Talks on the Isha Upanishad
English Discourse series
Book Chapters: 16
Year published: 1984
Source: www.oshoworld.com

Chapter No. 14 - Without Women -- No Buddhas
24 October 1980 am in Buddha Hall, Pune, India

The first question:

Question 1

OSHO,

I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE, BUT I AM AFRAID OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, AND SO AFRAID OF LOVE, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY.

WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR ME TO FALL IN LOVE?

Prem Parivartan,

LOVE IS THE HARDEST THING in the world, the most arduous. It needs really guts to be in love. That's why for thousands of years people have escaped from the world in the name of religion. They were not really escaping from the world, they were escaping from love. It was the fear of love that drove them away to the deserts, to the mountains, to the monasteries. But they were not even courageous enough to accept the fact that they are afraid of love; they covered it up with beautiful religious words. They condemned the world rather than condemning their own cowardliness.

And humanity has worshipped these people as saints -- cowards have been worshipped! And naturally, if you worship cowards you will also become a coward. One should choose very carefully and cautiously whom to adore, because whomsoever you adore you start becoming like him -- unconsciously, unknowingly. If a man escapes from the war we call him a coward, we condemn him -- he has betrayed. But the people who escape from the battle of life are thought to be heroes, are thought to be doing something great. Their basic fear is of love -- and why there is so much fear of love?

The first thing that love requires is dropping of the ego. It is easy to protect your ego in the name of religion, in the name of virtue, morality, puritanism, character -- beautiful words to decorate the ego, to nourish and feed it. Hence your so-called saints are the most egoistic people in the world, and you can see it. The facts are so immense, so self-evident, that there is no way to deny them. Your saints have caused more bloodshed on the earth than anybody else, for the simple reason because wherever there is ego there is going to be bloodshed. But when you hide behind beautiful facades you not only deceive others, ultimately you yourself are deceived.

Love is one of the most dangerous phenomena. You have to put aside your ego, only then it can blossom. Love is real spirituality, but when I use the word "love" you can again misunderstand on the other extreme -- you can start thinking in terms of lust. Love is not lust either. It is not the so-called religion and it is not the so-called worldly life. Love is different from both.

Love is a transcendence of lust and ego Religious life gives you ego and destroys love, and the irreligious life gives you lust and destroys love. These are the two extremes: ego and lust. Exactly in the middle of the two is love; it is neither ego nor lust, it is transcendence of both.

Lust means you are trying to exploit the other, and naturally there will be fear. The fear will be that the other may exploit you. To get into a relationship means getting into a space where you are thinking to exploit and the other is also thinking to exploit. Both are going to use the other as a means. Hence there is great attraction -- the opportunity to exploit the other -- and great fear because you may be exploited.

Lust can never be free of fear, the ego can never be free of fear. Hence the people who have escaped into the deserts, into the mountains, into the monasteries, are still afraid, trembling, because you can escape from the world but how you will escape from your nature?

Love is a basic need. You can escape from the world, but you will still need food. You can escape from the world; that doesn't mean that now there is no need for food. And love IS food for the soul, just as food is food for the body. One cannot avoid love. If one avoids love one is avoiding life. To avoid love means to commit suicide.

Your saints have committed suicide, your sinners have committed suicide. In a way they both are same because they exist on the polar opposites.

My sannyasin has to transcend the polarity, the opposition. He has to go beyond both. Beyond lust means never be cunning, never try to use the other. That is ugly, that is inhuman, that is irreligious. That is violence, pure violence. To respect the other as an end unto himself or herself is the way of the sannyasin. Avoid being cunning.

A few who had won the first prize in a state lottery was suddenly besieged by relatives and friends who had previously ignored him. But he refused to give or lend them any money.

"You now have more money than you will ever spend," said one. "Why are you so unkind?" I have two good reasons," explained the lucky winner. "First, I hate my relatives, and second, I love my money!"

To love somebody means to respect; it means not to exploit. To love somebody means to give love and all that you have without any idea of getting anything in return. If there is even a slight idea, a slight motivation, it is cunningness, it is lust. Even to ask for gratitude is wrong. Love is possible only when you love for love's sake.

A rich widower invited his three sons and their wives to a birthday dinner at his house. As they sat down at the table he explained why he had brought them all together.

"This is my fifty-eighth birthday, as you know, and I am about to change my will. Because of my disappointment at not being a grandfather, I am going to give $250,000 to my first grandchild." Then he bowed his head and said grace.

When he looked up he found himself alone at the table.

This is how people are behaving with each other! Their minds are full of lust, greed a thousand and one motives. and they go on calling all this love.

Prem Parivartan, it is not anything personal to you to be afraid of love or to feel, "Why it is so hard?" It is everybody's problem, but it has been created by a long, stupid conditioning. Instead of helping you to become clear about what love is, instead of helping you to love without any motivation, you have been taught to love with motivation. You have been taught to love in an artificial way.

The mother says to you, "Love me because I am your mother," as if love is a logical proposition: "Because I am your mother, therefore you have to love me." And the poor child feels at a loss; he cannot understand -- how to love? You may be the mother or the father; that does not mean that love will arise inevitably. If it was arising inevitably towards the mother and towards the father and the brothers and the sisters and the relatives, then there would have been no need to tell anybody to love your mother, your father! It does not arise naturally; it has to be cultivated.

And the child is certainly helpless; he starts pretending. He becomes a politician from the very beginning -- he starts learning diplomacy. He becomes a follower of Machiavelli. He starts pretending to love the mother because he needs the mother; he cannot survive without the mother. He smiles at the father. That smile is false; it is not coming from his heart. But this is how from the very beginning his love is poisoned.

Later on we say, "Love -- it is your wife. Love -- this is your husband." We go saying this stupid thing to everybody: "Love -- BECAUSE... THEREFORE..."

Love is not a logical proposition; either it is there or it is not there. If it is there, help to grow it; if it is not there, accept it. There is no other way. But don't create an artificial phenomenon.

But the mother has lived without love; she has not been loved by the husband. He was loving her because she was his wife, because he had to love; it was a social duty that he had to perform, it was a formality. So she is hankering for love; she starts exploiting the child.

Many women are interested in children not because they want to be mothers but just because it is easier to exploit the child for love than anybody else, because he will be absolutely dependent on you. To be a mother is a rare phenomenon. To hanker for children is a totally different thing; it has nothing to do with being a mother. That hankering comes from a totally different source.

To be a father is even more difficult than to be a mother, because to be a mother is at least instinctive, biological. Father is a social invention, a social institution. A father has been created, he does not exist in nature; hence it is even more difficult to be an authentic father. But everybody wants to be a father -- to prove his manhood, to prove that he loves his wife, to prove that he is reproductive, that he is really a man. But these are not things that have anything to do with love.

And then there is the need to dominate the children. He cannot dominate the wife -- the wife dominates him. The wife allows him to show to the world that he is the master; she allows it because she is so self-confident about her mastery over him that she does not bother. At the outside he can play the game of being the husband. He knows, she knows, everybody else knows, who is the real master.

The father is hankering to be a master; he wants to dominate somebody. He cannot dominate the wife, he cannot dominate the boss in the office, he cannot dominate anybody. Children are needed; it is a desire to dominate. And then he starts asking the children, "Love me -- I am your father. You have to love!" As if love can be managed. Everything goes false. By the time you are young your love is almost plastic, it has lost all spontaneity. It has become very cunning, very calculating.

Two women met for the first time since graduating from high school. Asked the first one, "Have you managed to live a well-planned life?"

"Oh yes!" said her friend. "First I married a millionaire, then an actor. My third marriage was to a preacher and now I am married to an undertaker."

"What do all these marriages have to do with a well planned life?"

"One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready and four to go!"

This is a well-planned life! Remember this sutra: "One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready, and four to go!" This is how people are living!

You ask me, Parivartan: I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE...

It is not a question of liking. One simply falls or one does not fall! You would like to fall in love -- then it is not going to happen. Falls don't happen through liking -- you simply stumble and you fall! You are trying to manage a fall. You can manage, but it will not be a real fall -- no fracture, nothing! You can put a Dunlop mattress and you fall on it, but you will simply look stupid and nothing else. A little bit embarrassed, that's all.

You ask: I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE, BUT I AM AFRAID OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN...

Only that thing seems to be a little bit intelligent! Beautiful women are dangerous, ugly women are good -- they have to be good. Fall in love with an ugly woman... This is one of the observations of thousands of years... whenever a woman is beautiful she need not care about being nice. It is enough to be beautiful, why she should be nice too? She will be nasty! Ugly women are very nice, they have to, otherwise who is going to fall in love with them? Their faces, their bodies make you feel like running away to the very end of the world and never look back -- they have to compensate. They compensate by being nice, by being very loving. They become your mamas; they take care as if you are a small child, they breastfeed you. They become absolutely necessary, they make you utterly dependent, so that you can tolerate their ugliness.

Parivartan, that thing you are certainly saying with some intelligence. And when you are thinking and planning a well planned life, then fall in love with an ugly woman. It will be difficult in the beginning, but then it is sweet all the way! And always think of the future -- that's how calculating people do. What it is? Just a bitter pill in the beginning, it's okay, but then it is very health-giving. Ugly women are medicinal, but beautiful women are sweet in the beginning and very bitter in the end.

And this is not my advice to you; Gautam Buddha also says the same thing -- in a different context, of course. He cannot be so truthful as I am. He says: The world is sweet in the beginning but very bitter in the end, and the other world is very bitter in the beginning but very sweet in the end. It is a totally different context, but it is significant -- in your context too.

The beautiful woman looks beautiful and you are tempted, but remember the great philosophers who say that beauty is illusory; it is nothing but just on the surface. When you see a beautiful woman always remember the great philosophers: that inside she is nothing but bones, blood, pus, et cetera, et cetera. Keep in your bedroom a skeleton, meditate over it, and whenever you see a beautiful woman project the skeleton. That will scare you! And whenever you see an ugly woman feel compassion -- compassion is good, it is great service. In fact it is conquering the world! To fall in love with an ugly woman is to be a saint, and your rewards will be great. She will be nice to you, and always nice to you.

The only problem is, Parivartan, here you will not find an ugly woman. Somehow ugly women don't fall in love with me, that's the trouble! So you are in a wrong place.

A traveling salesman once found himself in a howling storm near a washed-out bridge somewhere in the hinter-lands. Since he could drive no further he got out of his car and went to the nearest farmhouse. An old man answered the door.

"Can you put me up for the night?" asked the salesman.

"Yes, you can stay here," said the farmer, "but you will have to sleep with my son."

"Your son?"

"That's right."

"Excuse me, said the salesman, "I must be in the wrong joke!"

Parivartan, you are here in a wrong joke; you will have to find the right joke for yourself. Here you will not find an ugly woman; that will be difficult.

You say: I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE, BUT I AM AFRAID OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, AND SO AFRAID OF LOVE, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY.

There is not much to know in it; it is very simple and obvious. It is not something great to contemplate upon.

He: "Have you ever loved anyone as much as you love me, Mary?"

She: "No, John. I have sometimes admired men for their looks or intelligence or money. But with you, John, it is all love -- nothing else."

At lunch one woman said to her friend, "I don't know what to do. The other night I dreamed that John was having lunch with some blonde, and they were laughing together."

"Oh, for God's sake, Helen!" protested her friend. "It was only a silly dream."

"Only a dream," repeated the other. "But if he does such things in MY dreams, can you imagine what he must do in his?"

Fear is natural because the woman means the beginning of the world; the woman means the beginning of the trouble. Before the woman there is no world and after the woman is no world. Before the woman there is all darkness, after the woman there is all light. But between the two is the problem, and everybody has to pass through it.

The aggressive wife was raking her husband over the coals for having said something tactless when some friends called. "And don't sit there," she continued sharply, "making fists at me in your pockets, either!"

Among the objects displayed in the Vatican Library are two Bibles close together: a huge one about two feet thick, the other a tiny one less than one inch square.

One of the guides tells visitors: "This big Bible contains everything Eve said to Adam, and this little one contains everything Adam said to Eve."

