Chapter title: Silence and Song Meet

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‌Chapter title: Silence and Song Meet‌

3 November 1980 am in Buddha Hall Archive

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8011030

ShortTitle:

COME08

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Yes Video:

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0

mins

Q2 and Q4 on video The first question:

Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN I AM AMONG PEOPLE, AFTER A WHILE I WANT TO BE ALONE. WHEN

I AM ALONE, AFTER A WHILE I WANT TO BE AMONG PEOPLE. SO I

CANNOT

ENJOY ONE OR THE OTHER FULLY. SHOULD I LIVE ON THE INSIDE OR ON

THE OUTSIDE?

Robert, this is one of the most fundamental questions every human being has to encounter; it is part of the challenge that life presents to us. The mind functions in duality; it is like a pendulum. When the pendulum moves towards the right, you see it moving towards the right, but at the very same time it is gathering momentum to go to the left. When it is moving towards the left it is gathering momentum to go to the right.

This inner duality in the pendulum represents your mind. The mind is a pendulum; hence, when you are alone you cannot enjoy aloneness, you start gathering momentum to be with people, and as you start thinking of people, aloneness turns into loneliness.

Aloneness is tremendously beautiful; it is like a sunlit peak, something beyond the clouds. But loneliness is ugly; it is a dark hole. If you cannot enjoy aloneness everything goes upside down: the peak becomes the valley, the light becomes darkness. You are bored, you don't know what to do with yourself; you feel empty, and you want to stuff yourself with something -- either with people or with food or with a movie. These are all different ways not to feel lonely. And when you are with people, the same will happen again from the other end. When you are with people you feel interfered with, trespassed upon, because others start encroaching on your space, they destroy your freedom. So being with others is no longer love; it becomes a bondage. And one hates bondage -- one wants to get rid of it as quickly as possible. It is a prison; you start feeling suffocated.

Even with the person you think you love, you start feeling fed up. You cannot enjoy love because suddenly you realize that to be alone is beautiful, because now you can see that aloneness is freedom. But when you are alone you see love as joy!

This is the dichotomy of the mind. It exists in every dimension. If you are poor you hanker to be rich; this is a well-known fact. But the other side has not been recognized: everybody knows the beggar wants to be the emperor, but have you not watched Mahavira renouncing his kingdom, Buddha escaping from his

marble palaces? What is that? It is the same phenomenon! The poor man wants to be rich, and the rich man wants to be poor. And when Buddha started initiating disciples he called them BHIKKHUS.

The word "bhikkhu" means beggar.

Alexander the Great, at the last moment of his life, realized that he had wasted his life in accumulating unnecessary, nonessential things, and now death would take everything away. Suddenly he remembered the great Greek mystic Diogenes whom he had met just a year before. Diogenes was naked and lived without any possessions, and Alexander had felt tremendously infatuated with him. He had told Diogenes exactly this, that "If I am to come back to the world I will ask God to make me Diogenes next time, and not Alexander."

This is the same dichotomy; there is no difference. When you are a child you want to be older, and when you are older you start thinking how beautiful were the days when you were a child. Everybody as he grows older starts fantasizing about his childhood; he starts decorating it in every possible way. And when he was a child he was in a hurry to grow up.

When you are alive you think of the life that is after death. People come to me and say,

"Tell us something about what happens after death." And I am always intrigued with their question. Rather than answering them, I ask them, "First tell me what happens before death!" Nobody seems to be interested in that -- what happens before death; everybody is interested in what happens after death. And if you meet a ghost, it is absolutely certain he will tell you, "I am suffering very badly. I missed my life, now I am hankering for it. I would like to have the body again, the mind again, to have all the senses again."

Different aspects, but the problem is the same: you hanker for the opposite because the grass looks greener -- not your own grass but the grass beyond the fence in the neighbor's garden. It always looks greener. It is a simple phenomenon: whatsoever you have loses meaning -- the moment you have it, it loses meaning -- whatsoever you have not becomes immensely significant. The mind hankers for that which it has not got, and the mind gets bored with whatsoever it has got.

It is said about the great English poet Byron that he must have loved at least

sixty women. He did not live so long; he died young -- and this number, sixty, is a very conservative estimate. This is from the known stories; there may have been other relationships which are not known. When he would go mad about a woman, he would risk everything. He risked his whole respectability. He was expelled from England for the simple reason that he was creating chaos. He was a beautiful man -- very beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful -- and a great poet. He had all those qualities which women are attracted to. He was a legend in his own time.

It had become a routine phenomenon that if he entered a restaurant the men would clutch the hands of their wives and run away! He was not allowed into clubs, he was not allowed into good society. Everybody was afraid of the man; he had some charm, some magnetism, some charisma. And for months he would go mad and chase a woman. And the moment he got the woman he would lose all interest, all interest would absolutely disappear. He represents mind in its purity, in its essential quality.

One woman forced him to marry her because she insisted that she would not allow him even to kiss her, or even to hug her, or even to hold her hand unless he married her. And he was so mad about her that he agreed to marriage. When they were coming out of the church, just married, and the guests were taking leave of them, standing on the steps, holding the hand of his wife, he saw another woman walking down the road and he forgot his wife. His wife immediately recognized it; she could see that he had forgotten all about her, and she told him so.

But he was a sincere man too. He said, "It is true, I have lost all interest in you. For six months I was mad -- day in, day out, I dreamed about you, fantasized about you, wrote poems about you. I was dying! I was thinking that without you I could not live a single moment longer. And now that you are mine and your hand is in my hand, I only feel perspiration! That woman for a moment caught my whole being. I simply forgot you." He apologized -- but apology is not love.

This is the way the mind functions: its whole interest is in that which you have not got.

Hence, Robert, your question is significant and it has tortured humanity since the very beginning. And people have been choosing, just as you are asking: "Should I live on the inside or on the outside?"

Wherever you live you will be in trouble. If you live on the outside, the inside will function like a magnet. If you live on the inside, the outside will go on sending invitations to you: "Come out! It is a beautiful morning. The flowers are blossoming and the air is fragrant," or, "It is a tremendously ecstatic sunset. Look, the starry night.…" And if you are outside you will continuously worry, "What is inside me? Who am I? What is this consciousness?"

Science has become focused on the outside; religion has become focused on the inside.

Both are lopsided, because the inside and the outside are not two separate things, they are inseparably one. To separate them is arbitrary, artificial.

In the past the monks decided to be alone because they saw the misery of love, they saw that to be with someone is to suffer. What Jean-Paul Sartre said in this century, the monks all over the world -- Christian, Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist, Mohammedan -- have known all along; it is one of the most ancient experiences. Jean-Paul Sartre is not original at all; he looks original because nobody has said it in exactly that way. Jean-Paul Sartre says, "The other is hell" -- and this is the experience of all the monks, of all the mahatmas, of all the saints. Whatsoever denomination they belong to does not matter; on one point they all agree: "The other is hell -- escape from the other!"

