Chapter title: Between Adam and Jesus

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‌Chapter title: Between Adam and Jesus‌

22 December 1975 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

IN JESUS' PRAYER 'OUR FATHER', DOES GOD LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION?

IT is a very subtle question, and you will have to be utterly attentive to understand it.

God is good. He cannot lead you into temptation, but His very goodness leads you into temptation. The goodness of God is something which is already there. It exists; you have to do nothing to create it. You simply open to it and it showers on you. When you become good you have not done anything; you become good through God. But when you become bad, you have done something; you become bad through yourself. So when you are good, the ego cannot exist. It is a PRASAD, a gift from God.

When you say 'yes', the ego cannot exist; you disappear. In the very moment you say 'yes', you are not there; that is the temptation. Only by doing bad can you be.

Whenever you do evil, you are there; whenever you do good, you are not there --

good flows through you, evil you do. Through evil you are, through good you disappear -- that's the temptation. Adam means 'no'; Jesus means 'yes'. Between Adam and Jesus is the whole history of human consciousness.

What was the temptation of Adam? Why did he disobey? God was good, but Adam was not there. Through his disobedience he created himself -- that is the temptation. In the Garden of Eden, God was there, everywhere. Adam was not there; he was a non-entity, a part of the whole. Through asserting, through saying 'no', through disobedience, through rejecting God, through doing evil, he became himself.

Adam was the first man, not because he was the first man -- there may have been many others before him, but nobody said 'no'. So history cannot record them; they had no egos. And this is my feeling: how could Adam have been the first man? There may have been millions before him, but nobody said 'no'. They could not become men, they could not become egos. Adam said 'no'. Of course he suffered for saying that; he was thrown out of the garden of bliss.

Evil leads you into suffering, but it has a temptation: it creates the'I', you can feel that you are. Jesus, Buddha; they are not. Hitler, Genghis Khan; they are. The more evil you do, the more your ego becomes strengthened. The more against you go, against the wind, against the current, the more you feel that you are.

When you flow with the river, where are you? The river is, and the river goes on flowing through you also. God is good-that's the temptation.

Just the other night I was reading a sentence from Baudelaire. It is simply, unbelievably true. Baudelaire says,'The truth is; the truth is beautiful; the truth is good; the truth is God. I believe in it. That's why I am going to oppose it.' From where does this opposition come? Baudelaire says,'If I don't oppose it, then I will not be. I have to say no; only then can I be.' Otherwise, truth is overpowering: it envelops you, it surrounds you. You simply disappear in it, you melt into it.

You can say that you have done evil, but you cannot say that you have done good. Good is always done by God. Good is already there, you are not needed to create it. Evil has to be created. Good can only be discovered; evil has to be created. The reality is there, the dream has to be created. You can claim your authorship about dreams; you cannot claim your authorship about reality --

that's the temptation.'No' is very tempting. The very goodness of God tempts you against Him. You have to oppose Him, you have to go against, you have to betray, otherwise you will be lost. Adam says'No', Jesus says'Yes', and I say, this is the whole history of man. Adam is the first son of man, and Jesus is the first son of God. By saying yes, by surrendering, he disappears. Only then, God remains.

In the prayer'Our Father', does God lead us in temptation?

God cannot lead you, but you are led by your own mind. A temptation arises because God seems to be destroying you. I come across people every day who would like to say yes to me, who would like to surrender, but they cannot -- it is

too risky, it is dangerous. I can feel that something in them tempts them not to surrender. Something in them says,'Go away, don't be here. It is dangerous to be here.' It is not that I am tempting them, but they are tempted. Wherever you see something which is already there, nothing is to be done. You have only to recognize it. But then where will you be? -- that is the temptation. The ego is the temptation.

The second question:

Question 2

YESTERDAY I HEARD THAT MY FRIEND HAD DIED. YET AS I WEPT, I FOUND MYSELF GIVING THANKS FOR THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE. IS

THERE A PLACE FOR MOURNING?

If you have loved somebody, really loved, and you didn't miss an opportunity to love, then there is no place for mourning because then there is no repentance.

You never postpone anything, death cannot destroy anything. If you postpone, then death destroys. For example: you love somebody but you say,'I will love tomorrow,' and that's what you go on saying. You go on imagining tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, You go on postponing: you fight today, you will love tomorrow. You are angry here-now, you will love tomorrow. You go on postponing.

Then one day suddenly death comes, and it is always sudden. It gives no hint that it is coming. The foot sounds are never heard, the footsteps can never he guessed. It always comes suddenly, catches you unawares, and the friend is gone, the lover is gone, the beloved is gone; the mother, the father, the brother is gone. Then there is mourning because death destroys tomorrow, and you were depending on tomorrow. Now there will be no tomorrow. Now you cannot postpone, and the person is gone. Now you feel a deep repentance; out of that repentance mourning arises. You are not weeping for the friend who is gone, you are weeping for yourself, for the wasted opportunity.

If you really love, and love here-now, death cannot take anything from you. I say to you: death may even become an opportunity, an opening, a new door.

You loved the friend when he was visible, and you loved him so deeply that you

started feeling, through your love, the invisibleness of him. Then death takes the body. Now in that gross element, body is no more there to hinder. Now love can flow totally. You may even feel thankful to death. You were already discovering the spiritual dimension of your beloved, lover, friend, and now death has taken the last obstacle. Now you can see through and through. Death has given you an opportunity to see whether you really loved or not, because if love's eyes cannot penetrate that much so that you can see that which is not body, that which is beyond matter, that which is invisible, then it is not love. Then those eyes may be of something else, but not of love. Love always reveals the God in the other; that's the definition of love. If it reveals the God in the other only then it is love, otherwise it is not. You will be crying and weeping and mourning, and will you be thinking that you are weeping for the friend who has gone? No, you are weeping for yourself, you are crying for yourself.

I would like to tell a very famous story. King Pyrrhus of Epirus was asked by his friend Cyneas,'Sir, if you conquer Rome, what will you do next?'

Pyrrhus replied,'Sicily is nearby and will be easy to take.' 'And what will you do after Sicily?' Cyneas asked.

'Then we will pass over to Africa and plunder Carthage.' 'And after Carthage, sir?'

'Greece.'

Cyneas enquired,'And what do you expect as a reward from all these victories?' 'Then,' said Pyrrhus,'we can sit down and enjoy ourselves.'

'Can we not,' suggested Cyneas,'enjoy ourselves now?'

If you can enjoy yourself now, then there will be no mourning, ever. I am not saying that you will not become sad when a friend departs, but there will be no mourning.,And that sadness will have a beauty of its own, a depth, a silence that always comes when you encounter death. That sadness will be very meditative.

It will reveal something within you that life could not reveal. Life remains superficial; just like laughter, it remains superficial. Death is very deep, like

sadness. But sadness is not mourning, sadness has its own delight; sadness is not sorrow, sadness is simply depth. Sadness means that thinking has stopped. How can you think in front of death? Thinking may be useful in life. Life may need your thinking because cunningness, cleverness is needed; but what is the point of thinking in front of death? If you are sad that simply means that suddenly, the thinking has stopped; the death has been a shock -- you are stripped to your very depth. You cannot laugh, but there is a subtle delight in it, a silence, a sacred silence. The vulgarity of life is gone, and death has opened a new door; the door of the beyond. You will feel thankful towards death, but this is possible only if you live now. If this moment is lived in its total intensity, in its utter wholeness, only then is it possible.

Don't go on postponing. Tomorrow, tomorrow -- drop that word from your vocabulary! Tomorrow does not exist, it CANNOT exist; it is not in the nature of things. Only this day exists.

That is why Jesus says in his prayer,'God, give us our daily bread.' The meaning is: today is enough, we don't ask for tomorrow; give us our daily bread. It has nothing to do with bread, it has something to do with the present and how to live it: give us the capacity to live here and now. Then there is no mourning. Sadness will be there, but that is as it should be. When somebody departs you feel sad, but in that sadness soon you will discover a door: you have fallen to your own depth.

This is what has happened.'Yesterday I heard that my friend had died, yet as I wept I found myself giving thanks for the sweetness of life. Is there a place for mourning?'

Don't feel guilty. In fact, this is how it should be. If you have loved the friend you will feel deep thankfulness; not any complaint against death but just a gratefulness for life, for its sweetness. The very possibility is almost impossible: that one exists!

Have you ever thought about it, that you exist? It seems so impossible; there is no reason why. But you don't look at it because it has been given to you as a gift.

You have not paid for it. That's why you are unaware, oblivious of it: a tremendous richness, that you are, that this moment you are conscious and alive and you can see the flowers, and you can smell the fragrance, and you can listen

to the songs, and you can even encounter a Jesus and a Buddha. The sheer impossibility of it! -- just think of it. There is no reason why you are; it is just out of the blue. That is the meaning of the grace of God. If you were not here, there would be no way to be. If you were not here, you could not complain anywhere; there is no court of appeal. If you are not here, you are simply not here; you cannot do anything about it.

You ARE, and you are conscious, and you are full of love, and you are wasting it

-- a great gift will b wasted. You are not using it, you are not using the opportunity to grow. The more you grow, the greater the gifts that can become available to you. This is just the beginning, this is just the alpha; and you don't know what the omega is. Christ is the omega point. But if you go on living now, deeply committed to life, not postponing, going deeper and deeper and deeper every moment, living as wholly as possible, you will reach to the omega point.

Even at the alpha point life is tremendously beautiful; what to say about the omega point? And you will never find any point for mourning.

If you live it, life is always a deep gratitude. If you don't live it, things go sour, things become bitter: one mourns, one complains, one loses the capacity for thankfulness. Prayer disappears and then you live an angry life or a sorrowful life -- that simply means that you have missed. Nobody else is responsible, only you; ONLY YOU, nobody else is responsible. The responsibility is totally yours because you are free to choose -- to die, or to commit a slow suicide.

As I see it, millions of people go on simply committing slow suicide. They go on poisoning themselves. Through postponing, you poison yourself. Then, even that which is given to you will have to be taken away. And Jesus is perfectly true when he says this, and it is one of the most fundamental laws of life: that if you have, more will be given to you; if you don't have, even that which you have will be taken away. That is mourning.

Use! Be creative! Let life be a great adventure. The only sin there is, is if your life is not an adventure. Then, you are a sinner.

The third question: Question 3

THE IMPLICATIONS OF SANNYAS ARE JUST NOW BECOMING CLEAR TO

ME. YOUR POWER OVER US BECOMES AWESOME. YOU CAN PUSH US

FAR BEYOND THE LIMITATIONS OF OUR PERSONALITIES, YET OUR

PERSONALITIES PERSIST, AND I FIND MYSELF FRIGHTENED BY THINGS I AM DOING WHICH SEEM INCONGRUOUS WITH MY CHARACTER. WHAT

CAN I DO ABOUT THIS FEAR?

Yes, the implications of sannyas become clear only when you are a sannyasin, never before. There are many people who would like to take sannyas, who would like to be initiated on the path, but they want to know what it means before they take the jump. That is impossible; nothing can be said to them. They want to be convinced before they take the decision. No, you cannot be convinced because it is not a question of intellect, it is something to be experienced. One knows about it only by being it, and there is no other way.

So those who think that first they need an intellectual conviction will miss the opportunity available. They will miss the door. Sannyas is only for those who are courageous enough to move in the dark, to move in the unknown. Yes, the night is very dark, and the point at which you are standing is such that from there you cannot see any ray of light. In fact, you are standing with closed eyes and you say,'First, convince us intellectually that there is light. Only then will we open the eyes.' How is it possible? -- because light can be known only when you open the eyes. How can you prove that light exists to a man who is standing with closed eyes, and who insists, and insists logically,'Why should I open my eyes if there is no light? Why should I make the effort? First prove to me that there is light, then I will open my eyes.' But how can you prove that there is light? The only proof is to see it. The only proof of the pudding is in eating it.

'The implications of sannyas are just now becoming clear to me.'

Once you are a sannyasin, by and by, implications become more and more clear. There are infinite implications. The more you grow, the more they will become

clear. It is not going to be an intellectual convict it is going to be an existential conversion -- hence the fear.

'Your power over us becomes awesome.'

That's one of the basic fears, because whenever you love somebody, the power of the other becomes awesome And THIS is no ordinary love; it is not love of the body, it is ultimate love. Once you fall in love with me you ar. already disappearing. Fear grips you -- 'What is going to happen?' -- are you going to dissolve completely? The temptation will arise to escape, the temptation will arise to say 'no' to me, the temptation will arise to defend yourself against me.

But this is the paradox: if you defend yourself against me you are destroying yours because then you will remain the old, the repetitive, the rotten. If you don't defend yourself against me, if you open the doors, in the beginning it may look destructive, but soon you will realize that the destruction was just a preparation to create something. Each creation needs to be begun by destruction, an equal amount of destruction is needed. If I am going to create you, totally new, then I will have to destroy you TOTALLY.

Right now, you are just a mechanical thing. You go on repeating yourself, like a gramophone record which is stuck somewhere and goes on repeating the same line again and again and again. Just watch your life: have you not become a gramophone record, stuck? -- and the needle goes on moving in the same groove

-- and goes on repeating the same thing every day: the same anger the same sex, the same jealousy, the same hatred, the same possessiveness, the same greed.

Have you ever done anything new?

I was reading a limerick yesterday. I liked it.

There was a young man who said,'Damn,

I have just realized that I am, a being that moves

in predictable grooves.

Not even a bus, I'm a tram!'

Just watch yourself and you will find yourself not even a bus, but a tram: fixed grooves, well-trodden paths, repetitively. And you become more and more efficient in them. You completely forget how to live. It is as if you are being lived by a mechanical life; you are not living it because you are not conscious about it.

It once happened to a man who was travelling by rail: he noticed that another man who was his sole companion in the compartment was behaving in an unusual way. For some time he seemed to be chuckling to himself very happily, and then a serious look would come over his face and he would make a gesture of impatience before resuming his chuckles again. After a while, the first man could not stand it any longer and said,'Excuse my asking, sir, but what is it that amuses you so much?'

'Funny stories, of course,' he promptly replied,'I am telling myself funny stories.'

'How very interesting,' murmured the first man soothingly, and then added,'but every now and then you look very serious. Why is that?'

'That is when it is a story I have heard before.'

This is how things go on. If you yourself are telling the story, how can you tell the new story? All stories are heard before; you can just repeat. Your life cannot be a life of newness, of freshness, of morning. Your life is bound to be stale, stuffed with just repetitions; at the most an efficient mechanism, but no consciousness.

So whenever you are ready to take the journey for the unknown, the pilgrimage towards the divine, fear will arise -- fear of losing that which you have never had, fear of losing life. Life you have never had -- just a mechanical thing: the fear of losing a repetitive efficiency, the fear of losing your old pattern. It may be comfortable and convenient, but it is not alive. There is nothing like death, because death is the most comfortable state of being, convenient. In a grave you will be perfectly comfortable and convenient, and there is no trouble. Life always creates new troubles. Those troubles are not really troubles. If you look rightly, they are challenges to grow.