I can't see why you don't understand -- it is so obvious! People have always been afraid of the woman for the simple reason that man functions through the head and the woman functions intuitively. They can't agree on anything; there is no possibility of agreement. The woman jumps on conclusions, and the trouble is she is almost always right! And the man goes through a very long, arduous, logical process to reach a conclusion, and, again, almost always he is wrong.

So to fight with a woman -- that means to love a woman -- you are doomed, you are bound to fail. You cannot win a single argument because her ways of arguing are so puzzling. You want her to sit down calmly at the table and discuss, and she starts crying and throwing things. Now you don't know what to do! It is your money she is destroying so you cannot throw other things because that will be simply foolish. And the whole day you come home tortured by the world, you want some moments of peace, and the whole day she has been getting ready, exercising. She is ready for a fight! You come home completely defeated, and she is fresh and ready to fight. Now how can you win? And you don't want to fight at all, you want to be left alone to read your newspaper, and she throws your newspaper.

She cannot tolerate anything that you do -- except Dynamic Meditation. That comes very close -- that makes women afraid. I invented the Dynamic Meditation for poor men: at least one defense! You can simply shout and jump and start hoo-hooing, and that she will understand. She will calm down and she will start agreeing with you; otherwise she is going to create trouble. That is one of the ancient feminine methods -- of course she has never called it meditation. I call it meditation, to give it a religious color!

Prem Parivartan, so these are a few clues for you. If you want a peaceful life, find a homely woman and your life will be peaceful -- of course without joy. You can't have both together. It will be peaceful, completely peaceful, but there will be no ecstasy in it. It will be as if you are already dead; there will be no excitement. It will be flat, like a flat tire, stuck in one place, sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass does not grow by itself. How can the grass grow under a flat tire? It is impossible! You can go on sitting and waiting, springs will come and go... That is the first possibility.

The second is: take the risk, fall in love with a beautiful woman. There will be great excitement, ecstasy, but there will be trouble too. Heaven and hell come in the same package. You will have a few heavenly moments, but they are worth -- for all the hell that will follow, they are worth. And they will teach you a lesson. That's how one becomes finally a Buddha. Without the women there would have been no Buddhas; about that I am absolutely certain. There would have been no religion, no Buddhas, no Mahaviras. It is because of the woman.

Many women ask me the question, "Why women have not become enlightened?" How they can become enlightened? Who will drive them to become enlightened? That is the point. They drive men to become enlightened. Finding no other way in life, he becomes enlightened. It is simple! I have not answered it yet, but today I thought better to say it and settle it forever. Never ask me again, "Why women don't become enlightened?" There is no need! Their function is to make people enlightened -- to drive them crazy -- so sooner or later they start meditating, sooner or later they want to be left alone. They are finished! Their dreams are shattered, they are disillusioned. It is the great work of woman; the whole credit goes to women.

The Buddha, the Mahavira, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, they were possible only because the woman was continuously forcing them: either become enlightened or go crazy! And they decided to become enlightened. they said, "It is better to become enlightened." It is good to pass through the experience.

So, Parivartan, choose a beautiful woman and fall whole-heartedly... don't hold anything back. The deeper you love, the sooner you will get free of it. The more passionately you go in, the more quickly you come out.

The second question:

Question 2

OSHO,

IN LECTURE YESTERDAY YOU SPOKE ABOUT THE MASTER'S WORK: KEEPING HIS DISCIPLES FROM SETTLING FOR LESS THAN "FREEDOM FROM THE SELF".

IN THE WEST, MUCH IS MADE OF THE EXPERIENCE THAT "THIS IS IT," THAT NOTHING CAN BE DIFFERENT THAN IT IS -- RIGHT NOW!

IS THIS A COPPER MINE EXPERIENCE?

HOW CAN THERE BE ANYTHING ELSE?

Deva Sambuddha,

I ALSO SAY THIS IS IT, but when I say this is it, it has a totally different meaning. It is not the same statement as it is being made in the West. The statement in itself has no meaning of its own; the meaning comes through your experience.

Man can live on different planes. When Gautam the Buddha says "This is it!" he is using the same words as you use. The words are exactly the same and the dictionary meaning is the same, but the existential meaning is totally different; it may be even diametrically opposed to your meaning.

In the West it has become fashionable to say that this is all, to live right now is all there is. But the people who are saying it have no idea of meditativeness, have no idea of absolute silence, thoughtless awareness, they have not experienced witnessing. Hence what they are saying -- "This is it" -- is nothing more significant than their mind.

So if your mind is full of lust, your "this is it" will be only lust and nothing else. If your mind is full of greed, full of anger, full of jealousy, then how it can have the same meaning as it has when Chuang Tzu says "This is it"? It is not possible to have the same meaning. Meaning comes from the person, his presence, his realization.

The West has got cliches from the East. Now Zen has become very fashionable in the West, not that the West is capable yet to understand Zen. Zen, the very word "Zen", comes from dhyana. Buddha never used himself Sanskrit language; he was the first enlightened person in India who used the language of the people. That was one of the things that made the priesthood, the brahmins of India, to be antagonistic to Buddha. Amongst many things that was one of the major, because the priests of India have always used Sanskrit as their language, it was their property. And only the scholarly people could understand it; the masses were absolutely ignorant about it. Hence what was written in the scriptures was known only to the few priests, and of course through that knowledge they were powerful. And they never wanted it to be known by the masses, otherwise their power will be lost, their vested interests will be destroyed.

Buddha was the first man who dynamited their whole establishment. He used the language of the people; the language of the people in Buddha's time was Pali. In Pali, dhyana is pronounced as jhana. Because Buddha used the word jhana it changed its color. When it reached China through Bodhidharma it became CH'AN, because in Chinese jhana cannot be written; in Chinese there is no alphabet. The Chinese is a pictorial language, so the closest picture that they had which could express the word JHANA was CH'AN or CH'ANA.

And from China it reached Japan. They use the same pictorial language, but their pronunciations are different. In Japan it became Zen; in a way it came back to the original place. It came closer to Buddha's JHANA; it became Zen.

Now the West has not yet understood what it is all about, but Zen has an appeal for the simple reason because it is very absurd, illogical, paradoxical. And the West has become fed up with logical philosophies -- with Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein -- it has become fed up. From Aristotle to Wittgenstein, two thousand years of logical thinking has not led anywhere except to a point where West feels that life is absolutely meaningless and accidental. Now this is the right situation for any illogical philosophy to become fashionable.

The western painting has become illogical. You can see it in Picasso, Dali, Cezanne and other painters: the painting has become absolutely illogical, absurd. The poetry has become illogical -- Ezra Pound and others. You can read it, but you will not find any meaning in it. The novels, the plays, all other art forms have taken a turn; they have become very illogical. This illogicalness is the outcome of two thousand years of logical effort which has completely failed: it has not provided any significance and meaning to man's life.

In the same flood of illogicalness, Zen also has become influential, but the reasons for its influence are totally different. It is not that the West has experienced meditation -- it is simply a reaction against logic that Zen has become a great appeal. The absurd anecdotes. the absurd lives of the Zen Masters -- seems to be appealing because it has no logical construction.

A great Zen Master, Ryokan, is known in Japan as the Great Fool -- a great Master, of the same caliber as Buddha, is known as the Great Fool for the simple reason because his whole life was absurd, unpredictable. If you ask him a question he may hit you on the head; if you don't ask him a question he may hit you on the head. He used to say, "Ask me a question and I will beat you; don't ask me a question and I will beat you!" He used to throw his disciples...

Once he cut one of his disciples' finger with a knife, and when the finger was cut and the disciple was in deep agony, he said, "This is it!" And in that moment the disciple became enlightened -- because he was meditating for twenty years. Don't forget those twenty years! In the West those twenty years are completely forgotten. Those twenty years have brought this climax. At the right moment the Master gave the last push. He wanted to bring him to the present, and cutting the finger is so painful that you cannot think of the past, you cannot think of the future, you cannot fantasize any more. For a moment everything stops. It is like an electric shock -- you are suddenly herenow. But those twenty years of meditation had created a different quality: the shock became a satori. Just by cutting somebody's finger, you cannot make him enlightened, but Ryokan did the miracle.

Ryokan lived in such a way that anybody will call him a fool, an idiot, and he enjoyed the word "idiot" very much; he himself used to call himself an idiot. He will forget his robe, will reach to the marketplace naked -- with his shoes on! He will forget about everything.

He had written a list of things that he has to take when he goes out, and he has pasted the list on the door so that he can look at the list, that what things he had to carry: his staff, his robes, the shoes, the cap. And even this was written: "Where you have to put the cap -- on the head." Otherwise he will forget, he may put the shoes on the head! But still the same thing continued -- because he will forget to read the list.

This Ryokan helped many people to become enlightened. His illogical ways, his absurd methods proved of tremendous help. Now in the West people will love Ryokan; they will feel at ease with him. They are fed up with Aristotle. Aristotle has become "Aristotlitis" -- a great disease! They don't want to do anything with Aristotle; they want something more alive, something more paradoxical because life is paradox; it is not logic.

Remember it, that life is not logical and cannot be understood by just logic. Life is far more than logic, far bigger than logic. It is not arithmetic. So there are planes to understand.

The West is not yet capable of being herenow; he has only heard the word. And there are different motives why the western youth, particularly the new generation, has become infatuated with Zen-like things. The Third World War is gathering around. Life seems to be very fragile; it had never been so before. Wars have always been there -- in three thousand years we have fought five thousand wars -- so war is not a new thing, but something new has happened. The Third World War will be the last war, it will be a total war. It will destroy not only humanity but all life from the earth. And the clouds are becoming darker and coming closer every day. It is creating a great fear. The western new generation is freaking out.

And now because the world can end, the whole future Zen seems to be appealing: Live here and live now because there is no future. Tomorrow may never arrive. This is a totally different reason why West has become interested in right now.

Sambuddha, this has to be remembered: the motive is different. The eastern mystics, from Buddha to Ryokan, were talking about the beauty of now-here for totally different reasons. Not that there is no future -- there is infinite future, eternity -- but the future never comes. All that comes is now; now is the only reality. When future comes, it also comes in the form of now. When tomorrow comes it will come as today, so you have to learn the art of being here, living today, because tomorrow will come but it will also be another today. And if you know how to live THIS day you will know how to live that day which will be coming. This was a totally different vision.

These are the four planes which have to be understood. First is the body. On the bodily plane, the man who lives identified with the body, if he says, "This is it," he will only mean food and sex and nothing else. His "this is it" will contain only of two things, food and sex, which are not very different either. Food is nourishment for you; you cannot survive without food. And sex is nourishment for the coming generations; they cannot survive without sex. Your parents' sex has created you, your sex will create your children. The society needs sex as food; it is food, it is survival for the society, just as food is your survival.

Food and sex are deeply connected. Hence it always happens if somebody starts controlling sex, becomes a celibate, he will start eating more; he will substitute his sexuality by food. It almost always happens when women get married they start becoming fatter, for the simple reason that before marriage they are interested in sex, after marriage they become fed up with it. They start feeling as if the man is exploiting their bodies. Reluctantly they go into it, but they are fed up. Then their interest changes towards food.

And the people who starve themselves for any reason -- maybe naturopathy, dieting, or some religious reason, fasting -- the people who will starve themselves will become full of sexual fantasies. Hence Jain monks are more full of sexual fantasies than anybody else, because of the fasting. It is a natural change: their energy starts moving from one pole to another.

Sambuddha, anybody who knows only his body, his "this is it" simply means food and sex. That's what is happening in institutes like Esalen -- food and sex. That's what is happening all over America. Sambuddha comes from America.

The second plane is mind. With food and sex you can have pleasure and pain. On the body level, if your body is satisfied, you will have a pleasant feeling; if it is not satisfied you will feel pain. The second phenomenon above the body is mind. Mind goes a little higher than pleasure; it starts experiencing happiness and unhappiness. With body there is only duality, food and sex, only two dimensions; with mind there are many dimensions. Mind opens up a greater world: music, poetry, painting, dance, et cetera, et cetera. It opens up many dimensions; you can enjoy more.

With the first you are just like an animal; your "this is it" will be nothing but animalistic. With the second, if you know that you are more than the body, higher than the body, you will have many dimensions, more richness. You become human, you rise above animals. When you say, "This is it," now it will be music, poetry, painting, dance; it will have a totally different meaning.