They escaped to the Himalayan caves, they escaped to the monasteries, they escaped from the world -- they were really escaping from the other. But were they happy in their monasteries, in their caves? That question has not been raised. It has to be raised. Were they blissful? Maybe they were more silent than you are -- but silence is not bliss, silence is not a song. Silence has no warmth; it can be cold and dead. And it WAS cold and dead.

Your so-called monks have lived in such a suicidal way that they have become living corpses. They chose half of life, and whenever you chose half you will be in trouble, because what are you going to do with the other half? You will remain only fragmentary, and the other half will take its revenge.

The remainder of humanity has chosen to live in the world, and it is very rare to find a person in the world who does not feel once in a while the desire to escape from all this.

The world is too much; it is anxiety, anguish; it is nothing but suffering.

Psychologists say that the average person thinks at least four times in his life of committing suicide -- at least! Why do people think of committing suicide? And not only do people think of it, many commit suicide. That's also a way of escaping from the world, escaping totally, because if you go to a monastery you can come back. You know it yourself: if you go to the Himalayas, who can prevent you? -- you can come back again.

Suicide seems to be irreversible. Suicide is a total renunciation of life, and what you have called the renunciation of life is nothing but slow suicide, suicide in installments -- the American way, part by part!

My own observation is that both extremes have been wrong, and both have created a very ugly situation. There is no need to choose; we have to live both. Of course it is easier to be silent in a cave, but that silence will not give you a dance, and without a dance you will remain dead. If you are in the world it will give you a song, but the song will not have any depth; it will be superficial, formal.

One needs silence in the heart, and yet a silence which is not cold but warm, a silence which can sing and dance.

When silence and song meet, the man is whole.

When you are capable of moving between the inner and the outer easily, just as you move in and out of your house...in the same way as when it is too cold in the morning you simply move out of the house into the sun. You enjoy the warmth of the sun, and when it becomes too hot you move inside. There is no problem in it -- it is YOUR house! The inner is as much yours as the outer, and to be capable of moving from the inner to the outer and vice versa, in a flexible way, creates the whole man. And I call the WHOLE

man the holy man.

My sannyasins have to be whole.

Robert, you are not yet a sannyasin. If you are really interested in solving this problem, my sannyas is the only way to solve it, because I teach flexibility. All the old ideas are rigid: "Either be extrovert or be introvert" -- but both are pathological. The introvert becomes moribund, the introvert becomes a little bit insane because he loses contact with objective reality; he starts hallucinating.

That's why it is easy to experience God if you go to the Himalayan caves. There is no objective reality to hinder you from deceiving yourself. There is no objective reality to remind you that this is a dream, that what you are seeing is not there, it is a hallucination.

It is a well-known psychological fact that if you live in deep isolation for just three weeks you will start hallucinating. And you can hallucinate whatsoever you want: if you are a Christian you will see Christ, if you are a Hindu you will see Krishna, if you are a Buddhist you will see Buddha. This is very strange! No Christian ever sees Buddha, no Buddhist ever sees Christ! Whatsoever you have been conditioned for, your hallucination will be colored by it. You will start visiting heaven, but your heavens will be different.

The Tibetan heaven is very warm; it has to be -- Tibet suffers so much from cold. The Tibetan hell is cold, ice-cold, but the Indian hell is just fire. The very idea of ice to the Indian will give him great joy! The Indian idea of heaven is that it is very cool -- it is air-conditioned! The Indian will dream about his heaven, and the Tibetan will dream about his heaven.

In the Mohammedan heaven there are rivers and streams flowing with wine, because the KORAN is very much against wine. It is repression. When you repress you are bound to erupt in hallucination. The Mohammedan idea of heaven is that you will have beautiful women there, and not only beautiful women but beautiful boys too, because in the Arabic nations homosexuality has been one of the longest traditions -- repressed, very much repressed. But whatsoever is repressed is bound to assert itself somewhere. In heaven even homosexuality is allowed, available. Here it is condemned; there it is allowed.

Hindus go on saying that all desires are wrong, but in heaven you have wish- fulfilling trees. You just sit underneath the tree -- KALPATARUS, wish-fulfilling trees -- you desire anything, and immediately, instantly it is fulfilled. Instant coffee is a very new thing -- Hindus have known instant fulfillment for all desires! Just sit under the KALPAVRISKSHA. Here they go on talking against desires, and there the same desires are going to be fulfilled. Here they go on talking against women.…

The Hindu saint goes on saying that the woman is the door to hell, and in their heaven there are beautiful APSARAS, beautiful women -- Uruvasi, Menaka...thousands.… They have golden bodies; they are always young. In fact,

they have been stuck at the age of sixteen for millions of years; they have never grown beyond it. It seems they were born at exactly sixteen and they have remained sixteen. Here, the woman is the door to hell, and the saints are hoping that sooner or later all this austerity, asceticism will be finished and they will enjoy heaven forever and forever. And what are you going to enjoy there? -- the same women who are the doors to hell here!

The same money, the same gold which you go on calling dust...in heaven even the flowers are made of gold. I would not like such a heaven! Flowers made of gold cannot have any perfume. A roseflower made of gold will be ugly, it will be dead. Gold cannot be alive.

The extrovert is half: he is continuously running after things and continuously feeling guilty that he is missing the inner -- maybe the real bliss is there. Perhaps the Buddha and the Jina and the Christ are right, that the kingdom of God is within. And the person who is sitting silently, looking inside, is continuously wondering, "Am I wasting my time?

People are enjoying and I am foolishly sitting here, waiting for the spring to come and the grass to grow by itself! And who knows whether it grows by itself or not? And even if it does grow, so what? It will still grow whether I am sitting silently or not! The spring will come and the grass will grow, so let it grow! And there is some juicy party going on, and there are so many beautiful hotels and restaurants and clubs and nightclubs "

Even a man like Morarji Desai...can you imagine Morarji Desai visiting a nightclub?

Now he has confessed that when he was the prime minister -- he must have been eighty-three at that time -- he went to visit a nightclub in Canada, of course without declaring it.

He has kept it a secret up to now. Why did he suddenly talk about it? He was bragging; he did not think that he was saying something wrong -- he was bragging. He was telling the Gujarat Vidyapeeth students in Ahmedabad, "I have attained to the ultimate celibacy.

For example, I visited a nightclub in Canada just to see what was going on there." But why should a man who has attained to ultimate celibacy even be interested to know what is going on there? Some rationalization, some strategy

of the mind entering from the backdoor. He was not even being honest enough to say, "I wanted to see the naked women." No, he says, "I wanted to see what was going on there." But why should he be worried about it?"

