.

Witness ... you are not the body.

Witness ... you are not the mind.

Witness that you are not the other seven astral bodies, layer upon layer behind the physical body.

Witness, finally, that you are only a witness.

At this moment, you are the most blessed people on the earth. Centered at your being, you are no more, only buddha is. That is your ultimate and eternal nature.

To make the witnessing deeper, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ...

Let go, but remain a witness, just a witness.

Time disappears, mind disappears ...

Slowly slowly, your consciousness starts melting, all differences with existence disappear. Gautama the Buddha Auditorium becomes an ocean of consciousness without any ripples.

A tremendous ecstasy, a great drunkenness,

and you are at home.

This is the very essence of Zen.

I call Christianity the deadliest poison,

and Zen the only antidote for all poisons.

This is the only possibility of liberating you, of bringing your buddha from the seed into a lotus flower.

Collect as much experience, as much ecstasy, and the juices of your life, because from the center you are connected with the cosmos. You have to bring all that with you, so your day-to-day life becomes more blissful, more serene, more silent.

If you can persuade the buddha to come with you, you will feel continuously a coolness in you. You will feel the eternal depth of being, and the ultimate height of being. If the buddha comes with you, you will have a transformation from the horizontal to the vertical. The vertical is the goal, the horizontal is to live only on the outside.

And the real life is IN ... the real godliness is IN ... and it is here and now.

Persuade the buddha to come along with you as a shadow. Slowly slowly you will melt into him. He will become the reality and you will become the shadow.

That day the journey is complete, the antidote has succeeded. And the poisons of all kinds of conditioning -- Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan -- are erased. You are out of the jail, out of the cage, you can open your wings and the whole sky is yours. All the stars and the moon and the sun belong to you. You can disappear into the blueness of the beyond.

Once you know you are a buddha, you will never be born in any kind of body, in any kind of imprisonment -- no birth, no old age, no sickness, no death. You simply become a pure consciousness, eternal, timeless.

The only quality that remains is witnessing. To be a witness of everything is the key, the master key to open all the mysteries of existence.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ... but come as buddhas, with the same grace, the same silence, the same joy, the same beauty.

Sit for a few moments just to remember where you have been, the golden path that you have traveled to the center, and all that happened at the center.

Don't forget it, it is not a dream. It is the only reality, the only truth. And truth liberates, love liberates, blissfulness liberates.

When you have all these in abundance, they automatically start flowing around you, and you share them -- not as a duty, but out of your abundance. When something is done out of your abundance, it makes you richer. The more you give, the more you have.

The evening has been beautiful on its own, but your silence, your looking back towards the buddha, have made it a great splendor, a silent song, a celebration.

Only your heart knows, the mind is absolutely unaware of it.

I can hear your heartbeat at this moment

is in deep synchronicity with the whole existence.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #7

Chapter title: Not faith, but fear

28 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901285

ShortTitle:

CHRIST07

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

133

mins

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

UNGAN REMAINED WITH YAKUSAN FOR SOME TIME, THEN ONE DAY

DECIDED TO LEAVE: HE EXPLAINED TO YAKUSAN THAT HE HAD MADE A VOW TO STAY WITH HYAKUJO. YAKUSAN AGREED, AND UNGAN SET OFF

DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, DOGO ACCOMPANYING HIM A LITTLE WAY, AND

THEN RETURNING TO YAKUSAN, WHO ASKED, "DID YOU SEE YOUR

BROTHER OFF?"

"YES, I DID," REPLIED DOGO, AND THEN ADDED, "IS IT ALRIGHT FOR MY

BROTHER TO LEAVE YOU?"

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK SUCH A THING," SAID YAKUSAN. "WE HAVE

BEEN VERY INTIMATE FOR SUCH A LONG TIME -- WE CAN DO OR SAY

WHATSOEVER WE WOULD LIKE TO. SO THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU TO

ASK ME."

"NO, OSHO," SAID DOGO. "YOUR WORD CAN BECOME A REFERENCE FOR

THE FUTURE, SO PLEASE SAY SOMETHING."

"OKAY, I WILL SAY ONE THING," REPLIED YAKUSAN. "THE EYES ARE

ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING."

HEARING THIS, DOGO IMMEDIATELY LEFT THE MONASTERY IN PURSUIT

OF HIS BROTHER. WHEN HE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM THE FOLLOWING DAY, DOGO TOLD UNGAN WHAT YAKUSAN HAD SAID. THE TWO BROTHERS

TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO YAKUSAN, AND REMAINED WITH

HIM TILL HIS DEATH.

Friends,

One of the would-be sannyasins, Graeme McIntyre, has left his body in deep meditation in this Gautama the Buddha Auditorium, amongst other meditators, in deep peace and silence. He had expressed his desire to become a sannyasin that very evening.

Sannyas does not need to be an outward thing, just the longing for it is enough. He died as a sannyasin because there was deep longing for sannyas.

He was doing a therapy group. After the group he said to the leader, "I would like to remain here my whole life." He will be here now his whole life -- and not only this life, but for eternity.

This place, this space that you are creating by your meditations, is the right space in which to live, love, laugh, and it is also the right space in which to leave the body and go into the beyond, disappear into the ultimate existence.

It is a moment of rejoicing. So tomorrow, when you say goodbye to him on a funeral pyre, rejoice, and dance, and celebrate. Such a death is rare. Very few human beings are so blessed.

And when the funeral pyre's flames start moving upwards, remember why in this country for thousands of years we have chosen not to bury the dead, but to give them to fire.

There is a special reason for it.

Fire is the only thing you know which does not allow any gravitation. It always goes upwards. The fire is a symbol of your spirituality; it always goes upwards. No gravitation can pull it down.

Secondly, when you have lived in your body for so many years there arises naturally a certain attachment to the body. The body is prone to be attracted by gravitation. But when the consciousness sees the body burning -- with the body burning, all your attachments with the body, all your prisons that have taken you to many bodies in many lives, start disappearing. One feels a tremendous freedom rising with the flames towards the sky.

And you know ... You see flames, and soon they disappear. They are visible only for a few moments, then they become invisible. Fire is a great symbol of purification, of detachment, of rising vertically towards the ultimate space which is our home.

We come from there, and we go back there.

Now, Christianity ...

Christianity is a vast propaganda. They say they are defending the truth, but truth needs no defense, it is self-evident. It needs no propaganda. Lies need to be defended, lies need to be propagated, but not truth. Truth shines almost like a sunrise, you don't have to declare it.

And saying that they are defending the truth ... I will give you a few examples from their own theological history which make it clear what they are defending.

The French scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and a scientist of world fame, who was working in China in search of the Peking man. It was thought that somewhere in China the "missing link" of Charles Darwin was to be found, because China is one of the most ancient countries.

Charles Darwin's problem was that there was no interconnecting link between the chimpanzee, or the ape, or the gorilla, and man. The distance is too great, there must be one more step in between. De Chardin was searching for that missing step in Peking, and he had found a fifty-thousand-year-old skeleton of a man.

The pope asked him not to report it to the scientists: "Don't write it in any paper, and don't publish anything that you have found till your death." This is defense of truth. His researches, which have now been published after his death, show that the earth and the universe are not only six thousand years old; even man is at least fifty thousand years old, according to the Peking man, which scientists have agreed is at least fifty thousand years old.

The snow of the Himalayas on the Chinese border has saved the man almost as he would have died. Covered with snow, he has remained frozen as he was fifty thousand years ago. This disturbs the Christian idea that the world was created six thousand years ago.

Teilhard de Chardin's mouth was locked, he was not allowed to teach in any Christian college or university. This is defending the truth? I am very much surprised that de Chardin listened to all these idiots of the Vatican.

That is why Christians go on insisting that obedience is the greatest virtue. He was programmed from his very childhood to obey; disobedience is the original sin. So, although he was a great scientist, his whole upbringing, continuous conditioning and programming, had made him a coward, a slave. He was a genius in his mind, but the conditioning had gone deeper into his unconscious, and he obeyed the Vatican's orders literally.

He did not say anything to anybody; he continued to work, and he did not publish any paper during his life, he did not publish any book on it in his lifetime. The books now published bring tears to anybody who can understand what a great man, a great genius, has been repressed his whole life by the church. He could not see his own research published.

The whole of Christianity lives in a paranoia that if anybody finds some truth, then what is going to happen to their lies that they go on propagating?

One of the most important theologians, Rudolf Bultman of the University of Marburg, one of the most famous and esteemed of twentieth-century biblical scholars, stated, "We can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources showed no interest in either, and are, moreover, fragmentary and often legendary."

But he must have become immediately afraid, because the church had been burning people, killing people. He immediately wrote underneath -- that shows how programming works -- after writing this he immediately wrote, "That does not disturb my faith. I still believe in Jesus Christ as the only begotten son of God, and I have absolute faith in the church of Jesus." And he could not even see the contradiction. But the fear must have taken over; he contradicted himself immediately.

On the one hand he is saying, "We know nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." If you don't know anything of the personality of Jesus, how can you have faith? in whom? It is not faith, it is fear. It is fear of the church, it is fear of the pope, it is fear of the whole of Christianity. They will kill you, as they have killed many.

The Vatican has an underground library of thousands of scriptures which they have burned, saving only one copy. Nobody is allowed to enter, except the pope and the cardinals, to see all the evidence, all the proofs which go against Christianity. The public is not allowed to know what the truth is. And these people, Jesuits, are claiming that Christianity defends truth!

If it defends truth, it should open the underground library in the Vatican to all the scholars who want to study there, and Christianity will evaporate without leaving a single trace on the human consciousness. It is ninety-nine percent myth, invented, propagated, but it has a great propaganda machine, and it has a militant church. It has almost half of humanity converted to Christianity.

It is a strange thing, but I want to tell it to you: after the death of Jesus Christ, three hundred years after, it was through voting that the Christian priests decided that he was a divine personality -- by voting. And who were these people who were voting? They knew nothing of divineness.

This has never happened anywhere else. Mahavira was never elected as a tirthankara, Buddha was not elected by the masses as an awakened man. Poor Jesus not only suffered on the cross, he has suffered more from his own self-styled so-called representatives.

What would have happened if the vote had been against his divinity? Is religion a political affair? And people who had no experience of godliness were voting and deciding by vote, three hundred years later, that he was a divine personality. This was decided in the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Jesus was declared divine by a vote of the Council of Nicea. The nature of his divinity was also decided by vote. This is the ugliest thing you can think of.

Truth does not need votes. It is self-luminous.

Hermann Samuel Remarius, a professor at Hamburg in the eighteenth century, wrote that

"Jesus was a failed Jewish revolutionary whose body was removed from its tomb by his disciples."

I am not saying that, it is said by a Christian professor who has looked into the sources, the original sources, and found that he was a "failed Jewish revolutionary"; he had nothing to do with Christianity.

Christianity is a fiction. Jesus had never even heard the name Christianity. It has been imposed on him, he was not the founder of Christianity. Who exactly was the founder of Christianity? One thing is certain, Jesus was not. He never thought about founding a religion, he was simply telling the Jews, "I am your last prophet." He died on the cross as a Jew.

Then who founded Christianity?

You can find Buddhism in the teachings of Gautam Buddha; he was the founder. You can find in the teachings of Mahavira that he was the founder of Jainism. You can find in the teachings of Lao Tzu that he was the founder of Taoism. But it is a very strange thing about Christianity: the founder had no idea at all, was not interested in creating a new religion.

The man who founded it -- you will not believe it -- was the Emperor Constantine. The church knows it, but does not allow the public to know it.

Emperor Constantine of Rome, who headed the Council of Nicea, died as a Christian, but he was baptized only on his deathbed. His whole life he was the high priest of the Sun God religion, which was why he changed the sabbath from Saturday, which was Jesus'

sabbath day, to Sunday. Jews still have their sabbath on Saturday, and Jesus also had lived his whole life believing in the sabbath on Saturday. How did it become Sunday?

It was Constantine, who was a worshipper of the Sun God. Sunday represents the sun; the followers of the sun have always believed that Sunday is a holy day.

It was Constantine who was actually the founder of Christianity. He was the decisive factor in the Council of Nicea. It was under his pressure -- because he was the emperor of Rome -- that the priests voted for the divine personality of Jesus. He made Jesus a divine person. It was his creation, his invention.

He also changed Jesus' birthday from January sixth to December twenty-fifth, the day of the solar rebirth. The twenty-fifth of December, which is celebrated all over the world, is not Jesus' birthday. The whole idea of Christmas is bogus.

Jesus was born on January sixth, but under Constantine's influence and power, it was changed to December twenty-fifth, the day of the solar rebirth. It is thought by the sun worshippers that the sun was born on the twenty-fifth of December. The whole of Christianity is living in utter darkness. Their Christmas is bogus -- and the church knows it perfectly well but won't allow people to know about it.

This is called defending the truth.

I call it defending lies.

Constantine saw Jesus as a failed messiah, with himself as the real messiah -- and his view was ratified by the famous Christian bishop, Eusebius of Caesarea, who said, "It is as if the religion of Abraham is at last fulfilled, not in Jesus, but in Constantine."

Constantine imposed himself as the real last prophet for whom the Jews had been waiting. Of course, the Jews could not crucify the emperor of Rome. And the Christians wanted some royal support; otherwise they were being crucified everywhere. They found a shelter in Constantine, but it was a bargain, purely business. They accepted that Jesus was a failed messiah, and that Constantine was the real messiah.

But this is not told to the public! Christians are not aware of it. All these scriptures are hidden under the Vatican.

I say unto you that Christianity is one of the most untruthful religions in the world. It is a disease, a sickness, a pathology, a poison. It has not been helpful to humanity in finding the truth in any sense. It has been trying to propagate lies so continuously that they have almost become truth.

You must have all celebrated Christmas. Have you ever thought that this is not the birth of Jesus? You never remember Jesus on the sixth of January ....