On the third plane is the soul, the self. With the body the duality; with the mind, manyness, multitude; with soul only oneness, and that is meditation. You will know the real meaning of "this is it" only when you arrive at the third point.

And with the fourth... In the East we have called it the fourth, simply "the fourth", TURIYA; we have not given it any name because no name is possible, it is inexpressible. With the fourth, TURIYA, there is neither two nor many nor one. You can call it either wholeness or nothingness. Buddha used the word "nothingness", Isa Upanishad uses the word "wholeness"; they mean the same thing. The zero symbolizes both, nothing and the whole. This is the state of bliss, ecstasy.

On the body level pleasure is opposed by pain; on the mind level happiness is opposed by unhappiness; on the soul level joy is opposed by misery. But on the fourth, bliss is not opposed by anything; bliss has no polar opposite to it.

Where you are on these four planes will make the difference. When I say, "This is it," I am talking from the fourth plane. And when in America, in the institutes like Esalen, people are talking about "this is it," they are talking about the first plane, the body.

You ask me, IN THE WEST, MUCH IS MADE OF THE EXPERIENCE THAT "THIS IS IT," THAT NOTHING CAN BE DIFFERENT THAN IT IS -- RIGHT NOW!

Yes, nothing can be different than it is, but you can be different. The world is the same -- to the Buddha, to the enlightened, to the unenlightened -- but you are different and that makes the difference. That's the difference that makes the difference. The world is the same -- Buddha moves here, you move here, gods live here, dogs live here -- it is the same world. But because their awareness is different, their depth and height is different, their "this is it" will be different too, their now will also be different.

So when I am talking about now, my "now" contains THIS and THAT both. When in the West people are talking about now, their now only contains "this".

Remember what the Isa Upanishad says: This is whole. That is whole. The whole comes from the whole, still the whole remains behind.

This is the fourth state, TURIYA, the ultimate state beyond which nothing happens. Unless you have reached to it, Sambuddha, you are living at the copper mine. You have to move to the silver mine, then to the gold mine, and then to the diamond mine, and then to the beyond.

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO,

WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST THING TO DO IF YOU WERE MAD?

Virendra,

CHANGE your mind!

The fourth question:

Question 4

OSHO,

I HAVE TAKEN THE VOW TO REMAIN A CELIBATE MY WHOLE LIFE, BUT WHY DO I STILL SUFFER FROM SEXUAL THOUGHTS, FANTASIES AND DREAMS?

Swami Nityananda Giri,

IT is NATURAL -- it is because of your vow. Nobody can change one's life by force. The vow simply is a violent act against yourself. It will only repress your sex, and the repressed will take revenge; it will come on again and again and again. You will push it from one door, it will enter from another door. You cannot get rid of it so easily, so cheaply.

Just the other day, Morarji Desai revealed that when he was the prime minister he had visited a nightclub in Canada, just to find out what was going on there. Now, why he should be interested in a nightclub? And whatsoever is going on there, why he is interested in it? At the age of eighty-two! And he had kept it a secret up to now; he never revealed it before.

A repressed sexuality will haunt you to the very end of your life. Even when you will be dying you will be having sexual fantasies.

Swami Nityananda Giri, it is still time -- beware! Life is never changed by vows, life is changed by awareness. Never take a vow; the vow simply means that you are forcing something upon yourself. Try to understand. When there is understanding there is no need to take a vow; your understanding is enough. You see something is wrong and it drops.

Seeing is enough, understanding is enough; no other discipline is ever needed. Whenever you need some other discipline it means your understanding is lacking, something is missing in your understanding. You are trying to compensate your understanding by taking a vow, but the very taking of the vow shows that you are afraid of your sexuality. Then it will come, then it is bound to come.

And now you are asking me: WHY DO I STILL SUFFER FROM SEXUAL THOUGHTS, FANTASIES AND DREAMS?

You must be hoping that by taking a vow all this will stop. It is your vow that is causing it! If you have lived a natural life, if you have gone through the world and all its experiences of good and bad, pleasure and pain, you would have learned something; you would have come out of the world with understanding.

But for centuries the so-called saints have depended on violence. They talk about non-violence, but they go on doing violence to themselves.

"I am sick and tired of being left alone every weekend," growled the golf widow at breakfast one Saturday. "If you think you are going out to play today..."

"Nonsense, dear," the husband interrupted, reaching for the toast. "Golf is the furthest thing from my mind. Please pass the putter."

If you just force things they will erupt, they will come back.

A seventy year-old man went to see the doctor.

"I have been in practice for twenty-five years," the doctor told him, "and I have never heard of such a complaint What do you mean, your virility is too high?"

The septuagenarian sighed. Pointing to his head, he said, "It is all in my mind."

"The virility has gone too high -- it's all in my mind."

Now, Nityananda Giri, you have taken a vow. Your sexuality is repressed at its natural center: it has reached in your head, and that is far more dangerous because it will poison your head. Now in dreams, in thoughts, in fantasies it will come.

Just go for a fast one day and you will see what I mean -- you will think of food the whole day. Ordinarily you don't think about the food at all; the food is not a problem. When you feel hungry you eat, and then all is forgotten. But go for a fast, and suddenly food becomes your obsession. It is a simple psychological fact.

But religious people have been really stupid: simple facts they go on denying, and they can always rationalize. They will say, "It is because of your past lives' bad karmas that, Nityananda Gin, you are still suffering from sexual thoughts." They will tell you to practice yoga, stand on your head, and all kinds of nonsense.

Just the last week I was reading about one yogi, Dhirendra Brahmachari, who goes on showing his yoga postures on the television. And he was telling the last week to his audience that, "Do you know how I remain so healthy? I am pulling my anus upwards right now, but you cannot see it because I am wearing clothes." And then he told that his disciple, one girl who sits by his side to show yoga postures, "She is also holding her anus upwards, but you cannot see because she is wearing the clothes."

The girl must have gone red! It is good that India has not yet gone for color TV -- in black and white you cannot see whether the girl is blushing or not. But then you have to do all kinds of nonsense things. Now pulling your anus upwards will simply force your sexual energy to go into your head; that's what its purpose is. It is trying to bring the sexuality towards the head, and you will be more in a danger.

And that's the purpose of SIRSHASANA, headstand. Standing on your head, the basic purpose is to force your sexual energy to go towards your head. Because of gravitation, if you stand on your head naturally your sexual energy starts moving towards the head. But how long you can stand on your head? Sooner or later you will have to stand on your feet.

And this messing around with centers is one of the problems all the religions have been facing.

Gurdjieff, one of the great Masters of this age, used to say that man has become so ugly for the simple reason because none of his centers is functioning in a natural way; every center is being interfered with by other centers, they have all become entangled. His whole effort was how to disentangle them, how to bring the energy to each center that belongs to it.

And that's my effort here too: to bring the energy to the right center, where it belongs. When all your centers are functioning naturally you will have a deep silence in you, you will have a subtle harmony in your being; a joy will surround you.

Nityananda Giri, you must have lived according to the old, traditional way; your name shows that. Gin is one of the most ancient traditions of Hindu sannyasins; you will have to come out of it. You will have to come out of your orthodoxy, out of your superstitions.

An elderly spinster went to see her doctor and complained that her sleep was being disturbed by dreams of a young man who was constantly following her and flirting with her.

The doctor prescribed some pills, but a couple of weeks later she was back.

"What is the matter now?" he asked gently. "You are sleeping better now, aren't you?"

"No," she said, "Now I can't sleep because I miss that young man so much!"

Life cannot be avoided easily. The only way to go beyond is to go through. Life is an opportunity to grow -- don't avoid it. If you avoid it you will remain retarded.

Now what is happening to you cannot happen to any of my sannyasins, it is impossible -- because my sannyasins are living naturally, accepting whatsoever God has given. He knows better than you. If he has given you a sexuality, then it means that there is something to be learned through it. It is your creative energy -- don't repress it. Refine it, certainly, make it as pure as possible, because it is your sexual energy which will create many things in your life.

This is a well known fact, that great poets naturally find that they are transcending their sexuality. Great painters, great dancers, great musicians have always found it to go beyond sex very easily -- but not the so-called monks and the saints. They have found just the opposite: the more they have tried, the more they were disillusioned, the more they got deeper into the mess.

This fact has to be meditated upon. A musician creates music, hence his sexual energy is used in a non-sexual way. A dancer creates dance, he need not create children. He becomes a creator of something higher -- what is the need to create the lower? Even animals can create children; that is nothing special to man. In fact, animals are far more productive -- even mosquitoes can defeat you! That is nothing special to you.

Now there are two ways: either repress sex -- as has been done by all the so-called religious traditions of the world -- or transform it.

I am for transformation, hence I teach my sannyasins to be creative. Create music, create poetry, create painting, create pottery, sculpture -- create something! Whatsoever you do, do it with great creativeness, bring something new into existence, and your sex will be fulfilled on a higher plane and there will be no repression. Let your sex become more and more love and less and less lust. And then finally let your love also become a little higher -- that is prayer. Lust is the lowest form of sex, love higher than sex, and prayer is the ultimate transformation.

The meditative person can transform his sexuality without any antagonism. without any conflict. He is in deep friendship with all his energies, sexual or others; he is not in any fight. Why fight with your own energies? Love them, rejoice in them, and help them to transcend the lower forms, the animal forms. Let them move from the body towards the turiya, the fourth.

This is a total!y different process. That's why I am so much opposed, because I am against all the repressive traditions, all the so-called moral, puritanistic stupidities. I simply call them stupid. I am not a polite person. If a spade is there I call it a spade -- in fact, a fucking spade! I want to be clear and straightforward. Two plus two is four to me, neither more nor less.

A Rajneesh sannyasin went to visit an old friend living in a big town. The only lodging he could find was in a very dilapidated hotel. The receptionist told him he would have to share a double bed and take his breakfast -- toast, jam and coffee -- upstairs with him that night.

He entered the room and was surprised to find a gorgeous blonde lying naked on the bed, fast asleep. He prepared himself for bed, said his prayers and lay down to sleep.

Fifteen minutes later, he turned over and looked in the direction of the beautiful girl. "Should I or shouldn't l? No! I must not!" he said to himself, and turned over and tried to sleep.

Half an hour later he turned around again, looked towards the girl and said to himself, "No, I must not! I won't! It is not proper!" So he turned over again and went back to sleep.

But after half an hour he sat up and said out loud, "I just can't resist any more. I don't care whether I am breaking any rules or not." So he got up, walked over to the foot of the bed, then poured his coffee, buttered his toast... and ate his breakfast!

This is possible only to a Rajneesh sannyasin.

Nityananda Giri, to you it will be very difficult, impossible!

Once a Zen Master was asked, "What sort of sex life do monks get?"

The Zen Master said, "Nun!"

Don't repress, try to understand your sexual energy. And you will be surprised, immensely surprised, that it is not your enemy, it is your friend. It is not a curse, it is a blessing, because it is the source of all your creativity. Have you known any impotent person to be creative? Have you known any impotent person to create great music, painting. poetry? And why the so-called monks down the ages have not been creative? They have not contributed anything to the earth, they have not enriched the earth. They have not been a blessing; on the contrary, they have proved a curse. Why? -- because being repressive of their sexuality they became uncreative, they cannot create.

Creativity is sexual, basically sexual. When the painter gets lost into his painting it is the same orgasmic joy that two lovers have when they meet and merge into each other; for a moment they are no more separate. The painter gets the same joy, longer, deeper, far more profound, when he is lost with the painting. A dancer comes to the highest point...

Hence my emphasis on dance and music here in my commune. I want everybody to be a dancer, a singer, for the simple reason because that is the most natural, spontaneous way of transforming your sex. When the dancer is completely lost, when there is only dance and no dancer left, he experiences the greatest orgasm, more total than any sexual orgasm can ever be.

Nityananda Giri, if you accept your sexuality, if you embrace it with deep love and gratitude towards God, knowing that it his gift so that there must be something in it which has to be discovered... it is not to be rejected. Rejecting it will make you uncreative, and the uncreative person remains a miserable life. That's why your saints look so sad, with such long faces, almost dead and stinking.