And he says, "When I went there, knowing that I was the prime minister, the four most beautiful girls were sent to me and they started dancing around me, making all kinds of gestures -- very inviting, very appealing -- but I remained controlled! I was not affected at all." He emphasized it so much that it simply shows he must have been affected.

And those girls seem to have been far more intelligent than this poor guy. After a while they said, "We thought you were a man, but you are just a Morarji Desai!" Now do you know what Morarji Desai means? The girls said, "We thought you were a man, but you are nothing -- just a Morarji Desai!"

But he even brags about that -- stupidity is such! He thought they recognized that he was no ordinary person, he was Morarji Desai -- that he was not a man in the ordinary sense, he had transcended all human weaknesses.

The people who are living extrovertly will remain interested in the inner world, and the people who are living introvertly will remain interested in the extrovert world, and they will both be torn apart. That creates anguish, strain.

Robert, my own suggestion is to live a relaxed life. It is beautiful to be alone, it is also beautiful to be in love, to be with people. And both are complementary, not contradictory.

When you are enjoying others, enjoy, and enjoy to the full; there is no need to bother about aloneness. And when you are fed up with others, then move into aloneness and enjoy it to the full.

Don't try to choose -- if you try to choose you will be in difficulty. Every choice is going to create a division in you, a kind of split in you. Why choose? When you can have both, why have one? And it is a very natural process. It is just like when you are hungry you eat, and when you are full you stop eating. You don't start saying, "What should I choose? Should I always remain hungry or should I eat continuously?" When you are hungry, eat, and when you are full, stop eating and forget all about it; there are a thousand and one other things to do. There is no need to go on a fast, and there is no need to go on stuffing yourself continuously; both are pathological states.

The same is true about love and aloneness. Enjoy people because they are manifestations of God, but remember the other side is also there. So when you start feeling fed up there is no need to remain with people just out of politeness. Don't try to be British -- be authentic! It is very difficult not to be British, because we have always been told to be polite, to have certain manners, to follow a certain etiquette. Even if you are bored you go on smiling. Even if you don't feel good with somebody you say, "It is a blessing to meet you," and you are cursing them.

Why do you go on creating such strange splits in yourself? It is time -- man has come of age -- it is time to be authentic. When you are feeling good with somebody, say so and say it totally, and when you are not feeling good, then you can just say, "Excuse me.…" I am not saying to be rude, but there is no need to suffer the presence of the other. Just say,

"I would like to be alone, I would like my own space."

Up to now this has not been possible. If you love somebody you cannot say, "I would like to have my own space." This is sheer nonsense, inhuman! If you love somebody you should be sincere -- that is the indication of love -- you should be able to say, "Now I would like to have my own space." And you should allow the other also the same freedom to be with you or not to be with you.

It is good if two persons agree to be together for a time; it is beautiful. But it is also good to be alone. Aloneness will give you peace, silence, equanimity, meditativeness, awareness, a sense of integrity, centering, rootedness, groundedness -- all these are great values. And love will help you to learn compassion, prayer, service -- they are also great values, and they will enhance each other.

That's what I am doing here with my sannyasins -- letting them enhance each other, letting them become backgrounds to each other.

Let your love help your aloneness.

It is like...when you look at the sky in the day you will not see any stars. It is not that they have all died or disappeared or evaporated; they are still there, but the background of darkness is missing, that's why you cannot see them. The sky is always full of stars; day or night makes no difference, but in the night you can see the stars clearly. The darker the night, the brighter the stars look. They are

not against each other; they are complementary, not contradictory.

So are the inner and the outer world: the outer is part of the inner, Robert, just as the inner is part of the outer. They are like two wings -- you cannot fly with one wing. Enjoy both, and don't create any rift, don't create any fight between them. Learn the art of being together AND of being alone.

Hence my whole teaching consists of two words, "meditation" and "love." Meditate so that you can feel immense silence, and love so that your life can become a song, a dance, a celebration. You will have to move between the two, and if you can move easily, if you can move without any effort, you have learned the greatest thing in life.

God is both the creator and the creation -- this infinite universe outside and this infinite consciousness inside. And he has to be tasted and known in both aspects.

The second question:

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

CHOGYAM TRUNGPA WRITES IN ONE OF HIS BOOKS:

"NOR IS IT HELPFUL TO CHOOSE SOMEONE FOR YOUR MASTER SIMPLY

BECAUSE HE IS FAMOUS -- SOMEONE WHO IS RENOWNED FOR HAVING

PUBLISHED STACKS OF BOOKS AND CONVERTED THOUSANDS OR

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. INSTEAD, THE GUIDELINE IS WHETHER OR NOT YOU

ARE ABLE TO ACTUALLY COMMUNICATE WITH THE PERSON DIRECTLY

AND THOROUGHLY."

THE KEY WORDS ARE "DIRECTLY" AND "THOROUGHLY." HOW DOES THIS

WORK FROM THE SANNYASIN'S END, IN VIEW OF YOUR VIRTUALLY COMPLETE PHYSICAL INACCESSIBILITY?

James, it is true that one should not choose someone as a master JUST because he is famous. Jesus was not famous when he was alive nor was Lao Tzu famous when he was alive. To be famous is one thing; to know the truth is totally another. In fact, there is a greater possibility that the master, the real master, will be notorious rather than famous.

Jesus must have been very notorious; otherwise why should he be crucified? And he was crucified with two thieves, one on either side, just to show the world that the people who were crucifying him did not consider him in any way more significant than two ordinary thieves. In fact they thought he was worse. It was a tradition in the Jerusalem of those days that each year one person could be forgiven. The day Jesus was crucified there were four persons to be crucified, and there was a possibility of one person being forgiven.

Pontius Pilate asked the Jews, "Whom would you like to forgive?" He was thinking they would ask for Jesus to be forgiven, because in fact he had not done any harm to anybody

-- he was not a murderer, he was not a thief, he was not a criminal. But the people asked for a thief to be forgiven and insisted that Jesus could not be forgiven: "You can forgive any of the thieves, but not Jesus." He must have been very notorious -- people were so angry with him.

They killed Socrates, they killed al-Hillaj Mansoor, they made many attempts on the life of Gautam Buddha. It simply shows these people were not famous, not respected by the crowd; the crowd was utterly against them. Hence it is true that you should not choose your master simply because he is famous. He can easily be famous if he fulfills your expectations. And everybody has certain expectations, everybody has in mind certain qualities that a master has to fulfill -

- and anybody who fulfills your expectations is not a master at all. No master can fulfill your expectations; in fact he will sabotage all your expectations, he will destroy all your expectations. To fulfill your expectations is to strengthen your ego, and no master can do that.