I have been thinking that we should start here a celebration for poor Jesus on the sixth of January every year. That is defending the truth. So please remind me when the sixth of January comes, because I have no sense of time at all. I don't know what day it is today, and I don't care. So when the sixth of January comes, please remind me. We will celebrate. At least after two thousand years Jesus will have a real birthday celebration!

The Bible says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." I also teach you no judgment, but that does not mean what the Bible says. "Judge ye not" -- but there is a reason for not judging

-- "so that ye be not judged." It is pure business.

When I say don't judge, you are not going to be rewarded for it. In the very act of not judging you are rewarded: such peace ...

People who are judgmental are grumpy, always have grudges against everybody, nobody seems to be right. They go on looking at the negative side of everybody, the darker side.

They may look at a rosebush but they will not look at the roses, they will count the thorns.

I say to you: Don't judge, because you don't know yourself, so how can you know anybody else? And every judgment is about a certain action. A man may have stolen something, and you judge that man as a thief. The whole man is judged, his whole life is judged by a single act. You don't go deeper into the act. The man may be dying of starvation, his mother may be dying of starvation -- and if he has stolen a little food from people who are suffering from being overweight, he has helped them.

Don't judge people by their actions. Actions are momentary, life is long. You judge the whole life of a person -- "That man is a thief, that man is a murderer" -- and not only do you judge, but your courts, which are thought to be just, go on judging people by small actions. Those small actions may have been done for a certain purpose. Nobody looks at the purpose, nobody looks at the cause.

I am reminded of Lao Tzu ....

The emperor of China wanted the most wise man to be the chief justice of the supreme court of China. People suggested Lao Tzu's name. It was absolutely right, there was no disagreement about it in his court, and Lao Tzu was called.

Lao Tzu came in his own way. He used to ride on a buffalo -- which is a very rare thing.

People ride on horses, and people ride on elephants, but a buffalo ...? But he loved his buffalo; it carried him from one place to another, and it gave him nourishment. No horse can do that.

And buffalos are so silent -- and Lao Tzu was in immense love with silence -- they don't chatter. They are so contented, they don't have any grudge against existence.

He came into the court riding on his buffalo. The emperor was shocked, but they had invited him, and they were well-mannered, well-educated people, so they ignored the buffalo.

The emperor asked Lao Tzu, "I want you to be the chief justice of the supreme court of China."

Lao Tzu said, "You are choosing a wrong person."

The emperor said, "Why?"

"Because," Lao Tzu said, "I will be really just."

The emperor said, "That is the very function. Don't say no to your own emperor."

Lao Tzu said, "Okay, but it won't last long -- perhaps one day." And it lasted only one day.

The first case was about a thief who had stolen money from the richest man in China. The man was so rich that even the emperor used to borrow money from him.

Lao Tzu listened to the whole case and gave his judgment: "Six months jail for both the rich man and the thief."

The rich man said, "What?! My money is stolen and you are sending me to jail?"

Lao Tzu said, "I am looking at the whole thing as deeply as possible. This thief is a secondary criminal, you are the primary criminal. You have collected all the money of the capital, you have deprived millions of people of money. Even if he had not stolen from you, you needed punishment. And I will not call this poor man a thief; he was simply distributing wealth to those to whom it belongs. You are a bloodsucker, a parasite!"

The rich man said, "I want to see the emperor before you send me to jail."

He went to the emperor and he said, "Listen, this man is absolutely absurd and dangerous. He is sending me to jail for six months."

The emperor said, "You are being judged? You have not done anything wrong."

He said, "I told that man, but he is telling me that `You have been exploiting the money of the poor. Where will they get money? Except by stealing there seems to be no way!'

So he calls me a primary criminal, and the thief only a by-product.

"I warn you, if I go to jail, it will not be long before you will be coming to jail too, because you have been committing murders, you have been raping women, you have been collecting all the beautiful women of the country into your palace. This man has to be immediately removed from his post."

The emperor understood. He said, "He was saying himself that he would not last more than one day. Even the full day is not ended, this is just the first case!"

Lao Tzu was given his freedom and told, "You are right. You go on your buffalo wherever you want to go." He was a man of tremendous consideration, of in-depth exploration of everything.

Don't judge anybody superficially. You don't have the means to enter into anybody's act, because the action comes from his unconscious. You have not explored your own unconscious, how can you enter into somebody else's unconscious? And who are you to judge anybody?

But Christianity's statement is different. It is saying to you that if you want not to be judged by God on the day of judgment, then don't judge anybody else. This is simple bargaining, business.

Truth is not a business.

The morality that Christianity preaches is always motivated, and wherever there is motivation, there is no morality.

The church says that a righteous man can judge others because he is without sin. Who is the righteous man? If you look you will not find a single person who is without sin, because everything that is joyful and that is pleasant, that you love, is called sin.

The righteous person is one who has never committed any sin, who has never looked at a woman with loving eyes, who has never lied -- and the whole church is lying. Even the pope is lying. Who is righteous? You will not find anyone.

According to the Christian ideology, you are all sinners. You are carrying the same sin that Adam and Eve committed. That is their dogma, I am not talking on my own. It is their dogma that Adam and Eve committed the original sin by disobeying God, and because the same blood is flowing in all humanity around the world, you partake of, and you have to be responsible for, the original sin of Adam and Eve.

You are their sons and daughters, and you are born out of sin. Except Jesus, nobody is born without sin. But I don't consider that Jesus was born without sin. In fact, in the birth of Jesus even God has become a sinner.

The Holy Ghost, they say, is one with God, is not separate. And it is the Holy Ghost who made the poor Mary pregnant. God himself has become a sinner; it does not make Jesus born out of virtue. Because God is raping a woman who is somebody's wife without her consent, Jesus simply becomes a bastard, and God becomes a sinner.

So the whole of humanity is born out of sin, the original sin that Adam and Eve committed. And God has become a sinner from the very beginning. First he murdered Lilith, then he committed rape on Mary. Even God is not qualified to be present on the judgment day. Only the righteous can judge.

Who is righteous?

But Christian theologians are very clever in finding ways. Just a few days ago, the third man in the Church of England ... The first is the archbishop of England, then there is the second most senior man; then comes the third man, who can possibly someday become the archbishop of England, because only one man is in between him and the top, and he is young enough ....

He has come out with the statement that, "Taking the vow of celibacy does not include homosexuality." You can be celibate and you can be homosexual; it simply prevents you from heterosexuality. A new definition! They have to find such a definition, because almost fifty percent of Christian monks are homosexuals. The remaining ones may be masturbating, but nobody, unless he is born impotent, can be celibate by nature.

These people go on teaching unnatural things. And when people cannot cope with unnaturalness, and they are drawn to their nature, it becomes sin. Then they have to be condemned to hellfire. To be natural is a sin, according to Christianity -- and according to other religions too. To be unnatural and abnormal -- to be perverted -- is to be saintly.

Now this bishop, who has a high post in England, with every possibility that he will become the archbishop of England ... England has its own church, so the archbishop of England has the same position as the pope. Now he is saying that homosexuality is allowed, no scripture prevents it.

I could not believe my eyes! I could not believe my ears! What is this man saying?

The Old Testament has the story of two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. God destroyed both the cities completely, just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been destroyed. What was the reason? -- because they were all becoming homosexuals. Bestiality, masturbation, all kinds of perversions were prevailing in both the cities.

God told them, "If you remain so perverted, I am going to destroy you." And he destroyed both the cities, which were great cities in those days.

If God is still alive, which I doubt, then he should destroy all the Christian monks immediately. This is the right moment to finish with Christian monks, because they are making the whole earth a Sodom, a Gomorrah. All their monasteries are nothing but sexual perversion.

And that is true about other religions also. They are all against nature and being natural.

You are forcing people to unnecessarily feel guilty.

Mahatma Gandhi was very much influenced by Christianity and was thinking to become a Christian himself; at least three times he was on the verge of being converted. In his ashram, even to eat tastefully is a sin. You are enjoying taste? -- you have to eat without tasting. Now, that is possible only if the taste buds on your tongue are removed surgically. If the taste buds are there, they are beyond your control, they will taste. The sweet will be sweet and the bitter will be bitter. You cannot do anything about it, they are not under the control of your mind. You can only pretend.

So all the religions -- particularly Christianity -- force everybody to be hypocrites, to pretend. No taste, no love, no appreciation of your own body and its wisdom. Your body is doing a tremendous service for you for seventy, eighty, or a hundred years -- and you are not even grateful. All the religions treat the body as the enemy, so torture it. Torturing is virtue.

Rejoicing in your body, in its health, in its youth, in its old age, rejoicing in your body even in death, is what I teach.

Christianity is basically masochistic -- torture your body. The more you torture your body the greater saint you are. And there are idiots everywhere available -- they are the majority in the world -- who start doing all kinds of stupid things just to become saints. It does not need any education, it does not need any culture, any civilization, any intelligence, any genius. Any idiot can become a saint.

My own understanding is that only idiots become saints. A man of intelligence cannot become a saint, because to be a saint you have to go against nature, against the body, against yourself. It is very strange that God has given you all these tendencies -- of love, of taste, of laughter. Who is the criminal?

If anybody is a criminal, it is God. Why has he implanted taste buds? While he was creating man he should have removed sexuality, he should have removed taste buds. In fact, there was no question of removing them, he should not have created them. Just visualize God making Adam: he should not have made his genitals -- and he was making his genitals with such joy!

But every religion wants to castrate you, and particularly Christianity castrates people.

What are they doing in Mount Athos, where no kind of woman is allowed? A hen, a dog, a female horse, a female baby six months old -- nobody is allowed.

One American woman tried to break the one-thousand-year-old rule of the Mount Athos monastery and enter. She dressed like a man, she cut her hair and arranged everything perfectly. But she was caught red-handed, because women walk differently from men, so just at the gate she was caught.

A woman cannot walk like a man, and the reason for it is the womb. Man has no womb.

That womb makes a difference in your walk. She had not thought about it. She had done everything, but she had not thought about the walk, and those people are watching continually that no woman ever enters.

The monastery is guarded; it has its own government, it has its own police. It is a sovereign nation. When the woman was caught she was jailed for six months. It is their law that if any woman tries to enter and is caught she will have to be punished.

Now, after that woman's effort, everybody who wants to go into Athos, man or woman, first has to enter into the office outside the monastery and has to be stripped naked, to be looked at from every side, to see whether he is man or woman -- and nobody will say that those who are looking at naked people are voyeurs, homosexuals, enjoying the naked bodies of other men. Of course no woman has dared since then, but now it has become a rule that anybody who enters Mount Athos first has to be inspected naked by the guards.

Unless they are certified to be a man, nobody can enter. Such fear ... I call it castration.

And do you see the difference?

Have you seen the beauty of a bull? -- so proud, such grandeur, he looks so majestic, and after castration he becomes the bullock. The same bull becomes a bullock. The bullock looks sad, shrunken, all pride and dignity gone. He is a slave; now he can be used for pulling carts.

You cannot put a bull to pull a cart; you are not a match for a bull. He will not remain on the road, he will go anywhere he wants -- and if by chance he comes across a girlfriend the cart will be thrown by the side of the road. First things first! You may have multiple fractures -- and he will be enjoying making love to his girlfriend.

Bulls are not used for bullock carts -- but what a difference it creates, just castrating them, just destroying their sexual energy. The bullock is a sad affair.

Christianity and all other religions are part of the conspiracy to make man castrated. They have destroyed all the dignity of man. They have given only guilt and sin. Hence I call Christianity the deadliest poison.

The Bible says, "We know at the end we shall have life eternal." This has been the justification for sacrifice and suffering: you can sacrifice a human being in the name of God because he will have life eternal. Don't be worried, you are not destroying him, his spirit. Because he is sacrificed in the name of God he will enter into paradise.

So sacrifice is supported in the name of the eternal life that you will get after death. And suffering also is supported: it is only a question of a few moments; your life of seventy years is nothing but a few moments compared to the eternity of existence. Suffer patiently.

Patience is one of the pillars of Christianity, and patience is against all rebellion, all revolution, all change. Patience is the opium which drugs people into deep coma. They move like robots. They have forgotten that they are being exploited, their blood sucked.

They allow it.

The Bible says you should not change or make an effort to change anything, because God has made everything perfect as it is. This is the ultimate utterance against revolution, change, evolution, improvement in the conditions of the poor, of the sick.

Scientists say man can live at least three hundred years if care is taken. If his body is taken care of, not tortured, not undernourished, not fasting, not overeating -- if the body is given scientific care it can live three hundred years very easily. And that does not seem to be incorrect, because there are people in a few places who live one hundred and eighty years.

In Russia there are a few aboriginal tribes where you will find one hundred and fifty years is an ordinary thing. Thousands of people have passed one hundred and fifty, and even after one hundred and fifty they are young, they are working people -- in the fields, in the orchards, chopping wood, carrying water from the well -- perfectly healthy. And there are a few people in Russia who have passed the age of one hundred and eighty.

So science seems to be perfectly right: if sufficient care is taken, life can last three hundred years. Just think of Albert Einstein living three hundred years! Science would have benefited immensely; miracles would have happened.

But fate is strange: by the time a man becomes experienced, death overtakes him and the experienced man is replaced by a baby, absolutely inexperienced. Now you start from the beginning again -- ABC -- and by the time the baby reaches to the point where it can contribute something to humanity, to the world, to the beautification of it, death overtakes the man.

But Christianity will not allow it.

It does not allow birth control, even seeing clearly that if the population goes on growing the whole of humanity is going to suffer utter starvation, and billions of people will die within the coming ten years. Without any third world war people will be dying on their own.

But Christianity goes on insisting, because the Bible says, "Multiply. Have as many children as you can." And because God creates life, Christianity's argument is, "You should not stop the birth of a child."

But do you see the contradiction?