Look again -- look again into your own being, into your own existence, and you are in for a great surprise.

A man was asked by his wife to bring home a live chicken for a special meal she was going to prepare. He bought the chicken after work and was on his way home when he realized that he had forgotten his front door key. He knew his wife would not be home for a few more hours, so he decided to pass the time by going to the cinema.

He could not carry the chicken inside so he stuffed it down the front of his trousers, then bought a ticket and went in. He sat down towards the front of the cinema, next to two old ladies. He soon became very engrossed in the film and did not notice that the chicken had poked its head through his fly buttons.

"Winifred," whispered one of the old ladies, nudging her friend. "Look at that big thing poking through this guy's fly!"

Winifred grunted, "Ah, Millie, when you've seen one, you've seen them all!"

"I know that," replied Millie, "but have you ever seen one that eats popcorn?"

Chapter No. 15 - Everybody has his Uniqueness
25 October 1980 am in Buddha Hall, Pune, India

The first question:

Question 1

OSHO,

YOU HAVE BEEN SPEAKING ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS AGAINST SOCIALISM, AND YET I FEEL THAT IN THIS COMMUNE THE FIRST EXPERIMENT OF AN ALIVE SOCIALISM IS HAPPENING. IS THIS ANOTHER OF YOUR CONTRADICTIONS?

Swatantra Sarjano,

THE REAL SOCIALISM can only be the fragrance of a commune deep in meditation. It has nothing to do with the social structure or the economy. Real socialism is not a revolution in the society, it is not social: it is the revolution in the individual consciousness.

If many people who are going through an inner revolution live together, then there is bound to be a new quality. You can call it socialism; the better word will be "communism", out of "commune". Only a commune can have communism, but a commune exists only once in a while. When Buddha was alive a commune grew around him; he called it sangha, another name for commune. The meaning of sangha is: where the initiates have dropped their egos and are no more functioning like islands but have become one with each other, where a communion is happening. Communication is between the heads; communion is between the hearts.

Whenever so many hearts open, become flowers, a great fragrance is released. That fragrance surrounds a Buddha, you can call it a Buddhafield. The energy is totally different: there is no politics involved in it.

Politics belongs to the world of the ego. The game of politics is an ego number: how to be more powerful than the other. It is ambition in its ugliest form. It is sheer cunningness, exploitation. It is an effort to enslave others. It is not possible at all to the meditators, because for meditation the basic requirement is to drop the ego. You cannot play the games of the ego any more. There is no question of being higher, more powerful than the others. In fact, there is no question of"the other".

The moment "I" disappears, instantly the "thou" also disappears. I and thou exist together; they are like two sides of the same coin. Drop your "I" and you will be surprised that for you there is nobody who is OTHER than you; the reality appears as one organic whole. But it is possible only with a center.

When Buddha died his commune existed at least for five hundred years, but slowly died; slowly it withered away. It remained alive till... few people continued to become enlightened and went on replacing the Buddha. When there was nobody enlightened any more, when there was not the center, the whole field disappeared. When there is no sun, how can there be rays? It is an individual phenomenon.

If Buddha is there, the commune is bound to happen; it cannot be prevented. It is inevitable. The real seekers will start moving towards the Buddha from the farthest corners of the world. It is just like when a fragrant flower opens, bees start queuing from faraway places. Suddenly the fragrance becomes a magnetic pull -- but only for the bees, not for everybody. The dogs will pass by the flower without ever looking at the flower; it does not exist for them, they are not sensitive towards it.

The Buddha exists only for those who have the sensitivity, the perception, the availability, the openness, the search. Many came across Buddha and missed him. Millions of people encountered him, but could not recognize him. To them he was just another learned man, just another saint. And the India has always been full of saints. There was nothing special for them in him. They listened to him, they gathered a little bit of knowledge from him and went on their way.

But those who had the sensibility, who had the heart which can dance with this fragile energy of a Buddha, this delicate perfume, were lost, completely lost and dissolved, merged. Out of these merged individuals the commune arises, the Buddhafield, the SANGHA.

It happened with Jesus, of course on a smaller scale, because Jews have never been much interested in the interiority of man. They are extrovert people; their whole religion has remained extrovert. Jesus was recognized only by very few people; those few people can be counted on fingers.

It happened again and again around these precious diamonds -- Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Lin Chi, Baso, Bahauddin, Jalaluddin, Kabir, Nanak -- again and again. But the problem is: when the Master dies, the commune starts withering away. Maybe for a time being a sequence of Masters continues...

For example, after Nanak nine other Masters followed. After Adinatha, the first Jain Master, twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS followed -- from Adinatha to Mahavira, a long span of time, almost of three thousand years. But it is very rare. It cannot be enforced by the government, by any outside agency; then it will be plastic.

Sarjano, you are right -- it is one of my contradictions. I am against socialism which is imposed as an economic, political ideology on people, because then it destroys something which is very precious: it destroys the individual. Rather than destroying the ego it destroys the individual; it enhances the ego. The ego is represented by personality.

These two words have to be understood very clearly: the personality is that which is given to you by the society, and the individuality is that which you have brought with you from the beyond; it is a God's gift. The individuality has no ego in it, it is egolessness. The personality is nothing but ego.

The society imposes a certain structure, a certain pattern around every individual. the society is very much afraid of authentic individuals. It creates a false personality, because the false personality can easily be manipulated, enslaved, dominated. The personality is very obedient, the personality is very dependent on the society, because the society has created it.

If you go against your personality that the society has created, you will lose all respect; your ego will start collapsing. And that creates great fear in you, so you go on fulfilling the demands of the parents, of the teachers, of the priests, of the politicians, of all kinds of people who surround you and are trying to exploit you in every possible way. They depend on personality, and they go on enforcing the personality against the individuality. The individuality has to be repressed, completely forgotten, so that you start living in the false and the phony.

Socialism destroys individuality more than any other kind of political ideology, because socialism means society is the goal, not the individual. The individual has to be sacrificed for the society, not vice versa; the society cannot be sacrificed for the individual. And in fact "society" is a beautiful word; behind that beautiful word is hiding the ugly state. It is really the state that dominates in socialism, and the state does not want any kind of individuality in people. It effaces all individuality, it creates robots. It wants everybody to be just an efficient machine, nothing more.

This kind of socialism I am certainly against, but there is certainly a different kind of socialism which I am absolutely for. But the process is totally different, just diametrically opposite: the individuality has to be saved and the personality has to be dissolved.

That is the meaning of surrendering to a Master: you surrender the ego, not the individuality; individuality cannot be surrendered. When you surrender on your own, when you are not forced to surrender, when it is not a question of submission... out of your love and joy, out of your understanding you surrender -- it is your choice and your decision. when you surrender, of course you surrender the false; the true cannot be surrendered. You are the truth! You simply put aside all that has been imposed on you, conditioned upon you. In the presence of a Master only the false disappears, and the true comes in its absolute flowering.

In a commune of a Buddha everyone has individuality, nobody has any personality. Nobody is egoistic, but everybody has his uniqueness; he contributes to the commune in his own unique way. And everybody is respected for whatsoever he is doing; there is immense respect for the individual.

You can see it happening here. The well-trained psychoanalyst who could have earned thousands of dollars per month in the West, may be having a Ph.D. or a D.Litt. and other educational qualifications, is respected in the same way as the toilet cleaner; there is no difference. The toilet cleaner has the same respect, the same individuality; he is contributing in his own way.

And many times it is happening here that a Ph.D. decides to drop all that he has learned and he wants to become a cleaner. There are few Ph.D.s who are toilet cleaners. This may be the only place in the world where Ph.D.s have found the right work! There are M.D.s who are cleaning the toilets. They have been told, "You are M.D.s, why don't you work in the Medical Center?" They say, "Cleaning is so beautiful, so relaxed! We don't want to bother with the Medical Center any more."

There are poets, painters -- famous, well-known -- authors who have published much, and they may be making shoes or just working in the carpentry or doing some manual work in the garden, because one thing is absolutely clear: that your job makes no difference, your individuality is intact everywhere. Your job does not give you any higher position, it does not create any hierarchy. Everybody else is doing in his own way, wholeheartedly.

The commune can happen only in the presence of a Master: otherwise, your awareness is such you will start fighting, quarreling, and your ego games will come in. That happens each time a Master dies. I there is a chain of Masters then it is okay, otherwise very difficult.

For example, Jesus could not create a chain; he was not given time enough. He worked only three years, from the age thirty to thirty-three. There was not enough time for him -- he was crucified at thirty-three -- he had no time to work.

Buddha worked for forty-two years; he created a great line. He triggered many people, from Mahakashyap to Manjushri, Sariputra, Modgalyayan, Purnakashyapa... and many others became enlightened while he was alive and they carried the torch.

If a chain is created then the commune goes on living, but it is a very fragile phenomenon, very unpredictable; it may happen, it may not happen. Even if it happens, then too it cannot be a permanent phenomenon. One cannot conceive that it will go on and on forever; it can stop anywhere. The world is such a desert, and the stream that Buddhas create is such a small stream; it can be lost in the desert anywhere.

But the only true commune exists while the Master is alive. I am all for that kind of commune.

But the communism that exists in Soviet Russia or China is not my cup of tea! It is really exactly the opposite of what I am trying to do here. Communism should arise spontaneously, and differences are many. For example, Karl Marx, Friederich Engels, V.I. Lenin -- the communist unholy trinity -- these people were talking of the dictatorship of the proletariat; that means dictatorship of the lowest.

In the commune of a Buddha, in the first place there is no dictatorship, although for the outsiders it may seem that there is a dictatorship. For the outsider, if he comes here, he will think this is my dictatorship, although I never order anybody. I never have even visited the office once in these six years! I don't know who is living where, how many people are living in the commune. I have not visited the other houses of the commune. I simply know the way to my room! I cannot find even in my own house where I live, Lao Tzu House, the rooms of other sannyasins who are living with me Vivek has heen telling me that, "One day give us a surprise -- come to the kitchen!" I have never been there; I really don't know where it is. So in fact I will not be able to find it unless I am guided by somebody. I have some idea where it should be, but it is very vague.

But anybody from the outside will think that I am the dictator; that is absolutely wrong. People are here working out of their love, nobody is ordered. And if they ask me and I say something, it is always a suggestion, never an order. They are free to accept it or not accept it. They always accept it -- the credit goes to them; it has nothing to do with me. If they don't accept it they are perfectly free to do that way.

In a real commune, the commune of my vision, the highest becomes the center. In the communism of Karl Marx, the lowest dominates; it is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Naturally, these are two different things, polar opposites.

When the highest... and by "highest" I simply mean one who is no more, one who has become one with the whole, one who has no more any separate existence. one who is no more pushing the river, one who is flowing with the been, one who is in a deep let-go, one who is just a vehicle, a hollow bamboo on the lips of God. And if God sings, of course the hollow bamboo becomes a flute, but it all depends on God. The song does not belong to the flute, it belongs to the singer.

Through the Buddha, through the enlightened person, God starts flowing. It is the highest, the suprememost that creates a real commune. The communism that exists in Russia and China is dominated by the lowest. Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung belong to the lowest type, the most violent, murderous people that have ever existed on the earth.

The name of Joseph Stalin means a man of steel; that was not his real name. Stalin means a man of steel; it is not his real name, it is because of his hardness.

A Buddha is represented by a lotus flower, not by steel. The lotus flower has been in the East the symbol of all the Buddhas -- very fragile, very delicate, with a subtle perfume, not aggressive at all.

If you surrender to a Buddha it is your decision, it is your freedom; you are not made to surrender. And when many people surrender to a Buddha they are really surrendering to their own future, to their own ultimate potential. Buddha simply represents what can happen to them. He is just a reflection of their ultimate flowering.

When you surrender to a Buddha you are really surrendering your lower reality to your own higher reality; the Buddha is just an excuse. Then a real commune comes into existence. It is out of love, out of meditation and prayer. It is not based on violence; it is not rooted in the lower qualities, animal qualities of man.

Sarjano, in that sense you are right, that a real commune is happening here, but it is the not the first experiment, remember it. The experiment has happened many times before. But it always looks like that. When you fall in love you think, "Such kind of love has never happened before; it is something unique." And in a way it is -- for you it is a new experience. You have never been in love with a Buddha, so to you it is a new experiment. Otherwise, for thousands of years humanity has existed, and many times small oasises in the desert have arisen. But the desert is vast and hard...