I am a challenge. Only cowards can escape from he Those who are brave have to make up their minds to move into the unknown, to go in search of that which they don't know. But you feel a deep urge. You feel that some freedom is possible. It is just a vague feeling no but if you move into the unknown, soon it becomes the reality.

'Your power over us becomes awesome. You can push us far beyond the limitations of our personalities.'

That's my whole effort: to push you in fact, OUT of your personalities, so that your personality drops. Th personality is nothing but a mask, a PERSONA. It is false It is just a created thing; it is not your reality, it is not your essence. It is just a cultivated thing around you, just a decoration; it is not you. It is hiding you, and because of it you are unable to know yourself, who you are. It has become the only hindrance: layers upon layer of persona, of personality. And you have completely forgotten who you are, the original face. You cannot even remember that you ever had an original face.

My whole effort is to push you out of your personalities. If even for a single moment the personalities drop and you are out of them, as if you were standing nude without your clothes, that one moment will have tremendous implications for your life. You will never be the same again because now you have known your original face, now you know who you are. And once you know who you are, you are total freedom.

Personality is a bondage. It is as if you have become fixed only to being something, and you could have been all things. Personality is a fixed, routine way of being. You could have been all things and you have become just a grocer.

You could have been a painter also, a poet also, a mystic also, and you have just become a grocer! Everybody is born with infinite possibilities, and almost everybody dies by becoming a grocer. Just think! That's why you look so miserable -- because you have been infinite and you have become bounded, finite.

'Yet our personalities persist, and I find myself frightened by things I am doing which seem incongruous with my character.'

I am against character, because character is a fixity. Character has a solidness about it; it is stony. Character means repetitiveness: you go on repeating yourself

-- that is your 'character'. When somebody says that you are a good man, what is he saying? He is saying that you are predictable -- in the past you have been good, in the future you are going to repeat the same. When somebody says that you are a bad man, what is he saying? He is saying that you are predictable --

that in the future also you are going to repeat the same song, you are going to tell the same story.

A real man is always unpredictable. He is freedom. He has no character because each moment he finds a new challenge, each moment he moves in a new dimension, and each moment he looks with fresh eyes. Each moment he responds again and again from a new vision. He is never old; he is always young.

In India we have not depicted Buddha, Mahavir, or Krishna as old men. It is not that they never became old; they became old, but we have not depicted that. Not even a single image of Buddha exists which shows him old. Not that he never became old; he became old, but we know that he never became 'old'. Deep down, he remained always fresh, unpredictable, young, infinitely young. Even on the last day, in the last moments of his life he was young and fresh. Whatsoever he said, the last words that he uttered, they too were as fresh as ever; no old age, no repetition.

Remember, character means a fixity, as if you were already dead. In a drama people have characters, but in life they should not have because a drama is predestined-everything is already fixed: who is who and what is going to happen. Nothing new is allowed: that is the meaning. In a drama there are characters -- a Jesus has to be a Jesus. He cannot turn in the middle and say,'I am not!' He has simply to follow, tram-like. He has tc repeat a particular routine.The man who wrote the play has fixed every role; now there is no change possible. In life, there are no characters.

All over the world there is arising a new sort of drama which will not have characters. It will be more true to life. It is a new sort of drama -- you can almost call it 'no-drama' -- nobody knows what is going to happen. People simply start from anywhere, out of the blue, and there is no distinction between the audience and the stage. There should not be because in life there is no audience and no stage, there is no separation between the actors and the onlookers. The new drama must be played in such a way that if somebody from the audience feels to

take part, immediately he jumps into it. And by hi very jump, the drama changes. He will bring something; nobody knows what, and nobody knows where it is going to end.

It is just like life -- it begins, it ends, but in fact there is no beginning and no end.

It is always the middle. You came into the world, the world didn't begin with you. You were born on a certain date; the drama was going on, things were already -- on the way. You simply came onto the stage, started doing things of your own, and started changing the whole character of the world drama. And then, just in the middle, one day you die, and by your death you again change: your wife may get married to somebody else now, your children will not be the same as you wished them to be -- the whole story is going to be different.

Life is like an ocean -- wild. Waves upon waves come and go and nobody knows.

And that's the beauty of it. A real man is wild; he has no character. I am not saying that he is not good. When I say that he is characterless, I am not saying that he is evil. You say that a person is characterless when he is immoral; that is wrong. He also has a character, an immoral character. Don't call him characterless.'Characterless' is a tremendously beautiful word -- only for a Buddha, or a Jesus, or a Krishna can you use that. Don't use it for ordinary people. Just ordinary people you call characterless. They have their character, they have their fixity, they have their routine of life. They may be bad, their characters may be bad, but they are not characterless. Only a Buddha is characterless. Characterlessness is the profoundest beauty possible because it means: a totally new response each moment. Each moment a Buddha faces life, a Jesus faces life. He does not carry ready-made answers. What he is going to say, nobody knows; what he is going to do, nobody knows; how he is going to act, nobody knows, not even he himself. If he himself knows, then he is just telling himself funny stories. Then it is all foolish.

I don't know what sentence is going to follow this one, I don't know what act is going to follow: this is freedom. Then I am not confined.

I can understand your difficulty. Whatsoever I am doing is trying to destroy your character. That was the condemnation of Socrates. The court in Athens had decided that he destroys the character of young people. It was absolutely true!

That was the evidence against Christ also: that he destroys the character of young people. It has always been so. A Socrates, a Jesus, they are destroyers of character. Not that they are creators of immorality -- they bring the greatest morality there is: the morality of freedom, the morality of spontaneity. The only moral act is that act which is spontaneous, which comes out of your totality and is not just from your head. I will be destroying your character.

People say the same thing against me, that I am a dangerous man. I am! They are perfectly true. My whole effort is in how to destroy your character so that at least you can become a bus, so that you don't move on rails. You can have a little freedom.

Fear is natural. I am not saying that you can drop that fear, but there is one thing that I would like to say: in spite of the fear you can come with me. And that is the only way. If you wait, that once you have dropped the fear then you will come and follow me, then you never will. Follow, in spite of the fear. Let the fear be there, it is natural; but don't follow it, follow me. The fear is there, human, natural -- but come, follow me. By and by, the more you become attuned to the inner freedom the inner sky, the fear will disappear because through this characterlessness you are growing, you are becoming more mature, you are ripening. Now the morality will not be forced from outside, it will flow from your inside. It will be your inwardness, it will be your own understanding and consciousness. It will not be a conscience any more.

The conscience is given by the society; consciousness you have to achieve. The society goes on telling you,'This is right, and that is wrong' -- that is conscience. It becomes ingrained, implanted in you. You go on repeating it. That is worthless; that is not the real thing The real thing is your own consciousness. It carries no ready-made answers: what is wrong and what is right, no. But immediately, in whatever situation arises, it gives you light -- you know immediately what to do.

And that doing is total. That act is total because it is not being done because the society says so, it is done because you know it that way. In that moment the decision takes shape; it comes out of your innermost core. This is freedom, and this freedom is the goal. Don't stop before you have attained it.

Fear will be there. There are many hazards on the path: many times you may go astray, many times you will feel tired, exhausted, many times you will find

excuses to sit by the side of the road. But remember again and again, that unless you have attained to that consciousness which can act spontaneously, you have not fulfilled your being. You are betraying God, you are betraying the Whole.

And how can you be happy, how can you be blissful if you betray the original source? Then you will remain miserable. Your misery is just an indication that you are not doing the right thing, and the right thing is not what is said by the society to be right. The right thing is that which you come to understand through your understanding. Be a light unto yourself -- that is the right thing.

The fourth question:

Question 4

I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WON'T BE ON EARTH WITH US FOR SUCH A LONG TIME ANYMORE. YESTERDAY AT DARSHAN YOU EXPLAINED TO

SOMEBODY THAT THE BODY CANNOT CONTAIN YOU, YOU WILL

EVAPORATE, AND AFTER THAT YOU CAN'T BE OF ANY HELP ANYMORE.

THIS CONFUSES ME ALL THE TIME. I USED TO CONSOLE MYSELF WITH

THE WORDS OF JESUS,'I WILL STAY WITH THEE UNTO THE END OF THE

WORLD.' PLEASE MAKE THIS MORE CLEAR TO ME.

Jesus is right, but I am righter than Jesus. Jesus is right, but because of his saying people could not use the opportunity when it was there. They consoled themselves. He is true; even now he is with you, even this moment he can help you. But when you miss Jesus when he is present, how can you use him when he is absent? Just look at the absurdity of it. You say,'Yes, we will take your help when you are absent,' and you cannot take the help while he is present. Only those who can take his help while he is present will be able to take his help while he is not present. And you always like consolation. I don't want to give you any consolation because all consolations become postponements.

Yes, I repeat Jesus' saying: I will also be with you till the very end of the world --

but I don't want it to become a consolation for you. I can be with you only if you are with me now. If you are with me now, I can be with you to the very end of time, but you have to fulfill a certain growth in yourself. Otherwise you will say,'Okay, if you are going to be with us to the very end of time, then there is no need to hurry; we can fool around a little. And whenever we need, you will be available.' No, this is not going to be so. That's why I say that Jesus is right, but I am righter than him.

Try to understand: I am not here to console you. If there is anything that I am here for, it is to transform you.

Consolation is worthless; it is a trick of the mind. Don't settle for it. It is just like a mother who doesn't want to give her breast to the child, and she gives the child anything, just his own thumb in his mouth, to console him. That gives him a certain consolation, but no nourishment. He is simply deceived. Or you can get pacifiers from the market and give the child a pacifier. Just a rubber breast -- he goes on sucking it thinking and believing that something is going to come out of it. Nothing comes out of it.

Consolation is a pacifier, it is not real nourishment. I am here; be nourished by me. Eat me, drink me; be nourished by me. Let me become a part of your being, then I will be available forever and forever. There is no other way.

The fifth question:

Question 5

MY LITTLE SON WAS NEVER BAPTIZED. WILL THIS BE OF IMPORTANCE 7

It is very important! It is good that he was never baptized because baptism is such a significant thing -- it cannot be forced upon anybody. When you force it on a child you are creating an artificial religion for him, and if that artificial religion remains there he may forget all about the real religion. He may become a Christian and he will miss Christ.

Good, your child is fortunate. Blessed is he who is not baptized by his parents --

then he is available, clean and clear. Whenever he becomes ripe enough, when he becomes aware, then he can seek his religion.

A religion is to be sought. A religion has to be chosen consciously. Nobody should be made a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jain by birth.

Birth has nothing to do with religion. Because of this association with birth, the whole world seems to be religious, and nobody is religious. Everybody is religious: somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Christian. Nobody is a Hindu and nobody is a Christian -- people have been befooled.

Leave children alone. Never impose any religion on them. Don't condition their minds. Leave their enquiry free. Help so that they can enquire, but don't give them answers. Help so that their questions become very penetrating, help so that they can ask intensely, help so that someday they can ask so intensely that their very intensity becomes a transformation, but never give them answers. Ready- made answers are very deceptive. Religion has to be lived, religion has to be chosen. It is a commitment -- how can you commit for your child? Who are you to commit for your child? Help the child to grow, love him deeply, and don't give him answers which you don't know yourself. If he asks,'Is there a God?' tell him the truth, that you don't know! Tell him the truth, that you are seeking; tell him the truth, that he has to seek himself; and tell him that if someday he finds, he has to tell it to you also. Be humble. Before the child, the temptation is great in the parents to be knowledgeable -- that is foolishness. You don't know anything about God and you go on teaching the child, you go on conditioning his mind.

Don`t condition anybody's mind. Leave him -- intact, untouched, virgin. One day.…

Because religion is such a deep urge, it need not be taught. Through the teachings the urge is corrupted. It need not be taught. Leave him to himself, love him. Through your love he will create the opportunity to understand prayer someday. Love him, and through your love he will become aware that existence must be a mother to him, a father to him. But don't talk about the Father who is in heaven, just be a father to him. Your being a father will have given him the first glimpse that the existence is not alien, that somebody takes care, that somebody loves. Love him, mother him so that he comes to feel that existence is a mother. Through your care through your love, through your mothering let him become aware of certain qualities in existence. Don't talk theology -- it is

rubbish.

Don't go on telling him,'Pray.' Wait, let the right moment come, but help the situation so that he becomes capable of prayer. Don't teach him the words of the prayer. Just create a situation in the family: the atmosphere of prayerfulness. The father prays, the mother prays, and when the child sees father praying he can feel the delight that comes on his face. He can see that he is transported to some other world. He can see that after prayer, for hours he is a totally different person

-- more loving, more soft and delicate. He can see that after prayer there is an after-glow that follows the father the whole day.

There is no need to teach anything. One day you will suddenly find when you open your eyes after your prayer, that your child is sitting by your side -- deep, somewhere else, his eyes closed. He does not know the words, but now he understands the feeling, and that is REAL baptism.

Don't force him to go to church because church will corrupt him, and he will start thinking that religion is nothing but a business. He will understand by and by, that religion is nothing but politics.

All mystics, without exception, know that all religions are true; all philosophers, without exception, know that all religions are false; and all politicians, without exception, know that all religions are useful.

Don't teach the child the politics of religion. Leave him intact, alone, but give him an opportunity, a milieu, an atmosphere, a climate where he can feel in touch with what religion is. Then he will be religious. He may not be a Christian, but that is pointless, that is meaningless. He may not be a Hindu, but he will be religious. But parents are more interested that the child should be a Christian --

he should follow the same foolishness that they have been following. The child should be a Hindu -- he should be corrupted in the same way they have been corrupted. The child should have an identity of belonging to some organization -

- the same that they belong to. This is the politics of religion; it is not religion at all.

If you really love your child, will you want him to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan? -- no, never! If you love your child you will never want him to

be a Christian. What has Christianity done to the world? -- it is an ugly dis-ease.

You will not like him to be a Mohammedan. What has Mohammedanism done to the world? -- it has been just violence. You will not like him to be a Hindu because what has Hinduism done? -- it is just a fossilized death: stale, dead for centuries, a corpse; it stinks. No, if you love your child you will make him aware not to fall into any trap, not to be trapped because there are enemies all around: the priest, the missionary, the temple, the church. You will make him aware,'Don't be trapped by anybody. Remain free, remain loving, search and seek and find your God. The God that you find is the only God. The God that is taught is not God; it is just a word. And when you have found YOUR religion, it is not separate from life, it is one with it. It is life itself!'

And remember when I say that life is God, I don't mean life with a capital L, no; but just with a lower-case l. Just ordinary life is God.