Killing is allowed, sacrifice is allowed, because nothing is dying. You will have an eternal life in paradise. So what is the problem? -- if a child is stopped, he will have eternal life or may move to another womb. If the spirit does not die when you kill a man as a sacrifice, why should the spirit die by birth control methods? In fact, the spirit would not enter into the womb at all.

But don't change anything, that is the fundamental motto of Christianity -- and that means death to humanity, death to this beautiful planet.

Christianity is the most out-of-date religion. All its assumptions are absurd.

For example, the myth is that Mary was assumed into heaven alive, she never died. Jesus ascended into heaven and then he assumed Mary there. In life he was misbehaving with his mother -- calling her "that woman" -- and suddenly he becomes very compassionate when he ascends alive to heaven. He takes his mother also alive into heaven.

What happened to his five brothers and sisters? And what happened to poor Joseph, his father? If he was able to take his mother into heaven, why not take ... what happened to the twelve apostles?

That Jesus ascended to heaven alive and Mary also is as absurd as the Mohammedan concept. But Mohammed did a far better miracle; he ascended to heaven alive with his horse, both alive. Strange! What will the horse be doing amongst the saints? He must be dying to come back to earth.

De Chardin said to the Vatican, "Why am I not allowed to publish my work? It is based on scientific principles and will contribute much to clear many fallacies which are prevalent in the scientific world." He told the Vatican that it must refashion its Christology to resolve the conflicts with science.

Rome responded that his diagnosis did not coincide with the ideas currently accepted in the eternal city -- Rome they call the eternal city -- and because his ideas do not coincide with Christianity and its Bible, unless he makes his Christology coincide with the Christian ideology and theology, he will not be allowed to publish his papers while he is alive.

These people have been killing truth for thousands of years.

De Chardin commented, hearing this, "Since then, as we all know, the religious schizophrenia from which we suffer has constantly grown more marked."

A kind of split in the scientists who have been brought up as Christians is bound to happen. All scientists brought up as Christians will suffer from schizophrenia, they will have a split personality. One side has faith in God, faith in the virgin birth of Jesus, faith in the infallibility of the pope -- knowing perfectly well that all this is nonsense, but their minds are split.

Science says one thing, Christianity says just the contradictory thing, and they have to cope with both. They become two persons. So in the scientific lab they will be scientists and in the church they will be Christians. You don't know how ....

Schizophrenia is cutting a human being in two parts -- a constant wound which knows no healing. The whole of humanity suffers from schizophrenia and all kinds of mental sicknesses because of these teachings which cannot go on changing with the changing world of knowledge; which are stuck somewhere and are stubbornly against moving from there; which are carrying corpses of the past and will not listen to the living sources.

Man has to get rid of all religions, including Christianity, otherwise he will never be wholesome, he will never be one, and he will never know the joys of life and the blessings and the benediction. He will never know the truth.

If these religions go on living they are going to drive the whole of humanity insane. They have pushed everybody to the very verge of insanity.

It is time to get rid of Christianity -- and all so-called religions which are different versions of the same stupidity.

Man needs absolute freedom from the past. Only then can he live in the moment responsibly, and only then can he create a new future, a better future than the ugly past, for the coming humanity -- a superman, a better man than the pygmies of the past who were just slaves and nothing else.

The sutra:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

UNGAN REMAINED WITH YAKUSAN FOR SOME TIME, THEN ONE DAY

DECIDED TO LEAVE: HE EXPLAINED TO YAKUSAN THAT HE HAD MADE A VOW TO STAY WITH HYAKUJO

-- his old master Hyakujo, who had allowed him to go to Yakusan when he asked.

Because he had allowed him without any hesitation, Ungan became more grateful to the old master than he had ever been before.

Freedom is the very air, the very climate of Zen. The master is not a chain on your feet, the master is not handcuffs on your hands. A master is not a prison.

A master is not like the Catholic monastery of Mount Athos, which is nothing but a prison. There is no other prison like Mount Athos, because with a prison you go in and you can get out. But in Mount Athos, once you go in as a monk, only your dead body will come out. You are committing for your whole life, now there is no question of change.

This is the greatest prison in the world, where you enter alive and leave only when you are dead. This they call loyalty. This they call commitment. But in actual practice this is slavery -- pure spiritual slavery.

Because Hyakujo had allowed him when he asked that he wanted sometime to visit his brother Dogo, and Dogo's master Yakusan, his respect and reverence for Hyakujo had grown.

He lived for a few years with Yakusan, then he said, "Now I would like to go back to my old master."

YAKUSAN AGREED, AND UNGAN SET OFF DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, DOGO

ACCOMPANYING HIM A LITTLE WAY, AND THEN RETURNING TO

YAKUSAN, WHO ASKED, "DID YOU SEE YOUR BROTHER OFF?"

"YES, I DID," REPLIED DOGO, AND THEN ADDED, "IS IT ALRIGHT FOR MY

BROTHER TO LEAVE YOU?"

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK SUCH A THING," SAID YAKUSAN. "WE HAVE

BEEN VERY INTIMATE FOR SUCH A LONG TIME -- WE CAN DO OR SAY

WHATSOEVER WE WOULD LIKE TO."

Love gives freedom, intimacy gives freedom.

Yakusan said, "We have lived in such deep intimacy for so long that he is free to say anything, and if he wants to go back to the old master, he is absolutely free. SO THERE

IS NOTHING FOR YOU TO ASK ME."

"NO, OSHO," Dogo said, with deep love and gratitude. "YOUR WORD CAN BECOME

A REFERENCE FOR THE FUTURE, SO PLEASE SAY SOMETHING."

"OKAY, I WILL SAY ONE THING," REPLIED YAKUSAN. "THE EYES ARE

ALRIGHT -- your brother Ungan has attained to a clarity of vision -- THE EYES ARE

ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING -- but he is not consistent in deepening whatever he has gained."

In Zen, `discipline' means simply, "Don't stop anywhere, go on deepening, because your depth is infinite. Go on climbing, because your height is also infinite. You are the whole existence."

So his eyes are clear, he has attained to a clarity of vision, but he has stopped there. He should go on and on and on, in both directions, upwards and downwards. One has to reach to one's roots and one has to reach to one's flowers. When you have both the flowers and the roots, you are complete.

His vision is clear, but he thinks perhaps this is the end of the journey. He can stop for an overnight stay, but in the morning you have to go again. Existence is so vast ....

You will come to many stopping places where you will think, "This must be the end, what can be more? Such bliss, such joy, such ecstasy, what can be more than this?" But you don't know. Just go on and you will find there is something more.

Once you have learned the art of not staying anywhere ... Unless you reach to the very end of the road, you have to continue the discipline of meditation.

Yakusan said, "THE EYES ARE ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING."

HEARING THIS, DOGO IMMEDIATELY LEFT THE MONASTERY IN PURSUIT

OF HIS BROTHER. WHEN HE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM THE FOLLOWING DAY, DOGO TOLD UNGAN WHAT YAKUSAN HAD SAID. THE TWO BROTHERS

TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO YAKUSAN, AND REMAINED WITH

HIM TILL HIS DEATH.

You have to see the point, that Ungan did not argue at all. When Dogo told him what Yakusan had said -- that "Your eyes are alright, but discipline is lacking" -- because his clarity was alright, he did not argue. He immediately understood the point. He could see that Yakusan was right.

So there was not even a dialogue, there was not even an effort on the part of Dogo to convince him, or on the part of Ungan to refute it. Not a single word was said. The moment Dogo told him what the master, Yakusan, had said, he saw it immediately. That's what he said: "His eyes are alright, his vision is clear. He has found the door beyond the mind, but he is just standing there. He is not moving."

The no-mind is the whole of existence. Just crossing the boundary of the mind you will have clarity, space, open sky -- but don't stop there. You have to open your wings and fly into the eternity of existence.

He immediately turned around, with Dogo, his brother, and they remained with Yakusan until his death.

This will give you some taste of Zen. It is not an argument, it is not a conversion. It is seeing things through and through, straightforward.

Basho wrote:

THOUGH MY SHANKS ARE THIN

I GO WHERE FLOWERS BLOSSOM,

YOSHINO MOUNTAIN.

This Yoshino Mountain seems to be a constant reference in many haikus of many Zen poets. In Japan, it seems, Yoshino Mountain has the most tremendous variety of flowers.

I know one place in the Himalayas called the Valley of the Flowers. No man has ever reached there, it is almost impossible. It is thousands of feet deep. You can only look into that deep valley from thousands of feet above. Even looking seems to be dangerous, because the slope is steep, and the snow has never melted on the mountains surrounding the valley. When one person is looking, another person has to hold him by his waist, it is so dangerous. Just a small breeze and you may be gone, shattered completely, not to be found again.

But I have been to the Valley of the Flowers. You can only see from thousands and thousands of feet above, standing there, tremendous kinds of flowers down in the valley.

You cannot find those flowers anywhere else. I could not manage to figure out what even a single flower was -- just rare, absolutely rare.

Perhaps Yoshino in Japan has flowers of such a rare variety of color, fragrance, that Basho says, THOUGH MY SHANKS ARE THIN, I GO WHERE FLOWERS

BLOSSOM, YOSHINO MOUNTAIN.

But this is only symbolic.

What is he saying? "Although my legs are fragile, I will go anywhere in the inner space where flowers blossom. Even if it means climbing Yoshino Mountain, or it may mean diving deep into the Pacific Ocean -- if flowers blossom there, I am going there. I am not concerned with my fragile body because inside, the body does not go; only your consciousness, which has no legs, which is not a material phenomenon."

But if you decide that you will reach to the point at the very center of your being -- the Valley of the Flowers -- you will find tremendous color, psychedelic flowers, fragrance that you have never known before.

Basho says, "Don't stop before it, whatever happens. Risk everything and go to the place where flowers blossom." It is not about the outside world.

Zen is not much interested in the ordinary flowers which fade within hours. Its interest is in the eternal flowers which never fade. You have them deep in the valley of flowers, at the very center of your being.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked one question:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

IS THERE ANY AUTHENTICITY TO THE ZEN THAT EXISTS IN AMERICA AND

EUROPE TODAY?

Maneesha, there is great scholarship but no authenticity. People are translating Zen books, people are commenting on Zen books, but there is not a single Zen master in the West who knows the truth. All their commentaries and all their talk about Zen are intellectual.

They are fed up with Christianity and they are in search of something fresh and new, and they have found in Zen fresh insights, but their approach remains Western, the approach of intellect. Their approach remains Socratic, Aristotelian. They are beautiful people, but their Zen is only a mind phenomenon, they have not experienced it. It is not their own truth, they have borrowed it from different sources.

It will take some time. As America goes on declining, once it is no more significant, just like England ... It used to be said that in the British empire, the sun never sets -- and it was true. The British empire was all around the globe, so somewhere or other the sun was always rising. Now the situation is totally different. Even in England the sun never rises!

So it needs the Western ego to be shattered completely, then perhaps they may start looking behind the mind.

I hope that day comes soon.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

guiseppe comes downstairs after his wedding night and is greeted by his old friend, Giovanni.

"Hey-a, guiseppe!" shouts Giovanni. "How-a many times-a last-a night?"

"Three-a times!" exclaims guiseppe, doing up his trousers.

"Wow!" shouts Giovanni. "Fantastico!"

The next morning, when guiseppe comes down the stairs, Giovanni is waiting.

"Hey-a, guiseppe!" shouts Giovanni. "How-a many times-a last-a night?"

guiseppe holds up five fingers .... "Five-a times!" he announces proudly.

"Wow!" shouts Giovanni. "Magnifico!"

The following morning, Giovanni is standing at the foot of the stairs when Guiseppe comes down.

"Hey-a, guiseppe!" cries Giovanni. "How-a many times-a last-a night?"

guiseppe holds up eight fingers proudly. "Eight-a times!" he says.

"Eight-a times?" screams Giovanni. "You have to tell-a me, how-a you do it eight-a times!"

"It is-a simple!" says guiseppe, pushing his hips backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, and counting, "One-a, two-a, three-a ...!"

It is Easter Sunday in the White House private chapel, and George Bush has invited the TV preacher Jimmy Bakker for a special sermon. The entire White House staff is forced to attend the service, as Jimmy Bakker gives them all a hellfire and damnation speech about the wages of sin.

When it comes time for the collection plate to be passed around, Jimmy Bakker is amazed to see a one hundred dollar bill lying amongst the nickels and dimes.

"Praise the Lord!" shouts preacher Bakker. "Will the person who put in this one hundred dollar note please stand up and choose three hymns!"

"Goody!" cries Reginald, President Bush's private secretary, jumping to his feet and pointing to three big secret service agents. "I choose him, him and him!"

A new Cadillac pope-mobile is delivered to the door of the Vatican. Cardinal Catsass, Pope the Polack's personal secretary, arranges to take the old Polack for a ride in it.

With Catsass at the wheel, and Pope the Polack mounted behind him, so that he can wave to people, the pope-mobile goes hurtling out of the Vatican gates. They drive all over Rome and then set off into the Italian countryside.

As soon as they are out of town, the pope-mobile's engine suddenly starts spluttering and coughing, and then dies.

Catsass pulls the car to the side of the road, stops and gets out. He lifts up the bonnet and stares at the engine blankly. Then he reaches over and tries to pull out one of the spark-plugs, burning his fingers on the hot engine.

"Goddam son-of-a-bitch Cadillac!" shouts Catsass. "These cars always screw up!"

"Now, my son!" cautions the shocked Polack pope from his perch in the back. "That kind of language is certainly not going to start the car! Perhaps a little prayer would help!"

"A prayer?" cries Catsass. "You don't believe in that mumbo-jumbo, do you?"

"Well, bitch," replies the pope, "with you as the mechanic, we have to try something!"