And remember one fundamental law: whenever the lower comes in conflict with the higher, the higher is destroyed, not the lower. If you clash a rock with a lotus flower, don't hope that the rock will be destroyed by the lotus flower; the lotus flower will be destroyed. The higher is more fragile.

That's why I say the woman is a higher sex than man: she is more fragile, she is more flowerlike. Man is harder, a little bit of rock is still in him. Man is more closer to the animal than the woman. Man is more aggressive than the woman; the woman is receptive. And because of this higher quality of the woman she has been destroyed by man. The rock is always going to win against the flower.

Such communes have existed again and again. They cannot be totally destroyed because God has a tremendous investment in these communes. They CANNOT be destroyed, they will go on coming again and again, but the vast world is desertlike. The greater humanity has not yet been transformed, although the possibility if such communes is becoming more and more.

Man has evolved, has matured, and particularly today. The time has come when thousands of such communes can erupt, explode all over the world. And that's what I am intending to do by creating so many sannyasins and then sending them back to their countries so that thousands of communes start functioning.

I would like to create a chain of communes all around the world, so this commune does not remain only one oasis in the vast desert but becomes interlinked with many communes. That type of interlinking has never been done before; that will be new. Communes have always existed, but many communes functioning all around the world was not possible before; it is possible only today. Science has made it possible. The world is now so small, it is almost like a village, a global village. Man has come so close that now this possibility exists.

I have got two hundred thousand sannyasins working all around the world, two hundred communes slowly growing. Soon there will be thousands of communes all around the world, and this will be the first chain of communes surrounding the whole globe! And the possibility of their success is becoming more and more than it was ever before, for the simple reason that science has come to such a growth that unless religion also reaches to the same point, humanity is doomed. Everything has become lopsided. It was never so before, in fact just the opposite was the case.

Buddha's commune was far more advanced than the technology and the science of Buddha's day. Mahavira's commune was far more advanced, far ahead than the society, than the inner growth of man; there was a big gap. Now the gap is there, but it is a totally different gap. The society, science, technology, have gone far ahead than man's inner growth. Now the society and the science and the technology have prepared the ground; we can use this opportunity. We can help man come to the same growth, and that will he a balancing thing. All those communes in the past created an imbalance; they were out of tune. They were Ear ahead of their time, hence they were doomed to fail.

But this time we can hope we may succeed, for the simple reason that we are not going against or too ahead of time. Time is ready and ripe and we are in tune with it. Only we are in tune with it; the whole society is falling behind -- the modern technology, the modern science. All your so-called churches, religions are far behind modern science.

What I am doing here is a very balancing phenomenon. Now religion can exist on a far higher level than it has ever existed, because science has provided the right background. And moreover, science has created a tremendous fear in the world that science can destroy the whole humanity. And now the only hope is that religion can save it. And when it is a question of survival, millions of people are bound to become interested in meditation because only meditation can save them; nothing else can save. If man remains the same and science goes on developing, then the very developing science will become a mountainous burden on man.

It is a well-known fact that somewhere in the past, one hundred thousand years back, there were huge animals, far bigger than elephants, ten times bigger than elephants. What happened to those huge animals? They suddenly disappeared from the earth; only their skeletons are discovered. What calamity happened? No calamity from the outside, but they became too huge. The burden of their bodies became so much that they could not carry it; they became incapable from inside. Their inner being remained very small and their outer body became too big; it lost balance.

The same is happening today with man: his inner soul is too small and his outer technology, his science, has become too huge. It can bring a Third World War, a total war, because it is a question of life and death; it has never been such a question before. There is a hope that religion can explode, and millions of authentic seekers are searching for it.

We can create a chain around the world of such communes, and the whole world can be transformed into a Buddhafield. Then only there is a possibility of a communism arising out of love and arising from the highest sources, from the Everests -- not a dictatorship of the proletariat, but a trust, a surrender to a Buddha. And out of that trust and surrender a totally new kind of communism can be given birth.

In that sense I am for communism -- but communists will be very much against me because if my type of communism succeeds then their type of communism is bound to fail.

The second question:

Question 2

OSHO,

YOUR TALKS ARE VERY LOGICAL, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND YOUR WAY OF WORKING IS SO ILLOGICAL.

WHAT IS THIS MYSTERY? PLEASE EXPLAIN.

Prem Vinod,

MY TALKS ARE LOGICAL because when you come to me you come obsessed with logic. I can start communicating with you only through logic. But as you start relaxing with me, feeling that your mind is not in danger, then I start working illogically -- because life is bigger than logic, far bigger than logic. The working has to be illogical because working means I will be creating a situation for a transformation of your total being; it cannot be logical.

My talks are logical only for this simple reason that: if I start talking illogically you will escape, you will not be able to connect with me. So I come to the valley of your darkness to hold your hand, and then slowly I persuade you, seduce you to come towards my heights.

A clever college student had lost a textbook and put up a notice on the students' bulletin board. But instead of the customary LOST heading he captioned his notice SEX.

Below it he wrote: "Now that I have your attention..."

Who bothers to read the bulletin board? There are so many notices. And who bothers to read the notices with the captions "Lost"? But if the caption is "Sex", then it is very difficult -- difficult for the students, difficult for the professors difficult for the vice-chancellor, difficult for the chancellor to miss. He has to read it.

I am logical only so that "Now I have your attention..."

Life is not logical, it is supra-logical; logic is only a small fragment of it. Watch, and you will see what I am saying. Watch yourself -- are you logical in your life? Have you fallen in love with a woman logically? Can you give any proofs why you have fallen in love with a certain woman and not with somebody else? In fact, you cannot argue even that love is existential, you cannot even prove love's existence. It is one of the most difficult things to prove, that love has any existence. Science cannot give any support.

You can go full of love to the cardiologist and ask him, "Just check my heart -- it is throbbing with love! Just look at your diagram on your graph, whether something is there or I am just befooling myself" And he will say, "There is nothing wrong with your heart -- you are perfectly normal."

Even your heart can be dissected and no love will be found there. That's why science cannot prove love -- love is not matter. Science cannot prove your soul; the soul is not matter. The word "matter" is significant: it comes from meter; it means measurable, that which can be measured. Matter is that which can be measured. But there is something in you which is immeasurable, that is beyond the scope of science, mathematics, logic, physics, chemistry.

If you go to the chemist he will find all that is chemical in you, but he will not find the formula for love. If you go to the biologist he will find everything about your hormones, et cetera, but he will not find anything like love in you. He will say, "It is just a hormonal thing. You are deluded, you are hallucinating."

Diogenes was watching an archer at practice who was so clumsy that Diogenes went and sat down next to the target. "This is the safest place to be," he explained.

A couple of American sailors had been shipwrecked in the mid-Pacific and had been living on a desert island for several years. One day one of them found a bottle washed ashore -- a king-size Coca-Cola bottle he had never seen before. He examined it, then a sudden hysterical shock overcame him.

"Joe!" he cried in terror. "Look at this Coca-Cola bottle -- we have shrunk!"

This is logical. The Coca-Cola bottle has become so big, the only logical conclusion is: "We have shrunk!"

Diogenes went into a theater on one occasion just as the audience was crowding out. Upon being asked why, he explained, "I have been opposing people all my life!"

A burglar broke into a small factory and noticed a sign on the safe: "Don't waste dynamite. This safe is open. Just turn the knob."

He did so. At once the place was flooded with light and a bell rang loudly.

As he was taken to the police station he said, "My faith in human nature has been shattered!"

"Why do you look so sad?" Johnny asks his friend.

"Well," his friend replies, "my wife drove herself over a cliff!"

"That's horrible!" exclaims Johnny.

"But that's not the worst of it," continues the friend. "It was a brand new Mercedes!"

He was despondent. "The woman I love has just turned me down," he told his friend. "She won't marry me."

"Don't be so disheartened," said his friend, trying to ease his misery. "Don't you realize a woman's no often means yes?"

"But she didn't say no," he answered. "She said phooey!"

Life is strange! If the woman says no you can understand yes, but if she says phooey, then what you are going to understand?

Mulla Nasruddin was in hospital. A lady doctor knocked on the door. "Come in," said the Mulla.

"Take your clothes off, please," said the doctor.

"All of them?" inquired Nasruddin.

"Yes, all of them."

After taking off all his clothes, the lady doctor gave him a thorough examination. When she was finished, Nasruddin said, "I want to ask you one thing."

"Yes?" she said.

"Why did you bother knocking?"

Just watch all around, and you will find life is not logical -- it is the most illogical thing.

She was looking for a parking place and found one near a sign reading, "No Parking On This Street."

A policeman was standing nearby, so she called to him, "Can I park here?"

"No," he said.

"Why not?"

"Can't you read that sign? It says 'No Parking'."

"But what about all those cars parked here?"

"Listen, lady," the policeman said, "they didn't ask me!"

Prem Vinod, watch life and you will see its illogicalness. It is so apparent that if you really want to change life you have to take account of all its illogicality.

I can talk logically because language belongs to logic, but I cannot work logically; existence does not belong to logic. Language is created by logic, it is very logical. The grammar and the language, the mathematics, everything that has been invented by man is logical. Mathematics is very much logical, but life is not.

And mystics have always known it; physicists have come to know it only recently, just within these fifty years. After Albert Einstein's discovery of the theory of relativity they had to encounter the illogical world, the illogical existence. And then they realized that for three hundred years science has been living only in a very small place lighted by human logic. It is just like a candle lighting a small place, and the whole existence is dark, very dark.

If you study Albert Einstein's theory of relativity you will be very much puzzled; you will not believe that these are the words of a scientist. Albert Einstein's theory proposes that if a man leaves on an air spaceship with the same speed as light he will never grow old. For example, if you leave today on a spaceship with the same speed as light, that is one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second, and after fifty years you come back, all your friends will be in their graves or maybe very old, and you will be exactly the same, of the same age, because time stops at that speed.

Now this is very illogical! Why time should stop at such a speed? And Einstein was asked again and again, "Where is the logic?" He said, "What can I do? If existence functions that way, I can only say how it functions."

When the atom was broken, split, and electrons were found, a new experience physicists had to go through. It was very crazy, because electrons suddenly disappear from one point and appear at another point; in between the two points they are not.

For example, I disappear here and appear into my room -- that is very illogical, but that's how electrons have been doing forever; just we were not aware of it!

When this phenomenon was known it was very puzzling. Eddington said that physics is becoming mysticism. Even mystics cannot do such miracles; no mystic has been known to do it. They have walked on water and they have raised the dead, but even Buddha has to walk from one village to another -- not just appearing in one village, disappearing, appearing into another. Then in forty years time he would have done at least the work of four thousand years!

But when physicists were asked, "How do you explain it?" they said, "We cannot explain it. This is how it is." They were asked, "It does not fit with logic." So they said, "We have to change logic!" Logic will have to fit with it; existence has no obligation to fit with logic. Why it should fit with your logic? Logic is man's invention, existence is not. Man himself is part of existence, and then man invents logic, just a part of man. And the whole existence is vast, immense; you cannot hope that it should fit with your logic.

Hence many things have changed. Although in the schools and colleges and universities we still go on reading Newton, Edison, Eddington, but modern science has gone far away from the ordinary logic.

The ancient Euclidean geometry is replaced by non-Euclidean geometry. Non-Euclidean geometry is absolutely illogical; Euclidean geometry was logical. Euclidean geometry says, "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line." Non-Euclidean geometry says, "There can be no straight line ever. Straight lines don't exist at all, they cannot." And you will be puzzled -- why? If you ask them why, they say, "Because the earth is round whatsoever you draw is just a part of a big circle. It is a small piece so it looks straight, but nothing is straight."

For example, this floor you are sitting on is just straight, but it cannot be; it only appears. You go on expanding this Buddha Hall and then you will come to know that it becomes round, because it will go around the earth. So even this small Buddha Hall is part of that big earth, and the earth is round.

No straight line exists, cannot exist, because in existence everything is spherical. All stars are spheres, all planets are spheres. You cannot find a place where you can draw a straight line. Wherever you draw it will be just an are, of course so small that you cannot see; for you it seems straight, but it is not straight.

