17

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‌CHAPTER 17

17 January 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand Ali... blissful god. The old god was very serious, hence the world has remained ill, sick. It is good that the old god is dead. But the new has not yet arrived, hence the crisis in all human values, hence the crisis of identity loss. The old is no more valid, in fact it has long been dead. It is now a hundred years since Friedrich Nietzsche declared ‘God is dead’.

My sannyasins have to declare again that god is born! The world is waiting for god to be reborn; the old concept is gone and the new concept has to arrive. And against the new concept the believers of the old will create all kinds of obstructions. Their god was serious; the new god will be a laughing god, a god of laughter, cheerfulness, joy. Their god was a very jealous god.

In the Old Testament, god declares ‘I am a jealous god.’ The new god cannot be jealous. It will be compassionate, it will be pure love. And its love will include all kinds of love, from sex to prayer, all forms of love. The old god, the idea of the old god, was anti-life; the new god will be for life. The new god will be another name of life. It will be a dancing god.

We have to bring the new god onto the earth. The new concept has to be given birth: my sannyasins have to become a womb. It is a tremendous task; to be part of it is to be fortunate.

Remember this, that religion is not serious, it is playful; that it is more like a song than like a syllogism, that it is more like fun just for its own sake and for no other reason, that it is not goal-oriented. Then a cheerfulness arises, a joy wells up. And that joy is true prayer.

Yoga means the science of becoming one with existence, the art of being in at-one-ment with existence, dropping the idea of separateness. Not thinking in terms of being an island but thinking in terms of being one with the continent, dropping one’s boundaries: that is the science of yoga.

The word ‘yoga’ means union, communion, and unmano means no-mind. No-mind is the science of becoming one with existence; that will be the full meaning of the name.

It is the mind that keeps you separate, it is the mind that divides, that makes you a small thing, that creates the ego. To create the ego is the whole function of the mind. The moment you stop thinking and the mind is functioning no more, the ego immediately disappears; it is not found at all. And when there is no ego, that is what yoga, union, is – becoming one with existence.

The mind separates, no-mind unites; the mind is the barrier, no-mind is the bridge. Deva means divine, udgar means expression.

God is creativity. Even to call him a creator is not right, because calling him a creator means that he has done something already and is doing it no more, as if the process has come to a stop. God is creativity, not a creator; the process is on-going, he is still creating. That parable that he created the world in six days is just nonsense. He is continuously creating; in fact he cannot exist without creating. He is not a person, but the energy that creates and goes on creating. He is creativity itself.

So if a man really comes to know god, he will become tremendously creative. Whatsoever he is doing, there will be something original in it, because it will belong to god, it will come from the beyond. If he is singing a song, there will be a totally different quality to it. It will not be just a song: his heart will beat in it, he will breathe in it, it will be his breath, it will be his soul. If he paints, he will not be just a painter, not just a technician who knows how to paint. He will pour himself into his painting; he will become the colours on the canvas.

The man who has tasted of god has the flavour of creativity around him. There is no other way for the man of god to live. Life will be nothing but creation. And by ‘creation’ I don’t mean that he will become a painter or a poet – he will not necessarily – but in whatsoever he does there will be the touch of originality, of creativity, of inspiration. He will bring into his every act something of the beyond and the transcendental. That is the meaning of your name.

For a long time, religion has existed in a very uncreative way. Monks were not expected to create anything; they were really expected to do just the opposite – to become as uncreative as possible, as dead as possible. The more dead a monk was, the more he was respected.

We have not respected life yet, and we have not respected alive people. We have been worshippers of death. And our so-called religions have been nothing but escapes from life; they have been withdrawals. They have been very cowardly.

My sannyasin is not to be an escapist; he has to be in the thick of the world. He has to be creative, and live in the world. He has to express his being, because unless your being is expressed to its optimum you will never feel fulfilled. There is no other kind of fulfillment possible. There is only one kind of fulfillment and that is: expressing your being in its totality, leaving nothing back, holding nothing back, pouring yourself totally into the ocean of life. The moment you empty yourself in creativity, the moment you pour yourself totally, with no calculation, with no idea of gain, in that very moment the ultimate bliss happens, samadhi happens.

