God loves laughter

Question 1:

BELOVED MASTER,

IN THE WEST I WAS TRAINED AS A SOCIAL WORKER. I WAS TAUGHT THAT IT
IS IMPORTANT THAT A PERSON RESPECTS AND LOVES HIMSELF AND FEELS
WORTHWHILE. I WAS TAUGHT THAT IT IS IMPORTANT TO GIVE SUPPORT TO
HELP STRENGTHEN THE EGO. YOU SAY KILL THE EGO. I AM CONFUSED.

Prem Aradhana, the ego is needed because the true self is not known. The ego is a substitute, it is a pseudo entity. Because you don't know yourself you have to create an artificial center; otherwise functioning in life will be impossible. Because you don't know your real face, you have to wear a mask. Not knowing the essential, you have to trust in the shadow.

There are only two ways of living in life. One is to live it from the very core of your being - that has been the way of the mystics. Meditation is nothing but a device to make you aware of your real self - which is not created by you, which need not be created by you, which you already are. You are born with it, you ARE it! It needs to be discovered. If this is not possible, or if the society does not allow it to happen...and no society allows it to happen, because the real self is dangerous - dangerous for the established church, dangerous for the state, dangerous for the crowd, dangerous for the tradition - because once a man knows his real self, he becomes an individual. He no longer belongs to the mob psychology; he will not be superstitious, and he cannot be exploited. He cannot be led like cattle, he cannot be ordered and commanded. He will live according to his light, he will live from his own inwardness. His life will have tremendous beauty, integrity. But that is the fear of the society.

Integrated persons become individuals, and the society wants you to be nonindividuals.

Instead of individuality, the society teaches you to be a personality. The word 'personality' has to be understood. It comes from a root, 'persona' - persona means a mask. The society gives you a false idea of who you are; it gives you just a toy, and you go on clinging to the toy your whole life.

The one way is to live through meditation - then you live a life of rebellion, of adventure, of courage. Then you really live! The other way to live, or to fake living, is the way of the ego - strengthen the ego, nourish the ego; so that you need not look into the self, cling to the ego. The ego is an artefact created by the society to deceive you, to distract you.

The ego is man-made, manufactured by us. And because it is manufactured by the society, society has power over it. Because it is manufactured by the state and the church, and those who are in power, they can destroy it any moment; it depends on them. You have to be constantly in fear, and you have to be constantly obeying them, conforming to them, so that your ego remains intact. The society gives you respect if you are not an individual. The society honors you if you are not a Jesus, not a Socrates, not a Buddha. It respects you only if you are a sheep, not a man.

The West has completely forgotten how to meditate - and Christianity has been the reason. Christianity has created a very false religion, which knows nothing of meditation. Christianity is very formal; it is a ritual. It is part of the society and the political structure of the society. Karl Marx is perfectly right about it, that it is the opium of the people. Because of Christianity, the West has lost track of its own being. And one cannot live without SOME idea of one's self - and if you cannot discover, then create something. It will be false, but something is better than nothing.

Aradhana, what you have been told is utter nonsense. It does not matter who has been telling it - the universities, the politicians, the priests. Certainly, you will be feeling confused, because I am telling you just the opposite: I am telling you to get rid of the ego, because if you get rid of the ego, you get rid of the rock that is preventing the flow of your consciousness.

Your consciousness is there, just behind the rock; it has not to be brought from somewhere else. Remove the rock - real religion consists only of removing that which is unnecessary, and then the necessary starts flowing. That which is unessential has to be removed. And the essential is already there, is already the case! You remove the rock and you will be surprised: you need not create the real self - it reveals itself to you.

And the real has beauty, and the real is deathless. Because it is deathless it has no fear.

The unreal is constantly trembling. The ego is always in danger - anybody can destroy it. Because it has been given to you by others, they can take it back. Today they respect you, tomorrow they may not respect you. If you don't follow their idea of life, if you don't confirm their style of being, they will withdraw their respect. And you will be flat on the ground...and you will not know who you are.