Ordinarily we are trained for a mathematics with ten digits, from one to ten. The reason why there are ten digits has no mathematical reasoning behind it -- the only reason is that man has ten fingers. Because the primitive man started counting on his fingers, hence the ten digits. What kind of logic is this? And mathematics have tried...

One of the greatest mathematicians, Leibnitz, tried only with three digits -- one, two, three, that's all. After three comes ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, twenty. So in Euclidean geometry the world is a totally different world; in non-Euclidean geometry it is totally different. It you understand Leibnitz, then two plus two is not four, it is twenty, because four does not exist at all.

Albert Einstein tried with two digits, one and two. He said, "Even three is unessential. Science should go only with the essential, one and two." And then comes ten... and that way, Einstein says, everything can be worked out. Yes, less than two won't do; at least two digits will be needed. So that is the most essential; all non-essential is dropped.

Even science is no more logical, cannot be. It has come to a point where logic has fallen far behind.

Mystics have never been logical. I am not a logical person, but just to persuade you, just to attract your attention, I start with logic. But I always end in some illogical thing!

The last question:

Question 3

OSHO,

I AM AN EX-CATHOLIC MONK I AM LEAVING FOR MY COUNTRY TOMORROW. WILL YOU TELL ME FEW JOKES FOR MY OTHER CATHOLIC FRIENDS?

John,

The first:

A CATHOLIC, a communist and a black Southern Baptist arrived at the Pearly Gates on the same day. Saint Peter came out and the Catholic threw himself face down in front of him and cried, "Oh, Saint Peter, great have been my sins! I don't deserve to enter Paradise!"

"Have faith," said Saint Peter, "for our Lord is both great and forgiving. Spell God!"

The Catholic was taken aback, but waveringly said, "G-o-d." Trumpets sounded, an angelic choir began to sing, and the Pearly Gates swung open. The Catholic got up amazed and walked into heaven.

The communist, watching all this, quickly fell to his knees and started to cry, "Oh, Saint Peter, I have been a communist all my life. I have not been in a church all these years -- surely I don't deserve to get into heaven!"

Saint Peter smiled and said, "Brother, all men are the same in the eyes of God. He is great and forgiving. Just spell God!"

The communist took a deep breath and quickly said, "G-o-d." No sooner had he finished than once again the trumpets sounded and the great choir of angels sang out. The Pearly Gates opened and the communist happily entered heaven.

The black Southern Baptist immediately threw himself on the ground, started crying and beating his chest: "Oh, Saint Peter, it is no good! I've been a wicked man, drinkin' and runnin' with loose women. But I've been to church every Sunday and I reads the good book!"

Saint Peter looked at the black man and smiled, "All right, brother, God is great and forgiving. To enter through these gates all you have to do is spell Engelbert Humperdinck!"

Second:

A monk from a Catholic monastery wrote to his mother, "On cold mornings I often miss the old pot under the bed."

She wrote back, "On cold mornings you often missed it at home too!"

Third, and the last:

Sister Mary was taking tea to Mother Superior. When she reached Mother Superior's room she bumped the tray and spilt the tea.

"Oh, shit!" Sister Mary said. "I spilt the tea... oh damn, I said shit... oh Christ, I said damn... oh fuck, I said Christ!"

Chapter No. 16 - It is Already the Best
26 October 1980 am in Buddha Hall, Pune, India

The first question:

Question 1

OSHO,

I AM FEELING HELPLESS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO ANY MORE. IT IS AS IF EVERYTHING I DO WON'T CHANGE THIS, IT ONLY MAKES THINGS WORSE. BUT ALSO DOING NOTHING DOES NOT MAKE THINGS BETTER. YOU SAY THAT EMPTINESS IS BLISS. FOR ME IT SEEMS TO BE DULL AND BORING; IT IS LIKE BEING DEAD. WHEN THERE IS NOTHING I CANNOT SEE ANY BEAUTY IN IT. I AM FED UP WITH IT, I WANT TO GET OUT OUT. PLEASE ANSWER ME, BUT PLEASE DON'T ANSWER ME LIKE THIS: THAT TAKING SANNYAS WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING AND MAKE EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL. THANK YOU.

Alexander,

THE FIRST THING is to understand that life remains the same whatsoever you do. It is already perfect; it cannot be improved upon. The very idea of improving it is egoistic; it is the cause of our misery. It is the way it is -- there is no need to improve it. Enjoy it! Don't waste your time in improving it. If you try to improve it you will feel helpless, obviously, because you will be failing again and again, falling short. And your desire can never be fulfilled -- it isn't in the very nature of things.

AIS DHAMMO SANANTANO, Gautam the Buddha has said: This is the way things are. Whenever people used to ask him, "How can we improve upon things?" he will always say, "AIS DHAMMO SANANTANO." There is no need to improve, there is no way to improve.

And in this Isa Upanishad we have come across this truth again and again: AUM. That is perfect, that is whole. This is perfect, this is whole. The whole comes from the whole, the perfect comes from the perfect. How it can be imperfect? The whole comes from the whole, yet the whole remains behind. Everything is as it should be.

Unless this is understood... Buddha calls it TATHATA, suchness. The rose is rose, the marigold is marigold. The effort to make a marigold a rose is doomed to fail. Then there is helplessness, misery, failure. The ego feels hurt, wounded.

This is the first thing: a deep, total acceptance of things as they are. Then life enters into a different dimension -- the dimension of joy, celebration -- because then the whole energy is available to dance, sing, to be.

Now the whole energy is engaged into improving, into changing, into making things better.

You say: I AM FEELING HELPLESS.

You are causing this helplessness yourself.

You say: I DON'T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO ANY MORE.

You have done already enough; that's why you are feeling helpless. Stop doing! And when I say stop doing it does not mean do nothing. That is the second thing to be understood: when I say stop doing, don't misunderstand me -- I am not saying do nothing. "Stop doing" simply means stop pushing the river, flow with the river. It is already going towards the ocean. It will take you to your destiny, whatsoever it is -- XYZ, it is unpredictable. Where the river will enter the ocean nobody knows, when and where, and it is good that nobody knows. It is good because life remains a mystery, a constant surprise. One feels wonder on every step; a great awe surrounds one.

But misunderstanding is always possible. Because I say, "Don't try to improve, doing nothing is the best." that does not mean that you become inactive. It simply means you don't make any effort to improve upon things, you relax. You will be still doing things, but now there will be no effort in your doing, there will be no doer in your doing; they will be simply happening.

When you will feel hungry you will eat; that is not doing. When you are not feeling hungry and you force yourself to eat, that is doing. Forcing is doing. When you feel sleepy you sleep; that is not doing. But when you are not feeling sleepy and you force yourself to go to sleep, that is doing. When you are feeling fast asleep, then trying to wake up is doing. When the sleep is over of its own accord and your eyes open up, that is not doing.

Eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, sleep when sleepy. Let go! Don't try to struggle, don't make life a conflict. Enjoy it! And then each moment is precious and you will never feel helpless and you will never feel that nothing is getting better, because you are not expecting it to get better.

It is already the best world that can be, the most perfect existence that ever can be. But your ego wants to improve upon things. You think you know better than existence itself? You are just a small part of it, you are just a small ripple in the infinite ocean -- and you want to improve upon the ocean? That is just being foolish! Relax! Dance in the sun while you are! Sing a song! It is beautiful to be and it is also beautiful not to be. When the wave rises, good. For a moment enjoy the sky, the air, the wind, the sun, the rain. And when the wave disappears, good; go into deep rest.

Nothing is ever born and nothing ever dies. Things only move between manifestation and unmanifestation. They become visible, they become invisible. To become invisible is a resting place. Just as after each day you need deep sleep in the night to rejuvenate you, to make you again young and fresh, in the same way after each life you need death. Death is a deeper sleep and nothing else. After each life your body is so tired, you need a new body, a new manifestation The old wave disappears, but the water in that wave remains in the ocean; it will come again in a new wave. The old is continuously becoming new -- allow it. You simply allow life and go with it in deep trust.

This is what I call religiousness -- this trust. It is not a belief. Belief is always in dogmas, creeds, theories, philosophies, ideologies. This is not belief, this is simply trusting existence. We have come from it, it is our source. We are not outsiders, we are insiders. And we will go back to the source -- it is our source. Coming out of it is good, going back into it is good. All is good! To feel it brings rejoicing -- all is good. That's the meaning of trusting in God: that all is good.

You are unnecessarily getting into trouble; you are trying something absurd. You are trying to pull yourself by your own shoestrings. You will feel helpless -- you cannot do it. You are like a dog chasing its own tail; it is not possible. The faster the dog will jump, the faster the tail will also move away. It will drive the dog crazy!

It is said that if you want a philosopher to remain engaged, just give him a piece of paper and on both the sides write P.T.O., so he will look on this side and then turn it over, and then P.T.O. again is there, so he will turn it over... and he will go crazy -- but he will remain occupied!

You are being too much philosophical. You ask me:

YOU SAY THAT EMPTINESS IS BLISS...

I don't say -- it is so! AIS DHAMMO SANANTANO. And what you are saying, you are saying. I am not saying, "Emptiness is bliss." What can I do? It is! It is my experience, and what you are saying is simply a statement without any experience. You have not experienced emptiness, but now see what a great problem you have made out of something which you have not experienced.

You say: FOR ME IT SEEMS TO BE DULL AND BORING.

As if you have experienced it! Think over the matter again. Have you ever experienced emptiness? And in emptiness how can there be boredom? If there is boredom it is not empty -- it is full of boredom! It there is dullness it is not empty; the mind is there feeling dull, feeling bored. Emptiness cannot be boring, it cannot be dull. Emptiness is simply empty -- of everything. You cannot say anything about it. But you have not experienced it, you have just thought about it.

Yes, if you think about emptiness it will look boring, it will look dull, it will look dead. But the people who have experienced it -- Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mahavira, Bodhidharma, Bahauddin, Nanak, Kabir -- not a single person has said that it is boring. You are really an exception! If you have experienced it then you are denying all the awakened people -- but you have not experienced it at all. I can say it because I know what emptiness is.

When I say emptiness is bliss I am not saying that emptiness is full of bliss -- don't misunderstand me. "Emptiness is bliss" is simply making you aware of their synonymousness. You can call it empty or you can call it bliss; both the words are synonymous. Emptiness is bliss because there is nothing which can bore you, which can make you feel dull, which can create anxiety, which can make you afraid, which can create anguish. There is nothing at all! Because there is nothing, the whole mind has gone, that state is called bliss. One can call it emptiness, one can call it bliss; these are just two expressions for the same phenomenon.

And, Alexander, don't be a coward. You have such a great name -- Alexander -- don't be a coward! But Alexander himself was a coward in this sense. He was told by Diogenes, one of the greatest mystics of his time that, "Stop this foolish effort to conquer the world. Look at me! Without conquering the world I have conquered!"

And Alexander looked at Diogenes and felt the beauty of the man, the grace of the man. He was lying naked on the bank of a small river, taking a morning sunbath. The place was absolutely silent, and Diogenes looked so beautiful that Alexander felt jealous for the first time in his life. Alexander had everything, he had almost conquered the whole world. Just India was left out, so he was coming towards India and was certain that he will conquer India too. But he felt jealous of Diogenes, a naked fakir with nothing, not even a begging bowl. Buddha at least used to carry a begging bowl, but Diogenes has thrown the begging bowl also because one day he saw a dog drinking water from the river, and he immediately threw the begging bowl in the river, saying to the dog, "Master, you have taught me a great lesson! If you can manage without a begging bowl, why cannot I?"

He had nothing, and yet he had something which was missing in Alexander. Alexander immediately said that, "If next time God will ask me to come back to the world, I would like to be Diogenes rather than Alexander." But, mind you, he said "next time" -- postponing for the next life.

Alexander laughed because he has said something great. He thought Diogenes will appreciate -- but Diogenes said, "Don't be a fool! Don't try to deceive me! What do you mean, 'next time'? If you are so much interested in being Diogenes, why not now? Now or never! And who is preventing you? God is not preventing you. This bank is big enough for both of us. Throw the clothes in the river, lie down, take the sunbath! And you need not even bother about food, because I go to beg, and I will bring enough for you too. You simply rest here, forget all about the world. Be Diogenes right now!"

