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‌CHAPTER 4

14 December 1975 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Now a few things have to be understood, mm? No relationship can be secure. It is not the nature of relationships to be secure. And if any relationship is secure, it will lose all attraction.

So this is a problem for the mind. If you want to enjoy a relationship, it has to be insecure. If you make it completely secure, absolutely secure, then you cannot enjoy it – it loses all charm, all attraction. The mind cannot be satisfied either with this or with that, so it is always in conflict and chaos. It wants a relationship which is alive and secure. This is impossible, because an alive person or an alive relationship or anything which is alive, has to be unpredictable. What is going to happen in the next moment cannot be forecast. And because it is unpredictable, this moment becomes intense.

You have to live this moment as totally as possible because the next moment may not come ever. You may not be there, the other may not be there. Or you may both be there, but the relationship is not. All possibilities remain open. The future remains always open. The past is always closed, the future is always open. And in between the two is the present, a single moment of present, always trembling, shaking.

But this is how life is. The shaking and the trembling are part of being alive – the hesitation, the cloudiness, the vagueness. The past is closed. Everything has happened and now nothing can be changed, so everything is absolutely closed. The future is absolutely open, nothing can be predicted. And between the two is the present, with one step in the past, one in the future. So the mind always remains in a dichotomy, in a divided state. It is always split, it is always schizophrenic.

The understanding that is needed is that this is how things are and nothing can be done about it. If you want to have a very secure relationship, then you will have to love a dead man; but then you will not enjoy it. That’s what happens to a lover when he becomes a husband: a husband is a dead lover, a wife is a dead lover. The past has become all, and now the past decides the future.

In fact if you are a wife you don’t have a future; only the past will go on repeating itself, all the doors are closed. If you are a husband then you don’t have a future; then you are confined, in an imprisonment.

So security is sought continuously but when you find it, you get fed up with it. Look at the faces of husbands and wivesThey have found the security – the much-sought-after security – and now

everything is in their bank balance, and the law and the court and the constable are all there to make everything secure. But now the whole charm, the whole poetry, is lost; romance is no longer there. Now they are dead people, they are simply repeating the past; they live in memories.

Listen to wives and husbands talking. The wife goes on saying that the husband doesn’t love her as he used to; and they go on talking about past moments, their honeymoon and other things. What nonsense! You are still alive. This moment can be a honeymoon! This moment can be lived, but you are talking of the past, trying to repeat it.

Security never satisfies, and in insecurity there is fear – fear that the relationship can be lost. But that is part of being alive. Everything can be lost, nothing is certain – and that’s why everything is so beautiful. And that’s why you need not postpone for a single moment. If you want to love a person, love him herenow. Love him, because nobody knows what is going to happen in the next moment. The next moment there may be no possibility for love, and then you will repent for the whole of your life. You could have loved, you could have lived. Then remorse surrounds a person; repentance and a deep guilt is felt – as if you have been committing suicide.

Life is uncertain. No one can make it certain, there is no way to make it certain. And it is good that nobody can make it certain, otherwise it would be dead. Life is fragile, delicate, always moving into the unknown – that’s its beauty. One needs to be courageous, adventurous. One needs to be a gambler to move with life – so be a gambler.

Live this moment, and live it totally. When the next moment comes, we will see – you will be there to tackle it. As you have been able to tackle the past, you will be able to tackle the future also. And you will be more capable because you will be more experienced.

So it is not a question of whether Veeresh (her boyfriend) is going to be there the next moment. The question is that if he is available to you in this moment, love him. Don’t waste this moment in thinking and worrying about the future, because this is suicidal. Don’t pay a single thought to the future – because nothing can be done about it, so it is a sheer wastage of energy.

Love this man and be loved by him. This is my understanding: that if you live this moment totally, there is every possibility that in the next moment the person may be still available. I say maybe. I can’t promise you – maybe. But the possibility is more because the next moment is going to come out of this one. If you have loved the man and the man feels blessed, and the relationship has been a beautiful experience, an ecstasy, then why should he leave you?

In fact if you go on worrying, you are making him, forcing him, to leave you. And if you have wasted this moment, the next moment will come out of this wastage; it is going to be rotten.

And that is how one becomes self-predictable. You go on fulfilling your own prophecies. The next moment you say, ’Yes, I was saying from the very beginning that this relationship was not going to

last. Now it is proven.’ Then you feel very good in a way; you feel you have been very clever and wise. In fact you have been foolish, because it is not that you predicted anything. You forced this event to happen because you wasted the time that was given to you, the opportunity. So love him and forget about the future. Just drop the whole nonsense of thinking about it.

If you can love, love. If you cannot love, forget this man, find somebody else – but don’t waste time. The question is not of this lover or that lover – the question is of love. Love fulfills, people are just excuses. But the whole thing depends on you, because whatsoever you are doing with Veeresh, you will go on doing with another if you change lovers. So why not try with Veeresh? He is as perfect a man as you can find; a beautiful person with much understanding, and mature in many ways.