And how can you decide what the qualifications of a master are? The Hindu will decide in one way, the Jaina will decide in another way; in fact, their decisions will be diametrically opposite to each other. The Hindu thinks Krishna is the perfect master, and the Jainas have thrown Krishna into the seventh hell. Hindus think Krishna is the perfect master because he lived a multidimensional life. Jainas think that he is one of the greatest criminals because he was the cause of the great war that destroyed India forever. Since that war five thousand years have passed and India has not been able to stand on her own feet again.

Millions of people were killed, and Krishna rationalized this killing with beautiful logic.

He said to Arjuna, "Don't be worried about killing people, because the soul is immortal and the body is already dead, so you are not killing. There is no murder, there is no violence at all. The body is already dead, so dust will fall unto dust; and the soul is immortal, so you are only disconnecting them, that's all. You are not killing anybody; nothing is ever killed. NA HANYATE HANYAMANE SHARIRE -- "By killing the body, nothing is killed."

A beautiful argument for violence! Now, the Jainas cannot forgive it. Their criterion for a perfect master is that he should be absolutely nonviolent -- Mahavira is their ideal.

Mahavira used to sleep in one position the whole night, for the simple reason that if he changed his posture, turned over on his other side, some ants or some insects might be killed. It was better to remain in one position the whole night. It is unnatural; the body needs the change. It helps the digestion to change your position -- it is a little bit of exercise. But Mahavira remained like a statue the whole night. This is their ideal.

Krishna cannot fulfill it, Rama cannot fulfill it. Rama carries a bow and arrow, and they symbolize violence. Even Jesus cannot fulfill their criterion, because according to the Jainas you suffer only because of your past karmas. Jesus suffered on the cross, and that simply shows one thing and very definitively -- that in his past lives he must have committed a great crime; otherwise why should he be crucified?

Who is going to decide? How are you going to know who the master is? Fame cannot decide, thousands of followers cannot decide. Then what is the way to

decide? In fact, logic cannot decide. This is logic: looking at the fame of the man, looking at how many disciples he has. This is all logic, calculation, mathematics; these cannot be decisive.

Only one thing can decide: if in your heart some bells start ringing for no reason at all, illogically. Even if you want to stop them they don't stop, they go on ringing. It is a heart-to-heart phenomenon.

So it is true: one should not choose a master just because he is famous, but the second part is not right either.

Trungpa says: "Instead, the guideline is whether or not you are able to actually communicate with the person.…" The master has no personality, he is not a person -- he has dropped personality. In fact, in the ultimate sense he is just a nothing, what Buddha calls SHUNYATA; he is pure nothingness. How can you communicate with nothingness?

Yes, communion is possible, but communication is not possible. And communion needs no direct personal contact; you can commune with the master from thousands of miles away. The physical presence is not needed. The physical presence is needed only for the beginners, for the people who are in the kindergarten class.

As the master starts working deeper and deeper, as he starts finding his people, he will become more and more inaccessible physically, because once he has found the right people, who are ready to commune, there is no need for communication.

So that part is sheer bullshit, that the guideline is whether or not "you are able to actually communicate with the person directly and thoroughly." The whole thing depends on the disciple. If he can surrender his ego, then wherever he is there is communion.

Communion is a totally different phenomenon from communication. Communication is from intellect to intellect -- and for that the physical presence is helpful -- but communion is a totally different phenomenon. It is a love affair. The hearts can beat in the same rhythm thousands of miles apart. Even if you are on another planet, it doesn't matter; the hearts can dance in the same rhythm with the master, and then there is communion. You can be here physically with me, but if your heart is not beating with me, if you are not attuned to me, then

communication is happening -- I am talking to you, you are listening to me -- but communion is not happening. The relationship between a disciple and a master is that of communion; it is a love affair.

Trungpa knows nothing about it. He is not a master, just a teacher. And remember the difference between a master and a teacher: the teacher is one who can inform you, the master is one who can transform you. The teacher teaches you, the master gives you a new birth. The master is like a midwife: he helps you come out of the cocoon of your mind; he makes you twice born.

There is no question of physical communication, so "directly and thoroughly" does not mean physically; "directly and thoroughly" means something different. According to me, if your ego is completely put aside, if the disciple is ready to trust, then there is a direct communication -- direct, immediate. Even words are not needed; nothing is needed. And it is thorough communion too -- total; it is an immersion.

It is like two lovers getting into a deep orgasmic state; that is a physical orgasm. The same thing happens on a higher plane with the master; it is a spiritual orgasm. Your soul and the soul of the master meet and merge, melt, lose their boundaries. There is tremendous joy; a great bliss surrounds you, a great grace descends in you.

James, Buddha had forty thousand disciples. Do you think it was possible for him to physically communicate "directly and thoroughly" with each one? Mahavira also had forty thousand disciples; it would have been impossible. But Buddha helped many more people to become enlightened than anybody else on the whole earth and in the whole history of man. And how did he help? Yes, there was a direct and thorough communion, but it was a silent phenomenon.

When Maulingaputta, a great philosopher, came to Buddha to ask questions, Buddha said,

"If you really want your questions to be answered, for two years sit silently by my side, don't ask anything, and after two years I will answer you."

While Buddha was saying this, Mahakashyapa, one of Buddha's great disciples, started laughing. Maulingaputta felt a little embarrassed and he asked, "Why is this man laughing? He looks a little crazy!"

Buddha said, "You ask him!"

And Maulingaputta asked Mahakashyapa, "Why are you laughing?"

Mahakashyapa said, "I am laughing because this man deceived me too! And I warn you, if you want to ask your questions, ask right now! After two years you will not be able to ask. He played the same trick on me! For two years I was sitting silently by his side, and then slowly slowly all questions disappeared."

Buddha said to Maulingaputta, "I will stick to my promise. If your questions disappear, then what can I do? But after two years I will remind you."

And after two years Buddha actually reminded him. Mahakashyapa was also present.

Maulingaputta was sitting somewhere behind, afraid that Buddha would ask. Two years had passed, and Buddha asked Mahakashyapa, "Where is Maulingaputta? Find him! Two years have passed, exactly two years since the day he came. Now he can ask."

Maulingaputta stood and he said, "Forgive me, I have no questions. Now I know why you insisted that I should be silent."

When the mind becomes completely silent, there happens a direct and thorough communion. Answers are not given but received. Nothing is said but everything is heard.

So it is not a question, James, of how many sannyasins I have. I will tell you a beautiful story.

Two sannyasins meet in London and get into conversation. The first says, "Yeah, I just came back from Poona. Osho asked me to come back to the West and start up a few small buddhafields here and there to help His work."

The second swami says, "Oh, if there were only a hundred sannyasins like you!"