So the two idiots kneel down by the front bumper, the pope kisses the tire and mumbles a short prayer. Then Catsass jumps behind the steering wheel and turns the key.

The car starts at once.

"Holy shit!" cries Pope the Polack, in shock. "The fucking prayer worked!"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your bodies to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards.

Gather your whole life energy, your total consciousness, and with an immense urgency, as if this is going to be your last moment on the earth, rush towards the center of your being.

Faster and faster, deeper and deeper ...

The closer you come to your center, a great silence descends over you. Blossoms of peace, blossoms of love, blossoms of serenity and blossoms of blissfulness start growing all around your center of being.

As you reach to the very center, you are no more yourself the way you have known yourself. For the first time you encounter your authentic nature.

In the East, we have called this authentic nature the buddha, the awakened one.

Everybody is born with a birthright to be a buddha. This moment, Gautama the Buddha Auditorium is full of ten thousand buddhas.

You are the most blessed people on the earth in this moment. Centered, a great ecstasy arises from your very sources, a kind of divine drunkenness.

Only one thing has to be remembered, and that is the very quality the buddha is made of.

Buddha used to call it remembering, sammasati. I call it witnessing, to be more correct.

Witness that you are not the body ...

Witness that you are not the mind ...

Witness that, except being a witness, you are nobody else, just a pure witness, a mirror which reflects.

To make the witnessing deeper, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ...

Let go, but continue to be a witness.

As your witnessing deepens the silence grows, the serenity grows, the peace becomes so deep, so fathomless.

You are going through a transformation.

You have lived your life horizontally, concerned with the trivia of day-to-day life. In meditation your horizontal line becomes a vertical line. When you are vertical you start moving upwards -- more and more blossoms come on the Yoshino Mountain; and you start also simultaneously growing in depth -- almost as deep as the Pacific Ocean.

Growing upwards and downwards simultaneously is the only miracle I know of, because this miracle makes you part of eternity. You are no longer mortal, immortality is your home. The whole existence is your home. The cosmos, infinite and eternal, is your ultimate home.

To be a buddha is a beginning.

To be a buddha is going beyond the mind. But then the journey starts ... and the journey knows no end. Every step takes you into more majesty, into more splendor, into more truth, into more beauty, into more godliness.

Collect all these experiences before Nivedano calls you back. You have to bring them to the surface, to the circumference of your life. You are not just to experience them, you have to share them too.

Know the arithmetic of the inner world. The more you share, the more you have. The less you share, the less you have.

In your day-to-day life, in your ordinary activities, in your gestures, in your words, in your silences, in your songs, in your dances, share -- share unconditionally your buddha, your awareness, your witnessing, your blissfulness. Share your ecstasy and it will go on growing, growing, growing ... new blossoms, new fragrances.

Meditation opens the door of all the mysteries of existence, of all the secrets of existence.

Meditation is the master key which opens all the locks, and existence becomes an open book for you.

And secondly, remember to persuade the buddha to come with you. It is your nature.

There is no reason why buddha should not come with you. He has been waiting to be persuaded, he has been waiting to be welcomed. He has been waiting for you to be receptive. He will come behind you and he will start expressing in your actions his grace, his truth, his clarity, his awareness, his light, his love.

First he will be behind you. Soon you will find yourself behind him. That day will be the great day of your enlightenment.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ... but come back as a buddha.

Come back with silence, with grace, and sit down for a few moments just to remember where you have been, to what space you have touched, on what golden path you have followed, and look whether the buddha is behind you or not.

He is coming every day, inch by inch, closer to you.

I can see it in your faces, I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in the silence that surrounds you. I can see it in your grace, in your ageless faces.

Time has stopped, mind has stopped, you are just a being of utter silence, purity, innocence, and you are just here and now.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons Chapter #8

Chapter title: Fictitious father, crackpot son

29 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8901295

ShortTitle:

CHRIST08

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

188

mins

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

YAKUSAN ONCE ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, UNGAN, "I HEARD THAT YOU KNOW

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LIONS -- IS THAT TRUE?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "YES, IT IS."

YAKUSAN ASKED, "HOW MANY OF THEM DO YOU GET AND DEAL WITH?"

"SIX," UNGAN REPLIED.

YAKUSAN THEN SAID, "I ALSO KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LION."

UNGAN ASKED, "HOW MANY DO you GET?"

YAKUSAN REPLIED, "ONLY ONE."

UNGAN THEN COMMENTED, "ONE IS SIX; SIX IS ONE."

LATER ON, WHEN UNGAN VISITED ISAN, ISAN SAID, "I HAVE HEARD THAT

WHEN YOU WERE WITH YAKUSAN, YOU HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT

GETTING AND DEALING WITH LIONS. IS THAT TRUE?"

"YES, IT IS," REPLIED UNGAN.

ISAN ASKED, "DO YOU CONTINUE TO DEAL WITH THEM, OR DO YOU

SOMETIMES STOP DOING THAT?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "WHEN I WANT TO, I DEAL WITH THEM; AND WHEN I WANT TO STOP, I STOP."

"WHEN YOU STOP," ASKED ISAN, "WHERE DO THE LIONS GO?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "STOPPING IS STOPPING."

Friends,

Christianity, I have been told by the Christian friends, is based on family: family is its foundation stone. But family is also the foundation stone of all neurosis, of all psychosis, of all kinds of mental sicknesses, of all kinds of social problems. It is also the base of races, of nations, of wars.

Family has to be understood. It has no future; it has already outlived its usefulness, its necessity. But we have been conditioned -- not only Christians, but everybody -- that the family is a great contribution to the world. The reality is totally different. I have to go point by point, in detail, because the problem of family is one of the most serious problems.

The first thing ... The family is a prison, it wants to keep control of the children, of the wife. It is a very tight group of people, and they have made this prison sacred. But the results are very ugly.

Every kind of imprisonment prevents spiritual growth. What do you think ... why did Buddha renounce the world? Why did Mahavira renounce the world? In fact they were not renouncing the world, they were simply renouncing the family -- nobody has said this before -- because how can you renounce the world? Wherever you are, the world is. You can only renounce the family.

But all religious scriptures, including Christian scriptures, are continuously lying to the people: they talk of renouncing the world. It distracts you completely from the fact that all these people were renouncing the family, because the family was such that they could not grow within it.

The family is programming every child according to its prejudices. If you are born in a Christian family you will be continuously programmed for Christianity, and you will not ever suspect that your conditioning may be wrong, your conditioning may be preventing you from going beyond.

Just the other night, when the wife and the son of the sannyasin who has died arrived, the son was very much excited the whole day. He told the sannyasins he would like to come here and live forever. But when he heard me, he freaked out. He told the sannyasins, "I am a Christian and I believe in God -- and I am not a homosexual!"

His prejudiced mind could not see that I have not said that all Christians are homosexuals. I have said only that the monks and the nuns are homosexuals, are lesbians.

This is how people go on missing points. He heard in his mind, through his interpretation of the programming, that I am calling all Christians homosexuals.

And he proudly says, "I believe in God" -- without understanding a single word. What does belief mean? Belief means you don't know. It is utterly in ignorance that people have forced the idea on you, and you carry it as if you know God. A man who believes in God should be ashamed, not proud.

Believing is hiding your ignorance.

Knowing is a totally different matter.

But Christianity and all other religions go on confusing people's minds. They never make the distinction between believing and knowing. A blind man can believe in light, but that is not going to help. One needs eyes to see the light, and then there is no need to believe.

When you know something, is there any need to believe in it?

Do you believe in light? Do you believe in the moon? Do you believe in the stars? You simply know, there is no question of belief. Belief arises only for fictions, for lies, not for truth. Every belief system is a hindrance for spirituality.

But that young man, I could see in his face, I could see in his eyes ... And I immediately inquired, "What is wrong with him? So young and he has already become dead?" His father who had come here to meditate and who wanted to be a sannyasin was younger than him. He wanted to live here his whole life after hearing me and everything I said about Christianity.

His mother is far younger than him. She wants to come here and stay for a few days, to meditate. She loved the place, she loved the people. She was touched very much by your ceremony for her husband. Nowhere in the world would she have got that ceremony for her husband.

Death, according to Christianity, is a taboo: you should not talk about it. Death is taboo ...

And life is also taboo, you should not live it! Death you should not talk about, and life you should not live! They don't leave you any alternative -- neither can you live, nor can you die. They keep you hanging in the middle, half-dead, half-alive.

This creates schizophrenia. You are not allowed to be total in anything: in life, in death, in love -- only partially involved. A man who is partially involved is only partially alive.

The deeper your involvement in existence, the deeper your life. When you are involved totally in life, in death, in love, in meditation, in any kind of thing that you want to do --

painting, music, poetry, dance -- unless you are totally involved in it you will never know the maximum, the optimum pleasure, the optimum blissfulness.

People are living only at the minimum, just surviving, or, to be absolutely truthful, just vegetating -- just waiting ... and waiting, and nothing happens in their life. No flowers blossom in their life, no festivals happen in their life. And their death is as ugly as their life was, because death is the ultimate culmination of your life.

If you have lived totally, death is not the end. Death is only an episode, a small episode in an eternal life. You have died many times, but because you have never lived totally, you became unconscious at the moment of death; the fear brought you into a coma.

That's why you don't remember your past lives, because the coma stands as a barrier for the past lives and their remembrance. And because you don't know your past lives, you cannot understand that there is going to be life after death, that life is eternal. Birth and death are mere episodes; thousands of times you have been into birth, into death. But when you are not allowed to live totally, when everywhere there is interference from religion ...

One small boy in the school -- of course a Christian boy -- was asked by the teacher the first day he entered the school, "What is your name?"

He said, "Don't."

The teacher said, "Strange, I have never heard such a name."

He said, "Everything, whatever I do, I only hear this: `Don't' -- so I think it is my name."

But the whole of Christianity is doing that to everybody. It is a life-negative religion, it does not allow you to live joyously. And the family is the root, because obviously the programming starts from the family. Christianity says that it is founded on family.

And I know perfectly well that unless family disappears from the world these religions, these nations, these wars will not disappear, because they are all based on family. The family teaches you that you are a Hindu, and the Hindu religion is the best religion of all; other religions are so-so.

Christianity continues the programming of children: "You can be saved only through Jesus Christ. Nobody else can save you. All other religions are just moralities, very superficial, they are not going to help you."

And when a child, alongside his breast feeding, is continuously fed with all kinds of superstitions -- God, and the Holy Ghost, and the only begotten son of God, Jesus, heaven and hell ...

Children are very vulnerable, because they are born as a tabula rasa -- nothing is written on them, their minds are pure. You can write anything you want on the child, and every family commits the crime: they destroy the individual and create a slave. Obedience is virtue, disobedience is the original sin.

When a child starts being programmed from the very birth, when he is very vulnerable and very soft, you can write anything. It will go on in his unconscious. You can tell him that "Our nation is the greatest nation in the world"; every nation is telling that. "Our religion is the greatest religion, our scripture is written by God himself" -- Hindus are saying that, Christians are saying that, Jews are saying that. Everybody is doing the same crime.

Christianity, of course, is doing it more efficiently, more cunningly, because it is the greatest religion in the world. It uses ultra-modern techniques of programming. It sends its missionaries to learn psychoanalysis, to learn how to program people, how to deprogram people. If a Hindu has to be converted into Christianity, first he has to be deprogrammed of Hinduism. Again the tabula rasa appears; what was written is erased.

Now you can write again, "Christianity is the highest religion in the world, and there has been no man like Jesus Christ, and will never be again, because he is the only begotten son of God."

All wars depend on the family. It has been a tradition in many nations in the past that you should contribute at least one son to the army, to protect the nation, to protect the dignity and the pride of the nation.

In Tibet, every family has to contribute the eldest son to the monasteries. This has been done for thousands of years, as if the children are just commodities you can contribute, as if the children are money you can give in charity.

This divided the world into different camps because of religion, because of politics, because of nationalities, because of races. They all depend on family. Family is the root cause of mankind's thousands of wounds.

To go deeper, in more detail, psychologists have discovered a certain phenomenon they call "imprinting." When a child is born, he gets the first imprint of the mother, the father, because they are there. You may not be aware what imprinting can do ....

When a scientist was exploring the phenomenon of imprinting, he was standing by the side of a hen's egg, and it was time for the egg to break open and allow the small bird to come out. Ordinarily, the hen is sitting on the egg, so the first imprint is of the mother.

But this scientist was standing there, so when the baby came out from the egg he saw the scientist's shoe. That was his first imprint.

The scientist could not believe his eyes. When the baby became older, rather than falling in love with any female, he was continuously trying to make love to the scientist's shoe!

The scientist could not believe what was happening!

But he had discovered a great phenomenon: that whatever comes first in the vision of the child is his first imprint. The mother is his first imprint, the father is his second imprint.

And if the child is a boy, then he falls in love with his mother, and his whole life he will suffer.

All couples are suffering around the world, and they don't know the reason why. The reason is that the boy has been imprinted by the mother, and since that time he is looking and looking, searching for a woman who will fulfill his desire, who will be his mother.

Now, you cannot find your mother again. Perhaps something of the mother ...

Lovers are greatly embarrassed if you ask them, "Why have you chosen this woman, or this man?" They simply shrug their shoulders, they say, "We don't know, it simply happened."

It did not just happen, it is not so simple as you think. You simply don't know.

The woman you have fallen in love with in some way resembles your mother, in some way. Of course, she cannot be one hundred percent your mother. Perhaps her hairstyle is the same as your mother's, perhaps her nose, perhaps the color of her eyes, perhaps the way she walks, perhaps the sound of her voice resembles your mother's. You fall in love with that partial mother in the woman. It is your mother calling you through this woman to fall in love, it is nothing to do with "happening." But it is a partial thing, remember.

The hairdo, or the nose ...

What are you going to do with the hairdo and the nose? Soon you will discover on your honeymoon, "My God! This is not my mother." And the girl has fallen in love with you because something in you resembles her father. So both are searching for something which is not there.

