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CHAPTER 11
11 October 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Prem means love, wajida is a Sufi word; it means ‘one who yearns for god.’ Your full name will mean: love that yearns for god, love that longs for god, love that cannot be satisfied by anything else other than god. And that is one of the most significant facts to recognise, to remember: man cannot be content through anything else than god. Man tries in many ways to be contented but only discontentment goes on growing.
The poor man thinks that when he is rich then everything is going to be all right. But ask the rich man – he is rich and is utterly bewildered. One who has no fame thinks ‘If I become famous then there will be great joy.’ But ask the one who is famous: nothing has happened. It has been nothing but hot air, all that fame. Even if the whole world knows you, how is it going to make you contented? What relevance has it to contentment? Even if you possess the whole world, what does it have to do really with something that is inner? If you are discontented in a hut you will be discontented in a palace; in fact, more so, because even the hope of ‘One day when I am in a palace I will be happy’ will be lost. The poor man can have a little hope; the rich man cannot even afford that. Hence rich societies become very hopeless.
That’s what is happening in the West – a great hopelessness. And they are very surprised when they come to the East and see the poor countries. People have nothing yet they appear to be a little bit more contented; in fact they have nothing to be contented about. This is a very puzzling fact. The people coming from the West think that it is because of religion. It is not so.
The poor people can have hope, they can believe in the future. Tomorrow is still meaningful for them – that’s what makes them look at least more satisfied.
The person coming from an affluent society feels puzzled; it should not be so, logically it should not be so. A poor person should be more discontented with life, but it is not so. The poor person seems
CHAPTER 11.
to be more satisfied. Not that he has anything to be satisfied with – he has nothing; he may be hungry, ill, starved. But he has tomorrow. Tomorrow everything will be okay. Let the revolution come and communism and tomorrow everything will be okay. That tomorrow never comes but it keeps one intoxicated. The future is the most dangerous drug.
When you become rich there is no future. You have the best house, you have the best neighbourhood, you have all the money that you need – more than you need. You have all the gadgets that technology has provided for you, the latest; now what is the future any more? What can tomorrow give to you which you don’t have today?
The future flops, and with the future flopping great hopelessness arises. The person who is not famous can remain hoping that some day he will be famous. That’s why the world up to now has lived with great hope. Suddenly hopes are disappearing and despair is settling.
To me, this is of immense importance. This crisis in human consciousness is of great importance, great import. Either man is to disappear from the earth or man will have a totally new being, a new birth. And my work here consists of giving a new birth to human consciousness.
The world has failed us – now we can start longing for god. Now there is nothing to long for here on the earth. Now the longing can soar high. Now the visible is finished and we can search in the invisible. Now time is meaningless; we have to move into the non-temporal. Now the ordinary mundane life has no charm; it has lost all joy. We have fulfilled all the desires, all the possible desires, and they have not satisfied us. Now the real discontent is possible, and to be really discontented is a great blessing.
What do I mean by ‘real discontent’? To be discontented – for god... love that longs for god. Let this become a seed in your heart and start a journey of new longing... a new love affair with god.
Veet means beyond, dharma means religion. The true religion is beyond religions. It is not Christianity, it is not Hinduism. It is not Judaism, it is not Buddhism. It is not an ‘ism’ at all because it is not a dogma or a doctrine. The true religion is an experience. It is utterly individual. Nobody can give it to you. You cannot be indoctrinated into religion – you have to search for it on your own. It is a great adventure. It cannot be borrowed; and that is the most important thing to remember, because people think that they are religious and they are not. They think they are religious because they have been indoctrinated into Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism. Because they have learned a few words and theories they start deceiving themselves; they start behaving as if they know. They know nothing. Their knowledge is just mechanical – it has been fed to them; it has not grown in their own experience.
The false religion comes from the outside; the real religion arises in you. That is the meaning of your name. Beware of all churches and all bibles, because it is very easy to get lost in the jungle of words. One has to go on reminding oneself, one has to be very alert not to get lost.
All ideologies are poisonous. I don’t teach any ideology here. Yes, we create a few situations, devices, methods...not to give you something but to provoke that which is hidden inside you. You have all that you need but it is fast asleep. My function here is to wake it up.…
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