The first continues, "Well, I'm really close to Osho, I suppose. I think He's starting to send future BODHISATTVAS out into the world. You know -- to be in the world and yet not of it."

The second swami says, "Oh! If there were only a hundred sannyasins like you!"

The first swami goes on speaking, "I'm going to try to raise enough money to buy an island in the Pacific for the new ashram. I know He wants to leave India, and so I'm going to find the perfect place for Him. I expect I will get to live in His house there."

The second swami sighs, "Oh! If there were only a hundred sannyasins like you!"

"Well," the first swami says, "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but when He told me to go back to the West, I knew He was preparing me for something special. I have a feeling that I'm going to be the first male medium when I go back there. He said a few of us were ready and I could swear He was looking straight at me."

"Oh! If there were only a hundred sannyasins like you!" said his listener.

"Look," laughed the first swami, "I'm just an ordinary guy like you. Why do you go on saying if only there were a hundred like me?"

"That's why!" said the other. "If only there were only a hundred sannyasins like you instead of two hundred thousand!"

But it does not matter -- communion is possible. Two hundred thousand or twenty hundred thousand makes no difference. As far as I am concerned, to commune with one person or to commune with one hundred million people is the same, because communion from my side is a simple phenomenon. I am just a zero. All that is needed is a preparation on your part: if you are also a zero, then two zeros become one zero. And thousands of zeros can go on meeting and disappearing into one zero.

Neither fame should be decisive nor your expectations, but only your heart. If your heart says take the jump, then take the jump, then risk, then be adventurous.

And I will become more and more inaccessible. As the new commune arrives I will become more and more inaccessible to you physically so that I can become more accessible spiritually. I am going to be silent sooner or later, I am not going to speak at all. So be quick -- get out of your kindergarten classes. Be fast! Don't waste time and don't postpone.

The last question:

Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,

DO YOU WANT TO ATTRACT OR PREVENT POLACKS WITH YOUR JOKES?

Deva Yachana, I never thought that you were also a Polack! There are many Polacks here

-- through my jokes I have discovered them; otherwise they hide themselves so perfectly!

It is my way of discovering who are the Polacks among my sannyasins.

In Poland all are not Polacks, and outside Poland all are not non-Polacks either. So don't be worried -- I am not saying anything against Polacks as such. They are beautiful people, innocent people; they are simple people. And sometimes simple people are also simpletons, but I love them. Those who can understand me will be attracted, and those who cannot understand me, whether I tell the jokes or not will not make any difference to them.

A Polack traveling on a train goes to the toilet for a piss. As soon as he opens the door to the toilet he sees himself in the mirror opposite and thinks that he is someone else. He apologizes for the intrusion and closes the door.

Ten minutes later he returns. "Oh, sorry!" he says, closing the door.

He comes back a third time and the same thing happens. He can't hold on any longer.

With his hands thrust tightly in his pockets, he goes to the conductor to complain.

The conductor, another Polack, is outraged and goes to the toilet with the passenger to see what the problem is. He opens the door and shuts it again immediately, saying, "Oh, the conductor is in there. Use another toilet!"

Prisoner Pozinski, serving a twenty-year sentence in a Michigan jail, was reminiscing with a fellow inmate about his wife. "We used to have such fun at the seaside burying each other in the soft white sand!"

"Must have been nice!" said his cell mate.

"Yeah!" said the Polack. "When I get out I think I'll go back and dig her up!" How many Polacks are needed for an electrical repair job?

Seven: one to be the negative pole, one to be the positive pole, and five to keep them apart!

Do you know why we have a Polish pope?

During the conference of cardinals, when they were trying to choose a successor to John Paul the First, the conference was deadlocked at three candidates.

Then one of the Italian cardinals who had been to America suggested, "Look, in the United States when they have elections, they always have a poll!" And that decided the matter.

Finkelbaum and Protski worked as chefs in a fine hotel.

In time they quit and Finkelbaum opened up a Jewish restaurant. Protski opened up an eatery directly across the street.

Within six months Finkelbaum's was thriving, and Protski's was practically out of business. He decided to ask his old friend for advice.

"It's easy," said Finkelbaum. "You gotta excite the customers. One day I have my waitresses go topless, the next day I have them go bottomless."

Protski, exhilarated by the idea, rushed back to his restaurant and called his waitresses together.

"From now on," announced the Polack, "one day you are all gonna go topless, the next day bottomless. So, tomorrow no baboushkas! The next day, no boots!"

A Polack went to the dentist. The diagnosis was grim. "All the teeth need to be

removed, my friend," said the dentist. "My God!" said the Polack.

"But no need to worry, it won't hurt a bit. We'll fix you up with an immediate denture -- it will be fitted straight into the sockets, it will look great, and it won't hurt at all."

"My God!" said the Polack.

"If you have any doubts you can phone Goldstein, the town's famous Jew. He had the same thing six months ago," the dentist told the worried Polack.

"My God! My God!" said the Polack. "I'll phone Goldstein -- I know him -- and let you know."

He phoned Mr. Goldstein and asked if there had been any pain with his new teeth.

Goldstein replied, "Pain! In the last six months I've taken up rowing on Sundays with my grandchildren. Last Sunday, in the middle of the lake I lost one oar. As I reached over to get the oar, it floated away. The boat rocked, and I caught my balls in the rowlock -- that was the first time in six months I have forgotten the pain of my new teeth!"

Enough for today.

Come, Come, Yet Again Come Chapter #9

Chapter title: The Very alphabet of Love 4 November 1980 am in Buddha Hall Archive

code: 8011040

ShortTitle:

COME09

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mins

The first question:

Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,

I LOVE YOU, AND I HAVE BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE AND BEEN HURT. I AM

AFRAID. WILL YOU HELP ME?

Mimi Levinson, love never hurts anybody. It is something else pretending to be love which feels hurt. Unless you see this you will go on moving in the same circle again and again. Love can hide many unloving things in you. Man has been very clever, cunning, in deceiving others and in deceiving himself too. He puts beautiful labels on ugly things, he covers wounds with flowers. This is the first thing you have to go into.

Love ordinarily is not love, it is lust. And lust is bound to feel hurt, because to desire somebody as an object is to offend. It is an insult, it is violent. When you move with lust towards somebody, how long can you pretend it is love? Something which is superficial will look like love, but scratch a little bit and hidden behind it is sheer lust. Lust is animalistic. To look at anybody with lust is to insult, humiliate, is to reduce the other person to a thing, to a commodity. No

person ever likes to be used; that's the most ugly thing you can do to anybody. No person is a commodity, no person is a means towards any end.

This is the difference between lust and love. Lust uses the other person to fulfill some of your desires. The other is only used, and when the use is complete you can throw the other person away. It has no more use to you; its function is fulfilled. This is the greatest immoral act in existence: using the other as a means.

