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CHAPTER 26
26 November 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A sannyasin has followed his wife, of thirty years marriage, to the ashram after they separated. He wishes to live with her again and asks advice. He says the ashram has been a good influence on her.]
Mm mm. No, she is happy and things can start flowing again.
Mm. In fact, there are just a few misunderstandings, nothing else. And different characters always get into conflict. Just a little understanding and people can live together very happily. And to be able to live together with someone harmoniously is very significant for one’s self-knowledge, because your relationship is a mirror. If you can make your relationship smooth, beautiful, it reflects you. You change the relationship and the relationship changes you; it works both ways.
And we destroy our relationships for almost ridiculous reasons. People fall in love for something immensely great and fall out of love for ridiculous reasons. To fall in love means that something from the beyond has grasped you both, a bridge has happened. Your hearts have felt a rhythm. Each love-affair is divine, but then sooner or later we become accustomed to each other.
We start taking each other for granted and we start fighting unnecessarily for small things. The reason is that man has grown down the ages through the animals and all the animals are aggressive; for their survival it is a must.
Now man needs no aggression anymore but the instinct is there. We have surpassed that situation but the instinct it there. So the instincts go on working. And if we cannot find anybody else to fight with then certainly whosoever is close by – the wife, the husband, the children, the father – becomes a victim. We are just in the grip of an aggressive instinct which is no more needed, which has
become completely out of date. Man has transcended the jungle but all that he has learned in the jungle is still there and still functions. So it finds vicarious ways to express itself.
It becomes politics, it becomes war. It becomes any nonsense: a football match and people start fighting for no reason at all, as if they were just looking for any excuse. Mm? you are a green shirt and I am a blue shirt – enough! Enough to shed blood. You are a Christian and I am a Mohammedan – enough! And the difference is not more than the blue shirt and the green shirt; it is the same aggressive instinct. And you can watch it: small boys start fighting on their playgrounds, in the clubs, in the hotels, and that continues. It is very rare to find a man who has really grown out of it. You fight for your ideology and your religion and your country, but all stupid excuses, rationalisations, to fight. And then, whosoever is close by you start dominating, and she starts dominating, and then the fight.
One just has to understand – one has to be a little more watchful and a little more alert – that we are carrying a very poisonous instinct in us; and this instinct is dangerous. It has served us well but it is no more needed. Man is no more in the jungle and there is no fight for the survival. But it has been of such a great service and for so long, millions of years that it has become a deep-rooted phenomenon.
Now there are a few scientists who think that if we really want a world without war then man has to go through some kind of psychological surgery so that the instinct can be simply cut. But that too is dangerous because that will make people very conformist. Then the state will really become absolutely totalitarian, because man will not be able to rebel; man will not be able to disobey. Then anybody who is in power will remain in power forever. So that cannot be done; that should not be done. The instincts should not be removed chemically or scientifically. The instinct has to be removed through meditation, through awareness, so that it is no more powerful, but if it is needed, in case it is needed, it can be recalled. And there can be a few situations where it is needed. If somebody attacks you it is needed. But if nobody is attacking you it is not needed. But it goes on functioning; it is autonomous.
So just try to understand a little bit.
And it will be good if you do a few groups. They will be of immense help.
Anand means bliss, sudhir has two meanings – one is wisdom, another is patience – and both meanings are deeply connected with each other. Only in patience does wisdom happen and only a wise man can be patient. The stupid are always in a hurry. The hurry is a sign of stupidity, because in a hurry nothing significant can ever happen. All that is significant happens only in tremendous patience. So a certain wisdom is needed to be patient, and if you are patient then great wisdom descends in you.
So you have to work on both ways: be more patient so you remain available for more wisdom to happen to you; and become more wise. By wise I mean: become more aware. Wisdom does not mean accumulating more information, it means becoming more alert. Wisdom is not quantitative, it is qualitative.
Knowledge is a quantity. You have this much knowledge or that much – one is a B.A. another is an M.A., another one is Ph.D. and somebody else is something else. You can quantify it, you can
CHAPTER 26.
measure it. Somebody is a first-class gold medallist and somebody is second class, but wisdom is not quantity; it is quality. There is no way to measure it, it is immeasurable. Knowledge is intellectual, wisdom is intelligence. Even a mediocre mind can become very knowledgeable; there is no problem. In fact, only a mediocre mind wants to become knowledgeable; because he cannot have quality, he substitutes the lack of quality by quantity.
