20 Just get more and more drunk with me

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‌CHAPTER 20

Just get more and more drunk with me

20 January 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[To Toshen who had taken sannyas in the West:

.… And do you know the meaning of your name?

That should not remain just the meaning of your name – it should become the meaning of your life too! It means bliss, contentment... and both are aspects of one phenomenon. From one side it is bliss, from another side it is contentment. Only in bliss can one be contented and only when one is contented can one be in bliss – they are not separate. And when I say to be contented, I don’t mean the ordinary thing that is always being preached about contentment.

When the priests all over the world say, ‘Be contented,’ they mean to repress... they mean to be false. They mean that if you have a discontent inside you, throw it into the unconscious; don’t take any note of it;... forget about it. Even if your heart is weeping and crying, go on smiling. They create a split. That contentment is just hocus-pocus... and very dangerous, because that type of man becomes dull and dead. I don’t mean that contentment.

For me, contentment has nothing to do with repression. A repressed person can never be contented. It is not something that you have to do – it is something that follows understanding. Just understand the nature of life – it is tremendously beautiful.

There is no need to ask for more. To ask for more is simply ingratitude. That which has been given is so much, so immense, that it is impossible to ask for more. We are not worthy even of this. All that has happened is a gift – this vast sky and these stars – and we should be grateful. But we are oblivious... oblivious of the obvious.

H. G. Wells used to say that if stars appeared once in a thousand years, people would go crazy. But because they are here every night, there is nobody to accept them.

God is so present in existence – that’s why we miss him. He’s such an everyday phenomenon – you come across him every moment of your life – hence you miss him. And life goes on giving so much that we take it for granted and we start asking for more. From that ‘more’ arises discontentment.

So one has not to impose a contentment on oneself – one has just to understand the beauty, the grandeur, the splendour of life. In that very understanding, there is contentment. Not that you impose it, not that you cultivate it, not that you practise it – suddenly it is there and your heart is full with its peace. It is so throbbingly present that you can touch it... you can feel its breath.

So the first thing: contentment is not to be practised, not to be cultivated. Cultivated contentment is no contentment. It is a false, pseudo-entity – beware of it! Only a natural contentment, a spontaneous contentment that arises without any practice... that arises just because you have looked at lifeThe love that continuously flows towards you – all that was given to you and you had

not asked for it.one is contented.

I am not saying there will not be any sorrow then – no! I am not saying there will not be any tears – no! Still there will be tears, but once you have understood life even tears are beautiful. They are not against contentment, remember! One can go on crying and tears can go on rolling down the cheeks – and one is contented. Because tears have a beauty of their own. Just think of a man who cannot cry and weep. Something deep is missing in him. He is a dry shore – nothing wells up. He is desert-like.

When a man understands life, even sorrow is deeply accepted and has a depth in it and has something to give to you. Sadness showers – tears bring tremendous silence.

No happiness can bring as much silence as sadness brings – and brings naturally. A happy person is more or less hollow. A sad person has a depth, a substratum to his life. The laughter of a person who knows only how to laugh and has forgotten how to cry will be ugly, vulgar. It won’t have that plenititude of grace in it.

Unless you can cry and weep your laughter will have a certain violence in it – it will not be of love. In your laughter there will be ridicule. Your laughter will be obscene. It will hurt somebody somewhere. It will simply show your ugliness. It will not show your humour. It will simply show that you are very unaware and very shallow.

A buddha laughs too, but his laughter has the quality of a smile. His laughter has the feminine quality of grace. When an ignorant person laughs, his laughter is very aggressive, egoistic. The ignorant person always laughs at others. The contented person, the person who knows life a little, laughs at himself – at the whole play of life itself. It is not addressed to anybody in particular. He just laughs at the absurdity of it allthe impossibility of it all.

So laughter and tears go together with a contented man – there is no choice. In fact he drops choosing. He remains choicelessly contented. Whatsoever happens he is ready to accept it. When sorrow comes he welcomes it. When happiness comes he welcomes it. He is a host to all opposites.

And all the opposites lose their opposition in his being. In the host they drop their opposition and become complementary.

I am not saying that a contented man is never unhappy – he is unhappy, but his unhappiness is also beautiful, as beautiful as his happiness! And a person who remains in discontent – even his happiness is ugly, vulgar, obscene.

So remember this!

[A sannyasin newly arrived says: I’m very glad I’m here, but I feel like I left a part of my heart in london. It’s making it a little difficult but I’m trying very hard to be present here.]

Don’t try very hard. Just relax! If you try very hard you will not succeed. Trying never succeeds, because trying creates the split. A part of you is still there, and you are trying hard – this is another part. At the most you can repress the first part, but the repressed part will take revenge. Whenever you are not repressing it, it will bubble up again. Don’t do it.