So love him and make him so happy that the happiness itself creates the possibility of him staying. If you make a person happy why should he leave you? But if you make him unhappy then why shouldn’t he leave you? If you make him unhappy then I will help him to leave you. But if you make him happy nobody can help him to leave you Then there is no point; he will fight the whole world for you

So become more happy, mm? Use the time that one has, and there is no need to think about the future. The present is enough. From this very moment, try to live this moment. If he leaves, that’s okay. I will find a better man – forget him But use this moment not in worrying, but in living. Small things can become so beautiful. A little caring, a little sharing – that’s all life is.

So for one month this is going to be your meditation: live the moment, and bring yourself again and again to the present. Whenever you escape into the future or the past, catch hold, bring yourself back. And for one month, with no worry, not seeking security – just live. And everything will be okay. Everything is always okay.

[A sannyasin says: With people I am not very close to, it s easy to make conversation. But with people rm closer to there s nothing to say. And I don’t feel very comfortable with it. It is as though something is missing.]

No, nothing is missing, nothing at aU. It is just that you are growing, and for the first time you are feeling close to people.

You have never felt that closeness. You have always remained just casually related. When you are formally related to someone you can go on chattering about a thousand and one nonsensical things, because nothing matters – it is just a pastime.

But when you start feeling closer to someone and an intimacy arises, then oven a single word that you utter matters. Then you cannot play so easily with words, because now everything is meaningful. So there will be gaps of silence. One feels awkward in the beginning because one is not accustomed to silence. One thinks something must be said, otherwise what will the other think? But whenever you grow close, whenever there is some sort of love, silence comes and there is nothing to say. In fact, there is nothing to say.

.… There is nothing. With a stranger there is much to say. With friends, nothing to say.

And the silence becomes heavy because you are not accustomed to it. You don’t know what the music of silence is. You know only one way of communicating and that is verbal, through the mind. You don’t know how to communicate through the heart, heart to heart, in silence. You don’t know how to communicate by just being there, through your presence.

You are growing and the old pattern of communication is falling short of you. You will have to grow new patterns of communication – non-verbal. The more mature one becomes, the more non-verbal communication is needed. Language is needed because we don’t know how to communicate. When we know how to, by and by language is not needed. Language is just a very primary medium. The real medium is of silence. So don’t take a wrong attitude, otherwise you will stop growing.

Nothing is missing; this is a wrong idea. Something new has come into being and the old pattern is not enough to contain it. You are growing and your dresses are becoming short. Not that something is missing; something is being added to you every day.

The more you meditate, the more you will love and the more you will relate. And finally one comes to a moment when only silence helps.

So next time when you are with somebody and you are not communicating with words and you are feeling very uneasy. feel happy. Become silent and allow that silence to communicate.

Language is needed to relate to people with whom you have no love relationship. Non-language is needed for people with whom you have a love relationship. One has to become innocent again like a child, and silent. Gestures will be there: sometimes you will smile and hold hands, or sometimes you will just remain silent, looking into each other’s eyes – not doing anything, just being. The presences meet and merge, and something happens which only you will know – only you to whom it has happened. No one else will become aware; it happens in such depth.

So feel happy next time, feel thankful that you are growing. Enjoy that silence; feel and taste and savour it. Soon you will see that it has its own communication; that it is greater and higher and deeper and more profound. And that communication is sacred, it has a purity about it.

It is a good sign. I am happy.

[A sannyasin says: ten years ago I was a Christian minister and I was in the business of making myself and others feel like sinners, and then offering them salvation. I’m still doing that to some extent.

Right now I want to tell you that I still experience a lot of fear and doubt, and I don t feel at ease in my relationship with my woman, or with other women. I don’t feel sure of myself sexually. And my mind is doubting a lot. But then at other times I just feel that there’s nothing wrong.]

There is nothing wrong, but the Christian training must have poisoned you.

... It poisons. You have to unlearn it. It has to be dropped, otherwise you can miss your whole life.

Once you start hating yourself, or even part of your being, you will never be at ease with yourself, never be at home. There will be some sort of split and a continuous conflict.

Christianity has done one of the greatest harms, and that is that it has made people feel guilty about any and everything. Particularly whenever you feel happy, suddenly by the side you feel guilt arising. Christianity has made that conditioned so deeply – that all enjoyment and all happiness is sin. So when you are sad, everything is good. When you look like a martyr, you are a saint. But when you look happy, laughing, dancing, then you are a sinner. Happiness iS a sin.

Just the contrary is the case. To be happy is to be religious, because only a happy person can be grateful towards God.

And the body is beautiful. It is the temple. Take care of it and be grateful to it. It provides a great opportunity, because it is only through the body that you have come to know what life is, what love is, what light is. It is through the body that you have seen, you have heard, you have touched; that you have loved and been loved. It is through the body that you have become aware. Be thankful towards the body and never take an antagonistic attitude towards it.