So the woman will be looking at the husband, and will be surprised that she has been deceived. This is not the man she was looking for, "Only his moustache looked like my father's!" But what to do with the moustache?

The husband is looking for his mother, and the wife is looking for her father. Both are in a tremendous dilemma: "How did it happen? Now how to get rid of each other?" And the problem becomes more difficult because the church does not allow divorce.

Christianity says -- I am quoting the Bible -- "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder." God has joined wives and husbands together; let no man put them asunder.

This is interpreted as the basis for forbidding divorce. Whatever the suffering, all the old stories end up with marriage, all ancient stories end up with marriage, with the last statement after the marriage, "and they lived in happiness forever."

The truth is, after the marriage is the deluge, after the marriage is the hellfire. So as not to disturb people, every story stops at the marriage. In fact this is the beginning of the story, and they have made it the end.

Meeting a girl on the sea beach is not the real thing. Neither is the girl real, nor are you real. You are pretending to be a great man, a hero, Alexander the Great. She is pretending to be Sophia Loren. You both are hypocrites -- but hypocrisy is good on the sea beach.

You see each other only for a few seconds, or a few hours at the most. Hypocrisy can be maintained for a few hours, but it cannot be maintained for your whole life. Once you get married, the hypocrisy becomes a burden, you cannot carry it.

Two persons got married and entered a sea resort honeymoon hotel. The wife immediately started moving towards the bathroom, and told the husband, "Put the light off. When I come to bed I don't like lights on."

The husband said, "This is a strange thing, because I have to go to the bathroom also. The lights should remain on!"

The wife said, "Do you hear me or not? Put the lights off!"

The husband said, "It is better to say the truth. The truth is that one of my legs is false!" --

and he took the leg off and put it aside. He said, "I cannot walk in the darkness. It is very difficult for me to walk even in the light!"

The wife said, "If that is the case, then it is better to be friends." She pulled off both her breasts and threw them down.

The husband looked at the breasts lying on the floor, and he said, "It is okay." He took his teeth out and threw them.

The wife said, "You think you are going to win?" She took off her hair, she was baldheaded, and threw the hair on top of everything. It was becoming a big heap!

Actually something like this happens. By and by you start dropping your hypocrisy, your falseness, your pretensions. And when all pretensions are gone, then the woman you thought was a Juliet is so ordinary -- and not even ordinary, but worse than ordinary. And the man you were thinking of as a Romeo -- all the Romeo and the romance are finished.

He turns out to be just a chicken.

And then the story begins. Then it is constant frustration, and constant effort to find someone else. But religion prohibits adultery, you should remain confined in your family.

When Jesus said, "Love your neighbor ..." And if the neighbor happens to be a woman? I sometimes wonder, perhaps he never thought about the implications. Love thine enemy --

but if the enemy happens to be a woman?

He was not a great thinker or philosopher, just a poor carpenter's son. What does he know of logic and its implications?

And because every family is in conflict -- the husband and wife are continuously fighting

-- the children are growing up with this constant fight; this is becoming their imprint. The boy will repeat his father's structure, and the girl will repeat her mother's behavior, when they get married. It is a constant repetition, generation after generation, because from where will they learn how to be a husband, how to be a wife? From the mother, from the father -- those are the only people who are available in childhood. And that is the most vulnerable time.

The children learn that the parents fight, they use ugly words to each other. Every night there is a pillow fight, every day the wife is nagging. The father feels the wife is just a pain in the neck and nothing else. The father tries to remain as long as possible in the office, and then he goes to the pub. The boy is learning. The girl is also learning: when the husband comes home, the wife is going to beat him.

One of my professors, a professor of economics, was built almost like a wrestler, a very big man, but inside a chicken. I was very friendly with him. In fact, he had to be friendly with me, because that was the time when the medium of expression was changing. From English it was becoming Hindi. So he was accustomed to speaking English, but many times he would get stuck with some word, and I was his only hope -- that I would supply him the right word in Hindi.

I used to give him right words, but once in a while I would ...

Once he got stuck with the word `haggling'. He looked at me, and I was in the right mood, so I said, "It means chikallas." Chikallas really means joking with each other, not haggling. Haggling is debating over the price.

So he started using the word chikallas: "When you go into the market and you start chikallas ..." and the whole class laughed. He looked at me, "What is the matter?"

I said, "I don't know what is the matter. Why are these people laughing?"

He said, "There is something, because whenever I say `chikallas' they start laughing."

I said, "This is chikallas -- when you say something and people start laughing!"

He said, "I thought you were my friend! I have been depending on you for translations, and you give me such a word?"

I said, "I was in the right mood! When I am in the right mood, you should not ask me anything."

I used to go to his home, and there I discovered a small woman. He used to tell me, "My wife beats me." He was almost proud of it. He used to speak about it in the class and show us how "She has hit my hand." One day he showed his back, where the wife had hit him with a stick, and there was a blood mark.

When I saw his wife, I said to him, "You could have killed her any time just with your hands, squeezed all the juice from her."

He said, "You don't know, she is such a pain in the neck that when I go out of my house I feel almost like a lion. When I come back to my house, I feel almost like a rat."

Children are watching very carefully what is happening all around them, and they are learning without being taught. They will repeat the same pattern.

The girl sees that whenever the husband proposes to the wife, "What about IT?" she simply turns to the other side and says, "I am suffering from headache. In the morning the servant did not come, the gas people I phoned have not come yet, and the electricity is out. Problems and problems ... and finally you come here. Just go down to your bed and sleep, I have a headache!"

The girl is learning, watching carefully how to behave with the husband, how to control the husband. The boy is trying to learn how to control the wife, how to control and possess the wife. They are living in a battlefield, not in a family. There is no family anywhere; these are simply battlegrounds, where the man is fighting the woman, the woman is fighting the man.

This professor of economics asked me, "Can you suggest something to me? What to do?

She refuses to make love to me, she always has a headache!"

I said, "I will give you the medicine." I gave him two aspirins.

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "You do one thing today. Don't ask her, `What about it?', just give her two aspirins and a glass of water and tell her, `Take it please' -- and see what happens!"

He said, "You are trying to get me into trouble."

I said, "You try."

The wife was surprised because it was so new and such an original idea and she did not believe that this idiot, her husband, could have any original idea. But she could not say that now she had a headache. Two aspirins are enough to remove the headache. She asked him, "Who has told you this?" And as I told you, he was very afraid of her, so he told my name.

The next time I went to their house, the wife took me aside. She said, "Don't give him any original ideas, let him remain an idiot. Everything was going good. Now he comes every day with two aspirins -- and whether I have a headache or not, I have to take aspirins.

Since you gave him that idea he carries aspirins with him, and before I can say

`headache,' aspirins are presented to me and I have to swallow them. I have been deceiving him continuously."

What kind of love is this? You don't allow the woman to move; if she moves she is a prostitute. If she enjoys making love to you, that means she is not a virtuous woman. You want the woman not to move. That's why the missionary posture is used -- the woman underneath and the beast on top of her.

And Christianity says it has brought culture to the world!

In the East, for thousands of years, this has been taken for granted, that the man should be under the woman, not on top of her. He is more weighty, he has more muscles. The woman is smaller and more fragile; she should be on top of the man. But on top of the man she will be enjoying movement.

Her real pleasure does not come from the vagina. The vagina is absolutely insensitive. It has to be insensitive because the birth of the child will happen through it. If it is too sensitive, the woman will go crazy when the child comes out. The vagina is absolutely insensitive, there is no feeling. It is the small clitoris on top of the vagina which gives her pleasure, but that is possible only if she is allowed to move.

So every woman hates love, and man understood very early on, in primitive days, that he is not really as competent sexually as the woman. A man can have only one orgasm. For the second orgasm he will have to wait according to his age. The woman is capable at any age of having multiple orgasms.

It was a very cunning strategy to keep the woman underneath, unmoving, with closed eyes, so you can have the orgasm and the woman knows nothing of pleasure in it. She simply feels exploited, used, just like any commodity. It hurts. And the man is finished within two minutes -- at the most three minutes, but that is the record. The woman has not even started to get into it and the man is out! Naturally she hates it.

Naturally she goes to listen to the monks talking about celibacy. She touches the feet of the saints, saying that "You are great people who live in celibacy, brahmacharya, and there is my husband, an idiot, every day ... I am tired after working the whole day, taking care of the children, taking care of the kitchen, taking care of the clothes, taking care of the house, of the servants. I am continuously tired, and he comes home and all that he wants is to make love. After making love -- that is two minutes, average -- he turns to the other side and goes to sleep and starts snoring."

When the man is snoring the woman is crying and has tears, because what kind of life is this? He has no respect for her. She is simply being used, and when she has been used she is of no more importance.

And Christians say this is culture.

The Eastern scriptures of Tantra know what culture is. They make it a point that the man should always be under the woman so he can remain static. If he remains unmoving, then he can remain without ejaculation for as long as he wants -- not two minutes, not three minutes. The woman should be on top and allowed to have as much joy of movement as possible so her clitoris gives her great orgasms -- multiple, one after another. She starts groaning, moaning, shouting, all kinds of gibberish. Only then is she happy.

Seeing this disparity, that the man can have only one orgasm and the woman is capable of having multiple orgasms, man simply dropped the idea, because multiple orgasm is dangerous, he cannot cope with it. Keep the woman static so she never comes to know that there is anything like orgasm.

I don't think in India you can find one percent of women who have known orgasm. I have asked hundreds of women; they don't know what orgasm is.

Even in the West, only within these last thirty years, twenty percent of women have started having orgasms; still eighty percent are old-fashioned. They still belong to the church and they still believe in the Bible, they still listen to all kinds of nonsense called sermons.

If a woman is satisfied, having multiple orgasms, she will never be a pain in the neck.

She will love you, she will rejoice in you, she will celebrate you, she will wait for you; she will prepare better food, better clothes. But you have destroyed all her joy, and you still want her to respect you and to love you -- for what? And because she is not happy the children become miserable from the very beginning.

The mother's impact on the children is immense. She is unhappy, frustrated, always tired.

The children start learning all these things and they will repeat them in their lives. Now it is a well-established psychological fact that every boy loves his mother; every girl loves her father. That is absolutely natural, the other sex is attractive.

But because the girl loves the father, she starts hating her mother -- because she is keeping control, complete control, of the father. And as the girl grows older the mother does not allow any intimacy between the father and the girl. She is standing in between, she is afraid -- and she is not wrong, because the father remembers for the first time, when his daughter becomes sixteen or seventeen years old, how his wife used to look.

This was the woman he had fallen in love with; the daughter looks almost like his wife when she was seventeen, when he had fallen in love with her.

The same is true with the boys. They love their mothers, but there is no possibility of any love affair between the boy and the mother. The second opportunity for love is the sisters, who look like the mother and are younger, but Christianity and all other religions prohibit it absolutely: no love affair between the brother and the sister. So every child, whether girl or boy, grows up in a miserable situation, and the misery deepens at the age of fourteen.

The girls become capable of giving birth at the age of thirteen. They are always one year ahead of the boys. They grow in intelligence one year ahead of the boys. Boys become sexually mature at fourteen. Once they are sexually mature they are prohibited by the Christian church, and by all other religions, from having any contact with any girl.

So boys have their hostels, girls have their hostels -- guarded, so that no boy can enter into girls' hostels, and no girl can enter into boys' hostels. Naturally this creates perversion, the same perversion that is created in monasteries and nunneries. On a wider scale, boys become homosexuals, girls start becoming lesbians, because the energy is now arising to such a peak.

By the time the boys and girls are seventeen and a half they have reached to the ultimate peak of their sexual energy; now there will be a decline. That is the best period to make love. That is the best period to reach to the greatest orgasmic experiences.

And this you call society? This you call civilization? It is cutting human beings from their very roots, from all kinds of joys.

If it was for me to decide, at seventeen and a half every boy and every girl should be allowed to make love, and particularly now when pregnancy is not necessary. There is the pill -- the greatest revolution in the whole history of man, which has made the woman equal. Pregnancy was her slavery, pregnancy was her dependence on the man.

But the pill for the woman was not one hundred percent safe, because the woman may not be thinking to make love that night; she may not be taking the pills. The husband may be away and he suddenly comes back ... and the human mind is such that it always takes chances: "Just one night without the pill ... you are not going to get pregnant. You don't always get pregnant, it is only once in a while." But people do get pregnant, even though they were hoping they would not ....

The Christian church is against abortion. Just a few days ago some Christians marched in America to the Senate, because the Supreme Court of America has allowed abortion to be legal. Against that legalization of abortion, thousands and thousands of fundamentalist Christians had a long procession in protest to the Senate. What was more puzzling to me was that President George Bush immediately, before the procession started, sent a message to the people who were going to protest -- missionaries, bishops, archbishops, priests and all kinds of fanatics.

He sent the message that "I am with you. I am against the abortion bill, so don't think that your president is not with you. I am amongst you and I will support you, and I would like the Supreme Court to remove the law that has made abortion legal."

Such fear of the crowd ... That's why I always say your politicians are not leaders. They don't create a revolutionary mind in the people. On the contrary, they are followers of the followers. Immediately the president sent the message that "I am with you" -- just to gain the favor of the voters, but with no consideration for the poor woman who cannot afford a child, or an unmarried woman who cannot say, "It was the Holy Ghost who made me pregnant!" Nobody is going to believe her.

If a woman gives birth to a child while she is not married, her chances for marriage become almost nil, because the male chauvinist mind always wants a virgin.

You will be surprised to know ... there are doctors who make women virgins. Their whole expertise is to put a small thin skin inside the woman's vagina; that is the proof that her vagina has not been penetrated by any male, otherwise the skin is broken. But the skin can be broken just by riding on a bicycle, the skin can be broken just by riding in a rickshaw in Poona! It does not need any male partner, the road will do the thing.