A journalist just a few days ago asked Jean-Paul Sartre,'What is the most important thing in your life today?' Sartre said,'I don't know. Everything: to live, to love, to smoke.' This is a Zen kind of answer. Sartre is not a religious man but the answer is very religious. He has never belonged to any church, he does not believe in God, but the answer is religious.'I don't know' -- that is the first religious quality of it because only foolish theologians know. A religious man is simply aware of his tremendous ignorance. Life is a mystery; how can you know it? He knows only one thing, that he does not know.'I don't know!' -- ask any priest, he cannot say that. He will immediately open his Bible and say,'Here is the answer. I know.' And he is simply repeating borrowed knowledge. He is a parrot.

Once I went to Varanasi and a great scholar of the Vedas invited me to his home.

He was very happy to show me his parrot, because the parrot could recite many things from the Vedas, from the Gita, from the Upanishads. I laughed. The pundit said,'What's the matter? Why are you laughing?' I said,'I am laughing because I don't see any difference between this parrot and you. The parrot is a scholar and you are a parrot.' He has been angry since then.

No, a theologian can never say,'I don't know.' One needs courage to say that.

One needs real guts to say,'I don't know.' One needs a certain realization to say that one doesn't know. And everything, when you lead a religious life,

everything is beautiful, everything is important. There are no pigeon-holes, there are no categories. You cannot say that something is more important and something is less important. If you live a religious quality, all things are important: a dog is as important as God, not a single bit less important.

Somebody asked Joshu -- a Zen Master, a rare being; the person who asked must have been a sceptic -- he said,'Joshu, I have heard that you say that God is in everything. What about a dog?' Nobody has answered this way: Joshu jumped on his four legs and started barking. He said,'I am a dog, and also a god.' Joshu barking is God barking.

Then there is no difference. Nothing is small and nothing is great. The smallest carries the greatest, and the greatest carries the smallest; then the lowest is the highest, and the highest is the lowest; then the valley goes to the peak and the peak comes to the valley. That is the meaning when I say that sex is samadhi and samadhi is sex. Then there is no difference between the low and the high.

Everything! -- to live, just to live today is the most important thing. To love, and to smoke.… Such an ordinary thing, to smoke, but when a religious man smokes he smokes religiously; there is no other way.

Once a man came to me. I was in Calcutta. The man was a follower of Paramahansa Ramakrishna, but he was worried about one thing: Ramakrishna used very vulgar words, like 'son-of-a-bitch', like that. Ramakrishna used very vulgar words. So he was very worried. He said,'Everything is good, but Ramakrishna seems to be a little... vulgar. What do you say, sir?' I said,'His vulgarity is religious. Even when Ramakrishna says 'son-of-a-bitch', it is a blessing. Yes, it is a blessing because whatsoever he says is purified by his saying it. Even a vulgar word becomes sacred; the touch of a Ramakrishna transforms it.' So I told him,'Don't be worried. Wherever Ramakrishna treads, it becomes holy. If he goes to a prostitute's house, that becomes a temple. Because it is not a question of an outer house or an outer world, it is the quality that you bring to it.'To smoke,' Sartre says,'is the most important thing today.' Yes, I also say that smoking can be as beautiful and sacred as chanting -- it is a chanting in smoke. It depends on you.

In Zen monasteries they have a small tea-house, like a temple. Whenever somebody enters the tea-house, he has to be very aware because the goddess of tea resides there. The goddess of tea -- then why not the goddess of smoking?

The nicotine is the same in tea as in tobacco.

I have just instructed Laxmi to make a small temple for smoking here in the ashram. But you have to go very alert, aware, meditative! If you can smoke meditatively, it is perfectly beautiful. If it stops by being meditative, that too is perfectly beautiful. Life is sacred.

So don't teach a child Christianity, HYinduism, Jainism. At the most, give him a milieu, if you love him, so that he can grow a sensitivity towards what religion is in its essence in its purity. Don't teach him about so many flowers, just let him become sensitive to the fragrance of it -- that will do. THAT is baptism.

The last question, and the most important -- it is from Amitab: Question 6 BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

So what am I to do? -- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Come Follow To You, Vol 4 Chapter #3

Chapter title: As I Have Loved You 23 December 1975 am in Buddha Hall John 13

2 AND SUPPER BEING ENDED,

5... HE POURETH WATER INTO A BASIN, AND BEGAN TO WASH THE

DISCIPLES' FEET, AND TO WIPE THEM WITH THE TOWEL WHEREWITH

HE WAS GIRDED.

6 THEN COMETH HE TO SIMON PETER, AND PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: LORD, DOST THOU WASH MY FEET?

7 JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HIM: WHAT I DO THOU

KNOWEST

NOT NOW, BUT THOU SHALT KNOW HEREAFTER.

8 PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: THOU SHALT NEVER WASH MY FEET! JESUS

ANSWERED HIM: IF I WASH THEE NOT, THOU HAST NO PART WITH ME.

12 SO AFTER HE HAD WASHED THEIR FEET, AND HAD TAKEN HIS

GARMENTS, AND WAS SET DOWN AGAIN, HE SAID UNTO THEM: KNOW

YE WHAT I HAVE DONE TO YOU?

13 YE CALL ME MASTER AND LORD, AND YE SAY WELL; FOR SO I AM.

14 IF I THEN, YOUR LORD AND MASTER, HAVE WASHED YOUR FEET, YE

ALSO OUGHT TO WASH ONE ANOTHER'S FEET.

15 FOR I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, THAT YE SHOULD DO AS I HAVE DONE TO YOU.

21 WHEN JESUS HAD THUS SAID, HE WAS TROUBLED IN SPIRIT, AND

TESTIFIED, AND SAID: VERILY VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT ONE OF

YOU SHALL BETRAY ME.

27... THEN SAID JESUS UNTO HIM: THAT THOU DOEST, DO QUICKLY.

28 NOW NO MAN AT THE TABLE KNEW FOR WHAT INTENT HE SPAKE THIS UNTO HIM.

31 THEREFORE, WHEN JUDAS WAS GONE OUT, JESUS SAID: NOW IS THE

SON OF MAN GLORIFIED, AND GOD IS GLORIFIED IN HIM.

34 A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE UNTO YOU, THAT YE LOVE ONE

ANOTHER; AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, THAT YE ALSO LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

35 BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YE ARE MY DISCIPLES, IF YE

HAVE LOVE ONE TO ANOTHER.

THE essence of religion is paradoxical -- opposites meet there and lose their oppositeness. Contraries become complementary there and lose their contrariness. Day and night are not separate there, neither are life and death, nor the lower and the higher. The earth is the sky there, and the sky is the earth. To the logical mind, to mind as such -- because all minds are logical -- it is very difficult to conceive.

I will read a few words from A.N. Whitehead, a very perceptive man:'Religion is the vision of something which extends beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things: something which is real and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility and yet the greatest of present facts; something which gives meaning to all that passes and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good and yet is beyond reach; something which is the ultimate ideal and the hopeless quest.'

Whitehead understands rightly the paradoxicalness of religion, but he is trying to see it through the mind, hence his final conclusion is that it is a 'hopeless quest

-- hopeless because how can the opposites meet? Jean-Paul Sartre says that God is impossible because to make God possible, opposites will have to disappear.

Death and life should become one; only then can God exist. And how can the mind conceive of life and death becoming one, winter and summer becoming one, the beginning and end becoming one? For the mind, the quest becomes hopeless.

The modern mind is basically without religion because the modern mind has lost the capacity, the elasticity, to be illogical. In the ordinary world, to be illogical is to be mad; in religion, to be illogical is the method. Madness itself is the method to know God. Unless you are mad enough so that you can put aside the categories of the mind and you can look directly without bringing any concepts between you and the reality, you can, at the most, know the matter, the dead part, the past, but you cannot know the real, the alive, the God. Essential religion will always look elusive to the mind. In fact, it looks like a sort of craziness.

Just a few days ago I was reading R.C. Zaehner's books. This man has tried to understand Zen, Krishnamurti, but he could not; and in the end he has written a small; poem to ridicule them. That small poem not only ridicules Krishnamurti and Zen, it ridicules Jesus, Krishna -- it ridicules all religion. R.C. Zaehner writes in this poem, and he feels that he is giving you the very essence of this insanity called Zen:

Tee-hee hee, you and me, me is you, you is me.

Life is death, dead is life,

I am my husband, you are your wife.

We aren't God-children, they aren't God-us,

we are all that happy, so why this fuss?

Fuss, fuss, fuss, cuss, cuss, cuss. Total experience? Yes -- that's us.

He thinks that he is ridiculing, and he is being ridiculous himself; but this is natural to the mind.

Jesus goes on saying,'I and my Father are one.' That means that the son is the Father. The VICE-VERSA has never been said, but should be said. Only then will the truth become clear; that the Father is also the son. If the son is the Father, then the Father is also the son, but then things become elusive.

On this last night with his disciples, he brings this meeting of opposites, this meeting of the distant and the near, to a peak point, to a climax. By touching the feet of his disciples, he is saying that the disciple is the Master, the Master is the disciple. This is a Zen act. Without saying anything, he is saying the very essence of all religions. He is saying,'I and thou are not two.' He is saying,'Thou is me, me is thou' -- he is making the circle complete. The Master touching the feet of the disciples is a rare phenomenon. Through this symbolic act, Jesus is taking his departure from his disciples, showing them the very essence of religion: where the Master touches the feet of the disciple, where the son becomes the Father and the Father becomes the son, where the night becomes the day and the day becomes the night, and opposites merge, disappear.

This is difficult for R.C. Zaehner to understand. In his book he calls Aristotle many times,'Our father, Aristotle.' It must be so; Aristotle must be his father, not God. Aristotle is the logical mind. The very essence of the logical mind is that day and night are separate and can never meet. East and West are separate --

'East is East, West is West, and the twain shall never meet.' But I tell you, they are meeting here, they are meeting everywhere. Wherever life exists, East and West are meeting; wherever life exists, men and women are meeting; wherever life exists, the Master and the disciple are meeting; wherever life exists, the soul and matter are meeting -- in you, everywhere: in a flower, in a tree, in a rock, in a man -- the soul and matter are meeting. And still you go on dividing. Can you demark exactly where your body ends and your spirit begins, where your spirit

ends and your body begins? They are ONE: the body is touching the feet of the spirit and the spirit is touching the feet of the body. It is a circle.

Jesus says many things without saying them. He shows rather than says; he is a simple man. Zen people can understand what he did, Christians cannot understand. They go on saying,'Our Father who is in heaven...' but that is wrong.'Our father, Aristotle', they should say. Aristotle is their father: the mind that divides, the mind that makes clear-cut distinctions, the mind that categorizes, puts things into pigeon-holes. A very neat and clean job Aristotle has made of life. He has classified; he is the greatest classifier. But whenever you divide, something which cannot be divided disappears. You can dissect a flower and you can come to know of what it is constituted -- the matter part -- but the spirit part will disappear. You will never come to catch hold of beauty. In dissection, the beauty will disappear. You can dissect a man on an operating- theatre table, you can dissect minutely, you can take tremendous care in dissection and analysis, but only body will be left in your hands. The soul will disappear, because in fact the soul exists in a very deep synthesis where opposites meet.

Life is a dialectical process where opposites go on meeting and go on creating a higher synthesis, a symphony, a harmony. And every moment it is happening --

the day becomes night every evening, and every morning the night again becomes the day. But you are blind and you cannot see it. Everywhere you can see opposites meeting: the earth is reaching to the sky in the trees and touching it, and the sky is every moment boring into the earth, penetrating it. That love affair continues between the earth and the sky; they are always meeting in deep embrace, infinitely one. The separation is only on the surface.

Now the sutras:

AND SUPPER BEING ENDED...

It is the last supper with Jesus, and only Jesus knows it is the last. The disciples are absolutely ignorant. They cannot even feel what is going to happen, they cannot hear the footsteps of the future. Jesus is already going towards his crucifixion, Jesus is already ready, moving. The moment, the momentous moment is arriving -- every moment closer and closer -- but they are, in a way, blissfully unaware. Remember, that's what is happening to everybody. Death is

coming closer and closer, and you are blissfully unaware. You go on making arrangements to live as if you were going to live forever. Your mind goes on planning for the future, not knowing that death is coming. Death is hiding in every bush; death can jump from anywhere.

On that night of celebration, the last supper with the Master, who could have thought that this would be the last? Who could have thought that the next day Jesus would be gone? This unique man would be no more. There would no longer be this unique opportunity to touch God on earth. There would no longer be any possibility to look through his door, to have a glimpse of the divine from his window. Eating, drinking, they were happy. That's how life goes on: eating, drinking; and every moment death comes closer and closer, and you go on preparing to live as if you were going to live forever.

The man who becomes aware of death becomes a totally different man. Then he is not always wasting his time in preparing for the future. Rather, he starts living in the present. Alas, the disciples didn't know. Later on they would repent, and they would cry and weep their hearts out. They would think again and again, and they would move again and again into the nostalgia of the past: Jesus was so close and they went on missing him.

AND SUPPER BEING ENDED,... HE POURETH WATER INTO A BASIN, AND

BEGAN TO WASH THE DISCIPLES' FEET, AND TO WIPE THEM WITH THE

TOWEL WHEREWITH HE WAS GIRDED.

I call this 'the Zen act'. What is a Zen act? -- a Zen act is an act in which you say that which cannot be said in any other way. There are things which can be said, there are things which cannot be said, and there are things which can only be acted upon. Through action, total action, they can be said; there is no other way to say them. In Zen, the Master always gives a certain problem for the disciple to find out the answer to. They call it 'koan'. The disciple goes on finding out answers, and comes again and again, every morning, to see the Master and to give his answer. But the Master goes on saying,'No, this is not the answer.'

Sometimes it happens that even before the disciple has said anything the Master says,'No, this is not the answer.' Sometimes this too happens: the disciple is

coming, he is just outside the door and the Master shouts from inside,'No, this is not the answer.' Only later on, when the disciple becomes enlightened, does he understand what was the matter -- the Master had given a problem which could not be answered verbally. You can ACT upon it. Only action can answer it, nothing else, because only action can be total.

Have you ever watched a small child in anger? That is total action; it is not only in the head. Every fibre of his body vibrates with anger -- ready to explode, red in the face, as if capable of destroying the whole world -- so tiny but so full of atomic energy. Watch a child in anger and you will see what total action is. Or, watch a lover who is in deep love: the mind stops. Even holding the hand of his beloved he is saying something which cannot be said. The very touch shows something, shows something which is beyond words, and the act is total. In anger, in love, in sadness, in bliss, sometimes it happens that the action is total. In dancing, when the dancer disappears and only the dance remains, then the action is total. And a total action is beautiful because a total action is no longer from you. THE MOMENT you are total, God is flowing through you.