Love is just the opposite of it: respecting the other as an end unto himself or herself. Had you loved anybody, Mimi, as an end unto himself, then there would have been no feeling of hurt; you would have become more enriched through it. Love makes everybody rich.

Secondly, love can only be true if there is no ego hiding behind it; otherwise love becomes only an ego trip. It is a subtle way to dominate. And one has to be very conscious because this desire to dominate is very deep rooted. It never comes naked; it always comes hidden behind beautiful garments, ornaments.

Parents never say that their children are their possessions, they never say that they want to dominate the children, but that's actually what they do. They say they want to help, they say they want them to be intelligent, to be healthy, to be blissful, but -- and that

"but" is a great but -- it has to be according to their ideas. Even their happiness has to be decided by their ideas; they have to be happy according to their expectations. They have to be intelligent, but at the same time obedient too. This is asking for the impossible.

The intelligent person cannot be obedient; the obedient person has to lose some of his intelligence. Intelligence can say yes only when it feels deep agreement with you. It cannot say yes just because you are bigger, more powerful, authoritative -- a father, a mother, a priest, a politician. It cannot say yes just because of the authority that you carry with you. Intelligence is rebellious, and no parents would like their children to be rebellious. Rebellion will be against their hidden desire to dominate.

Husbands say they love their wives, but it is just domination. They are so jealous, so possessive, how can they be loving? Wives go on saying they love their husbands, but twenty-four hours they are creating hell; in every possible

way they are reducing the husband to something ugly.

The henpecked husband is an ugly phenomenon. And the problem is that first the wife reduces the husband to a henpecked husband and then she loses interest in him, because who can remain interested in a henpecked husband? He seems to be worthless; he does not seem to be man enough.

First the husband tries to make the wife just his possession, and once she is a possession he loses interest. There is some hidden logic in it: his whole interest was to possess; now that is finished, and he would like to try some other women so he can again go on another trip of possession.

Beware of these ego numbers. Then you will feel hurt, because the person you are trying to possess is bound to revolt in some way or other, is bound to sabotage your tricks, strategies, because nobody loves anything more than freedom. Even love is secondary to freedom; freedom is the highest value. Love can be sacrificed for freedom, but freedom cannot be sacrificed for love. And that's what we have been doing for centuries: sacrificing freedom for love. Then there is antagonism, conflict, and every opportunity is used to hurt each other.

Mimi, you say to me, "I love you, and I have been in love before and been hurt.…" If you love me in the same way as you have loved before, you will be very hurt. In fact, all your past hurts will be nothing compared to this hurt; this will be the greatest wound in your life. Then you will never think of love again, because with me there can be no relationship of lust, no relationship of ego, no relationship of any subtle kind of domination. With me the only possibility is of the purest love, of a love that is almost a prayer. And then there is no question of your being hurt.

Love in its purest form is a sharing of joy. It asks nothing in return, it expects nothing; hence how can you feel hurt? When you don't expect, there is no possibility of being hurt.

Then whatsoever comes is good; if nothing comes, that too is good. Your joy was to give, not to get. Then one can love from thousands of miles away; there is no need to be physically present even.

Love is a spiritual phenomenon; lust is physical. Ego is psychological; love is spiritual.

Mimi, you don't know what love is. You will have to learn the very alphabet of love. You will have to start from the very beginning, from scratch; otherwise you will be hurt again and again. And remember, except you nobody else is responsible. Now even in this question you are trying to lay your trip on me! You are asking: "I am afraid. Will you help me?"

Only you can help yourself. How can I help you? I cannot destroy your ego. If you cling to it, nobody can destroy it; if you have invested in it, nobody can destroy it. I can only share my understanding with you. The buddhas can only show the way; then YOU have to go, then you have to follow the way. I cannot lead you holding your hand in my hand.

That's what you would like: you would like to play the game of being dependent on me.

And remember, the person who plays the game of being dependent will take revenge.

Soon he would like in some way for the other to be dependent on him or on her.

If the wife is dependent on the husband for money, then the wife makes the husband dependent on her for other things. It is a mutual arrangement. They both become crippled, they both become paralyzed; they cannot exist without each other. Even the idea that the husband was happy without the wife hurts the wife, that he was laughing with the boys in the club hurts her. She is not interested in his happiness; in fact she cannot believe: "How did he dare to be happy without me? He has to depend on me!"

The husband does not feel good that the wife was laughing with somebody, was enjoying, was cheerful. He wants all her cheerfulness to be totally possessed; it is HIS property.

The dependent person will make you dependent also.

My sannyasins are not dependent on me; I am not dependent on them. This is a relationship of total freedom. They are here because of themselves; I am here because of myself. It is beautiful that somehow we have coincided to be here in this place -- but nobody is dependent on anybody else.

There are a few sannyasins who think that they are dependent on me. And how

do I know they think that? I have come to know from their questions and their letters. They write angry letters to me, angry questions to me. Then I know that in some way they must be feeling dependent on me -- this is their revenge. Otherwise there is no need to be angry with me. I do not possess you -- you can leave at any moment. Not even for a single moment will you be prevented from leaving. It is absolutely up to you to be here or not to be here, to be a sannyasin or not to be a sannyasin. I am not obliging you to be a sannyasin, I am not obliging you by initiating you into sannyas. It is my joy.

Remember, it is my joy to share my vision with you and it is your joy to commune with me. Otherwise there is no dependence at all.

Even in your question, Mimi, you are repeating your old pattern: "I am afraid "

Fear is never love, and love is never afraid. There is nothing to lose for love. Why should love be afraid? Love only gives. It is not business, so there is no question of loss or profit.

Love enjoys giving, just as flowers enjoy releasing their fragrance. Why should they be afraid? Why should you be afraid? Remember, fear and love never exist together; they cannot. No coexistence is possible. Fear is just the opposite of love.

People ordinarily think hate is the opposite of love. That is wrong, absolutely wrong. Fear is the exact opposite of love. Hate is love standing on its head; it is a SHIRSHASAN, a headstand, but it is not opposite to love. The person who hates simply shows he still loves. Love has gone sour, but love is still there. Fear is the real opposite. Fear means that now the whole love energy has disappeared.

Love is outgoing, fearlessly reaching to the other, tremendously trusting itself that it will be received -- and it is always received. Fear is shrinking within yourself, closing yourself, closing all the doors, all the windows so no sun, no wind, no rain can reach you

-- you are so afraid. You are entering into your grave alive. Fear is a grave, love is a temple.

In love life comes to its ultimate peak.

In fear life falls to the level of death. Fear stinks, love is fragrant.

Why should you be afraid? Be afraid of your ego, be afraid of your lust, be afraid of your greed, be afraid of your possessiveness; be afraid of your jealousy

-- but there is no question of being afraid of love. Love is divine!