Alexander said, "That is difficult. Right now I cannot do it, but I will come one day. First I have to finish my conquest -- I have to conquer the whole world!"

And Diogenes said, "Two things I have to say. One: remember, if you have conquered the whole world, then what you will do?" And Alexander was only thirty-two at that time. "What you will do when you have conquered the whole world? Do you know? There is no other world! You will be at a loss! At least right now you are occupied, busy, without business, but if you conquer the whole world then the real problem will arise: what to do next? -- because there is no other world."

And it is said, Alexander felt sad even listening to the idea that there is no other world. He was shocked. He felt immediately a great sadness descend on him and he said, "Don't talk such sad things to me. First let me conquer this and then I will see. And I will come to see you when I have conquered the whole world."

Diogenes said, "Nobody comes back -- you will not be able to come back. Don't be so certain about the future. One can be certain only about this moment."

And actually it happened that way: Alexander died on the way; he never reached back home. He was only thirty-three when he died, and he really died for the same reason that Diogenes has pointed to him. The moment he conquered India he became very much depressed, so much so that he became an alcoholic; he started drinking too much. What to do now? He died of too much drinking, he died as an alcoholic. He killed himself -- it was suicide. Otherwise he was perfectly healthy, but he was continuously drinking day and night.

Your name is Alexander -- be a little aware! Don't do the same foolishness again. You have come the next time, and still you don't want to become a sannyasin! And I am nobody else but Diogenes asking you: Take the jump, become a sannyasin! Nothing will change, but everything will become beautiful. Thank YOU!

Buddha insists on calling it emptiness, shunyata, and the Upanishads emphasize on calling it bliss -- and they are talking about the same phenomenon. Buddha's insistence is far better because it is more applicable to you. You are bound to misunderstand the Upanishad because the Upanishad's way of telling is positive. It says it is bliss, and in you certainly it creates greed; you start searching for bliss. You are miserable and you want bliss, you desire bliss; you start making every effort to improve things so that you can be blissful. You go astray because of the word "bliss" and its positivity.

Buddha became aware of this phenomenon. Twenty-five centuries had passed between Buddha and Isa Upanishad. Isa Upanishad is perfectly right -- it is bliss -- but to say it to you is not right because you are bound to misunderstand it. Hence Buddha changed the whole expression; he said it is emptiness.

Calling it emptiness is of tremendous importance because nobody wants emptiness -- Alexander does not want emptiness. It does not create greed in you. Who will be greedy for emptiness? The very negativity of it destroys greed, desire, ambition and ego.

And again and again Buddha was asked, "What happens when one becomes empty?" and he will remain silent. He will say, "Don't ask me. You become empty and SEE what happens." He will never say, "Bliss happens," for the simple reason because you will immediately jump upon the idea of bliss. And to you bliss will mean only pleasure, at the most happiness -- something of the mind, something of the body -- but it will not be exactly what bliss is.

It is neither of the body nor of the mind. It is a transcendence -- a transcendence of all that you know, of all that you have experienced, of all that you are. It is better to call it emptiness; it cuts you from the very roots.

But twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha again, and people are so stupid that they will misunderstand everything. They misunderstood the Isa Upanishad which talks about bliss. Buddha tried to move to the other extreme, started calling the ultimate state emptiness, shunyata, just zero, pure zero and nothing. It worked for a time being, while he was alive. It always works when the Master is alive -- it works. Any method becomes magical when the Master is alive, any word becomes significant when the Master is alive. It is the charisma, it is the presence of the Master that makes things work. It s his magic.

Once Buddha was gone, the same people who have misused the word "bliss" started misusing the word "emptiness". People like Alexander, they started thinking emptiness is boring, emptiness is dull, emptiness is nothing but death. What is the point of attaining emptiness? Without knowing anything about emptiness they start condemning it.

Buddhism was uprooted from India for the simple reason that Buddha has used total negative terms, and India has become accustomed of positive, affirmative terminology. Buddha seemed very strange, not belonging to the tradition, antagonistic to tradition. He was trying to help.

Now I am trying to do both the things together. I am saying bliss is emptiness -- another effort. Upanishads said it is bliss, Buddha said it is nothingness. You have escaped from both; I am trying to catch hold of you from both the sides. I say emptiness is bliss, bliss is emptiness.

You are saying things which you have not experienced at all. You say:

WHEN THERE IS NOTHING I CANNOT SEE ANY BEAUTY IN IT.

When there is nothing, do you think you will be there? When there is nothing you will not be there! There will be something which cannot be called "I", which cannot be identified with the ego. So who will be there to see beauty? There will not be beauty and there will not be beauty and there will not be the seer, there will be just silence: no I, no thou, no subject, no object -- no duality... a pure oneness, an utter silence.

But you got caught, you got caught in your own words.

YOU SAY: I AM FED UP WITH IT.

As if you are living in it -- you are fed up with it. You have not even tasted a single drop of nothingness, emptiness, and you are fed up with it. How tricky is the mind! How cunning is the mind! And how politically it finds ways to avoid certain things. How it rationalizes!

Just one month before one friend, Ajai Krishn Lakhanpal, has asked me -- he had written a letter -- "Osho, I am ready to take sannyas today. If you give me sannyas today I am willing, I am ready to surrender. But my own choice will be," he said, "that I would like to take sannyas after one month, on 25th October, because that is my birthday."

Seeing his "but"... because I don't like "buts". Otherwise, when somebody asks for sannyas I insist NOW. What can be said about tomorrow? You cannot be sure of tomorrow. Tomorrow may come, may not come. Even if it comes your mind is constantly changing. How can you be sure of tomorrow? Tomorrow your mind may give you some other ideas.

Seeing his "but"... it was the first time I allowed him, the first person I have allowed -- just for a change, to see what happens. I said, "Okay, 25th October, settled. You take sannyas 25th October." Yesterday was 25th October. I told Sheela to call Ajai Krishn and ask him, "What happened? 25th has come!" Now he has found rationalizations. I was expecting; that "but" was enough to show me. He has found rationalizations.

Now he says -- he wrote a letter again -- "I know that I had promised you to take sannyas on 25th..." And that time he had written that, "It is because of my birthday. And secondly, I would like to ask my mother's permission. I know she will say yes, so there is no problem about that." And now he says, "My mother has said yes, but she says she will not be very happy about it. She says, 'Yes, if you want to take sannyas you can, but I will not be very happy about it.' And I don't want to hurt her feelings." And moreover, one of his gurus, Kammu Baba, had told him few years before -- he is dead, he is no more alive -- that "Never hurt the feelings of your parents." "... so I cannot hurt her feelings."

Mind goes on finding rationalizations. It never sees things directly; it tries to evade. Now if Kammu Baba is right then Buddha was wrong. He hurt very much the feelings of his parents, his wife, his child. Then Mahavira was wrong, then Jesus was wrong, then Nanak was wrong. Then except Kammu Baba... and I don't know whether Kammu Baba has said it to Ajai Krishn or he has invented it, or he has thought that he had said it. Then the whole spiritual tradition will be wrong.

Jesus says to his disciples, "Unless you hate your parents you cannot follow me." And that is nothing...

Once it happened that a great king, Presenjit, came to see Gautam Buddha. When he was sitting in front of Buddha, a man came, touched Buddha's feet -- a very old man, one of his disciples, a sannyasin -- and he said that, "I am going now on a long journey to spread your message. Bless me."

Buddha looked at Presenjit and said, "This man is the answer to your question."

Presenjit was asking that, "I would like to become a sannyasin, but my old mother may feel hurt -- she is too old."

Buddha said, "Look at this man. He has killed his father and mother both!"

Presenjit was very much disturbed: Killed? Father and mother? And Buddha is appreciating the man! When the man left Presenjit said, "I don't understand! You praised that man and you said he has killed his father and mother!"

Buddha said, "Yes, psychologically. Not really, not physically, but deep inside he has dropped the clinging with the father and the mother?"

Ajai Krishn is forty-five years old and still clinging with the apron of the mother! Now when he is going to become mature? It is time. One should kill... not the mother on the outside, but the clinging in your inner world.

That's what Jesus means when he says, "Unless you hate your father and mother..." He does not mean that hate your father and mother: he means deep down you have to uproot the whole conditioning, the whole clinging, the whole attachment. Only then you can become mature, centered, grounded. Only then you can be an individual in your own right. But mind goes on finding subtle strategies to avoid reality.

Now, Alexander, you are saying that, "I AM FED UP WITH NOTHINGNESS, EMPTINESS. I WANT TO GET OUT OF IT."

And you must have believed what you are writing. You have no idea of nothingness and you are fed up with it, and you want to get out of it! The real thing is how to get into it!

And you ask me: PLEASE ANSWER ME, BUT PLEASE DON'T ANSWER ME LIKE THIS, THAT TAKING SANNYAS WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING AND MAKE EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL.

No, taking sannyas will not change anything hut it will certainly make everything beautiful! The world remains the same, just the vision, the attitude, the approach changes.

The second question:

Question 2

OSHO,

POPE JOHN PAUL HAS STATED RECENTLY THAT IF A MAN LOOKED LUSTFULLY EVEN AT THE WOMAN WHO IS HIS WIFE HE COULD LIKEWISE COMMIT ADULTERY IN HIS HEART. WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT IT?

Gayatri,

WHAT CAN BE said about it? A Polack is a Polack is a Polack! Pope or no pope, a Polack remains a Polack. Now this is the ultimate in stupidity, one cannot surpass it: even to look at your own wife with desire is adultery! Then why in the first place one should get married?Just to commit adultery?

In a way he has made a very difficult thing simple. One of Milan's newspapers seems to be far more wiser. The newspaper writes: "Life is hard for the adulterer -- an endless round of cover-ups, tricks, juggling of the daily calendar and the need to buy useless and expensive presents for two women at once. Now the Pope has removed all these vows, because you can have infidelity in your own house!" This seems to be far more intelligent. It is really beautiful and juicy to have adultery with your own wife. A great idea!

But these repressed people are bound to do such things.

I have come to know that for the whole year, the whole past year, in his every weekly sermon he has been talking about sex -- for the whole year condemning, condemning... Now why he should be so much concerned about sex, for one year continuously condemning? There must be something inside him, some wound which has not healed.

At the marriage counselor's the husband accused his wife of being frigid.

"That's not true!" she said. "I don't disapprove of sex relations." Then turning from her husband to the counselor she continued, "But this sex fiend expects it every month!"

The woman must have been a Catholic! The Catholics have done one of the greatest harms to humanity. Christianity has been one of the most repressive religions; what has happened out of this repressiveness is just the opposite of it. It was bound to happen, it was inevitable. The pendulum has moved to the other extreme in the West, and the responsibility wholly and solely rests on the shoulders of the church. People have become indulgent, people have become really too much obsessed with sex.

For two thousand years Christianity. particularly the Catholic Church, has been repressing, condemning. But now a point has come when the volcano has erupted. What you see now in the West is sheer indulgence, ugly.

Sex is beautiful, but it can become ugly in two ways: either you become repressive -- it becomes ugly; or you become indulgent -- it becomes ugly. Sex is beautiful if it is accepted naturally, as part of life. there is no need to condemn it, there is no need to praise it either. When humanity is going to accept things easily, in a relaxed way?

But these people have not learned any lesson, and they go on interpreting scriptures according to their own inner turmoil.

What the Polack Pope was doing was simply making a commentary on one of the statements of Jesus. The statement is totally different, but just a jugglery of words, just a little change, and the whole thing has gone wrong.

This is the original statement of Jesus. Jesus says: "You have heard it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Now the woman is one thing and wife is totally another. The Polack has read "wife" instead of "woman" -- your own wife! And of course he can play with words. He can say, "Of course your wife is also a woman." True, but what is the meaning of her being your wife? why one gets married? To live a natural, untroubled sexual life. But to change the word "woman" into "wife" is really ugly; it is against Jesus, it is not true to his message. But you cannot expect anything better from the Polacks.

How do you recognize a Polack in a busy shoe store?

He is the one who tries to put on the shoe boxes.