Samadhi is not for the escapist, it is not for the uncreative; it is for the creative. It is for the person who is not afraid of life but who is in tremendous love with life, and because he loves life he wants to beautify it, to give something to it, to leave it a little better than he found it.

[Chantal – one who sings.]

My whole effort here is to help you to sing, to dance, because god is found only when you are lost in celebration. The dimension of being festive is the religious dimension. It is not a serious affair, it is a love affair. It is not business-like; it is closer to poetry than to arithmetic. It is closer to singing and dancing than to anything else.

The artist is very close to the temple of god, just on the verge. He may not enter into the temple, he may think ‘This is all’, but if he wanted, if he had explored a little bit more, he would have entered into god. And unless the artist takes a step beyond art he remains only half-grown. Unless the poet becomes the mystic he never becomes whole. That is the tragedy of the poet; that is the glory and the agony too.

The scientist is perfectly at ease. He is in the world of matter; he knows nothing of the beyond, he has no idea of the beyond. Mysticism is all rubbish to him, all nonsense, absurd. He lives in a very clear-cut, mathematical, world: the mystic lives in a very very clear-cut mystery. It is a mystery, but he is absolutely certain about the mystery; there is no problem in his mind. He is perfectly at home with the mystery, the mystery does not create any anxiety. He lives it; he is not there to solve it. He relishes it, he sings it, he dances it.

Between the two is the artist – the painter, the poet, the musician, the dancer. He has no home, he is just on the bridge: a part of him belongs to the world of science, matter, and a part of him longs for the beyond, the world of the mystic. He is torn apart. It is not an accident that many artists go mad because of this continuous pull into contradictory directions. Many artists commit suicide, and the reason is simple: life becomes unbearable. The artist can be at ease only if he takes a jump and becomes a mystic, when his poetry is no more just poetry but a divine song.

So become a singer of divine songs. All songs can be transformed into divine songs. One just needs a little more daring, one just needs to go into the darkness of the mysterious. The mind holds back, the mind says ‘Be cautious.’ The mind always hesitates. Even if it takes some step it makes every precaution so that one never goes astray, and it is always ready to jump back into the old, known territory.

That’s why many artists remain only artists and remain miserable. The truly adventurous soul is always ready to listen to the call of the unknown.

When the unknown calls, go with it, go with your whole heart and don’t look back. Then singing slowly slowly turns into divine singing. The ordinary dance is no more ordinary, it becomes extraordinary. Then one starts contacting the infinite, and to be in contact with the infinite is to be in bliss.

That’s what sannyas is all about: an effort to commune with the whole, whatsoever the cost, whatsoever the risk.

Anand means bliss; christian originally means one who follows Christ. But to follow Christ is totally different from being part of the Christian church – it is not only different. it is its polar opposite.

Christ never followed any church; he was a rebel. To really follow Christ means to be a rebel. It will look paradoxical but that is how it is. To be really a Christian means one cannot be a Christian. One cannot be Catholic and one cannot be Protestant; to be really Christian means to drop out of all churches. Jesus was never part of any church; that was his crime. It is for that crime that he was crucified. He was not following the Jewish establishment, he was not following the tradition.

Truth can never follow tradition: truth can only follow itself. Truth cannot be imitative, it has to be original – and he was original. He was one of the most rebellious men who has ever walked on the earth, and one of the most beautiful. But Christianity has destroyed his figure. In fact the Jews could not kill him, but Christians have killed him. All his rebellion is gone, all his rebellion has been destroyed. All his fire is gone; only ashes and ashes are left.

What is being worshipped in the name of Christ has nothing to do with the real Christ; it is a distortion. For example, Christians say that Christ never laughed. If Christ never laughed, then who will laugh? That is destroying that rebellious man’s whole personality. He was a joyous man, he must have laughed uproariously, but Christians have painted him in a very sad, gloomy, serious, way. He must have been a man of great cheer; in fact it was because of his laughter and joy that he could tolerate all kinds of sufferings.