On that day, the last day of Jesus with his disciples, Jesus did a Zen act -- he washed his disciples' feet, he touched his disciples' feet with deep reverence. The disciples touch the feet of the Master, but their reverence can never be total. For the majority it is just a mannerism that has to be done. It is a sort of duty; they do it unconsciously. Something that has to be done, has to be done, but they are not in it. When they bow down, nothing hows down within them, just the body. It is a dead gesture. For a few others it may not be so dead. Maybe a little life flickers in it, but it is not a flame of totality. The disciples must have touched the feet of the Master many times, thousands of times. This time, the Master was going to touch the feet of the disciples to show them what reverence is, in its totality. That moment, there was nobody who was bowing down and washing. There was bowing, there was washing, but there was nobody -- because whenever you are total the ego disappears. The ego exists only when you are partial. If you have experienced it in some way, sometime... and I see that everybody has experienced it sometime, somewhere. Because it doesn't fit with your style of life you have forgotten; because it does not fit with your own pattern you do not pay much attention to it; because it doesn't fit, you by and by forget it, throw it into the unconscious, into the basement of the mind. Otherwise, it has happened to everybody, unknowingly, unawares. Sometimes, just swimming, and suddenly you are filled with an unknown bliss. It happens only if the swimming becomes total. When the swimmer disappears, then the cause of all misery disappears, and

then suddenly, God is there.

Whenever you are total, God is there. Whenever you are divided, God is unavailable. So let me say this: your totality is God. God is not a person, it is an experience. It is not waiting somewhere; you have to create it within you. God is not like an object, like a rock that some day you find and bring home, no. God is an inner harmony -- you have to create it to find it. It is not a search for a dead object. It is creativity, it is tremendous creativity; and there is no higher creativity than that. A painter paints a picture, a singer sings a song, a sculptor makes an image; a religious seeker creates God! And there is only one way to create God: to become total so that the act becomes whole.

Jesus showed them; that was his farewell. He could not have given a greater gift to them. He showed them what reverence is, what love is, how one can totally surrender. They thought that they had surrendered, but a disciple's surrender is a disciple's surrender. A disciple is divided, he is a crowd; only a part of him surrenders. That part may not even be the majority, and the many other parts go on resisting. He surrenders in a reluctant way. A part goes on pulling away from the Master, withdrawing, another part goes on saying 'no'. One part says 'yes', one part says 'no'. The disciple is always 'yes plus no'. When Jesus touched their feet, there was only 'yes'. He gave them the greatest gift he could, the gift of reverence.

I have heard that once a question was asked of Rabbi Joshua ben Karha:'Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose to speak to Moses at Mount Horeb out of a thorn bush?' It is relevant, why God chose to speak to Moses from a thorn bush.

Could He not find a better place? -- a thorn bush? At least He could have found a rose bush. Why choose a thorn bush in the first place? It has been asked for centuries, but never has anyone given such a beautiful answer as Rabbi Joshua gave. Rabbi Joshua answered so as to teach us that there is no place on this earth free from the presence of God. God is everywhere, even in the lowly, even in a thorn bush. The whole earth is holy.

Why did Jesus touch their feet? He could have touched their heads, so why their feet? Feet are symbols of the lowly. In your body, they are the lowest part. Jesus touched their feet to show that God is there also; even in a thorn bush, in the lowliest, in the LOWEST depth God is there, because God is everywhere. In the darkest valley He is there. He is not only at the peaks, remember; in the valleys

also, He is there. He is not only in the saints; in the sinners also, He is. When you pay respects, don't be bothered about whom to pay it to, because He is everywhere. You can touch the feet of a sinner and you have touched His feet, because there are no other feet. All feet, ALL feet are His. Jesus touched the feet of the disciples to show them that nothing is lowly. Everything is high, everything is superbly magnificent and everything is divine. Wherever you tread, you tread on God. Whatsoever you do, you do to God. Whomsoever you pay respect to or become angry with, you are doing it to God.

... HE POURETH WATER INTO A BASIN, AND BEGAN TO WASH THE DISCIPLES' FEET...

The feet are symbolic of the earth, they touch the earth; the head is symbolic of the sky, it touches the sky. The head and the feet -- the highest and the lowest, the above and the below -- are the same, because only one flows. You are in your feet as much as you are in your head. Don't forget the earth, you are rooted there; remember it. Jesus touched their feet, washed those feet.

THEN COMETH HE TO SIMON PETER, AND PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: LORD, DOST THOU WASH MY FEET?

It doesn't look appropriate.'Dost thou wash MY feet? It is okay if I wash yours; you are our Lord, our Master.' A question arises in the mind of the disciple Simon Peter: one who loves, one who has a little more faith than the others. Even to him a question arises, just a question,'Is it appropriate that the Master should touch my feet?' A few didn't say anything. They may not even have grasped the meaning of it, it was so sudden. They may even have missed. They may not have been present there; they may not have been able to understand what was happening. Only Simon Peter, the man who was going to become the rock of Jesus' church, raised a question:'Dost thou wash my feet?' He had loved Jesus, he had respected him, but his faith was not yet total.'Man of little faith' Jesus had called him. He had faith, but very little. If the faith had been total, then there would have been no longer any distinction between the Master and the disciple.

In Zen there are stories that sometimes the disciple would hit the Master, and the Master would laugh. They are stories of great love, they are stories of great faith and trust. They show that now the distinction is no more there; now nobody

knows who is who. The Master is the absence of the ego, and when the disciple's ego also disappears, there cannot be two absences.

For example: in your room there are two chairs; two chairs are present, two presences. You remove two chairs -- now can you say that there are two absences because two chairs have been removed? No, there is only one absence; simply absence. You can remove a thousand chairs but the absence will not be of a thousand chairs; it will simply be absence. A Master is an absence, an emptiness; there is no ego in it. It is on the part of the disciple that they appear as two. From the side of the Master, because he is not there, there cannot be the other. When the'I' disappears,'thou' also disappears.

Peter loved him, respected him, but his love was not yet total. He was still present there; the disciple had not disappeared. The disciple asked,'Why? -- you, and touching my feet?' It didn't look appropriate. Remember, in love there is nothing appropriate or not appropriate. In love, all distinctions disappear.

Just the other day somebody asked,'Can an enlightened man love an unenlightened man?' He asked a very pertinent question. He said that it is said of Ramakrishna's life that he would cry and weep for Vivekananda. Sometimes Vivekananda would not come to see him for a few days, so he would go to see him. He would find out where he was.'Is it possible,' the questioner had asked,'that a man like Ramakrishna, in love, in such love that he cried and wept if Vivekananda did not come, went to where he was to search for him, and became very happy when Vivekananda came?'

The questioner had asked,'Osho, do you weep for somebody?' I have so many Vivekanandas that if I start weeping, then there will be no time left. Hence, the difficulty. I cannot cry and weep, but I cry and weep for you because to me you are just potentialities of tremendous possibilities, seeds. Yes, Ramakrishna was deeply in love. And I tell you, only a Ramakrishna can be in deep love, ONLY a Ramakrishna. The unenlightened person can pretend that he loves, can deceive himself and others that he loves, but he cannot love. Love is the quality of enlightenment. It is the light that comes out of that inner lamp, that inner lamp of enlightenment. When that flame is burning inside, then the light flows outside.

Wherever it falls, it is love.

Jesus loved these disciples. To say that Jesus loved or that Ramakrishna loved is

really not a right way of saying it, because Jesus is not, a Ramakrishna is not --

there is only love. When Jesus touched the feet of his disciples, love touched their feet. Not Jesus, remember, but love touched their feet. Ramakrishna went to seek and search where Vivekananda was, but Ramakrishna didn't go anywhere. He was no more -- where could he go? how could he go? who would go? -- love went in search. When Ramakrishna cried and tears fell down, it was love crying.

Even Vivekananda felt embarrassed when Ramakrishna would stand and start dancing when he came, or he would hug him. Even he used to feel embarrassed.

Somehow it looked a little outlandish, eccentric. And this old man seemed to be crazy. If psychoanalysts had been present there, they may have suspected homosexuality, because psychoanalysis tries to explain the flower through the fertilizer. Then, even the flower starts stinking; it smells of the fertilizer. But if you ask me such questions, I explain the fertilizer through the flower. Then, even the fertilizer has a fragrance in it. Jesus touched the feet, not of the fertilizer but of the flower, of the possibility.

Ramakrishna went in search. To ordinary people Vivekananda was just ordinary, but not for Ramakrishna. Something extraordinary was waiting there: it needed help, care; it needed attention, it needed love to explode into being.

Jesus touched those disciples' feet in deep reverence, in great hope. He touched their feet to show them,'You are not that which you think you are. You are that which you are seeking; you are my God.' Those were only seeds, but Jesus could see the flowering. He touched their feet because of the possibility of the flowering -- someday or other they would explode into beautiful flowers, they would blossom. He loved them, respected them for that. For him it was already a present phenomenon. They didn't know, they were unaware, they were fast asleep. The seed is nothing but a flower, fast asleep and snoring. And what is a flower? -- a seed that has discovered itself, a seed that has come to know itself, a seed that has become itself -- that's what a flower is. Even a weed is not a weed; a weed is one who is on the path to discover itself. Even a weed has tremendous possibilities. You may not know that even wheat was once thought to be a weed; even wheat! Humanity discovered, by and by, that it was nourishment. Now you cannot think of wheat as a weed. And if you find some weeds in the garden, always be respectful -- who knows? They are on the way; some day their capacities and possibilities will be discovered.

They were ordinary weeds, those disciples, very ordinary human beings, but not to Jesus. Jesus could look into their future. Their future was present to Jesus, and he touched the feet of that future. Even a man like Peter could not believe, could not see the appropriateness of it. But in love, there is nothing appropriate and not appropriate. In love, everything takes a totally different flavour. Then, everything is holy.

THEN COMETH HE TO SIMON PETER: AND PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: LORD, DOST THOU WASH MY FEET? JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO

HIM: WHAT I DO THOU KNOWEST NOT NOW, BUT THOU SHALT KNOW

HEREAFTER.

Maybe it would take many lives to know what Jesus did that day, but only hereafter would he be able to know, because to know it now, you would have to be present in your totality, here and now. But then, there would have been a totally different thing. Then Peter would not have felt a little uneasy about it. He may have laughed, he may even have blessed Jesus. That's what Mahakashyap would have done if Buddha had touched his feet -- he would have laughed, smiled and blessed him. That small joke of Mahakashyap touching Buddha's head and blessing him would have reverberated all through history. In fact, that is what he did when he laughed. That smile was a blessing showered from the side of the disciple; but that is possible only when the disciple is not. Everything is possible only when you are not, but Peter was there. He was a man of little faith.

WHAT I DO THOU KNOWEST NOT NOW, BUT THOU SHALT KNOW HEREAFTER.

Peter trusted, then he didn't say anything. When Jesus says,'You will know,' he believes that he will know.

PETER SAITH UNTO HIM: THOU SHALT NEVER WASH MY FEET! JESUS

ANSWERED HIM: IF I WASH THEE NOT, THOU HAST NO PART WITH

ME.

The part that believes in Jesus is not the only part in Peter; many other parts also exist. That part which loves Jesus and has trust is not asking now. The first question was from the part that had faith; it was simply a question. How do I make the distinction? You just try to listen to me.

First, Peter said to him,'Lord, dost thou wash my feet?' -- it was a simple question; there was no 'no' in it.'Yes' had not been said, but 'no' had also not been said. It was simply an enquiry:'Dost thou wash my feet?' It didn't look appropriate. When Jesus said,'What I am thou knowest not; but thou shalt know hereafter,' that part which believed and trusted became silent.

Then, the second question from Peter was not from the same Peter. Then he said,'Thou shalt never wash my feet!' Now it is a positive assertion, now it is a positive 'no'. It is no more hesitant; it is no more an enquiry, it is a statement.

This is some other part in Peter which says,'Thou shalt never wash my feet!' Jesus answered him,'If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me -- so you decide. If I don't wash your feet and if you don't allow me, then you have nothing to do with me; you are not a part of me.'

Why? Something very deep has to be understood, and that is: whatsoever you call opposites in life are not as opposite as they appear. You love a person, and you hate him also. When you hate a person you continue to love him, you remain divided. A man who loves riches one day becomes fed-up and then he renounces, then he escapes to the mountains. Then if you bring riches to him, he will not look at them. He is not indifferent; he has moved from 'yes' to 'no'. Now he has moved to the other extreme, but he remains the same man. Once he was infatuated, now he has renounced, rejected, but still he has a relationship with the riches. The relationship exists.

For example: a disciple does not allow the Master to touch his feet. Why? --

because of the ego. It will look very, very difficult to understand, because you will say that ego should feel perfectly happy that the Master is touching the feet.

Yes, there are people who have that type of ego also; we will come across them. But this too is ego, when Peter says,'No, I will not allow you to touch my feet.

How can I allow you? I am your greatest disciple! How can I allow you to touch my feet?' -- the ego:'I am a humble person, the humblest; how can I allow you to touch my feet?' Deep down, Peter is afraid that if Jesus touches his feet, deep down somewhere some part of his being will feel very exhilarated and happy.

That is the fear. He cannot be indifferent to it. Just see: if you cannot even allow your Master to touch your feet, what else are you going to allow? Peter will say,'I am ready to die for you. You can kill me if you want, but I won't allow you to touch my feet.'

But the basic thing is in saying 'no' to the Master. You can feel ready to die because in dying you will feel very ego-fulfilled -- 'I am becoming a martyr.' The mind is so cunning, but still the same ego, the same mind is there.

I was just reading a few days ago: Once it happened that a Roman Catholic priest and a Church of England clergyman were arguing about religion, as priests and clergymen have always argued. They have not done anything else; argument is their life! So the Catholic priest and the Church of England clergyman were arguing about religion, and they both became rather heated. Then the priest, the Catholic priest said,'We must not quarrel. We are both doing God's work -- you in your way and I in His.' Ego is VERY subtle.

There is a sentence of St. Paul's; listen to it very carefully, it is very dangerous:'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.'

Mind is so cunning. The first part is from Jesus, but the second part? This sentence is from St. Paul, this second part is from him. Jesus says,'Forgive your enemies, love your enemies,' but St. Paul is saying that this is a device, a strategy:'If you do this you are heaping burning coals upon his head. Do it! You are destroying the enemy this way. He will be in hell and you will be in heaven because you have forgiven him. When he was hungry you fed him, and when he was thirsty you gave him to drink. Now you are pushing him towards hell. You are becoming holier and holier, and the distance is becoming greater and greater, and you can look towards him as if he were a worm.'

Look at the tricks of the mind! Even if you do good, your reasons may not be good. You may serve, and your reasons may not be good. It looks perfectly right from the side of the disciple that he say,'I shall not allow you to touch my feet.'

He thinks that this is how it should be -- Why and how can I allow my Master to touch my feet? He is so great.' But you are denying your Master; you are saying

'no'.

A disciple is a total 'yes'. He should be. He says,'Whatsoever is right, you know better. You know better; if it is right, then do it, and I will be ready to participate in whatsoever you want me to participate in. Wherever you lead me, I will come with you, because I am no more. I am surrendered.'