Borges writes:

"I dreamt that I was awakening from another dream - full of cataclysms and turmoil - and that I was waking up in a room which I did not recognize. Dawn was breaking: a faint diffused light outlined the foot of the iron bedstead, the table. I thought fearfully 'Where am I?' and realized that I did not know. I thought 'Who am I?' and I could not recognize myself. Fear grew within me. I thought, 'This distressing awakening is already hell, this awakening without a future will be my eternity.' Then I really awoke, trembling."

Not to know oneself, to know one's destiny, that's certainly real hell. And man does not know himself. Now, the cheaper way is to create the ego, and the West has been following the cheaper way. And not only the West: the majority of people in the East, too, have been doing the same. Just leave a few enlightened people aside, and the whole world has been doing the same.

The West consists of ninety-nine point nine percent of the people in the world; the East consists of only a few people, they can be counted on the fingers. To me, the East and the West are not geographical - they are spiritual dimensions. Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Saint Francis - the East consists of these people. Where they were born is immaterial, is irrelevant. Certainly Saint Francis was not born in the East, but I count him as part of the East.

The spiritual dimension, the dimension where the inner sun rises, is the East. And the dark night of the soul, which knows nothing of the sunrise, is the West. You don't become religious just by being born in India. Religion is not that cheap. It is the costliest thing in existence, because it is the most precious. There is no shortcut to it, and those who seek shortcuts are bound to be deceived by somebody. They will be given toys, and you can go on believing in toys because you don't want to risk an adventure into the unknown.

The greatest unknown exists within you. The most uncharted sea is your consciousness, and the most dangerous too, because when you start moving inwards, you start falling into an emptiness, and great fear arises, the fear of going mad, the fear of losing your identity. ...Because you have known yourself as a name, you have known yourself as a particular person - you have known yourself as a doctor, as an engineer, as a businessman; you have known yourself as an Indian, a German, a Chinese; you have known yourself as black or white; you have known yourself as man or woman; you have known yourself as educated or uneducated - all these categories start disappearing.

As you move inwards, you are neither man nor woman: NETI, NETI - neither this nor that, neither white nor black, neither Hindu nor Mohammedan, neither Indian nor Pakistani. As you move inwards, all these categories start slipping out of your hands.

Then who are you? You start losing track of your ego, and a great fear arises - the fear of nothingness. You are falling into infinity. Who knows whether you will be able to come back or not? And who knows what is going to be the outcome of this exploration?

The coward clings to the shore and forgets all about the sea. That's what is happening all over the world. People cling to the ego because ego gives you a certain idea of who you are, gives you a certain clarity. But the ego is false, and the clarity is false.

It is better to be confused with reality than to be clear with unreality.

Aradhana, you are right: with me a great confusion is bound to happen - because all your knowledge, slowly slowly, will be proved simple ignorance and nothing else.

Hiding behind your knowledge is your ignorance. Hiding behind your cleverness is your stupid mind. And behind the ego there is nothing - it is a shadow.

Once this becomes clear to you, that you have been clinging to the shadow, a great fear and a great confusion, a great chaos is bound to happen. But out of the chaos stars are born. One has to pass through such chaos - that is part of spiritual growth. You have to lose the false to get to the real. But between the two there will be an interval when the false will be gone and the true will not yet have arrived. Those are the moments, the most critical moments...these are the moments when you need a master or a friend.

Just the other day, Buddha was saying, "A master or a friend is needed." These are the moments when you will need somebody's hand who can hold you, who can support you, who can say, "Don't be afraid. This emptiness is going to disappear. Soon you will be overflowing - just a little more waiting, a little more patience." The master cannot give you anything, but he can give you courage. He can give you his hand in those critical moments when your mind would like to go back, to turn back, to cling again to the shore.

The joy of the master, his confidence, his authority...remember, when I say "his authority" I don't mean that a master is authoritarian. A master is never authoritarian, but he has authority, because he is a witness to his own self. He knows about the other shore, he has BEEN to the other shore. You have only HEARD about the other shore, you have read about it; you know only about this shore, and the comfort and the security, and the safety of this shore. And when the storms rage and when you start losing sight of this shore, and you are not able to see the other shore, your mind will say, "Go back! Go back as fast as possible! The old shore is disappearing and the new is not appearing. Maybe there is nothing on the other shore, maybe there is no other shore at all. And the storm is great!"