It was his laughter that won over when he was crucified. He must have laughed at the whole ridiculousness of it! The moment he said ‘Forgive these people – Father, forgive these people because they don’t know what they are doing’ there must have been great laughter in his soul at the whole absurdity of the thing that was happening: he was trying to help these people and they were killing him! He could have become freedom for them, and they were destroying him. He must have laughed at the absurdity of it. His statement must have been made in that spirit of laughter. It cannot be made by a serious man, only by a playful man. Only a playful man can take even crucifixion non-seriously.

This is only an example: his whole life has been distorted. He has been made to adjust to the idea that Christians have of how a Christ should be – stupid people always have ideas about everything. About other things it is okay, but when they start carrying ideas about a Christ or a Buddha or a Krishna, they are going beyond their capacities, they are transcending all limits of stupidity. They don’t know who they are, but they start having ideas about how a Christ should be, and they start adjusting the real Christ, the real Buddha, to their expectations.

That’s why I say that to be a real Christian the first requirement is that one should not be a Christian, that one should be a rebel. And that’s what sannyas is: it is initiation into rebellion.

Bliss has to be the keynote of every sannyasin – cheerfulness, a song on the lips, a dance in the feet, and great joy in the heart. Life is not a burden to be carried, it is not a punishment: it is god’s gift, a reward of tremendous value. One has to be thankful for it, grateful for it.

Prem means love, and upadipa means set fire to. Love is a fire, god’s fire. It burns, it burns totally. It kills you as you are but it also gives you a new birth: it is both crucifixion and resurrection.

Sannyas is a symbolic gesture that you are entering into this fire; hence the colour of fire has been chosen for the sannyasin. It will consume you, it will not leave you as you are at all, but it will bring you to be as you should be. It will destroy the seed but the tree will be born.

To be with a master means to allow him to set fire to you, to make you aflame, to throw you into such flames that you cannot come back as you are. You will come back, but you will come in a totally new way. You will be back, but you will be luminous, full of light. You will be back, but then you will have wings; you will be back, but then you will not gravitate towards the earth, you will start levitating towards the sky. You will also become aflame.

The ordinary man is represented by water – water always goes downwards; and the reborn man is represented by a flame, because the flame always goes upwards.

The lotus is a symbol of great significance. The whole religious approach towards life is contained in this simple symbol. The lotus represents the transformation of man from body to soul, because the lotus is born out of dirty mud.

If you look at dirty mud it is unbelievable that a lotus can be born out of it. The lotus is the most beautiful flower in the world and comes out of such dirty mud! There seems to be no logic in it, it seems illogical. It is a quantum leap, the mud becoming lotus. And if it can happen that mud becomes a lotus, then man can become god. Then man can also have a quantum leap, a jump.

There is no logical possibility of man becoming god, hence whenever a Buddha says ‘I am god’ people are offended. Christ declares ‘I am god’ and people are so angry that they have to kill him. The reason is simple: it is such an illogical statement, it cannot be proved. But so is the case with the lotus – just by searching in the mud you will not find it.

It seems that existence moves not logically but illogically. Now modern physics says it is so: there are quantum leaps which cannot be predicted, which are not mathematically possible, but which still happen. They are existentially true, logically not true.

In another sense also the lotus is significant: it lives in water but the water cannot touch it. If it rains the water will fall on it but will not touch it. Remaining in water, it still remains aloof, transcendental. And that’s how a sannyasin should be: a lotus in water, living in the world and yet not being part of it.

[A sannyasin, leaving, says: I feel so helpless!]

That’s good, because only in deep helplessness does prayer arise. If you feel really helpless then what can be done? One can only pray; and that prayer will begin something new in one’s life. So helplessness becomes a door.