He said,'Thou shalt never wash my feet.' Jesus answered him,'If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me -- then forget all about your discipleship, forget all about your love towards me. Then you are no more with me.' Jesus can understand the ego, the ego of the righteous man, the ego of the puritan, the ego of the holy man, the ego of the saint. But the ego, whether it is of a saint or a sinner makes no difference; it is the same ego.

I came across a sentence of Richard Nixon's:'Violence has no place in America. Anyone who preaches violence should be shot like a dog!'

Beware of the cunningness of the mind. This has been done on the earth millions of times: people have killed each other for love, people have destroyed countries because they wanted to help those countries to become religious. For their own sakes, they have killed thousands. Remember, the real cause deep down has to be looked at and searched out. Sometimes you are humble, but the reason is the ego; sometimes you are simple only because you are very complex; sometimes you renounce the world because you are too infatuated with it; sometimes you donate money because you are greedy, and sometimes you look very brave because deep down is the coward. Watch! Man can go on deceiving himself and others by posing and pretending to be something else which he is not. That's why Jesus is so hard. He says,'If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.'

SO AFTER HE HAD WASHED THEIR FEET, AND HAD TAKEN HIS

GARMENTS, AND WAS SET DOWN AGAIN, HE SAID UNTO THEM: KNOW

YE WHAT I HAVE DONE TO YOU?

Jesus touched their feet; it is a communication of energy, it is a deep communion of energy. He asked,'Know ye what I have done to you?' -- and they were not aware. Even if God comes and touches your feet you may not be aware, because it does not depend on God, it depends on your sensitivity. The more deeply sensitive you are, the more you become aware of what is happening. If your sensitivity is so deep that it touches the very core of your being, only then will God's touch be felt. Then it will be a tremendous pouring of energy. When Jesus touched their feet, had they been aware, they would have felt exactly what Hindus call the rising of the kundalini. If they had been aware, they would have seen a tremendous rise, a tide of energy; Jesus was over-flooding them. There are two ways to do it: the Master touches your head and he pulls up your energy

-- it is a little difficult. When he touches your feet then he forces it up, which is easier.

Jesus had been touching their heads all the years that they had been with him.

Now he touched their feet. From another side, he wanted to give them a push before he left. He wanted to let them become aware of their own energy before he left, because he would be gone and they would be left in darkness; their own flame was not lit. He tried to force the energy up from below, and asked,'Know ye what I have done to you?' but they knew not. They simply thought. A few who had a certain love for him must have felt awkward, and in that awkwardness they missed the opportunity. Someone who was just indifferent, who neither loved nor hated, would have watched the whole thing like a bystander, a spectator, not involved in it. One who did not love him, but hated him -- Judas -- must have felt very good that now the right thing was being done.

Judas was the only educated, sophisticated disciple of Jesus, and he betrayed. It is a symbolic thing that intellect was the renegade; intellect was going to betray.

He was the intellect of that group of disciples. He was the most scholarly, sophisticated, educated, the most articulate in logic, in thinking. But when you become too clever, your very cleverness becomes like a smokescreen. One great German philosopher, Hegel, has said that God is cunning. When you are cunning, eVen God looks cunning -- because you can only see yourself reflected.

KNOW YE WHAT I HAVE DONE TO YOU? YE CALL ME MASTER AND LORD, AND YE SAY WELL; FOR SO I AM. IF I THEN, YOUR LORD AND

MASTER, HAVE WASHED YOUR FEET, YE ALSO OUGHT TO WASH ONE

ANOTHER'S FEET. FOU I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, THAT YE SHOULD DO AS I HAVE DONE TO YOU.

This is that which can be said, that which can be understood. Only Jesus is not trying to explain. THAT cannot be explained. The energy push that he gave, the arousal of energy -- that cannot be said. That was felt by a few, that may have been missed by others. Now he is saying that which can be said.

YE CALL ME MASTER AND LORD, AND YE SAY WELL; FOR SO I AM. IF I THEN, YOUR LORD AND MASTER, HAVE WASHED YOUR FEET, YE ALSO

OUGHT TO WASH ONE ANOTHER'S FEET. FOR I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, THAT YE SHOULD DO AS I HAVE DONE TO YOU.

He is telling them to be respectful to each other, and that is very difficult for disciples. They are competitive. And a Master knows that the moment he disappears, the religion will be forgotten and politics will enter because disciples are politicians. In the presence of the Master they may forget their politics, but once the Master is gone they will forget about the Master, sooner or later. They will start fighting about who the leader is, who the greatest disciple is, who the successor is.

This ugliness happens to everybody's, to every Master's disciples. It happened to Mahavir's disciples, it happened to Buddha's disciples, but it didn't happen immediately to Jesus' disciples. The reason is that Jesus touched their feet. It happened later on because the disciples didn't follow; the example was forgotten.

When Jesus touched their feet he was saying,'You go on touching each other's feet -- be respectful and go on doing this to your own disciples also. Sooner or later you will become Masters and you will have disciples -- touch their feet. Let it become a tradition; not a dead one, but let it remain an alive current of reverence.' The disciples didn't fight amongst themselves because Jesus touched their feet. But later on, mind gathers dust and forgets. Then Christianity became divided.

Now Christianity has a thousand and one divisions, all sorts of divisions for small and foolish things which don't mean anything. There are small things for which they go on fighting and creating new churches and new denominations, and if you look deeply, nothing seems to be so important. Their distinctions are just foolish. Their arguments are about very futile things. In the Middle Ages, the Christian theo-logicians were in a great argument, and the argument was: how many angels can stand on a pin-point? How many? -- things like this.

You can find arguments, and then you can go on arguing. The whole thing seems to be that the ego is always in search of fight, because if you fight, only then does it exist. If you love, if you respect, it cannot exist. Jesus said to them through his example,'Don't be related to each other through the ego; be related through love, respect, humility, because soon I will be gone and then there will be no one who can help you to come out of your egos. Then you will be left to yourselves. Then you will have to continue something which can help you not to fall a victim of the ego. Go on touching each other's feet, and do the same to your own disciples.'

WHEN JESUS HAD THUS SAID, HE WAS TROUBLED IN SPIRIT, AND

TESTIFED, AND SAID: VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT ONE OF

YOU SHALL BETRAY ME.

For the first time he came to know exactly who was going to betray him. By touching the feet he felt the energy, and only Judas was happy that he had touched his feet. In fact, Judas was waiting for it too long. He had always been waiting; he had never thought Jesus higher than him. Deep down, he believed that he was more of a philosopher, of a thinker. Deep down, he used to think that he was of a deeper understanding than Jesus. Many times he had tried, many times he used to show faults to Jesus that'This you did wrong.'

When Mary Magdalene came to see Jesus, she brought a bottle of very costly perfume and she poured it on his feet. Judas immediately said,'This is not right.

You should have prohibited her from doing that. This is not good; this is wasting. This much money could have fed the poor of the whole town for many days.' Of course, your intellect will also agree with Judas. His argument was absolutely socialistic; he was a communist. He was speaking rightly, and he knew more

economics than Jesus. It is true; why waste so costly a perfume? The feet can be washed with water. There was no need to pour such a costly perfume on them. The perfume could have been sold and the money could have been used for the poor of the town to be fed -- perfectly true. The argument was right, but what did Jesus say? Jesus said,'The poor will always be with you, but I will not always be with you. You can feed the poor later on when I am gone, but I cannot stop her. You can see only the perfume, I see her heart. I cannot say no to her. In deep love, in deep overflowing, not finding a way to express, she has poured that perfume. I cannot say no to her.' Hmm... but Jesus' argument is not so strong as Judas' argument. Marx would agree with Judas, Mao would also agree with Judas, and I don't think that anybody will agree with Jesus. Even Christians will feel a little embarrassed about the whole thing -- it doesn't fit, doesn't look good. But I agree with Jesus. He understands the language of the heart.

When he touched Judas' feet, immediately he could feel his energy: that he was going to betray, and he was going to betray that very day, that very night.

VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO VOU, THAT ONE OF YOU SHALL BETRAY

ME.… THEN SAID JESUS UNTO HIM: THAT THOUB DOEST, DO QUICKLY.

'Why are you waiting? Whatsoever you want to do, do it quick]y; be finished with it.' And even then Jesus could not understand; even then Judas could not see that this man could understand. Just by touching his feet, this man could understand the future, this man could see what was going to happen. This man had read his innermost thought: that he was going to betray, that he had become a conspirator against him, that he was now a part of the enemy group, that he had already bargained that he would deliver Jesus to them and they would have to pay for it. For only thirty silver coins, Jesus was sold.

This is beautiful, because this is what you are also doing; you are selling your possibility of Jesus for not even thirty silver coins; for any rubbish thing you are ready to exchange. You are ready to give your life for any rubbish thing: for a car, for a house, for jewelry; for anything you are ready to sell your innermost Jesus.

Your head is the Judas!

And the Jesus within you is crucified every day, sold in the market, bargained away for nothing valuable.

But people only repent later on. Even Judas repented after Jesus' crucifixion; the next day he killed himself, committed suicide. Because only afterwards, you become aware of what you have done: for just thirty rupees, thirty silver coins, you have sold the greatest man ever? But only later on, at the time of death, when you have crucified your Jesus completely, then you will repent and you will cry. And then you will see what you have done to yourself, to your God who was hiding within you.

... THEN SAID JESUS UNTO HIM: THAT THOU DOEST, DO QUICKLY...

Why did he say this? He said this is as a last opportunity to make Judas aware that he was aware. But Judas would not understand. It is as if he had decided not to understand.

If you have eyes to see, you will find God everywhere, good everywhere: scriptures in silence and sermons in stones.

But if you don't know how to see, or you have lost the capacity to see, or you have forgotten how to open your eyes and for all practical purposes you have become blind, then even when a Jesus is standing before you, the door open, you cannot see. If you could see, then even in the rock a door would open and you would find God there. You cannot see that even in Jesus, where God is dancing just in front of you, alive in its infinitude... but you cannot see.

Judas missed. And remember, there are more Judases in the world; the majority consists of them. You may call them Christians, but that doesn't matter; the majority consists of Judases. The followers of Judas are millions, and it is rare that somebody follow Jesus, very rare -- because to follow Jesus you have to lose yourself. You have to pay the cost; you have to pay for it with your own life, your very being. But to follow Judas nothing is asked; it is free of cost. In fact, Judas promises that you can get many things if you follow him. Jesus simply says,'Lose yourself and then everything will happen'; but losing yourself is the beginning. Judas says,'I will give you everything and you need not lose anything.' The cunning mind agrees with Judas; only a trusting heart can agree with Jesus.

... THEN SAID JESUS? UNTO HIM: THAT THOU DOEST, DO QUICKLY. NOW

NO MAN AT THE TABLE KNEW FOR WHAT INTENT HE SPAKE THIS UNTO HIM.

No other disciple could understand why, why he had said suddenly to Judas,'Do it quickly if you want to do it. Don't wait. For whom are you waiting?' Why Jesus said it, no disciple could understand. Because no disciple was in the present, otherwise they could have seen. No disciple was perceptive enough, otherwise they could have understood.

THEREFORE, WHEN JUDAS WAS GONE OUT, (immediately Judas left) JESUS

SAID: NOW IS THE SON OF MAN GLORIFIED, AND GOD IS GLORIFIED IN

HIM.

'Now is the Son of man glorified'; because now soon he is going to be crucified.

The Son of man is glorified only if the ego is crucified. The ego has its ways of protecting itself. In one way you stop -- it finds another. It goes on and on and on. Unless you look so deeply that you can see all the ways of the ego in one glimpse, in one lightning glimpse, you can do one thing and it starts flowing from another.

I was reading a story: A tomcat who was always out at night caused the neighborhood great annoyance because of the noise from his revels with the female cats. The owners eventually had him doctored, but were disconcerted to find that he still stayed out all night and that the noise continued. So they went to the veterinary surgeon to complain about the ineffectiveness of his treatment.'Nothing unusual,' came the cheerful reply.'You see, he now acts in a consultative capacity.'

If you cannot be active at least you can be consultative. If you stop one door of the ego, the ego starts opening another. You have to see the subtle ways of the ego in a lightning flash, so totally that all its cunning subtleties are seen. In that

very vision, in that very fire of sudden lightning, the ego disappears and leaves no shadow behind, no trace behind.

'Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.' Why both together? -- because crucifixion is a meeting point, it is a crossroad. The ego disappears, and man is glorified because man becomes pure when the ego disappears; but immediately that the ego disappears, God is there, and God is glorified. The ego functions as a double-edged sword: on this side man becomes pure, and in that purity, innocence, God is revealed on the other side. The whole thing is, the whole religion is -- how to drop the ego, how to become so aware, alert, that the ego cannot deceive you.

Let me tell you first what ego is. Everybody is born without the ego. When a child is born, he is simply consciousness: floating, flowing, lucid, innocent, virgin

-- no ego exists. By and by, the ego is created by others. The ego is the accumulated effect of others' opinions about you. Somebody comes, a neighbor, and says,'How beautiful a child,' and looks at the child with a very appreciative look. Now the ego starts functioning. Somebody smiles, somebody does not smile; sometimes the mother is very loving, sometimes she is very angry; and the child is learning that he is not accepted as he is. His being is not accepted unconditionally; there are conditions arouncl. If he cries and weeps and visitors are there in the house, then the mother is very angry. If he cries and weeps and there is no visitor, the mother doesn't bother. If he does not cry and weep, the mother always awards with a loving kiss and caress. When the visitors are there, if he can keep quiet and silent, the mother is tremendously happy and awarding.

He is learning others' opinions about himself; he is looking into the mirror of relationship.

You cannot see your face directly. You have to look in a mirror and in the mirror you can recognize your face. That reflection becomes your idea of your face, and there are a thousand and one mirrors all around you -- they all reflect. Somebody loves you, somebody hates you, somebody is indifferent. And then, by and by, the child grows and goes on accumulating the opinions of others. The total essence of the opinions of others is the ego. Then he starts looking at himself the way others look at him. Then he starts looking at himself from the outside -- that s what ego is. If people appreciate and applaud, then he thinks that he is

perfectly beautiful, accepted. If people don't applaud and don't appreciate, but reject, he feels condemned. Then he goes on seeking ways and means to be appreciated, to be assured again and again that he is worthy, that he has a worth, a meaning and significance. Then one becomes afraid to be oneself. One has to fit with the opinion of others.

If you drop the ego, suddenly you become a child again. Now you are not worried about what others think about you, now you don't pay any attention to what others say about you. You are not concerned, not even a bit. Now you have dropped the mirror. It is pointless -- you have your face, why ask the mirror?

And there are many types of mirrors: some make your face look long, some make your face look big, some make your face look small, some make your face look horrible, distorted.

Don't ask the mirror, because then the quality of the glass will always be there in the reflection. And there are millions of mirrors all around you, millions of relationships, and you go on gathering. That's why ego is always inconsistent. It is a crowd; it is a heap with no inner coherence. Somebody says that you are beautiful, then somebody says that you are just homely. Somebody says,'You? --

and beautiful? You make me feel horrible, terrible. You are nauseating. You? --

and beautiful? You are a nausea. I feel like vomiting whenever I see you.' Now what to do? You collect all these opinions -- inconsistent, contradicting each other -- and they all become part of your ego.