Now trying to change woman into wife is exactly like that -- trying to put on the shoe boxes instead of the shoes!

Two Polacks are driving a lorry which is three meters high. They drive past a road-sign indicating a tunnel up ahead two meters high. "Just ignore the sign, Sol. I know that at this time of the day the police are not going to be there!"

Wykowsky, the window washer, was called in by a homeowner to give an estimate. "How much to clean the windows on the ground floor?"

Wykowsky pulled out a pad, scribbled a minute and replied, "Two dollars a window."

"On the second floor?" asked the homeowner.

Again Wykowsky wrote on the pad and answered, "One dollar fifty cents a window."

"And the basement?"

"Five dollars a window,' said Wykowsky.

"Wait a minute!" said the homeowner. "How come two dollars for the windows on the first floor, a buck and a half for the second floor, and you want five dollars for each of the basement windows?"

"Mister," said the Polack, "don't you realize the size of the hole I have to dig to put the ladder in?"

At a Polish wedding:

The ceremony had taken place in the ballroom of the town hotel. The newly married husband came down from the bridal suite and said to a buddy, "My best friend he upstairs in bed with my wife!"

"What do you... what you going to do about it?" asked his pal.

"Nothing," replied the Polack. "He is so drunk he thinks he be me."

The Polack was on his honeymoon, but he was too inexperienced to know the difference between love and nymphomania, because he had just escaped from a Catholic monastery.

The first morning after the wedding he rose, walked over to the window of the hotel, and raised the shade. The day was dark and gloomy and the rain was falling in torrents. Disgusted, he lowered the shade and climbed back in bed.

The next morning the young man rose again and lifted the shade. It was still raining. Once more he lowered it and crawled back into bed.

The third morning he staggered out of bed, tottered over to raise the shade -- and went up with it.

All that I can say: that one cannot expect anything better from the Pope -- he is a pure Polack! What he has said is absolutely absurd -- mental adultery with one's own wife? But in a way this is one of the oldest ideas in the Catholic Church. Sexual pleasure is suspect. In fact, ALL pleasure is suspect. These so-called religious people are afraid of pleasure, they are against all pleasure. They want your life to become so utterly depressed, gloomy, sad that you are bound to start looking for some other life -- life beyond death. Their whole effort is to destroy your life herenow so totally that the only shelter for you is left is in the life after death. Then you become available to the priests to be exploited.

If you are happy, if you are enjoying life, if you are living each moment with pleasure, a dance in the heart and a song on the lips, if your life is a sheer festivity, you will not bother much about the churches and the temples. If your life is a ceremony, who cares about the life beyond? This very moment, if you are living totally, all concern for the future disappears.

And these churches, these priests, all depend on your desire for a future life. their whole strategy is to destroy your pleasure here so that you become interested in pleasure of heavenly life. And do you see? -- what they deny here they supply there.

Here they say that to love a woman is sin. And in heaven? -- you will be provided with beautiful women. In some religions even beautiful boys will be made available to you, so homosexuals need not be worried! Here they condemn wine and there streams of wine are flowing, in paradise. Here they insist for prohibition and there all that is denied and prohibited will be made available in a thousandfold way.

Hindus say that all the pleasures are wrong, but in heaven you will be sitting under wish-fulfilling trees -- KALPAVRISHKAS -- and whatsoever you wish will be immediately fulfilled, instantly, not even a single moment's distance between the desire and its fulfillment. Naturally they have to destroy all possibilities here so you become focused on the future. And then they can exploit you, because they have the keys of the future.

If you are a Catholic only then you can be saved; or if you are a Mohammedan only then you can be saved; or if you are a Hindu only then you can be saved. The strategy is the same, the trick is the same. All the priests have been using the same trade secret: destroy pleasure in people's life, make them as much miserable as possible -- once they are miserable they are bound to fall unto your feet and ask for your advice and guidance.

There is nothing wrong in pleasure. Even in physical pleasure there is nothing wrong; it is a God's gift. If God was against the body he would not give you the body in the first place; if he was against sex he would not give you sexual energy, sexual desire and longing. If all these things are given by nature to you, they are natural. Yes, one thing is certain: don't remain clinging to the physical pleasure only because there are higher possibilities. greater potential in you.

So I say physical pleasure is beautiful in its own place, but that is not the end of life. You can have psychological pleasures; psychological pleasures are called happiness. Listening to beautiful music -- Beethoven or Mozart or Ravi Shankar -- listening to great poetry -- Kalidas, Balbhuti Shakespeare, Milton -- listening to the nature -- the birds, the wind passing through the trees, the dance of the trees in the sun, or looking at the beautiful paintings, great sculpture, architecture -- these are pleasures of the mind.

The physical pleasures are two: food and sex. Nothing is wrong in them, so don't repress them, because repression will bring indulgence. Accept them in a simple, innocent way, and then move ahead. That is not the end, that is only the beginning of the journey.

And even the pleasures of the mind are not the end; then there are joys of the spirit. Meditation, silence, prayer, these are the joys of meditation, joys of the soul. And still there is the ultimate, the turiya, the fourth -- even to go beyond the self. That's what Buddha calls attaining the zero, nothingness: just being, without any idea of "I". That is inexpressible; it is called bliss.

These are the four planes: pleasure, happiness, joy. bliss. And the higher you go, richer you become. But remember, the higher contains the lower. The ultimate, the fourth, is fourth only because it contains all the three. It is not against the three: those three are its foundations, steppingstones the ladder. The higher contains the lower; the lower does not contain the higher. Once this is understood, then the lower is good as far as it goes, although it does not go far enough.

So go as far as it goes, but don't stop there. There is still more to life. Explore! Move from the body to the mind, from the mind to the self, and from the self to no-self, anatta, nothingness. Then only you will know the ultimate unfoldment of your being. That is bliss, the one-thousand-petaled lotus blossoming.

And lastly: what the Polack Pope has said is male chauvinistic. He talks about men lusting after women but not the reverse. Women are not considered at all -- they are not worth consideration. Nobody bothers about them. He is talking about men, that man should not lust after women, but not about women. What about women? Nothing has to be said. They are not counted as human beings; they are commodities, far lower. They don't have any future, they don't belong to the spiritual world.

For centuries this male chauvinistic attitude has prevailed. In India the so-called saints go on saying that the woman is the door of hell, but they don't say the same thing about men. They go on condemning the women, but they never say anything about the men. If the woman infatuates man, then the man infatuates the woman.

But even your saints are not true sages -- they are male chauvinistic pigs! Otherwise man and woman are two aspects of the same humanity; they require the same respect. But the whole past has been condemnatory about women. It only shows one thing, nothing else: that your saints were deep down afraid of women, hence they were creating all kinds of barriers around themselves, that "the woman is the door to hell." They were trying to convince themselves that the woman consists only of bones and blood and pus and mucus. And what they consist of? -- gold, silver, diamonds?

It is very strange! Not a single saint says what he consists of -- and he comes from the woman. From the woman's womb he comes, brings all the blood and the bone and the pus and the mucus from the woman, and he condemns the woman. He is really afraid, afraid of his own sexuality; afraid because he has been told that sex is sin. And of course to him the woman symbolizes sex.

Nobody bothers about the woman, what is her situation. In fact, women are very non-aggressive as far as sexuality is concerned. NO woman can rape a man, only a man can rape a woman. Man's sexuality is aggressive, woman's sexuality is receptive. Woman can live without sex far more easily than man, hence nuns are far more true than the monks -- the monks are hypocrites. But the poor woman is condemned continuously.

I would like to change this whole ugly tradition. I he woman will be respected only when sex is also respected, remember it. The woman will be accepted only when sex is also accepted as natural.

These popes, these shankaracharyas, these IMAMS, these so-called saints have created a very ugly situation. It has to be completely destroyed and a new beginning has to be made in which man and woman are no more separate, are no more thought separately, in which man and woman are considered equally because they are two aspects of the same sex, two sides of the same coin.

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO,

IS THIS WORLD INSANE?

Siddhartha,

IT SEEMS SO. At least up to now it has been insane. Man is not born insane but is driven towards insanity by the priests, by the politicians, by the parents, by your whole educational system, by your morality, by all that is enforced upon you, by all the conditionings. You are driven insane.

Man need not be insane, but it has not been possible yet to accept man in his naturalness. We create a structure around him, we prune him, we go on and on giving a certain form and pattern to him, we don't allow him to be himself

And that's my whole effort here: to accept humanity with deep respect, love, trust, so that man can regain his sanity. And the problem is that man is driven insane by your so-called well-wishers. The people who are trying to help you are the people who are poisoning you. Great mischief is being done by public servants, missionaries, by the so-called saints. They are the most mischievous people in the world -- not intentionally, not consciously, but that's the ultimate result of whatsoever they have been doing. they have been driven insane by other saints and they are driving you insane. And if you don't follow them you feel guilty; if you follow them you become hypocrites. They don't leave you any other alternative, only two alternatives: either be insane like them or feel guilty. And both the alternatives are ill, sickening.

Siddhartha, watch life all around you and you will find in every possible way that man is insane.

When the seven-year-old started for school. his mother suggested softly, "Son, put a smile on your face and have a happy time!"

But when the lad returned home his face was a big frown.

"What happened?" his mother asked. "I thought you were going to smile and have a happy time at school."

"It didn't work, Mom," he said. "I tried to keep smiling, but the teacher thought I was up to something and was always giving me dirty looks!"

Nobody wants you to be happy. If you are happy, everybody will become suspicious of you: "YOU are up to something. Why you are looking so happy?" If you are sad you are accepted -- you are part of the crowd. Everybody is sad and you are also sad; it fits. But if you are dancing and rejoicing then you are crazy, mad. Then you have to be put into a hospital, you have to be treated, given electric shocks or something, because how you can be happy? How you can be so blissful? When the whole humanity is suffering, you have to suffer.

And the crowd has always been against the people who were blissful. They crucified Jesus, they poisoned Socrates, they murdered Mansoor; and their only sin was that they were trying to be blissful, that they were not part of the mob, the sad, sick society. They were trying to be individuals.

The marriage counselor was asking a woman some questions about her disposition. "Did you wake up grumpy this morning?"

"No," she answered. "I let him sleep."

A woman driver passed a red light and collided with another car. Jumping out of her car, she snapped at the other driver, "Why don't you watch where you're going? You are the third car I hit this morning!"

When a customer was told he could no longer buy his favorite patent medicine, he angrily berated the druggist.

"But I tell you, it has now been banned," the druggist insisted. "Now you need a doctor's prescription because it is habit-forming."

"It is not habit-forming!" the customer cried. "I know it's not because I've been taking it every day for twenty years!"

A client was complaining to a marriage counselor that his wife's immaturity was causing his marriage to go on the rocks. "She is so immature," he charged, "that every time I take a bath she comes in and sinks my boats!"

The elderly millionaire emerged from his exclusive club feeling despondent and hopeless, and slowly climbed into his limousine.

"Where to, sir?" asked his chauffeur.

"Drive off a cliff, James," was the reply. "I am committing suicide!"

A leading sexologist interviewed on television was asked, "What do you think of the view that impotence is on the rise?"

"I think the question is self-contradictory!" he replied.

It is an insane world!

In old age Diogenes stopped a veteran and asked, "What were you in the last war?"

"Oh, I was only a private," replied the veteran.

Diogenes rocked as if about to fall. "Ye gods!" he gasped. "At last!" Then after catching his breath he blew out his lantern and went home.

You think over it -- it is a little difficult.

And the last question:

Question 4

OSHO,

YOU SURE MAKE A GREAT SIT-DOWN COMIC! WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU STOOD UP?

Vivek.

- x -

Other books of Osho (with dA cover concept):

From Sex to Superconciousness -- (dA concept)

I Am That -- (dA concept)

The Great Path -- (dA concept)

Hidden Mysteries -- (dA concept)

The Heartbeat of the Absolute -- (dA concept)

For advanced seekers (txt format):
The Secret of Secrets Vol.1 // The Secret of Secrets Vol.2 // The Heart Sutra // Turning In // Vedanta

More Books (html format) and Music:
The White Lotus // The Mahageeta // // Death is Divine // Yes! // The Divine Madness // Narayana // Om Namo