Love is like light.

When there is light, darkness cannot exist. When there is love, fear cannot exist.

Hence I am against all words like "God-fearing," because the person who is God-fearing is not religious at all, although in all the languages of the world such words exist or such phrases exist; the religious person is known as God- fearing. That is the most stupid idea one can imagine. The religious person is God-LOVING, not God-fearing. The God-fearing person will be angry at God.

Friedrich Nietzsche is God-FEARING, that's why in his outburst of anger he says, "God is dead." You have heard this statement, but it is only half of the statement. The full statement is worth consideration, because unless you know the full statement you will not understand the meaning of the first half. The full statement is: God is dead, and now man is free. The second part shows reality: he is so afraid of God that even his presence seems to be anti-freedom.

And not only Nietzsche is convinced of this fact, that God's presence means fear; there have been other thinkers who have simply denied God. The Charvakas in India, the Epicureans in Greece -- they all denied God for the simple reason that if God exists, man cannot be free. If God has made you, he can destroy you at any moment. You are just a puppet, and what right has the puppet? The strings are in God's hands: you are dancing his dance, it is nothing to do with you. He pulls this way and that way, and you start dancing. You are just manipulated. This will create fear, and unless God is dead, man cannot be free of this fear. Nietzsche seems to be the really religious person according to the traditional idea of God-fearing.

God-loving is a totally different phenomenon. Jesus says, "God is love." If God is love, how can you be afraid of God?

Omar Khayyam, one of the Sufi mystics, says in his RUBAIYAT: "Don't be worried about your small sins. They are so small that God, out of his love, cannot even count them. And God is compassionate, he will forgive you." Omar Khayyam says, "I guarantee that you will be forgiven, don't be worried. What you are doing are just small things, and God cannot take note of these small things. He cannot be so nasty, so small minded, so pigheaded!"

Omar Khayyam is right. God means love, God means forgiveness; there is no question of fear. But people are afraid of God also for the simple reason that their God is again a projection of ambition.

The day Jesus was going to be crucified, he gave a farewell party for his disciples -- The Last Supper. He was going to die the next day, and do you know what the disciples were asking? They were asking, "Lord, tell us one thing, because now this is the last time we will be able to ask you. You will be raised to divine glory, you will sit by the side of God on the golden throne, on the right hand of course. What will our positions be?"

These twelve apostles, these twelve who had been so long with Jesus, remained utterly deaf, blind; they did not understood a single word. They may have heard him, but they had not listened. They were asking, "What will our positions be? Who will be next to you?" Jealousy, politics, ambition, ego! Now they were worried about who was going to be next to him -- who would be chosen as the most beloved disciple of Jesus.

It is the same politics! It does not matter that it will be in paradise; the mind is the same.

Then there will be the fear -- who is Jesus going to choose? All twelve cannot sit next to him; one person will be next to him. Who is this person?

Jesus must have wept -- the question was so stupid! And these are the apostles who created Christianity. These are the people who are the pillars of Christianity.

And this is so in every religion, everywhere; small people gather around the enlightened masters. The enlightened master talks about his peak, the sunlit peak, and the disciples listen from their dark holes, and everything becomes

distorted.

Mimi, you ask me, "I am afraid. Will you help me?" That is a strategy. I never help anybody -- you have to help yourself. I am available like a river is available, but if you are thirsty you have to help yourself. You have to come down to the river, you have to make a cup out of your hands, you have to take the water up to your mouth, you have to drink it.

The river is available -- I am available.

You can drink out of me as much as you want -- there will be no condition from my side -

- but I cannot help you. In that very desire you are creating your old gestalt, your old pattern: "Will you help me?" And then immediately you will start complaining that help has not arrived, or it is not according to your needs, your expectations, or it is not enough, as much as is needed. You will start complaining, you will become grumpy. That's how you must have destroyed all your love experiences before. Please don't destroy it again.

Here, be loving. I am available. Drink as much as you can, take as much as you can.

Remove all the hindrances -- and that is all your responsibility. I am doing my work; about my own work I am absolutely open and available, but that's all I can do. I am like a light: I can show you the path, but you have to walk.

My feeling is, Mimi, that you have not yet taken any mature step in your life; you have remained immature, UNgrown up, you are still behaving like a child. You would like a father figure -- I am not. Then you can go to the Polack pope! The word "pope" means father; in Italian it sounds even better, PAPA. It is exactly the same as "papa" in English; it means father. These are all childish desires: calling God, "the Father"; then calling his representative in the Vatican, "Father"; then calling his representative in your local church, "Father." These are just substitutes. You want some father figure to take care of you; you don't want to take responsibility.

This is my first requirement: the people who are around me have to be absolutely responsible for themselves. Nobody else is responsible. There is no church here, no father figure here, no creed, no dogma. Everybody is here out of his own

personal love, out of his own individual understanding.

To be totally responsible is the beginning of freedom, and freedom is the highest phenomenon. Out of the peaks of freedom flows the Ganges of love. Attain to freedom, and love will surround you naturally, spontaneously. And then love has never hurt anybody -- how can it hurt you?

Something else is masquerading -- uncover it. At least be naked in front of yourself, and then by and by be naked, totally naked, to your friends, to your lovers. And you will be surprised: to be true is such a joy, to be authentic is such a blessing; there is nothing compared to it.

Love can make a great celebration out of your life -- but only love, not lust, not ego, not possessiveness, not jealousy, not dependence.

The second question:

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

I AM CONVINCED THAT THE RICH EXPLOIT THE MASSES. NOW YOU ARE

TELLING ME THAT CAPITALISM IS THE BEST SYSTEM FOR FREEDOM. I HAVE NEVER SUPPORTED RUSSIAN TOTALITARIANISM, BUT I THOUGHT

THAT MAO ZEDONG IMPROVED LIFE FOR THE MAJORITY IN CHINA.

YOUR STATEMENT ABOUT ANTI-CAPITALISTS BEING JEALOUS RINGS

TRUE, BUT DON'T SOME RICH CAPITALISTS USE THEIR POWER TO EXPLOIT

OTHERS THROUGH SUCH MEANS AS MONOPOLIES, SELLING AT A LOSS

FOR SHORT PERIODS OF TIME IN ORDER TO RUIN SMALLER

BUSINESSMEN, ACQUIRING MORE LAND THAN THEY NEED, AND THUS DENYING POOR

PEOPLE THE ABILITY TO OWN AND USE LAND, ET CETERA?

ALTHOUGH THE SOVIET-BLOC COUNTRIES RESTRICT FREEDOM, ARE NOT

THE SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST PARTIES IN THE WEST DEDICATED TO

MORE PERSONAL FREEDOM -- THAT IS, FREEDOM FROM THE POWERFUL, MANIPULATIVE, RICH CAPITALIST?