Ego is a crowd. It is a marketplace because you have gathered it in the marketplace, because you have gathered it from the crowd. It is not you, it is others' opinions about you. Why be bothered? Drop all opinions of others about you. Why not be direct and immediate? Why not see within yourself, in your own nature? Why not face yourself? Why bring a mediator, a mirror into it?

When you start looking into your own nature with closed eyes, you are moving beyond the ego. And once you know who you are -- even a slight glimpse -- then you will start laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it: that you were asking others who you are. They don't know themselves who they are, so why ask them? You become free; a freedom is attained. Without the ego, you come back to your own nature.

JESUS SAID: NOW IS THE SON OF MAN GLORIFIED, AND GOD IS

GLORIFIED IN HIM. A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE UNTO YOU, THAT

YE LOVE ONE ANOTHER; AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, THAT YE ALSO LOVE

ONE ANOTHER. BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YE ARE MY DISCIPLES, IF YE HAVE LOVE ONE TO ANOTHER.

Love is the essential message of Jesus, but it has been lost -- lost in arguments, debates, discussions, conflicting philosophies, wars.

I would like to tell you one anecdote: One day a little boy asked his parents,'How do wars break out? How are they declared?' He was reading a book on history, and a book on history is nothing but wars, ugly wars. That is all your history is.

The boy became worried, anxious.'Why do wars start? How do they start?' he asked his parents.

So the father, who was very learned in political and economic affairs, started talking about the economic causes of u wars.

But the mother thought that the little boy was too small to understand such complicated things and she said,'Let me explain it.' The mother began to explain and the father became very angry. He grew very angry and hostile, because he was going to teach the child and the mother jumped in. A great argument developed.

The little boy was very frightened indeed, and held up his hands and cried loudly,'Stop, stop! Now I know how wars start.'

Once you create a philosophy, an opinion, you are already on the warpath. If there is ideology, there is going to be fight. This is the predicament: there are people who want the world to be without wars, but they have ideologies and their ideologies create wars. There are communists who go on arranging peace conferences, and they have a particular ideology of how the world should be and how the society should be. There are Catholics who go on talking about peace,

but they have an ideology; and there are Hindus who go on talking about peace, but they have an ideology. There are even Jains who talk of non-violence, peace, no war, but they have an ideology -- and if you have an ideology you are the cause of war.

A world without wars will be a world without ideologies. A world without wars can be based only on a nonideological love. Love is not an ideology, it is not a theology, it is not a philosophy.'This,' Jesus says,'is my new commandment.'

A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE UNTO YOU, THAT YE LOVE ONE

ANOTHER; AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, THAT YE ALSO LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YE ARE MY DISCIPLES, IF YE HAVE LOVE ONE TO ANOTHER.

Verily, verily, I also say unto you, that only those who love are Christians.

Catholics cannot be Christians; they are against Protestants. Protestants cannot be Christians; they are against Catholics. Christians cannot be Christians; they are against Hindus. Hindus cannot be Christians; they are against Mohammedans and Christians. To follow Christ, one has to follow love. This is his new commandment: follow love and forget everything. Everything is irrelevant; only love has relevance because only love leads you to the divine, only love leads you to the temple of God. Make love your only, and the ONLY

commandment. There is nothing else. If you follow love, everything will be set right of its own accord.

One man went to St. Augustine and asked,'Just in short, give me the very essence of religion. I am not a learned man; don't make it very complicated and don't give me many commandments, because I will get confused. You simply say one thing to me, just a key word.'

St. Augustine said,'Then that word is 'love'. You love and don't be bothered by anything else.'

If you love, everything falls in step of its own accord. Let love be your God; let

love be your only commandment; let love be your religion. Please remember --

don't make an ideology of it. Act in a loving way, be in a loving way. Don't create a philosophy around love because that will create wars. A peaceful world is possible if love starts throbbing in the heart of man. Man has been so inhuman to man in the past that even animals look like angels in comparison. Because up to now we have only talked about love; we have not loved.

Now let us love, and forget all talk about love. Lovers are needed.

And remember one thing which Jesus says, because you may not have listened to it:'A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another' -- and now comes the most important clause in the sentence -- 'as I have loved you.'

How does a Jesus love? His love is unconditional. He loves; he loves you without any expectations. He loves you just because you are beautiful. It is not that he has some expectations of you; it is not that you have to be in a certain way, then he will love. He simply loves you because you are, because you are God.

You ARE gods; you are already worthy. Whatsoever you are, you have a worth of tremendous value, otherwise God wouldn't allow you to exist. So Jesus''as I have loved you' means: be in the attitude of unconditional love. And remember, only unconditional love is love.

Love conditioned is love corrupted; love unconditioned is the vast sky of being. It is another word for God.

Come Follow To You, Vol 4 Chapter #4

Chapter title: All Who Hear It Lose Themselves 24 December 1975 am in Buddha Hall

The first question: Question 1

YOU SAID THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE: THOSE WHOSE PATH IS AWARENESS AND THOSE WHOSE PATH IS SURRENDER OR BHAKTI. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT LAO TZU HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EITHER OF THEM -- IS THERE A THIRD TYPE THEN WHO FOLLOW NEITHER OR BOTH?

LAO Tzu has no path, or, the no-path is his path. Lao Tzu says,'There is nowhere to go, you are already there.' So the very word 'path' becomes meaningless. A path is needed if you are going somewhere. If you are already there then the path is not needed at all. In fact, to have a path will be dangerous; you will go astray. Lao Tzu says,'Those who follow a path go astray.' By and by, they go further and further away from themselves.

'Seeker, follow no path, because all paths lead there, truth is here.' Lao Tzu is the last word in spirituality; beyond him there is nothing.

Ordinarily it is very difficult to conceive no-path because then you are suddenly thrown to yourself, with nothing to cling to, nothing to do: no method, no technique, no means. Suddenly you are thrown to yourself, and that has become almost impossible for you. You need something else to be occupied with. You leave the world, you leave your family, you renounce everything, but you never renounce the 'other'. In some form or other: in the form of God, in the form of yoga, in the form of a technique, you still have something. Lao Tzu takes that too away from you. He leaves you totally empty. That emptiness needs much courage. In fact, all other paths finally come to the same point.

If you follow bhakti, surrender, one day you will come to understand that in the first place there was nothing to surrender; ego never existed. The ego was false, so the surrender was also false because the disease never existed. But it helped, surrender helped you to know that the ego never existed. Then suddenly you start laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it: that you were surrendering something to your Master that you never had, or you were surrendering something to God that was just a false notion. But this will come in the end; with Lao Tzu it comes in the beginning. With Lao Tzu, the first step is the last. In fact, no-step is the last; there is no beginning and no end. The same is true about

Zen.

These are not ideologies or philosophies. These are not scriptures; these are tremendous visions of instant mutation.

It happened: When Bodhidharma reached China a great scholar went to see him, and he had brought with him the greatest book that he had written It was very famous; the book was almost in every home. The philosopher was acclaimed by the whole nation. He went to Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen. He wanted the Master's opinion about his book, in which he had talked about all the possible paths, all the possible ideologies, very minutely. Very subtle was his exposition.

He was a very, very refined intellect, a master-mind. What did Bodhidharma do?

He took the book in his hand, put it to his nose and said,'It has a kind of quarrelsome smell about it,' and threw the book away. He said,'Take it away from here! It will spoil my disciples, it will corrupt. It has a certain quarrelsome smell about it.'

All paths, all ideologies, all philosophies, all theologies are quarrelsome. They are in the marketplace claiming,'Only our path leads to truth.' Not on]y that: they are fighting, arguing with other paths, other ideologies. The world of ideologies is a marketplace.

If you are ready to take the jump, then the truth is already present in you. There is no need to go anywhere; there is no need to look for it anywhere. Close the eyes and it is here. You ARE the truth.

So now, let us try to understand the question.

Yes, there are two types of people, two types of persons. Humanity is divided into two types: the male and the female, the yin and the yang, the negative and the positive, the aggressive and the passive. These two types of people both live in illusion, in a sort of dream, a kind of sleep; drunk with desire, blind with desire. The person who belongs to the male type needs some path upon which he can exercise his will; that will suit him. Finally, a day will come when by this exercising of his will, by and by, he will start understanding that he is engaging in a futile effort. But he will take a long time to understand this. He will have to fall many times, and he will again stand, and he will again make efforts, and he will again be a failure because the will cannot succeed.

The will means the ego, the will means you. It is going to fail. But many times it will fail and you will go on hoping that the next time it will not fail. But one day

-

- how can you escape the fact forever and ever? -- one day or the other, you will stumble upon the fact that you are doing something stupid. In that realization the will will disappear, and suddenly you will see that the path has disappeared, the religion has disappeared, and you are illumined. It was always there, but you were so much occupied with the path, the will, the effort. All effort brings you to effortlessness, and all willing brings you to will-lessness, and all ego finally brings you to egolessness.

The other part of humanity, the female part, the passive part, cannot move on the path of will. It needs another illusory path: the path of surrender, devotion, bhakti. One day or other, devoting yourself and still finding that something is lacking, because the devotion can never be total -- anything illusory can never be total: surrendering and surrendering, and again and again finding that you are still standing behind, you are not yet surrendered -- one day suddenly you become aware of the fact. What are you going to do? Surrendering something which you don't have? -- how is it possible? Suddenly the ego has disappeared.

Now there is no need to surrender, because there is no ego left.

The path of surrender and the path of will both bring you to where Lao Tzu starts. Their end is the beginning of Lao Tzu. His path is of pathlessness. He is the ultimate word, beyond which nothing exists. He is the last word. Buddha can be improved upon, Jesus can be improved upon, Meera and Mahavir, Krishna and Chaitanya can be improved upon, but not Lao Tzu. You cannot improve upon him; there is nothing to improve. He simply does not play the game. From the very beginning he is a non-participant.

The questioner has asked,'Is there a third type of person?' No, there are only two types of people. The third type is not a type, because all types belong to the ego.

The third type is sheer humanness. It is not a being, it is not a person. It is simply sheer existence, pure existence, purity itself. These two are the types. When these types disappear, then you become aware of that which is universal, which has nothing to do with the person, because personality gathers around the ego.

Whether you will or you surrender makes no difference. The personality needs a

base in the ego.

The ego has two types: the male and female. But a person who is egoless is not a type at all. You cannot categorize him, you cannot put him in any category. He simply transcends all categories. He is a flood -- he is flowing in all directions, he is spread all over. He is not like a stone, he is like the sky: indefinable, elusive.

The third is not a type, Lao Tzu is not a type. He does not belong to the world of types, the world of categories; he is simply beyond.

When Confucius went to see him, Confucius became very frightened, because to look into the eyes of Lao Tzu is to look into the eternal abyss... bottomless. It is what Buddha calls SHUNYA: eternal void, emptiness. He started trembling, he tried to escape from him. When his disciples said,'Say something about Lao Tzu, because you have been to see him,' he was still trembling and perspiring. He said,'Don't ask about that man! He is not a man at all; he is a dragon. And never go near him, he is dangerous! He can suck you in and you disappear.'

Had Confucius known about black holes he would have said,'He is a black hole; don't go near him! Once you fall into him you will never be able to return. He is dangerous!' Only once did Confucius go to see him -- never again -- but his whole life, the shadow haunted him, because he had known a man who was not bounded. He had known a man who had no limitations. He had known sheer humanity, pure humanity, pure beingness. He had seen the purity of death and life.

No, the third does not belong to any types. The second question:

Question 2

I AM AWARE OF A DICHOTOMY WITHIN ME: WHEN I AM NEAR YOU, I AM DRAWN TOWARDS YOU AND AM CONSCIOUS OF BEING A THIRSTY

SEEKER. WHEN I AM AWAY FROM THE ASHRAM I JUST HAVE A GOOD

TIME AND FEEL DELICIOUSLY UNHOLY. IS SOMETHING WRONG?

Nothing is wrong! It is as it should be. That's what I would like it to be -- exactly, precisely. This is what I am trying to teach you: don't be serious about holiness.

Be playful, take it as a fun. It is the greatest fun there is -- but it is fun. Once you become serious, you will become a victim of some church or some priest. Once you become serious you are already ill.

When you are near me, flow with me, be with me. When you go to the river, swim with the river; but there is no need to swim in the market. Then you will look ridiculous. In the marketplace move into the market, become part of the market. Retain the capacity of fluidity. Don't gather a character, a rigid structure around you. Remain capable of moving from one polarity to another; that is what life is. Don't get frozen. There is no dichotomy.

This is the beauty of life, that it comprehends the opposites. While you are with me be with me, enjoy this search. At home, sipping your tea, or smoking, enjoy the tea, enjoy smoking. Nothing is unholy in it. In fact, the definition of 'holy' is: to be whole. And to be whole means to comprehend the contradictions. Don't be just the day, be the night also. Don't be just the light, be the darkness also, because darkness has its own beauties; you will miss them. And you will only be a half-person if you don't have any night in you where you can go and relax. If you are simply serious, then you will remain in the head, hung-up. But if you can become non-serious also, then you can move into the heart.

The heart is a non-serious playfulness. The head is very serious. You should remain capable of flowing. That capacity to flow is to be religious. When you go into the temple, you become a part of the temple; when you go to the world, you become part of the world. But wherever you are, you are always capable of moving into the opposite. If you cannot do that then you become a dead thing.

Only a dead thing cannot move to the opposite. A dead thing is a fixed character.

I have heard: A great Zen Master died, and another Zen Master who had always been the opposite polarity to this Master, went to follow the dead body to the cemetery. There were thousands of people in the funeral procession. The man who had always remained the enemy of the Master was there. Somebody asked,'Why have you come? You were always antagonistic to him.' The man

laughed. He said,'It was part of being holy -- I was the opposite of him, and he was my opposite. Between us two, we were creating life. People were moving from him to me, from me to him, and between us there was a conspiracy: we were creating life. Structured, frozen people... we were melting them. Now I will miss him tremendously.' And later on when he saw so many people, thousands following, he said,'This is really wonderful! In the wake of one living person, so many dead people are going!'

Life is not a fixity. It is not like rock, it is like river -- rivering, flowing. It is a process, it is not a thing. If you understand me, I am here to make your whole life holy. So whatsoever you do, enjoy it totally and don't create the dichotomy. The dichotomy is of the mind; you are creating it. There is no problem at all. What is wrong? If you feel deliciously unholy, perfectly good. Don't become a holy man, otherwise you will miss wholeness and you will never be holy. Remain capable of being unholy also. Then holiness and unholiness become your two banks, and between the two flows the river which belongs to neither bank, which is always transcending and going far away and far away.