It is natural... it is very natural – it happens to everybody, so there is nothing unnatural about it. When you come from a place where you have lived, loved, where friends exist, the familiar atmosphere, the home, you feel uprooted for a few days – at least for three, four weeks... natural. If it is not that way, that will be unnatural. No need to fight with it – just accept it; it is natural, mm?

You uproot a plant and put it into new soil – for a few weeks it will suffer. The roots will take time to get acquainted with the new soil, to make love to the new soil, to enter into it, to again become desirous of living with this new home. It takes a little time, a gap. In that gap everybody hankers with nostalgia – naturally.

So my suggestion is not to fight – because that will repress the other part. Rather than coming out of it naturally, you will repress it – and the repressed is never destroyed. That can become a very deep bind. You know because you have repressed it, so you know where it is. It is just there in the basement of your being and you know! You will become afraid of going into the basement, because whenever you go into the basement it will be there. You will become afraid of really going deep into meditation, deep into groups, because it will be there. So you will go so far and will not enter further, and that will become a hindrance.

And it is not only about this thing – I am saying in general: don’t repress ever! Accept it – it is natural. This is new. Within a few days this will become your home so that when you go back to london, for three, four weeks you will remember poona – again it will happen there... natural.

Always remember: never fight with natural things, otherwise perversions arise. Accept the natural and you will never be moving into perversion in any way. The natural has to be accepted and lived. So relax completely and it will go soon.And that will be a real going because it will go on its own

accord. Rather than fighting with it, put your energy into being here. Dance, sing, meditate, rather than fighting with it – because that means you are still in London. If you continue fighting, you are not here.

And you say that you are trying hard to be hereyou are here! Trying hard will take you somewhere

else, because there is no need to make any effort to be here – you are here! If you make some effort

to be here, that means you are not here. The very effort will take you far away – and I am against effort.

The whole of humanity is suffering from effort, and everybody has been taught to make effort. Effort comes out of will, and will is nothing but another good name for the ego. The ego is the basic root of all problems, and that has to be dropped. But when I say that it has to be dropped, I don’t mean that you have to fight, because who will fight? You are the ego! So only through natural understanding, by and byThe more understanding you become, the more things start disappearing.

A woman was brought to me – she is a professor, a very intelligent woman. Her husband died, and she was brought to me after six months, because she was going a little crazy. And nothing was wrong. I enquired into the whole thing. The only thing wrong was this – that when her husband died, she didn’t cry. Intellectually she resisted the very idea of crying. It was below her. ‘What is the point?’ she said. ‘If somebody is dead they are dead, so what is the point of crying? It is illogical, meaningless. By my crying, he is not going to come back.’

So she tried hard not to cry and not to show the weakness. Everybody appreciated her and people said, ‘She is really a woman of strong will!’ And she had loved so much.it was a love marriage.

Against her parents, against her society, against her religion, she had married a Mohammedan – she was a Hindu. It is very difficult in India... almost impossible! She had fought for it. Her family denied her, the society expelled her, but she fought with it, and then this man died.and she would

not even cry and she would not weep!

For three, four months it was okay – she maintained that control. But then the repressed started destroying her from the within... it started like a worm. And then she became shakya little crazy.

Mm? the repressed became too volcanic and she was sitting on the volcano.

When they brought her to me, I listened to the whole thing and I said, ’There is no problem.there

is no need’ – because the psychiatrist was suggesting electro-shocks.’There is no need – she needs simply to cry.’

And when I told it to her, she said, ‘But what is the point?’ I said, ‘That is not the point. It is natural! If you love a man you have to cry when he goes. If you were happy with this man, who is going to weep and cry when he has gone? I am not going to weep and cry for him! You have to bring the balance!’

She understood the point. Immediately she started crying and within a few minutes she was sobbing madly, and started rolling on the floor. Within half an hour the storm was gone and all her craziness disappeared. She was happy, and to see her face was beautiful – those tears washed away the whole dust of those six months. She cried like a child. She had wanted to cry but she had been repressing it.

So never repress anything. That’s why the whole humanity is a little berserk. Never repress. And it is good – if you feel you remember london, cry a little. It is good! London is beautiful.as beautiful

as poona! Nothing is wrong with it.but don’t fight!

And bring your total energy into it, because in the fight the energy will be wasted – it won’t help and it will be wasted. And the repressed part always takes revenge, so it becomes a vicious circle: you repress, it takes revenge; you repress more, it takes revenge more. On and on it goes.

Simply relax. Sometimes in the night, sit on the bed. For half an hour think of London nothing wrong... cry a little! You will feel very good... and you will be more here.

Bring your whole energy into meditation, into dancing, singing. And soon... mm? you will find your real family here and real home. I’m here! Just get more and more drunk with me, mm?

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