Dhyan John, it is true that the rich exploit the masses, but the powerful in Russia exploit the masses in the same way, and the powerful in China also exploit the masses. Only the name has changed. Now the capitalist is not called a capitalist in Russia or China; now the Communist Party functions instead. The people who belong to the Communist Party, the power elite, they exploit.

So the question is not who exploits, the question is: unless we produce so much that the need for exploitation disappears, exploitation will continue. Names will change; structures will be different.

Before capitalism arrived on the scene there was feudalism, and then the kings and the queens and their prime ministers were exploiting. Capitalism started a different pattern of exploitation. Feudalism disappeared, but the exploitation continued. Communism has changed the structure again, but the exploitation continues.

It is time to understand that two things are needed, and the most important is that the earth should be provided with more richness than it needs. Only then will exploitation disappear; otherwise not. The educated will exploit the uneducated; how can you prevent it? In India the exploitation is there. The educated will exploit the uneducated; the brahmin will exploit the sudra, the untouchable; the politician will destroy and exploit the non-political masses.

If water is available nobody accumulates water, but if water is scarce then people will start accumulating. And of course those who are powerful -- and there will be some who will always be more powerful than others -- they will accumulate

water for the times when water will become so scarce that people will be dying without water.

Right now, in poor countries the air is not polluted -- nobody bothers about it. But sooner or later in cities like New York, Los Angeles, the rich people will start finding ways to have more oxygen for themselves. The poor will suffer from the pollution, not the rich.

And by "rich" I don't mean only the rich who have more wealth, I mean the rich in any way -- the educated who have more education, the politician who has more power. In any way, whosoever is powerful will have the first right.

In the feudal days the king would have the first right about everything. If a beautiful girl was born she would first go to the king's palace; if he rejected her, then somebody else could have her. The first fruits would go to the king, the first flowers would go to the king.

Everything is bound to go to the hands of the powerful. For example, if the earth becomes too polluted then the rich and the powerful will be the first who will start moving to the moon or to Mars. Of course everybody cannot go there; it will be too costly to live there.

Only the few will be able to afford it, and they will dominate the earth from there.

The question is two-sided. One is the extrovert side, that the earth has to be provided with more facilities than are available. And it can be done by science today; there is no problem about it. Science can produce as much wealth as we need or even more, so that is not a big problem. It is not really a political problem; it is changing more towards being a scientific problem: more technology, more industry, more science, and in tune with ecology. Then the earth need not in any way suffer through exploitation.

This is the outside of the problem, and the inside of the problem is to change the greed to have more than others, because even if the earth has enough there will be mad people --

the braggarts, the egoists -- who would like to say that they have more than you have.

Krishna is said to have had sixteen thousand wives. That was the time when a person's wealth and power was measured by wives, how many wives he had. The more wives you could afford, the richer you were. And obviously, how could a poor man afford sixteen thousand wives? Even to afford one is very difficult!

And I don't think that this is just a story; it must have been true -- because even in the beginning of this century, the twentieth century, the Nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives. So if in the twentieth century a person can have five hundred wives, what is wrong in having thirty-two times more? And that was five thousand years ago, so it doesn't seem to be improbable or impossible. It was traditional in the Nizam's family to have at least five hundred wives so that you could say that you were not an ordinary man.

So from the inside, the greed has to disappear. On the outside, more science is needed.

On the inside, more meditativeness is needed -- or you can call it science AND religion, it is the same. Science will help to produce more, and religion will help to make you less greedy. This is the solution that is going to help, not communism, not socialism.

And to me, capitalism is the only state where we can experiment with all these things; in a communist society it is impossible. There are nearabout fifty sannyasins in Russia, but they cannot wear orange, they cannot wear the mala -- they cannot show that they are sannyasins. They meditate but they have to meditate underground in some friend's basement; they cannot make it public. They cannot publish a book of mine -- and they want to publish books there. They have translated at least five books into Russian --

handwritten, typed, cyclostyled. They are mixing with thousands of people, but underground. If even a single copy is seized they will be in trouble.

Now, in such a society, how can you think of tackling the problems to change them?

There is no freedom to think at all. And the same is true about Mao Zedong's China. Just as Russians insulted Joseph Stalin after his death...when he was alive they could not say anything because he was too powerful. To say anything against him only meant one thing: death. You would disappear the next day and

you would never be heard of again.

Now the same is happening to Mao Zedong. Now his portraits are being removed, his statues are being removed, his name is being brought down. Soon you will see that Mao Zedong has become an ugly name in China, just as Stalin has become an ugly name in Russia. In China Mao Zedong's name is going to become just the same. Why? Why this revenge? If Mao Zedong has done such great work and helped the masses, why should the masses behave with such enmity? It was not really a help, it was just an imposition.

Forcing people violently to do something is not going to help. Any society that creates slavery is not going to help humanity.

And you say to me: "Your statement about anti-capitalists being jealous rings true, but don't some rich capitalists use their power to exploit others through such means as monopolies...?" Yes, they do, but somebody else will be doing the same -- the communists will do it.

And you ask, "Are not the socialist and communist parties in the West dedicated to more personal freedom...?" Until they achieve power, everybody is dedicated to more freedom.

The Russian Communist Party was also dedicated to absolute freedom, and what came to exist was absolute slavery. The Russian Communist Party was dedicated to absolute freedom, but the moment you get the power you are the same type of people. Your communists and your socialists are not meditators, they are not buddhas.

Only a buddha will not change; whether he gets the power or not he will remain the same.

But your so-called socialists and communists, once they get the power will behave in the same way; it is absolutely predictable. When you don't have power then it is different.

It happened in India.…

The followers of Mahatma Gandhi were great servants of the people. They lived in poverty, praised poverty, and even started calling the poor, DHARIDRA NARAYAN --

the real people of God, God's people. And when they came to power, all that changed.

Immediately all that changed; all their service disappeared. They became masters and rulers, and they started exploiting more than anybody else. Even the Britishers have not exploited this country so much as the Gandhians have done. This country has never been in such a dark space as it is today. The whole responsibility goes to Gandhian followers, and they were all good people when they were not in power.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The people who are communists and socialists -- who are they? They are by- products of the same society, with the same ambitions, with the same desires.

Once Diogenes saw a man being led to the gallows by the magistrates and officers of justice. The criminal had stolen a silver cup from the public treasury. A bystander asked him what was going on.

"Nothing unusual," the philosopher replied. "It is merely the big thieves bringing the little thief to justice."

Whosoever is in power becomes the big thief and starts torturing the small thieves.

We have to change the outer world by more science, and the inner world by more religion. Then only can there be a real revolution, not otherwise.

Enough for today.

Come, Come, Yet Again Come Chapter #10

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