That’s what my whole purpose of being here is: to help you transform every negative thing into something positive. Helplessness looks very negative, but just see the point: if you are really helpless then there is nothing left that you can do, you can only pray! Prayer comes out of helplessness, and then prayer is a lotus flower; helplessness becomes just mud. And prayer is so beautiful!

One can cry in helplessness but those tears are immensely valuable: they are one’s communication with god. Words have failed, now only tears can convey some message.

In helplessness one becomes like a small child crying for one’s mother. And the miracle is: if you can cry in utter helplessness, help will arrive; it arrives immediately. If you can cry like a small child, the mother runs towards you, and so does god. It is the same pattern. We are children of god: if we can cry, he has to run towards us. The help comes immediately, but it comes only to those who are really helpless. If one is pretending helplessness then it cannot come; then one’s cry is just acting. The mother is wiser than you; acting cannot deceive her.

So don’t be worried. Feel it, go into it, and let it become a prayer. Then you will feel that the thing that you were thinking was a problem was not a problem but a golden opportunity, a blessing in disguise.

[A sannyasin is leaving. She says she has many blocks she cannot break through, although she has done several groups. She is unsure whether to study art or breath therapy. She feels the need for a rest at a sannyas commune in Germany.]

That’s good: [the commune] will be helpful.

In fact a little more work is needed. You have touched the blocks, you are aware of them now, but to penetrate those blocks a little more work is needed, and particularly body work is needed. So if you can do a few body work groups there – Bioenergetics. Primal therapy, Rolfing, Postural Integration – things like this will be of great help. And whenever you can come, come back, mm? – because a few groups more and you will go through them.

It is good that you have come to know about the blocks – half the journey is complete. Millions of people have blocks but they are not aware of them, so they think that they don’t have any blocks.

The blocks are there. The civilisation and the society is so sick that everybody, every child, is forced to create blocks. No child is allowed his natural being; that’s how blocks arise. When some energy is pushed in and is not allowed to have an expression then it is not allowed to go out in any way, and it coils up upon itself and becomes a block. Slowly slowly it becomes a pattern: whenever energy moves there. it coils up again and becomes a vicious circle inside; it becomes like a wound, a hard rock.

Everybody is carrying blocks because we have not been able to create a real, free human being yet. Our conditioning is wrong, our education is wrong – because the parents are blocked and the priests are blocked and the politicians are blocked and they decide everything for the child. The blocked people decide for the new child: naturally, they give their blocks to the child, the child gets them as an inheritance.

The first thing is to become aware – and that has happened. It will make you a little miserable, because in not being aware, you feel perfectly okay. When you suddenly become aware, then you start feeling that there are problems which have to be dissolved. But this is half the work done: now they can be dissolved. Once you know, there is not much of a problem. The first thin is more problematic, the second thing is easy. There are methods; the problems can be dissolved.

So you can do Rolfing, Postural Integration, Primal therapy, Bioenergetics – these four things, whatsoever is available there. And if you cannot do them there, then come here.

And if you don’t feel like going into education, there is no need to. Never go against your feeling. Unless you really feel for something totally, don’t go into it. That will create a block. That’s how blocks are created: you go half-heartedly, the half that is resistant will become a block; it will take revenge in its own time. It will again and again remind you ‘Look, I told you before: don’t do this.’ It will condemn you, it will follow you for your whole life, and it will condemn you; it will not allow you to enjoy the thing that you are doing. Unless one goes totally into something this problem arises.

So there is no need. Nothing is more important than your wholeness. Let this be a fundamental law: nothing is more important than your wholeness. Your wholeness has not to be sacrificed at any altar. It may be education, it may be society, it may be religion: your wholeness has not to be sacrificed for any god; your wholeness has to be unsacrificed.

Then you may not succeed in the eyes of others, but you will remain fulfilled in your life. You may not become famous, but you will remain tremendously happy – and that’s the whole thing. Everything else is just nonsense.

You can go to [the commune], and whenever you can come, come back. Keep it (a box) with you, and whenever you need me just put it on your heart. Good!

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