In the Middle Ages, these so-called Christians, who think they have civilized the world, arranged that not only the skin has to be intact but blood should come out. So the doctors used to fix the skin and a little blood behind the skin, and the man who has married the woman would proudly show the next day the bedsheet with blood on it. Friends gathered, families gathered, to see whether the woman was a virgin or not, and it was a great pride for the man to see that "I have got a virgin woman."

What is great in being a virgin? It simply means inexperienced. You will be better if you marry an experienced woman, if you marry an experienced man. Experience has a value.

Inexperience cannot be supported in any argument.

This family that Christians think is their foundation is their foundation only because it programs the children according to the church. It makes them slaves, it takes their dignity of individuality, it makes them hypocrites. It forces on them all kinds of lies -- and the greatest lie is God. From God arise all kinds of lies. The only begotten son Jesus Christ would not be there if there were no God fiction; hell and heaven would not be there if there were no God who is going to give punishment and reward.

Creating this program in the child's mind is preventing him from going beyond the mind in search, in exploration. It is against truth. Every family stands against truth. Every family stands against enlightenment.

That's why I say, for the first time in the whole of history, that Buddha and Mahavira had not renounced the world, they had simply renounced the family. It is a lie to say they renounced the world. They lived in the world, they moved with thousands of disciples.

That was their world. They moved in the cities, they preached and taught meditation to people.

They had not renounced the world. They were trying in every way to help humanity evolve into consciousness. They were not against humanity; they were not against human consciousness growing as high as the stars, as deep as the Pacific Ocean. All that they renounced was the family, because the family was not going to help them meditate.

Many sannyasins have been reporting to me that, "Our families don't allow us to meditate. They say this is simply wasting time. `Closing your eyes and sitting in a lotus posture, whom are you deceiving? Just do some good work. Serve the poor, serve the sick.'"

If one wants to meditate one needs seclusion, one needs no interference, in the beginning at least. When meditation becomes a ripe fruit in you then there is no problem. Then you can meditate in the marketplace, you can meditate anywhere, once you know the secret.

But before you have known the secret, every disturbance brings you out.

But Christianity is not interested in meditation at all. It is interested in prayer. Prayer to whom? -- to a fictitious God. Prayer to whom? -- to Jesus who is a crackpot. And no prayer is ever heard, because there is nobody to hear it. It is not the fault of somebody above the clouds who is not hearing your prayer. There is nobody.

Prayer is not the right kind of religion. Any religion that is based on prayer is a wrong religion. Only religions which are based on meditation have some quality of religiousness, because meditation takes you inwards to your very foundation of life, to the source of your consciousness.

Prayer is simply insane. Raising your hands upwards -- and there is nobody. When people talk to nobody you call them mad. If somebody is talking to nobody you will immediately take him to the hospital: something is wrong with this man, he was standing under a tree and there was nobody and he was talking and having a good dialogue!

What is Christianity doing? And what are other prayer religions doing? Talking to nobody. These are insane people who need psychiatric help. And because every family teaches you hypocrisy, you become schizophrenic. You have your individuality repressed by a personality given by your family -- you are divided into two. You will remain always in conflict, fighting within yourself, with yourself. You will become two. You can become many, it depends ....

I was staying with a family. They had only one child, a beautiful child. I was sitting on the lawn, and the child came and sat by my side. I asked him, "What are you going to become in life?"

He said, "I don't know. My father wants me to become a doctor, my mother wants me to become an engineer, my uncle wants me to become an actor, my second uncle wants me to become a politician. They are all driving me crazy and they are all fighting and nobody is asking me, `What do you want to become?' You are the first person who is asking me."

I said, "What do you want? -- just tell me."

He said, "I have not figured it out."

I said, "Then don't listen to anybody -- your father, your mother, your uncles, your brothers. Don't listen to anybody. Wait till the time comes when you have to choose. Go into the library and look into different subjects, see which attracts you more, which seems to be having a certain harmony with you. Only decide then -- not according to anybody else but simply according to you."

The boy stood up, smiled. He said, "I really want to become a guitarist -- in my neighborhood there is a man who plays the guitar -- but don't tell anybody."

I said, "That's perfectly good. Forget all about being a doctor, there are enough -- enough doctors to kill people, don't be worried! And there are enough engineers whose bridges go on falling down. To be a guitarist is absolutely innocent; I will not tell anybody, but you remain firm. Those people will manipulate you in every way."

My father loved me too much -- but it was what they think is love. He wanted me to go to a science college. "Either become a doctor or become a scientist or become an engineer, but first go to the science college. First graduate in science and then move into a specialization."

I refused. I said, "I know your love, but I also know your love is unconscious. You simply want your ambition to be fulfilled, that your son is a great doctor, a great scientist or engineer. I am going to study religion, philosophy, logic, psychology."

He said, "Then" -- it was just a threat and later he repented very much. He said, "Then I am not going to support you financially."

I said, "That's settled. It is obvious: I am not following your idea, why should you support me? In fact, even if you change your mind, I am not going to take any support from you."

He was wondering how I would manage, thinking perhaps I would drop my idea. He said,

"Philosophy ...!" India has one hundred universities, one hundred philosophical departments, and there are many universities where the whole department is empty -- four professors and not a single student. " ... So what are you going to do?"

I said, "I understand. I am not going to do anything. I am not going to use my education for any career, because I have decided to be good for nothing. I am going to relax and enjoy life!"

He said, "But who is going to support you?"

I said, "You don't be worried. You will see."

So I left my house after matriculation, and entered into a department of philosophy. My father thought, "How will he manage?" But I entered into a night class. The whole day I was working in a newspaper, and in the night I would go to the university class.

After six months he thought, "He must have managed somehow ...." He came to see me.

The village was almost a hundred miles away. He came to see me and he found me perfectly well. I had managed. I had found a family who simply loved me. They were not my relatives; just the man had met me in the public park where I was discussing with a few students, my colleagues. Sitting by the side on a bench, he heard me discuss and he was immensely impressed. He took me to the side, and he said, "Where do you live?"

I said, "I don't have any place to live."

He said, "I have a big house. You just come with me."

And when he saw the situation, what I was doing -- the whole day I was working in a press and the whole night, the first part of the night in the university, and the second part with my own books, not the textbooks -- he said, "You will fall sick. Don't be worried, I have enough money."

I told him, "Remember one thing: I am not going to return it."

He said, "That is settled."

I said, "Think twice. It is a question of six years. You can have time to think. I will not return a single rupee because I will not have any money anytime in my whole life. If you are giving me out of your abundance, I will accept with gratitude, but no obligation. And no bragging about it, that you have helped me."

He said, "No, that's not at all the question. In fact you have helped me. Since you have come in my house, a strange peace has come, a silence has come. I have never been so happy and so joyous. I have all the amenities, all that the world can provide, but there was a certain emptiness inside me. You have fulfilled it by teaching me meditation. I cannot repay it. Whatever money I spend on you is not even the interest on what you have given to me and what you are giving to me every day."

My father came, and he wanted to help me. I said, "We have settled it. I did not follow your idea, and you simply did not arrange the financing. There is no bitterness about it.

Our relationship remains the same. It was simply a disagreement, and I was at fault to disagree with you. You are just unnecessarily feeling guilty."

But he said, "I will give you money, whatever you want to do with it."

I said, "If you want to give without any condition, I can take as much money as you can give. I alone can use all the money in the world without any trouble."

He used to send me money, and that money helped me to purchase as many books as possible.

Now, the library you see -- it has one hundred and fifty thousand books. Most of them were purchased with his money. All the money he gave me went into purchasing books, and soon I was receiving scholarships -- and all that money went into books. Soon I had friends all over India, and I was purchasing everywhere -- in Poona, in Bombay, in New Delhi, in Amritsar, in Ludhiana, in Calcutta, in Allahabad, in Varanasi, in Madras. All over the country I was purchasing as many books as possible -- as many as the friend with whom I was staying could manage.

The family gives you ambition, and ambition is one of the hindrances for enlightenment.

It gives you desires, it gives you a longing to be successful, and all these things create your tensions, your anxieties: how to be a celebrity?

The family wants you to be a celebrity. The family wants you to be known all over the world. The family wants you to be the richest person. The family wants you to be the president of the country ....

All these ambitions the family creates, without knowing that all these ambitions are creating a mind which will remain continuously in anguish, suffering. Only one man can become the president of the country. What about the nine hundred million people in this country? -- they are all failures. This is an ugly situation, to keep people feeling they are failures, unsuccessful, inferior to others.

Family is the base for all pathology.

I would love a world where the family is replaced by the commune. Psychologically it is more healthy to have a commune, where children are not possessed by the parents, they belong to the commune; where children are not given the imprint of the mother and father only, they have many uncles in the commune, many aunts in the commune. Sometimes they sleep with this family, sometimes with that family.

In my commune every child belongs to everybody; he does not have a single imprint.

Because so many people love him, sometimes he will sleep with somebody, sometimes with somebody else. And they are invited ...

Now Siddhartha has come back with a girlfriend. When he came for the first time he was so small, but so intelligent, that he rarely stayed with his mother or father. I would ask the mother, and she would say, "I have not seen him for fifteen days. He stays everywhere, he goes with anybody who invites him." He used to get money from anybody: "Just give me ten rupees!"

Now he has become grown-up, is training to become an actor, has got a beautiful girlfriend who is a model. She has also become a sannyasin.

I want the family to be replaced by the commune, and in a commune there is no need for marriage. You love a woman, you live with her. Love disappears, you say goodbye in deep gratitude: "All these days that I spent with you were memorable. I will carry these days in my mind, in my memory, as a beautiful fragrance. They will haunt me like a dream, a beautiful dream. But now it is time for us to depart, joyously. From now onwards we will be friends" -- there is no need to become enemies.

And both get tired, it is simply human. The family is inhuman. It forces you to live with a woman you hate. It forces you to lie with a man you want to kill. It is prostitution, it is not family!

My definition of prostitution is, making love to a woman you don't love, making love to a man you don't love. Then it is simply a long-term prostitution. A prostitute is available to you only for one night; you pay for it. Your wife is available to you for your whole life, and you pay for it. It is an economic arrangement, financial. You have purchased the woman for the whole life.

In a commune there is no need of marriage. Marriage creates the family. People should be together out of love, sheer love. And the moment they feel the love is no more there, and now hanging around each other is creating tension and anxiety, it is better to say goodbye to each other before things become too bitter. At the first sign of frustration, boredom, depart. Find new friends.

And if you have children ... you can have children only if the commune allows you. The commune has to take care of the population; the commune is responsible not to expand the population so much that everybody becomes poor. So you can have a child only with the permission of the commune, and you can have the child only with the permission of the medical board of the commune.

If the medical board suggests that your child will not be healthy, will not be very intelligent, that it is better to have a child through insemination, then have the child by insemination. Your love remains with your friend; insemination does not disturb you.

People will be proud and say that "I have got the best insemination for my child, the best semen."

You can even ask the medical board for the kind of child you want. A genius? -- a healthy child who will not suffer from unnecessary diseases his whole life? A child who will be able to live beyond the ordinary span of seventy years -- one hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years ...?

Three hundred years is a possibility; just the right semen is needed. Just as there are blood banks, every commune should have semen banks. And medical experts should find out different qualities of different semen cells, categorize them, keep them deep-frozen.

And whenever somebody wants a mathematician, somebody wants a scientist, somebody wants a musician, somebody wants a mystic, just give the right insemination. The child will belong to the commune, so you need not be worried what will happen to the child.

Children are keeping people together, although their love was finished a long time back.

I have told you the story of a man who was ninety-five and a woman who was ninety-three .... They went to the court, they wanted a divorce. The judge looked at them and he said, "Your one foot is in the grave and you want a divorce? If you wanted a divorce why did you not come before? How long have you been married?"

They said, "We don't exactly know, but maybe sixty years, seventy years."

The judge said, "Strange. I have been dealing with these matters for years, and this is the first case .... Why did you remain married so long if you did not like each other?"

They said, "Yes, from the very first day we did not like each other, but we had to remain married because of the children."

So the magistrate asked, "What happened to the children?"

They said, "They all died. Now we are free, and we want the divorce immediately! Just two, three years maybe, but to live in freedom ... Just even three years is enough, a taste of freedom at the last moment. Fortunately, all the children have died."

It is the children who are keeping the family together, because where will the children go? What will happen to the children? If the commune takes responsibility for the children ...

From the very beginning the children should move to the commune's hostel. On holidays they can come to be with their parents, or to be with their uncles or with their aunts, who will be thousands. They can choose.

I want a new man in the world without any imprint. When a child lives with many women, if he is a boy, he will not have a single imprint. He will have so many imprints that they will become fuzzy. He will not be able to figure out what kind of woman ...

Then any woman can be a tremendous satisfaction. Then a love affair can last far beyond the honeymoon; otherwise, by the time the honeymoon is finished, love is finished.

Just watch when people are going on honeymoon with their suitcases -- "Just married."

See how fast they are going. And when they come back, just look at their faces --

punctured. Look at their suitcases. Just in seven days, what catastrophe has happened?

I am against the family, and I am for the commune.

Family dispersed, the church will die automatically. Nations will disappear automatically.

Races will disappear automatically. The world can become one only if there are communes, not families.

And the last thing that I want to say about Christianity -- because this is the last lecture of this series -- is about a man I have loved very much through his writings, Thomas Merton. He was a Trappist Christian.

He studied in many seminaries, in different theological sects of Christianity, and finally ended up with a Trappist monastery in America. It is the most arduous self-torturing kind of sect, it is really a trap. Once you get into the trap, it is very difficult to get out of it.