Don't create a character. If you 're going to remain creative, don't create a character. Each moment, try to bring yourself out of the character that was being created in the past moment. Character means the past, you always mean the present. Consciousness is always the present, and character is always of the past.

Whenever you talk about somebody's character, you talk about his past: whatsoever he has done, that is his character. Character is always dead. Try to understand character. Try to pull yourself up again and again, to remind yourself again and again. Remember yourself again and again so that you remain in the present -- alive, throbbing.

Don't get caught in a character. Don't become holy, don't become unholy. A saint is dead, a sinner also, but not a man who can move between the two with no difficulty, who can move easily between the two, as easily as you come out of your house and go in. You feel cold, it is a winter morning -- you come out to sun yourself. And then it becomes hot, the sun rising high -- you move in, you go into your house. There is no difficulty in it. The difficulty will arise only if you are paralyzed. Then you cannot come out of the house; you are paralyzed. If somebody carries you out somehow, outside of the house, then you still cannot move because now you are paralyzed there.

Don't be paralyzed; remain alive. Don't become a dead thing. And the only way is: every day, die to the past so that you can be alive here-now. Go on dying to the past. Never carry the past around with you, otherwise you are carrying a great imprisonment around you; a great prison surrounds you. I am not concerned about whether that prison is made of gold and decorated with diamonds, or if it is a poor man's prison, just a dark cell. Whether it is the prison you call 'saint' or the prison you call 'sinner' does not matter. A prison is a prison, and you should not be a prisoner. Be free. Don't create any problem out of it.

I would like to tell you a story. Many centuries ago, a temple of higher knowledge was being built on a hill overlooking the Nile. The man who would become its chief teacher wanted a suitable proverb to be inscribed over the front door. He thought about it many times as the work progressed. The morning fina]ly came when the foreman needed to have the selected proverb, so he asked the teacher for it.'Please come back in an hour,' requested the teacher,'I will then have it for you.' While thinking about it, the teacher wandered near a skilled workman who was gently correcting the work of a young man. The teacher heard the older man make the encouraging remark'There is another way.' Over the centuries, as troubled students and visitors entered the temple, their first lesson was inscribed over the door. It read: There is another way.

You ask me how to get rid of this dichotomy? I tell you, there is another way: there is no need to get rid of it -- accept it, enjoy it. Don't try to choose; remain choicelessly aware. Then the whole life is holy, and the whole earth is God's temple. Then nothing is wrong.

My definition of wrongness is: anything that becomes an imprisonment is wrong. And anything that remains freedom is right. Freedom is right, imprisonment is wrong. So remain alert, because each moment you are creating a past, and if you are not alert the dust of the past will go on gathering around you. As you clean your house every morning, every evening go on cleaning your inner consciousness, every moment. Only then can you remain fresh, like a fresh flower, a virgin-ness, a mirror which can reflect, which has not gathered any dust around it.

The third question: Question 3

IN INTENSIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY THE PATIENT MAY EITHER BE TALKING

OR LISTENING, THAT IS, TRYING TO HEAR FROM WITHIN. ONLY THE

LATTER IS OF VALUE. A GOOD THERAPIST, ESPECIALLY IF LOVE EXISTS, WILL HIT ON MANY WAYS OF HEIGHTENING THIS PROCESS OF

LISTENING FOR THE UNEXPECTED. IS THIS A FORM OF MEDITATION? IN

FACT, MIGHT IT BE SAID THAT IDEALLY, BOTH THERAPIST AND PATIENT ARE MEDITATING TOGETHER?

Therapy is basically meditation and love, because without love and meditation there is no healing possible. When the therapist and the patient are not two, when the therapist is not only a therapist and when the patient is not a patient anymore, but a deep I-thou relationship arises where the therapist is not trying to treat the person, when the patient is not looking at the therapist as separate from himself -

- in those rare moments, therapy happens. When the therapist has forgotten his knowledge, and the patient has forgotten his illness, and there is a dialogue, a dialogue of two beings, in that moment, between the two, healing happens. And if it happens, the therapist will always know that he functioned only as a vehicle for a divine force, for a divine healing. He will be as grateful for the experience as the patient. In fact, he will gain as much out of it as the patient.

When you treat a person as a patient, you treat him as if he is a machine. Just like a mechanic who is trying to change, to adjust a mechanism, trying to put it right, then the therapist is an expert, hung-up in his knowledge in the head. He is trying to help the other person as if the other person is not another person, but a machine. He may be technically expert, he may have the know-how, but he is not going to be of much help. Because this very look is destructive. This very looking at the patient and seeing him as an object creates a resistance in the patient; he feels hurt.

Have you watched? There are only a very few doctors with whom you don't feel humiliated, with whom you don't feel as if you have been treated as an object, with whom you feel a deep respect for you, with whom you feel that you are

taken as a person, not as a mechanism. And it is more so when it is a question of psychotherapy. A psychotherapist needs to forget all that he knows. In the moment, he has to become a love, a flowing love. In the moment, he has to accept the humanity of the other, the subjectivity of the other. The other should not be reduced to a thing, otherwise you have closed the doors for a greater healing force to descend, from the very beginning. To be a therapist is one of the most difficult things in the world, because you have to know to help, and on the other hand, you have to forget all that you know to help. You have to know much to help, and you have to forget all of it to help. A therapist has to do a very contradictory thing, and only then does therapy happen. When love flows and the therapist listens to the patient with tremendous attention, and the patient also tries to listen to his own inner being, to his own unconscious talking to him, when this listening happens, by and by, in that deep listening there are not two persons. Maybe there are two polarities.…

When you listen to me, healing is happening all the time. When you listen to me so attentively that you are not there -- no mind, no thinking -- you have become just the ears, you just listen, you absorb; and I am not here at all, so when in some rare moments you are also not there, there is healing. Suddenly you are healed.

Without your knowing, you are being healed every day. Without your knowing, the healing surrounds you, the healing force surrounds you. Your wounds heal, your darkness disappears, your limitations are broken; this is a therapy.

In the East we have never had anything like a psychotherapist, because the Master was more than enough. Whatsoever psychoanalysis knows today the East has known for centuries. Nothing is new in it. But in the East, we never gave birth to the category of the psychoanalyst, but the Master; not the patient but the disciple.

Just look at the difference. When you come to me as a patient you bring a very ugly mind; when you come to me as a disciple you bring a beautiful mind. When I look at you as a therapist, that very look reduces you to a thing; when I look as Master that very look raises you to the heights of your innermost being. In the East we have never called the Master 'psychotherapist', and he is the greatest therapist that has ever been known in the world! Just sitting by the side of a Buddha, millions were healed. Wherever he moved there was healing, but healing was never talked about. It was simply happening; there was no need to

talk about it. The very presence of a Buddha, and the loving look from the Master, and the readiness to absorb from the disciple.…

The word 'patient' is ugly. The word in itself is not ugly; it comes from a very beautiful root. It comes from the same root as 'patience', but it has become ugly by association. A disciple is totally different: you have come to learn something, not to be treated, and the treatment happens by itself. All therapy is learning. In fact, why have you become mentally ill? -- because you have learned something wrong. You have learned something so totally wrong that you are caught in it.

You need somebody who can uncondition you, who can help you to unlearn it and channelize your energy in a different path, that's all.

For example: one woman came to me. I have been watching her for many years; she has been coming to me for many years. The first time she came she told me that she was not interested in sex at all, but her husband was continuously after sex. She felt very bad about it; she was almost vomiting.'How to stop it? What should I do?' she asked. I talked to the husband and told the husband,'Just for one month, don't be interested sexually. After one month, things will be better and different.' For one month he followed me. The woman came again. She said,'I am feeling very hurt, because my husband is not at all interested in me sexually.' Then I told her,'Now, you have to understand what is happening.

When the husband is sexually interested, you have a certain power over the husband. You enjoy that power, but at the same time you also feel that you are being used. Because the husband looks at you sexually, that means that he looks at you as a means towards a certain satisfaction. You feel that you are being used.' Almost all women feel that they are being used, and that is their problem.

But if the husband stops taking interest they forget all about being used, and they become afraid. Then they start thinking that the husband is going far away. Now they have no more power over him, they don't possess him. So I told the woman,'Just look at the fact: if you want to possess the husband you will have to be possessed by him. If you want to possess the husband, then you will have to be used by him.'

A mind which is possessive will be possessed. To possess anything is to be possessed by it. The more you possess, the more slavery you create around yourself. The freedom comes when you unlearn possessiveness. When you

unlearn possessiveness, then you are not in search of any power over anybody.

Then jealousy does not arise. And when you are not trying to possess the other, you create such beauty around yourself that the other cannot look at you as a thing. You become a person -- glorified, vibrant, illuminated -- you become a light unto yourself; nobody can possess you. Whosoever comes near you will feel the tremendous beauty, and will not be able to think in terms of your being a thing.

Now every woman suffers, because in the first place she wants to possess; when she wants to possess, she is possessed; when she is possessed she feels,'I am being used.' If she is not being used, then she feels that power is disappearing. So a woman always remains in a suffering, and it is the same with men.

To look deeply into a problem is to be healed, because the very look shows you that you have learned some wrong trick. Unlearn... there is healing. People are mentally ill because they have been conditioned wrongly. Everybody has been conditioned to be competitive and everybody has been taught to be silent and peaceful. This is stupid; you cannot do both. Either you are competitive, then you remain tense; or you be silent and peace-loving, then you cannot be competitive.

You have been taught dichotomies. You have been told to move in two directions together, and you have learned it. You have been taught to be humble, and you have been continuously taught to be egoistic.

If your son is first in the class at university, you feel very happy. You give a party for his friends, and you go on showing your son that he is a great man; he is first in the class, he is being awarded a gold medal. Now this is an ego-trip, all medals are. And at the same time, you go on teaching him to be humble. Now you are creating a difficulty: if he becomes humble he will not be competitive; if he becomes competitive, he cannot be humble. If he wants to attain the gold medals that this life can give, then he cannot be humble. Then all his humbleness will be hypocrisy. One has to see. Now this man will be in trouble: continuously he will try to be humble, and continuously he will try to succeed in life. If he succeeds, he will never enjoy the success, because he will have become arrogant and egoistic, and he had an ideal of being humble and egoless. If he becomes humble and egoless he will not feel happy, because he has that ideal to succeed in the world, to show to the world the mettle that he is made of.

The society goes on being contradictory, inconsistent, and the society goes on teaching you things which are absolutely wrong. Then illness happens. Then there is psychic turmoil within you, conflict within you. Then you come to a point where everything is in disorder, topsy-turvy. You can either go to a Master, or you can go to a psychotherapist. If you go to a Master you go as a disciple, to learn. You have learned something wrong; it has to be unlearned and something new has to be learned. When you go as a disciple you don't feel humiliated, you feel happy about it. But if you go as a mental case, if you go as a patient, you feel embarrassed. Going to a psychotherapist, you want to hide the facts -- 'People should not know because that means that my mind is not functioning well.'

Going to the psychotherapist, you would like to hide it. A psychotherapist is an expert: he himself has problems, almost the same as you have; he may be of some help to you, but he has not been of much use to himself.

But a Master has no problems. He can help you tremendously because he can see you through and through. You become transparent before him. A psychotherapist is a professional: even if he takes care of you, shows a certain love towards you, affection, it is a professional gesture. A Master is not professionally related to you. The relationship is totally different; it is heart to heart.

In the West, now there are so many psychotherapies, but nothing is proving to be helpful. Patients go from one psychoanalyst to another, from one therapy to another. Their whole lives they are moving from one door to another. Masters are needed, realized ones are needed who have attained to love. But even in ordinary psychotherapy, if for some moments it happens that the patient is no longer a patient and the therapist is no longer a therapist -- a certain love, a certain humanity; they have forgotten their profession, their professional relationship, and love flows -- healing immediately happens.

Healing is a function of love. Love is the greatest therapy, and the world needs therapists because the world lacks love. If people were loving: if parents were loving, if teachers and professors were loving, if the society had a loving climate around it, there would be no need.

Everybody is born to remain healthy and happy. Everybody is seeking health and happiness, but somewhere something is missing and everybody becomes miserable. Misery should be an exception; it has become the rule. Happiness

should be the rule; it has become an exception. I would like a world where buddhas are born, but nobody remembers them because they are the rule. Now Buddha is remembered, Christ is remembered, Lao Tzu is remembered, because they are exceptions. Otherwise, who would bother about them? If there were a buddha in every house, and if there were buddhas all over the marketplace and you could meet Lao Tzu anywhere, who would bother? Then that would be the simple rule. It should be so.

Lao Tzu says,'When the world was really moral there was no possibility of becoming a saint.' When the world was really religious there was no need for religions. People were simply religious; religions were not needed. When there was order, a discipline, a NATURAL order and discipline, the words 'order' and

'discipline' didn't exist. The idea of order comes in only when there is disorder.

People start talking about discipline where there is no discipline, and people talk about healing when illness is there. People talk about love when love is missing.

But basically, therapy is a function of love.

This question is from a psychotherapist, Buddhaghosha. I would like him to carry my message in his life. He will be going back soon: Now go, not as a therapist but as a human being. Never look at the patient as a patient. Look at him as if he has come to learn something -- a disciple. Help him, but not as an expert; help him like a human being, and there will be much healing. There will be less therapy and much healing. Otherwise, therapy continues for years and years on end, and the result is almost nil. Or, sometimes the result is even harmful.

I have heard about one man who had a very curious habit: whenever he was in the pub he would drink wine and always leave a little part in the glass and throw it all around, over people. He was beaten many times. Then somebody suggested, the owner of the pub suggested,'Why don't you go to a psychoanalyst? You need therapy because you have been beaten and you have been thrown out of the pub. Again you come and again you do the same.

Something seems to be wrong. You are obsessed.'

So he went, and after three months he came back. He was looking better. The pub owner asked,'Have you been to some psychoanalyst? Because for three

months you have disappeared.'

He said,'Yes, and it helped me tremendously.' 'Are you cured?' the owner asked.

He said,'Perfectly cured.' But he did the same thing again.

The owner said,'What type of treatment is this? You are doing the same thing!'

He said,'But I am completely changed. Before, I used to do it and I used to feel guilty. I don't feel guilt anymore. The psychoanalyst helped me, cured me of the guilt. I used to feel embarrassed, now I don't bother.'

This has happened in the West: psychoanalysis has helped many people just to feel that nothing matters. It has not given a deeper responsibility, it has only taken away the feeling of guilt. The feeling of guilt is bad; it has to be taken away. But, it should be taken away in such a way that the person unlearns the idea of guilt, but learns the idea of responsibility. Guilt is bad, guilt is very dangerous -- it destroys you. It is like a wound. But to feel responsible is very, very essential -- it gives you soul, it gives you an integration. And unless you feel responsibles you are not a healthy person. A healthy person is always aware that whatsoever he is doing, he is responsible. The very idea of responsibility will give you a freedom, a dignity. An authentic being will come out of it. You will become more present, you will be more here and now.