But if the training has been there, you have to consciously drop it, because it goes deep and it goes on functioning without you knowing. You will never be able to love a woman deeply, mm? That Christian will be standing there looking at you and saying,‘What are you doing? Sinning again? You will be thrown into hell!’

And suddenly you shrink and the fear takes over – and love disappears. Love is so delicate, and the fear is so strong – it can destroy it.

So watch, and don’t allow the Christian in your bed-chamber. Otherwise you will always find between you and your woman, the Christian standing. The whole church will be there, and it can destroy all happiness. Drop it! Never feel guilty. Always feel Fateful.

Happiness has to be enjoyed as much as possible. The happier you become, the closer you come to God. So I teach delight in life, and I teach a dancing god. And unless a god dances, he is no god at all.

So drop it consciously. You will have to struggle a little, mm? Because once the mind is wrongly conditioned, you will have to uncondition it – but it can be unconditioned. Whatsoever can be conditioned, can be unconditioned.

[The sannyasin answers: I’ve worked on myself to drop it for many years now. There is a very beautiful magic child in me that loves to be in the present, that delights]

Mm mm, I can see it there. And it is growing, and it will go on growing. There is not much of a problem, but you just have to remain alert, mm?

The conditioning goes deep. It becomes almost part of you and you don’t know it. When you look, it is there like a layer of ice. When you touch, it is there like a layer surrounding your hand and your skin. You touch a woman with love, but there is something that shrinks in, withdraws.

The whole world is such an affluence of celebration. It is an overflow of energy; so many flowers, so many birds singing, so many stars – an infinity of stars, galaxies upon galaxies. The world is such a delight, the whole universe is such happiness and such a great harmony. Jump into it!

Become a star or become a flower, but don’t be a Christian! Right? And the child is growing, it will come.…

[A sannyasin says she has her period and she always goes mad during it and the previous days she had smashed some things in the house]

To feel wild is not bad, but to break anything is not good, mm? Whenever you feel wild, dance a wild dance – but never destroy anything.

It may not be a problem – you can destroy a pot – but the very idea of destruction is bad. It gives you a destructive attitude towards life. And the pot is just an excuse. You would really like to destroy more valuable things – even valuable relationships, people, mm? But you cannot destroy that much, you cannot bear it, so you break a poor pot – and he has not done anything! (a little laugh of belated compassion from Saroj)

For many women the days of the period are a little destructive, and the reason is very biological. You have to understand and become a little alert and aware so that you can rise a little higher than your biology; otherwise you are in the grip of it.

If you are pregnant, the period stops because the same energy that has been released in the period starts being creative: it creates the child. When you are not pregnant, every month the energy accumulates and if it cannot be creative then it becomes destructive. So when a woman is having her period, for those four or five days she has a very destructive attitude, because she does not know what to do with the energy. And the energy vibrates, it haunts the innermost core of your being, and you cannot give any creativity to it.

All creative energy can become destructive and all destructive energy could have become creative. For example, Hitler. He wanted to be a painter in the very beginning, but he was not allowed. He could not manage to pass the examination and enter into the art school. The man who could have been a painter became one of the most destructive men in the world. With the same energy he may have become a Picasso. And one thing is certain – he had energy. The same energy could have been infinitely creative.

Ordinarily, women are not destructive. In the past they were never destructive because they were continuously pregnant. one child is born, then they are again pregnant; again another child is born and then again they are pregnant. For their whole life they used their energy.

Now, for the first time in the world a new danger is arising, and that is the destructiveness of women. Because now there is no need for them to be pregnant continuously. In fact pregnancy is almost out of date. But the energy is there.

I see a deep connection between birth control methods and the Women’s Liberation Movement. Women are becoming destructive and they are destroying family life, their relationships. They may be trying to rationalise it in many ways, but they are trying to be liberated from the slavery In fact it is a destructive phase. They have the energy and they don’t know what to do with it. The birth control methods have stopped their creative channelization. Now if some channels are not opened to them they will become very destructive.

In the West the family life is almost gone. There is continual conflict, continual fighting, quarreling and being nasty to each other. And the reason is – and nobody understands what the reason is – a biological problem.

So whenever you feel that the period is coming, be more alert, and before it starts, do wild dancing. The Ethiopian dance [group] will be helpful.

You can go beyond nature because you have a higher nature also. One can go beyond biology, and one has to otherwise one is a slave to hormones! So whenever you feel destructive, start dancing.

What I am saying is that dancing will absorb your energy. You are doing the opposite. You say you like to rest and not do anything during these days, but do something – anything, go for a long walk – because the energy needs release. Once you catch the point, once you know that the dance relaxes you completely, those four days of your period will become the most beautiful because you will never have so much energy as then. Mm? You try.…

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