Thomas Merton was a world-famous writer. The chief abbot of the Trappist monastery was very jealous of him. He wanted somehow to prevent his writings. Thomas Merton lived for many years in the Trappist monastery, but could not find any way to his inner world, which was his interest. Everything was just outward discipline, and a strange kind of torture.

I have told you the story of a Trappist monastery. A man entered the monastery, and the abbot said to him, "This is our rule in the monastery: you can speak only once in seven years."

He accepted it, and he was shown the cell where he was to live. He thought, "My God!"

The glass of the window was broken, and the cell was a very small cell, just enough to lie down in.

Rains came, and the water would come inside. He was suffering from cold, sneezing, and all his clothes were wet, but he could not speak. So for seven years he suffered the rain.

The rain destroyed the mattress, and it destroyed his health also.

But after seven years he ran to the abbot, and he said, "You have given me a cell which has no glass in the window. I have suffered too much from the rain."

The abbot said, "Enough! Glass will be put in. Just go back, and for seven years, no more speaking."

New glass was put in, but when he went back to the cell, then he remembered that the mattress was completely rotten. But now, seven years ... So he waited for seven years with that rotten mattress, with all kinds of cockroaches and rats. But seven years passed.

They were too long, longer than seven years used to be! It was almost an eternity, suffering all those cockroaches moving on his face while he was lying down.

After seven years he went running to the abbot, and he said, "You put in the glass, but I forgot to tell you at that time that the mattress was rotten, and cockroaches and rats and all kinds of animals are moving inside the cell. Please move that rotten mattress, and remove all the cockroaches and rats."

The abbot said, "It shall be done -- but no more coming here for seven years!"

So the mattress was removed, the cockroaches were removed, the rats were removed, but the people who brought the new mattress ... It was too big, so they forced it and broke the glass! Again the same story began, the rains started coming, and from the broken window the rats which had gone out, the cockroaches -- they all came back, the whole family.

Now it was too much. He could not believe that he would survive seven years, but he survived. Man has immense capacity to adapt to any conditions.

After seven years, as he approached the abbot, the abbot said, "Don't speak a single word.

Since you have come into this monastery, complaints, complaints, complaints! I never hear anything else. Just get out of the monastery."

The man could not say even what he had come to say. He had been thrown out of the monastery. After twenty-one years, this was the only result.

Thomas Merton was an intelligent man, a genius. Because he was world-famous and he was writing books on Zen, I have looked at his books. For fifteen years I have not read anything, so it was fifteen years ago when I used to read his books. I always thought that sooner or later this man was going to land up in Japan. His understanding about Zen was purely intellectual. Beautiful ... he was writing beautiful sentences, beautiful poems, but it was all intellectual, he had no understanding of meditation.

Christianity does not allow meditation.

And just now I have heard ... Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk and a world-famous author. He wanted to go to Japan to study Zen, but again and again his superiors in the monastery refused him permission.

Do you see the comparison with Zen masters? If a disciple asks to go to another monastery, he is welcomed by the master, "Be richer, find the truth anywhere. The question is truth, not me, or the monastery."

But again and again he was refused permission to go to Japan, without being given any reason. There was no reason not to give it. All that he wanted was to know Zen directly, straight, by living in a Zen monastery for a few months or a few years, because he had not found anything in Christianity.

A letter from Rome, confirming the refusal, stated that, "His requested visit to Japan cannot possibly be the will of God." In the name of God, so many crimes ... In the name of God, people are being enslaved. Now, how does Rome know what the will of God is?

If Thomas Merton's whole being wants to go to Japan to learn Zen, that may perhaps be the will of God. But Rome decides for a faraway monk in America ....

But the reason is not exactly that it cannot possibly be the will of God -- that's why the refusal to allow him to go to Japan. The refusal is for the reason that anybody who will understand Zen will drop Christianity -- immediately. Christianity will look like a disease, a poison, in comparison to Zen.

But finally it happened, not that they allowed him to go to Japan, but that he became decisive in his mind. There was going to be a Catholic conference in Thailand, so he asked permission to read some papers on the Catholic religion in the conference. The deep desire was that from Thailand he would reach to Japan, not bothering about the permission. At the most they can expel him from the church -- and the church has not given him anything, so there is nothing to lose.

Finally, he was allowed to visit Thailand to address a Catholic conference. At the end of his speech he said, "And thus I fade off into the night." He had some suspicions ... some suspicions that they may poison him, they may kill him if he tries to go to Japan. The whole conference consisted of Catholic monks, and they were all informed, "Keep an eye on Thomas Merton. He should not escape from Thailand to Japan" -- which is very close.

At the end of his speech he said to the conference, "And thus I fade off into the night." A few hours later he was found dead in suspicious circumstances in his room. There is every reason to believe that he was killed by the Catholics.

There were rumors that he was killed so that he could not travel on to Japan to study Zen.

Circumstantial evidence shows that the rumors may be true. No autopsy was done on the body -- which is a regular process, and particularly in a suspicious case. He was perfectly healthy, he addressed the meeting; and just within two hours he was dead. And he had made the indication that "Perhaps I may fade off into the night."

No autopsy was done on the body, and it was not embalmed -- which is a regular procedure for Catholic monks, Trappist monks. Their bodies have to be embalmed.

It took seven days for the body to reach his monastery in the U.S. It is only a question of, at the most, twenty hours from Thailand to the U.S. -- and it took seven days. They wanted the body to decompose. Once the body starts decomposing, no autopsy is possible; you cannot know the reason why the person died. That's why it took seven days to reach his monastery in the U.S. He had to be buried in a special casket because the body was so decomposed, completely decomposed; there was no question of finding anything in it.

In his last book, not published until twenty years after his death, Merton wrote, "I have a real sense that my own vocation demands a deepened and experiential study from within, as well as Japanese and particularly Zen experiences."

He also wrote, "I cannot go to Asia to seek all their sources, some of the things I see to be vitally important -- the Zen ground of all the dimensions of expression and mystery. This is an imprisonment and confinement."

With this I end my arguments against Christianity.

And with this I discuss the last sutra of Zen.

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

YAKUSAN ONCE ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, UNGAN, "I HEARD THAT YOU KNOW

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LIONS -- IS THAT TRUE?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "YES, IT IS."

YAKUSAN ASKED, "HOW MANY OF THEM DO YOU GET AND DEAL WITH?"

"SIX," UNGAN SAID.

YAKUSAN THEN SAID, "I ALSO KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LION."

UNGAN ASKED, "HOW MANY DO YOU GET?"

YAKUSAN REPLIED, "ONLY ONE."

UNGAN THEN COMMENTED, "ONE IS SIX; SIX IS ONE."

Now, it is a very mysterious anecdote. But once you understand the symbology, it becomes absolutely simple.

There are seven chakras in the human body. In Zen they are called the seven lions. The first chakra is the sex center; the second chakra, which is just below the navel, is called in Japanese, hara.

If somebody wants to commit suicide -- which in Japanese is called hara-kiri -- he simply pushes a knife into the hara center. That is the simplest strategy to commit suicide, and without pain -- no pain at all. That center is the second center. The sex center has all the life energy gathered in it. For ordinary human beings, all the energy is gathered at the lowest center. This is just above that. So if you put a knife into the hara, the life energy is released from the hara center, which is just above it, into the cosmos.

So in Japan nobody shoots himself in the head, nobody cuts his own throat, nobody hangs himself. The only way to commit suicide in Japan is just to push a knife into the hara. A man may commit hara-kiri just sitting next to you and you may not even know that he has died. It is so silent. Life simply flies out.

The third center is the navel, and the fourth center is the heart. The fifth center is the throat, and the sixth center is the third eye, just between your two eyebrows. The seventh center is just on top of your head.

Once you understand that these centers are significant, that the sex center is the lowest point in your life, and the seventh ... If the energy moves from the first to the second, from the second to the third, from the third to the fourth -- every center has its own expression, and your life goes on changing.

For example, if the energy moves from the sex center to the second center, the hara, you suddenly become aware of death. People are not aware, they think it always happens to somebody else; obviously, you always see somebody else dying, you have never seen yourself dying. Perhaps you are an exception. It happens to somebody else, always --

although the poet says, "Never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

In Christian villages, the church bell tolls to inform all the farmers in the orchards, in the fields, to come to the village, somebody has died. It refers to that. "Never ask for whom the bell tolls, it always tolls for thee."

When your energy is at the hara center -- the hara center is the death center -- you suddenly become aware that just as millions of people have been dying since centuries, "I cannot be an exception. I will have to die, if not today, then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But someday, that which is born always dies. I am born, I am going to die."

Birth is the beginning of death. Birth contains death in itself. Birth is the seed, and death is the flower. It takes seventy years from the cradle to the grave; it is a seventy-year-old tree. But your death is growing side by side with your life.

Once you are at the sex center, your whole concentration is on the other sex -- if you are not a perverted Christian monk. If you are a Christian monk then your whole attention is either towards other men, or if other men are not available, then other animals -- female animals, in the beginning. If female animals are not available, then male animals.

Heterosexuality is between man and woman, a natural phenomenon. Homosexuality is between man and man, lesbianism is between woman and woman -- unnatural, perversions. And bestiality is between man and animals, or woman and animals.

It is surprising how man can get perverted.

I know an actual case of a woman .... I had just gone to the hospital to see a patient who had been meditating with me for many years, and as I was entering the hospital a woman was taken from a car. She had been making love to a dog.

But to make love to a dog is very dangerous, one of the most dangerous things a woman can do, because a dog has a special sexual mechanism. His prick is very thin and long, so as it enters into the vagina it is very easy. But the mechanism is such that inside the vagina it starts becoming thicker and thicker, so getting out can be very difficult.

You must have seen dogs making love, how difficult it can be. People are throwing stones, and the dogs are dragging each other in this direction and that direction, but they cannot get unhooked. For the first time I saw a beautiful woman, the wife of a very well known surgeon ... So there is bestiality.

And this bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism, has brought the most dangerous disease in the world -- Christians are ninety percent responsible for it -- AIDS. That is the only positive contribution to the world by Christianity: AIDS positive.

But if you are not a pervert, as your energy moves to the second center, the hara, you become absolutely uninterested in sex. It is not celibacy, you have not taken any vow, your energy has simply moved higher. Its concern becomes death. In sex the concern was birth, because through sex is all reproduction.

Moving from sex you have moved from birth to death, a small distance. Suddenly you become aware that "Death is coming and I am concerned only with trivia -- money, power, prestige, respectability. All this will be gone when death comes. I am unnecessarily making the effort of creating a signature on the sands. A little breeze of wind, a little tidal wave, and the signature will be finished."

Death comes as a tidal wave, and all your personality, all your respectability, prestige, are erased. One becomes aware that, "I have to find something which is beyond death."

Once the energy moves to the hara, the concern for the search for something immortal in you becomes very predominant, and when the energy moves to the third center, your concern is no more intellectual. You don't simply philosophize, you don't read the books which say, "Life is eternal"; you don't believe. At the third center -- the navel -- your interest becomes experiential.

Thomas Merton was at the third center. His interest in intellectual jargon was finished.

He wanted something experiential. That happens at the navel.

It is not a coincidence that people talk about meditators as "navel gazers." That is meaningful. You are gazing at the navel, not from the outside; that won't help. You have to close your eyes and go to the navel. That's what I am calling the center of your being.

It is just behind the navel. That's why the navel joins you with the mother, because your being is just behind the navel. If you were not nourished by the mother, through the navel, you would not have survived nine months in the womb.

Once your energy rises to the navel -- and it goes on happening, in all the meditations your energy is going up -- your concern becomes meditation. You want to know on your own, not through the scriptures, what is the truth, whether there is life beyond death or not.

As you move above to the fourth center, that is the heart, your whole life becomes a sharing of love. The third center has created the abundance of love. By reaching to the third center in meditation, you have become so overflowing with love, with compassion, and you want to share. It happens at the fourth center -- the heart.

That's why even in the ordinary world people think love comes out of the heart. For them it is just hearsay, they have heard it. They don't know it because they have never reached to their heart. But the meditator finally reaches to the heart.

As he has reached to the center of his being -- the third center -- suddenly an explosion of love and compassion and joy and blissfulness and benediction has arisen in him with such a force that it hits his heart and opens the heart. The heart is just in the middle of all your seven centers -- three centers below, three centers above. You have come exactly to the middle.

That's why the person of the heart is very balanced, utterly balanced. He has a tremendous grace, a beauty that seems to be not of this world. His eyes are showering love, his hands are showering love, even if he does nothing. Even his presence is radiating love. It is a vibration, multidimensional. All around him a love energy goes on flowing. Those who are receptive, their hearts will start ringing a bell. For the first time they will hear a new music, a new harmony, a new synchronicity.

The fifth center is the throat. The throat is the center of expression. When you are too full of experience, you share love at the fourth center, and you share your experience through language, through devices, from the fifth center.

The sixth center is just between the two eyebrows, inside. In India we have called it the third eye. It gives you a tremendous clarity, a vision of the whole existence as it is. And when you open your eyes ... it affects even your ordinary world. Trees are greener, roses are rosier, everything around you of which you were never aware becomes more graceful.

Everything around you becomes more beautiful. Even wildflowers look so beautiful; they have their own individuality, they cannot be compared to roses, they cannot be compared to lotuses. There is no comparison at all.

Once you have reached to the sixth -- the third eye -- everything in your life becomes crystal clear. No questions, no answers -- you know it. No belief, no disbelief -- you know it.

And the seventh center is when you become enlightened: the center of samadhi, the center of ultimate awakening, the center where you become a buddha. Understanding this symbology it will be easy to understand this mysterious anecdote.

YAKUSAN ONCE ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, UNGAN, "I HEARD THAT YOU KNOW

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LIONS" -- remember, by "THE LIONS" he means the centers -- "IS THAT TRUE?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "YES, IT IS."

YAKUSAN ASKED, "HOW MANY OF THEM DO YOU GET AND DEAL WITH?"