The idea of guilt is a false coin. It looks like responsibility; it is not. Guilt makes you depressed. Responsibility will give you an intensity, a sharpness of awareness. You will have more integration in you, you will feel more together.

Buddhaghosha, go to the West, but not now as a psychotherapist. Now you are a sannyasin. Feel the responsibility of being a sannyasin. Go to help people, and if you help people you will be tremendous]y helped. If you love people, you will be loved. If you heal people, if you become a vehicle of healing force and energy, you will be healed. And always remember that while healing a person you are part of the process; you are also being healed. While teaching a person, you are also being taught. The best way in the world to learn anything is to teach it. The best way in the world to learn ANYTHING is to teach it. But remember that the Master is also a disciple. He continuously goes on learning. Each disciple is a new lesson, and to work with each patient or disciple is to open a

new book, a new life.

Great are the rewards of love. Go as a sannyasin and create a climate around you so that the patient comes to learn, to unlearn, to be transformed. He is not to be taken as a case but as a helpless human being, as helpless as you are. And don't look from a tower: holier than thou, higher than you, more knowledgeable than you. Don't look that way; that gaze is violent, and then love becomes impossible.

Look as a human being, as helpless as the other -- in the same boat, in the same plight. You will be helpful, and much healing will happen through you.

I have heard an anecdote about Harvard's famed professor, Charles T. Copeland.

He was once asked by a student,'Is there anything I can do to learn the art of conversation?'

'Yes, there is one thing,' said Copeland,'if you listen I will tell you.'

For several minutes there was silence, then the student said,'I am listening, professor.'

'You see,' said Copeland,'you are learning already.'

Listening is learning, because when you listen silently the whole existence starts speaking to you. When you are absolutely silent, that is the greatest moment to learn.

Life reveals its secrets when you are silent.

So, whether helping a disciple, a fellow traveller, a friend, or trying to heal a patient, be a great listener. Listen so passionate]y, so attentively that the other becomes, by and by, capable of revealing his secret-most depths to you -- depths which he has not revealed to anybody because nobody was ready to listen; depths which he has not revealed to himself because he was also not ready to listen; depths which have remained always in the dark. Listen so tremendously that the very milieu of your listening brings out all that is hidden in the patient, in the disciple. He will be surprised that he is saying things to you; he never knew that those things existed in him. Through your listening you will make him aware of his own unconscious, and that is a healing thing. Once the unconscious becomes the conscious, many things disappear. All that is rubbish disappears and

all that is significant deepens.

But how can you teach listening? -- by being a great listener. While you are listening to a patient or a friend, don't become bored. If you are bored, please tell him that this is not the right moment:'Some other moment; I am not in a mood to listen.' Never listen to anybody when you are feeling bored, because your boredom creates a climate in which the other immediately feels that he is rejected. Your boredom goes on saying to him that,'Whatsoever you are saying is all rubbish. Stop, shut up.' Whether you say it or not doesn't matter. Your whole being is saying,'Shut up! Be finished with it.'

Because of this, Freud used to use a certain method. The method was to hide himself from the patient. The patient would lie on a couch and Freud would sit just at the back. The patient would not be able to see what Freud was thinking about, whether he was listening or not. He would sit at the back, and the patient would talk a monologue to himself. Freudian analysis takes many years: three, four, five, even ten years. There are even patients who have been in analysis for twenty years, and nothing has happened. It is inhuman. Face the patient; look eye to eye, don't hide like a ghost. Be human, be open, and listen.

Freud taught his disciples not to ever touch the patient. That is absolutely wrong, because then you become inhuman. There are moments when just holding the hand of the patient will do much, much more than all analysis can do. But Freud was very afraid that there was a possibility that intimacy might start between the doctor and the patient. The doctor should remain far away and aloof; he should not come down to the human world. Freud was very afraid, it seems, of his own humanity. He was very much afraid of his own mind. He could not allow intimacy; a very deep fear, a very deep complex must have existed in him.

People who are afraid of relationship are afraid of themselves, because in relationship they are revealed, in relationship they are mirrored. Freud was a puritan.

There is no need to be so far away, otherwise healing will not happen. Come closer. The patient has to be taken in deep intimacy, so that he can reveal, so that he can bring his whole heart to you.

And respond! Don't listen like a marble statue -- respond. Sometimes laugh with him, sometimes weep and cry -- respond, because when you respond, the

relationship, the moment, becomes alive. If you don't respond, the whole thing goes on like a stale, dead thing. Respond; make the whole thing alive, and much is possible. Much more is possible than through just analyzing, diagnosing.

Freud's psychoanalysis remained a head-trip. The real therapy has to be total. The fourth question:

Question 4

THIS IS A MARXIST, A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN'S QUESTION -- SO MANY

DISEASES TOGETHER!

IN TRADITIONAL CHINA THERE WAS A SAYING,'CONFUCIAN IN OFFICE, TAOIST OUT OF OFFICE.' THIS REPRESENTED A DEEP DIVISION AND

DILEMMA IN CHINESE SOCIETY, PERHAPS ALL SOCIETIES. CAN THERE

BE AN ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY WHICH DOES NOT TEACH THE WAY OF

THE EGO? OR IS SOCIETY BY NATURE OF ITS VERY ORDERED AND PATTERNED REALITY OF THE CALCULATING AND REPRESSIVE

COLLECTIVE MIND OR EGO; IS SOCIETY, EVEN THAT OF ENLIGHTENED

INDIVIDUALS OR WOULD-BE ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUALS, BY ITS VERY

NATURE, OPPOSED TO ENLIGHTENMENT?

First, the old saying is perfectly beautiful: A Taoist out of office, and a Confucian in the office. When you live with people, you have to follow certain rules. Those rules have no ultimacy about them; they are rules of a game. For

example: if you walk on the road you have to walk to the right or to the left, as the society has decided. If you start walking anywhere, you will be in trouble and you will create trouble for others. Keeping to the left is not something ultimate; it is utilitarian, it has uSe. It is not that God has commanded you to walk to the left; because in America they go on keeping to the right. Whether you keep to the right or to the left does not matter; but you have to keep to either the right or left.

A rule has to exist because there are so many persons. If you are alone on the road, then there is no problem. If you have a private road where you walk alone, it is up to you. There is no need to keep to the left, because then that would be an obsession, foolish. Then you can walk in the middle of the road, or whatsoever you like you can do. In your privacy there should be no rules. One should live a life of total freedom -- that is what Lao Tzu is. But where there are others your freedom can become a chaos, and chaos is not freedom. Where others are involved you have to follow certain rules. There is no need to get obsessed about them. There are people who get obsessed about rules.

I used to stay in Calcutta in one friend's house. He is a Justice of the High Court.

His wife told me once when he was not at home,'My husband follows you, reads you, loves you tremendously. It will be great compassion on me if you can tell him one thing to do.' I asked,'What is that one thing?' The woman said,'Tell him not to be a Justice in the bed. Even in the bed he remains a High Court Justice; he never comes out of the role.'

It is good to be a Justice in the court. It would be as wrong to be a husband in the court, as wrong as to be a Justice in the bed. In the court one has to be a Justice: this is what Confucianism means.

Confucius thinks about the relationship between people, the society, the world: etiquette, manners, the law. Confucius is like Moses or Manu: the law-giver. Lao Tzu brings love, freedom to the world. And it is good to move in these two polarities. Don't think that they divide you. They don't divide you. In fact, they give you more freedom, more flow, more possibilities, because if you remain Taoist, then you will have to move to the Himalayas some day or other. You cannot live in the society because wherever you go, there will be trouble. Either you will have to go to the Himalayas, or people will crucify you. That's what happened to Jesus.

One Christian bishop was saying to me,'Wherever Jesus went there was revolution, but wherever I go people serve tea!' Jesus was dangerous.

The proverb is of a very deep wisdom: there is no need to be continuously creating revolution wherever you go; there is no need to be constantly forcing people to make a cross for you. It will be wiser, sometimes it is good, if tea is served. To be an obsessed revolutionary is a disease. And to bring etiquette and manners back home so that you cannot even relax in your bathroom, that too is obsession.

The proverb is perfectly beautiful. I approve of it totally. Be a Confucian in the world, and in your innermost world be a Taoist, a follower of Lao Tzu. And there is no division! There is nothing wrong with it. You simply have a fluidity: when the other comes you follow the rules, because with the other, rules come; when you are alone there is no need for any rules. Without the other, rules disappear.

In your aloneness you are totally free, but whenever you are with somebody else you have a responsibility. The other is there and you have to be careful. That is part of love: to care about the other. So I don't see any dichotomy, and I don't see any dilemma. The dilemma is created if you have not understood the point. If you understand the point, there is no dilemma.

And the second thing:'Is society, even that of enlightened individuals or would- be enlightened individuals. by its very nature opposed to enlightenment?'

Yes, society, by its very nature, is opposed to enlightenment, because enlightenment is basically individual. It happens in your aloneness. When you are absolutely alone, only then does it happen. The other functions as a barrier.

The society is opposed to enlightenment and will always remain opposed, because the society is an organization. The society, even if it calls itself revolutionary, cannot be revolutionary. All societies are traditional, even the society of Mao. It may be a new tradition, that's all, but it is a tradition. The Russian society now is as traditional as any society.

Society cannot be revolutionary because the society has to settle, it has to have some type of establishment, it has to follow certain rules. Only the individual can be purely, innocently revolutionary, rebellious. There is no need for any organization and any structure. But once there is the other, organization comes

in. Society can never be for enlightenment, because people who become enlightened go, in a certain way, beyond the society. They go beyond the rules; they start living their freedom. That will not happen if you follow the Chinese proverb. Then, the society will not be against enlightenment. It may not be for it, but it will not be against.

If you move in the world and follow the rules there, and in your aloneness you go into the unknown, then there is no problem. The problem arises when just in the middle of the road you start meditating, or you start dancing. Nothing is wrong with dancing; you have just chosen a wrong place. Dancing is perfectly good, but choose a right place for it. There is a right time and a right place for everything. Don't just stand in the middle of the road and create a nuisance. If one understands the proverb, there will be no trouble.

But society itself can never be for enlightenment, because enlightenment is basically individual. It happens to the individual, never to the society. You become enlightened, not the group, not the society. In fact, society is just a name for the collectivity, for the collective of individuals. There is no 'soul of society'; the soul is individual. The society is just the arrangement -- superficial. It is needed, necessary, but it is a necessary evil; it has to be tolerated. But society does not bother about whether you become enlightened or not. For society, Confucius is enough. For the individual, Confucius is not enough, Lao Tzu is needed. For society, Moses is enough. For the individual, Moses is not enough --

maybe necessary, but not enough -- Jesus is needed. And once you understand, you can create an inner synthesis of the two, and there is no problem.

In the TALMUD is said one of the most beautiful sentences ever uttered: One man outweighs all creation. Not only society, not only this earth, but,'One man outweighs ALL creation.' This is true, because one man can become a vehicle for the divine. One man can become the opportunity for God to exist, to be present, for God to express Himself. One man can become the flowering of the ultimate.

The society is utilitarian; one man outweighs all creation.

There is another sentence in the TALMUD: Wherever you come across a footprint of man, God stands before you: bow down. Wherever you come across a footprint, God stands before you -- the possibility.

Society is just a structure with no soul. The soul is of the individual. One

individual outweighs all societies. And, one individual's revolution outweighs all revolutions in the whole of history, because one man can become the womb for God to be reborn.

The fifth question:

Question 5

THE CLOSER I COME, THE THIRSTIER I GET. WHEN IS THE QUENCHING

GOING TO START?

The very expectation will function as a barrier. You forget about the quenching; you simply be thirsty and enjoy it. When the thirst becomes total, it disappears.

I would like to read a few lines from T. S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration.

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started,

and know the place for the first time; when the tongues of flame are enfolded into the crowned knot of fire

and the fire and the rose are one...

... and the thirst and the quenching are one; and the rose and the fire are one.

When the fire is total, suddenly it is transformed and there is only a rose, not the fire. When the thirst is total, its very totality changes its quality -- it becomes quenching; infinite contentment. The quenching is not something separate from thirst, remember it.

Thirst. Become so total that you disappear in your thirst; and then, the fire and the rose are one.

The last question:

Question 6

IF I LET GO I FEAR I AM GONE FOREVER.

You fear rightly: you WILL be gone forever; but you cannot escape now. The very fear shows that you cannot escape now. The VERY fear shows that you are understanding rightly: that you will disappear if you let go. But you are your misery, nothing else; you are your hell, nothing else. So how long can you cling to it? Sooner or later, you will have to let go.

I will tell you a story. The story is very old; the story is about King Midas.

Midas was hunting for the wise, for someone who could become his Master. He heard about a companion of Dionysus; the name of Dionysus' companion was Silenus. He searched, he searched long, and finally he caught him. But when he finally fell into his hands, the King asked,'What is the very best, the most preferable thing for man?'

The demon remained silent, stubborn and motionless, until he was finally compelled by the King, and then broke out into shrill laughter uttering these words:'Miserable, ephemeral species, children of chance and hardship; why do you compel me to tell you what is most profitable for you not to hear? The very best is quite unthinkable for you. It is: not to be born. It is impossible because you are already born. The very best is not to be born, not to exist, to be nothing. But the next best thing is: to die as soon as possible. The next best only is possible.'

Midas became very angry. He said,'I have come in search of life, not of death.' Silenus said,'Nobody has ever come to know life until he dies.'

So I know your fear, I understand it, and the fear is perfectly true. It is not deceiving you, it is telling you the truth: that if you let go, you are gone forever.

But there arises a need, when one NEEDS to drop completely and die completely, because only then is there resurrection. When you die, something bigger than you will be born, and that is the search. Out of death comes life.

Allow death.

I understand your difficulty. In spite of your fear you will have to let go.

There was one very famous Zen Master, Tosan. A disciple asked him,'Master, what is Tao?'

The Master said,'A dragon singing in the dry wood.'

The disciple said,'I wonder whether there is anybody who can hear this.' The Master said,'There is no one in the entire world who does not hear this.'

The disciple said,'I don't know what kind of composition the dragon's song is.' The Master said,'I also do not know, but all who hear it lose themselves.'

Whatsoever I am singing is the song of that dragon in the dry wood. Whosoever hears me will disappear. Now it is up to you: either you hear me or you hear your fear, the fear that you have been hearing forever and ever. Through the fear you have lived up to now, and nothing has been attained. Your life is just an empty barrenness, a desert with not even a single oasis in it. You have listened too long to your fear; now don't be bothered by it. Say to it'Shut up!'; and in spite of it, move. You will disappear, but that is the only way to gain yourself. Says Jesus,'If you try to save your life you will lose it. If you lose it you will gain it in abundance, in eternity.'

Only the momentary is lost and the eternal is gained. Only the useless is lost and the ultimate is gained. Now it is for you to decide.

Either you decide for your fear, or you decide for my love.

Come Follow To You, Vol 4 Chapter #5

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