Real intelligence consists in being more alert, more alive. The man who is aware of whatsoever he is doing, of whatsoever he is thinking.If he is aware of his body, his movements, his gestures, his
functioning of the mind, then slowly slowly something inside crystallises. That is wisdom. Be patient, be wise, and then you will be blissful!
Prem means love, krishna means god, a name of god, but it is very symbolic. Krishna is the symbol, the metaphor, for all that is beautiful, for all that is celebrating. Krishna represents life-affirmation. He was tremendously in love with life. He was not for renunciation, he was not against the world. His concept of god was not something contrary to the world. One need not renounce the world to attain to god; on the contrary, one has to surrender one’s self to god in the world. One has to renounce one’s will not the world, and then this very world is divine.
The East has worshipped Krishna as the perfect incarnation of god. In the East even Buddha is thought to be an imperfect incarnation, because he chooses; he renounces the world. He cannot accept the totality of it. He accepts something; he rejects something. Krishna accepts the totality of life. From the lowest to the highest, from the roots to the flowers, the whole life is accepted, affirmed. And that’s my vision too. I am not in favour of dissecting life.
So your name means god of love – love which can include all, love which is inclusive, not exclusive, love which is a kind of choicelessness, love which is multidimensional. And when love is there, there is creativity. When love is there, there is joy. And religion is no more then a serious affair; it is playful.
My whole effort is to make religion playful again. If one can reach god dancing, then why not? Why go with a long face? If one can reach to god with a song then that’s the best way!
So I am not in favour of you becoming a saint: serious, sad, rejecting, negative, denying, condemning life; that is not my idea of a holy man. That is something pathological. My idea of a holy man is a whole man, and then this whole world is holy. Even Hollywood is holy then! There is nothing that is unholy.
So become a whole man and live richly with all nuances possible. Sing, dance, create, love. Let each moment become as vital as possible, as passionate as possible, as hot as possible. And then one can find the centre of the cyclone, the eye of the hurricane. And that brings tremendous freedom: you are in the world and not of it, you are in it and yet beyond it. That should remain as the goal, that has to be achieved. Then one is a lotus in a pond, untouched by the water yet in the water, not rejecting it, totally accepting it, welcoming it. But there is a kind of witnessing inside that keeps one thousands of miles away from the world.
There are moments of witnessing when you find you are no more on the earth and yet you are on the earth. When that paradox happens, a man has become holy. That is my vision of the holy man: he will be paradoxical.
[Prem debena – a love goddess.]
Everyone is a god or goddess, in disguise, unaware, unaware of the treasures that they are carrying within themselves, unaware of the mysteries that are there. Just a little effort and you have all the riches of the world. People live like beggars and they were meant to live like emperors. Out of god only gods can come, there is no possibility of somebody else.
If god creates the world, the world is divine. And if everything comes out of god then everything is divine. And only man has the privilege of becoming aware of it. Trees are divine but they cannot be aware; animals are divine but they cannot be aware. Only man has the privilege: he can become aware of it. But that depends – one may become, one may not become; man is free to choose.
And millions choose to remain unaware, because to live unaware seems to be easy, no effort is involved. That’s why millions of people can become good singers but they never will, because they will not make the effort. Millions of people can become good dancers but they never will. A great lethargy surrounds people’s lives. Millions of people can become creators but they never will; they will just somehow survive.
Meditation is the greatest art. It is easy to learn music, it is easy to learn dance, it is easy to learn all kinds of things, but it is not so easy to learn meditation, because meditation is the art of all arts. It is the very foundation of all arts. It is the key, a master key, which can unlock all the doors.
One who learns meditation has learned the most secret phenomenon of life. Then it will be easy for him to learn music because the fundamental he has already got. It will be easy for him to learn dance and easy for him to become a painter or a poet, because the essential is there. Now he only has to find the right medium for it. And one who knows how to meditate knows his inner wealth.
Your name is to remind you of that continuously. Whenever somebody calls you Debena, remember it! It is a device, a device to remind you again and again that you are a god, that you are a goddess, not to be lost in an illusion of being a beggar; that is only a dream, a nightmare.
And if one is constantly reminded, slowly slowly it sinks into the heart. And one day, the explosion, the revelation!
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