"SIX," UNGAN REPLIED.

He has reached to the third eye -- the sixth center. He has managed and tamed six lions, six centers of immense energy.

In fact, the Sanskrit word `chakra' is not rightly translated by `center'. A center gives you a sense of staticness -- just like a full point. Chakra means a wheel; the energy is constantly moving. Energy cannot be static, it cannot remain in one place. It is always on the go. So the chakra can be exactly represented by the wheel of energy -- but I am not using it because center has been used in English for centuries.

The Christian missionaries who translated from ancient scriptures about the chakras could not make the distinction between a center and an energy wheel, and because it is an energy wheel, it is dealing with a lion. You are in a whirlpool. It is going to transform you totally.

When Ungan said six, he was saying that he had not become enlightened yet -- but he was very close. He could see the seventh from his sixth center. It needs just a little more effort, a little more deepening, and the seventh chakra, the seventh energy wheel, will open up into a lotus flower -- it is just like a lotus flower, the opening of the petals -- and life will move into the ultimate.

If you commit hara-kiri, life moves into another womb. If life moves from the head, then it moves into the cosmic. Then it is never born again.

YAKUSAN THEN SAID, "I ALSO KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LION." He is using the word `lion' not `lions'.

UNGAN ASKED, "HOW MANY DO you GET?"

YAKUSAN REPLIED, "ONLY ONE."

Yakusan was an enlightened master, a buddha. He had reached to the seventh center.

Once you have reached to the seventh center, all the six other centers disappear; the whole energy from all the six is moved to the seventh. Then you have only one energy field, and that is around your head.

You have seen pictures of Krishna and Buddha and Jesus with an aura around their heads.

That is symbolic, that shows the person is supposed to be enlightened. Those who can see, can see rays radiating all around his head. His face becomes almost a sun, or a moon.

Yakusan said, "I have only one."

Ungan then commented, and his comment shows that he was certainly at the sixth ....

UNGAN SAID: "ONE IS SIX," because that one contains all the energy of the six. It pulls every energy from every center into the flowering of the ultimate being, into becoming a buddha. The whole energy is absorbed.

Yakusan's answer did not create a puzzle to Ungan. He commented, "ONE IS SIX; SIX

IS ONE. Just a little more time. I am moving towards the one. Six will become one just as one contains all the six."

This can be said only by a man who has reached to the sixth center, because from the sixth, you can see the seventh. It is just there, a very small distance. Everything is clear.

Ungan is only one step behind Yakusan, but he can see Yakusan. He has gathered the whole energy of the six centers into one. He is at the sixth, any moment he will be moving to the seventh. And then the six will become one.

This is a beautiful anecdote between a master and a would-be master, one who is going to become a master soon.

LATER ON, WHEN UNGAN VISITED ISAN, ANOTHER ENLIGHTENED

MASTER, ISAN SAID, "I HAVE HEARD THAT WHEN YOU WERE WITH

YAKUSAN, YOU HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT GETTING AND DEALING

WITH LIONS. IS THAT TRUE?"

"YES, IT IS," REPLIED UNGAN.

ISAN ASKED, "DO YOU CONTINUE TO DEAL WITH THEM, OR DO YOU

SOMETIMES STOP DOING THAT?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "WHEN I WANT TO, I DEAL WITH THEM; AND WHEN I WANT TO STOP, I STOP."

His answer is immensely beautiful and significant. A man who has gone beyond the mind to the seventh center is capable, if he wants to use the mind, of using it. I am using it, but only when I am talking to you. When I am sitting in my room, I am not using it.

A man who has reached to the highest center is capable of using any center of his being, even the lowest. If he wants to use even the lowest -- it will be difficult, because the distance is far away. Bringing the energy back down to the sex center will be a difficult job, but he can use it, it is not impossible. He can use any center if he wants, if there is any need; but otherwise, all those six centers remain silent. On their own they don't pull you, they have no power over you, but you have all power over them.

Ungan replied perfectly well: "WHEN I WANT TO, I DEAL WITH THEM; AND

WHEN I WANT TO STOP, I STOP."

"WHEN YOU STOP," ASKED ISAN, "WHERE DO THE LIONS GO?"

UNGAN REPLIED, "STOPPING IS STOPPING." There are no more lions. There are only wheels of energy.

The man of enlightenment concentrates all the energy into one center. All other centers are no more moving wheels, they are stopped, just as a wheel stops moving. But if he wants, the man of enlightenment can bring the energy down. He can bring it to the sixth center and he can see far and wide with clarity. That will not be possible at the seventh center.

The seventh center is beyond everything. You simply are no more. At the sixth, again you are. The energy comes, the circle, the wheel starts moving. You can bring it down to the fifth ....

I have to bring it down to the fifth every day when I am talking to you. Without the throat, I cannot talk. But when I stop talking the energy goes back to the seventh. I can bring it to the fourth -- then you feel tremendous love.

The man who has reached to the seventh becomes the master of his whole life structure.

He can do everything that he wants, and when he stops, the energy simply moves automatically back to the seventh.

That's why Ungan replied, "STOPPING IS STOPPING." Don't ask what happens to the lions; they lie dead. But if we want to make them alive we have to bring the energy back.

Then they start roaring again.

It is one of the most important anecdotes that you have come across. It gives you the whole science of energy and transformation.

Issa wrote:

THE MOON IN THE PINE TREE;

AND WITH THE CUCKOO,

AH, HOW GLORIOUS!

This is looking from the sixth center. From the seventh center you are simply silent. You cannot do anything, you cannot say anything. You are. It is pure isness.

THE MOON IN THE PINE TREE;

AND WITH THE CUCKOO,

AH, HOW GLORIOUS!

Question 1

The question from Maneesha:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

ONE COULD IMAGINE THAT, BECAUSE CHRISTIANS ARE ANTI-LIFE, THEY

WOULD CELEBRATE WHAT THEIR RELIGION TEACHES IS THE END OF LIFE.

BUT EVEN DEATH -- AS WELL AS LIFE -- IS TABOO, ANOTHER REASON TO

BE MISERABLE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT?

Maneesha, life and death are not separate. If you deny life, you will have to deny death. If you accept and rejoice in life, you will rejoice and celebrate in death. They are not separate things, but two sides of the same coin.

You cannot have one side of a coin and throw away the other side, it is impossible. The coin has to have two sides. You can have both or you can throw both.

I have both. Christianity has thrown both. They have thrown life away, they have thrown death away. Both have become taboo. Neither can they rejoice in life, nor can they rejoice in death.

I rejoice in life, I rejoice in death, because life and death are just small episodes in the eternal pilgrimage, the eternal caravan that goes from eternity to eternity.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh ....

Peanut Punghi is studying to be a Christian monk at the So-So Celibate Seminary in Poona. But Punghi is not really bright, and is shocked when he hears the story about how Jesus was nailed to the cross by the Jews.

That afternoon, all the new recruits are sent out into the Poona streets to practice preaching. Punghi is walking down M.G. Road, looking for a good spot to do his Bible-bashing, when suddenly he sees Irving Saperstein, a Jewish tourist, haggling over the price of a big bunch of bananas.

Enraged, Preacher Punghi kicks over the banana cart and jumps on top of Irving, knocking him to the ground. Then he beats on Irving until Irving finally shouts, "Stop!

Stop! Why are you beating me?"

"Because," replies Punghi, huffing and puffing, "you Jews killed Jesus on the cross!"

"Hey!" says Irving, "it is not my fault! That happened two thousand years ago!"

"So what?" snaps Punghi. "I only just heard about it!"

Minnie Starlight, the glamorous California brunette, goes for a palm reading session with Madam Sawzall at the California Cosmic Pyramid Shopping Mall in L.A.

"You are in love," announces Madam Sawzall, gazing into Minnie's hand.

"Really?" exclaims Minnie. "You can see that?"

"Sure!" replies Madam Sawzall.

"Go on! Go on!" says Minnie excitedly.

"He is tall, dark and very handsome," sees Madam Sawzall.

"Right again!" cries Minnie. "That's amazing!"

"Sure!" replies Madam Sawzall. "And he is twenty-eight years old, stands six foot tall, with a picture of his mother tatooed on his machinery."

"My God! That's really incredible!" exclaims Minnie.

"Yup," replies Madam Sawzall. "And he has a Swiss bank account, and drives a red Ferrari."

"You mean you can see all that in my palm?" gasps Minnie.

"Nope," replies Madam Sawzall, "I can see all that in your diamond engagement ring. It is the same one I gave back to him last month!"

Tired of being just an ordinary Polack, and tired of being just a regular pope, Pope the Polack calls Cardinal Catsass into the secret library beneath the Vatican.

When the cardinal arrives, the pope is thumbing through some pamphlets on Transcendental Meditation.

"Catsass," says Pope the Polack, "I am getting old, and before I go I want to learn how to fly."

"Fly?" asks Catsass. "Okay, no problem, poopsie! We can rent a plane."

"No!" replies Pope the Polack. "I mean really fly. See here, just like that yogi, Maharishi Mahesh Bogus. He says here I can learn yogic hopping in one week. I want to fly!"

Catsass just shakes his head at the old Polack, and goes off to phone the Maharishi. The holy yogi immediately sends Lulu Learjet to teach the pope the secrets of flying.

When Lulu arrives, it is love at first sight for the old Polack. The luscious Lulu works day and night with the pope, teaching him everything she knows.

After one week of intense study and practice, Pope the Polack is ready to blast off into the sky on his solo maiden voyage. He straps on his rocket-shaped hat, and then stands on his balcony rail high above Saint Peter's Square, with his arms stretched out. He leaps into the air and starts flapping his arms wildly. Suddenly, he finds himself flying. Happy as a cuckoo, Pope the Polack aims towards Lulu's apartment to see if he can surprise her.

When he arrives there, he looks down, and to his utter joy he sees Lulu stretched out naked on the roof, sunbathing.

Quickly unfastening his robes in mid-air, Pope the Polack swoops down and lands BANG! right on top of Lulu, and makes wild love to her.

"I bet that really surprised her!" exclaims Cardinal Catsass to the pope, two hours later.

"It sure did," replies the battered and bruised Polack pope. "But not half as much as it surprised the Holy Ghost!"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards.

You have to reach to the very center of your being. Gather your life energy and rush towards the center with total consciousness and an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment.

Faster and faster, deeper and deeper ...

As you start coming closer to your being a great serenity descends over you. A tremendous silence deepens, flowers of peace showering on you ...

As you reach to the center you are no more the same person you used to be. At the center you are the buddha. At the center you are pure awareness, pure witnessing.

Buddha consists only of one quality -- witnessing.

Now witness ... you are not the body.

Witness ... you are not the mind.

Witness ... you are not the seven subtle bodies behind the physical body.

Witness finally that you are only a witness, a pure mirror reflecting. No reaction -- just reflecting. This is the state of the buddha.

To make this witnessing more clear, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Relax ...

Let go, but keep remembering you are a buddha, and the buddha has only one quality --

witnessing.

Witnessing is the alchemy of ultimate transformation. As you go on deepening the witnessing, you start melting just like ice into the ocean.

Gautama the Buddha Auditorium suddenly turns into an ocean, without any waves, without any ripples -- utterly silent and peaceful.

A great ecstasy takes possession of you.

All around you there is a melody you have never heard before. All around you there is a dance of energy, pure energy, that you have never even dreamt of. All around you there are fountains of life juice.

Drink as much as you can and gather as many flowers of the beyond as you can, and remember to persuade the buddha to come along with you. He has to become your reality. He has to become your daily ordinary routine life.

You have to dissolve into him.

He is your eternal being.

He is your timeless beyond.

With him you experience for the first time the ultimate blissfulness, and a great benediction you can share with the whole world, and still it will be increasingly flowing from your sources, which are infinite.

Before Nivedano calls you back, gather all these experiences and persuade the buddha he has to come with you. First he will be a shadow behind you; soon you will be a shadow behind him, and finally there is no shadow to the buddha, because he is only pure transparent witnessing. A transparent thing does not make any shadow.

The day you will experience this transparency of being will be the greatest day of your life.

You have become awakened.

You have arrived home.

Long has been the night -- too long, too dark. But now, the day you become enlightened, all darkness disappears. Now there will be no sunset. You will live as light, as life, as laughter. Your whole existence will become just a pure dance. ... I don't give you any philosophy,

I don't give you any religion.

I give you only that which you are.

I take away all that is false from you

and leave only that which is your eternal being --

the buddha, the awakened one.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat)

Come back ... but come back in deep silence, in great grace, peacefully. Just sit down like buddhas, remembering the golden path that you have traveled, remembering the experiences at the center, remembering your eternity and remembering that buddha has come closer to you.

Just go on meditating ....

One never knows -- any moment you will disappear, and only buddha will be left behind.

It is going to happen to everybody who is earnestly searching it. It is your nature.

It does not come from outside, it grows from within, just like a lotus. It comes from all your uglinesses, all your trivia, mundane affairs, all your anger, greed, all your rage, all your hate -- just like the lotus comes out of dirty mud and dirty water.

But it rises above the dirty mud and the dirty water and it opens its petals only when the sun comes on the horizon.

Meditation will bring the sun on the horizon, and meditation also will bring your lotus to the seventh center.

There is no other miracle in the world than meditation. It is the only science of transforming you into a new man, into a superman.

The superman is needed very much, urgently, because only the superman can prevent this beautiful planet from being destroyed by pygmy politicians, by ugly religions, by this whole status quo. All these vested interests are going to destroy the most beautiful planet in the universe.

You can do only one thing to save it, and that is to become a buddha and spread your buddhahood -- share it.

We have to surround the whole globe with buddhas.

They are our only hope.

But I am not hoping in vain, you are going to be my witnesses.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Table of Contents

Chapter title: Service with a smile

Chapter title: Turning lions into sheep

Chapter title: Good soldiers of christ