In those moments, if you are with a master, and somebody is sitting in the boat silent, utterly calm and quiet, laughing and saying, "Don't be worried," playing on his flute, or singing a song, or telling you a joke, and he says, "Don't be worried. The other shore is - - I know, I have been there. Just a little patience...."

Looking into his eyes...in his absolute confidence will be the only help. Seeing his calmness, quietness, his integrity.... He is not looking back, he is not afraid: he must have seen the other shore, he must have been there. His whole being says it, his whole being proves it. And when he holds your hand you can feel that his hand is not trembling; you can feel that whatsoever he is saying he is saying out of his own experience, not because it is written in the Bible, in the Gita, in THE DHAMMAPADA.

He KNOWS it on his own! - that is his authority.

Once his confidence, his trust, becomes contagious to you, you will also start laughing.

Of course, your laughter will have a little nervousness in it, but you will start laughing.

You may start singing with him, maybe just to avoid fear, just as people whistle in the dark. You may join in his dance, just to forget all about what is happening. You don't want to see the storm that surrounds you, and you don't want to remember the past and you don't want to think about the future. It seems dark and dismal to you. You may join in his dance....

Dancing with him, even if out of fear, singing with him even though your singing is bound to be nervous, laughing with him although your laughter is not total, the storm will soon be passed. The deeper your patience, the sooner it happens - you will be able to see the other shore, because when the eyes are not troubled, when the eyes are not full of fear, they become perceptive. A seeing arises in you - you become a seer.

The other shore is not far away; just your eyes are so full of smoke that you cannot see.

In fact, this very shore IS the other shore. If your eyes are clear, if your perception is not clouded, if your insight has arisen in your being, if you can see and hear, this very shore is the other shore. When one knows, one really laughs at the whole ridiculousness of life - because we have already got that for which we are longing. The treasure is with us, and we are running hither and thither.

The ego has not to be created, because you have the supreme self within you.

But I can understand your confusion. Remain confused. Don't go back to your old clarity - it is deceptive. Be in this confusion, be with me a little while more, and soon the confusion will disperse and disappear. And then comes a totally new kind of clarity.

There are two kinds of clarity - one, which is simply intellectual, which any moment can be taken away, doubt can be created any moment.... Intellect is full of doubt.

Whatsoever you had heard and whatsoever you had been told has been taken away so easily by me; it was not of much value. Your whole life's training, and I have taken the earth from underneath your feet so easily...and you are confused. What value can such clarity have? If I can confuse you so easily, that means it was not real clarity. I will give you a new kind of clarity which cannot be confused.

Once a great philosopher went to see Ramakrishna. The philosopher argued against God, and he argued really well. His name was Keshav Chandra Sen. Ramakrishna was utterly illiterate; he knew nothing of philosophy, he had never been to the university, he had only read up to the second standard. He could write and read Bengali a little bit.

The philosopher was well educated, world famous, he had written many books. He argued, and Ramakrishna laughed. And each time the philosopher gave a beautiful, profound argument against God, Ramakrishna would jump and hug him. A great crowd had gathered to see the scene, what was happening. The philosopher was very much embarrassed, because he had come to argue, and what kind of argument is this?

This man laughs, dances - sometimes hugs.

The philosopher said, "Are you not disturbed by my arguments?"

Ramakrishna said, "How can I be disturbed? I am really enjoying your arguments. You are clever, you are intelligent, your arguments are beautiful - but what can I do? I know God! It is not a question of argument, it is not that I believe in God. Had I believed, you would have disturbed me, you would have taken all my clarity and you would have confused me. But I KNOW he is!"

If you know, you know - there is no way of distracting you. I will give you THAT kind of clarity - which knows, and is not dependent on any argument but arises out of existential experience. Then you need not be taught to respect yourself or love yourself or feel worthwhile. Knowing oneself, one knows one is God. Now what more respect can you give to yourself? When this experience arises in you - "AHAM BRAHMASMI!

I am God!" - what more respect can you give to yourself?

And who is there to give respect? Only God is. When in the deepest recesses of your being the realization happens: "ANA'L HAQ! - I am truth!" what more worthwhileness do you need to feel? You have come to the ultimate, and you have come to know the ultimate as your innermost being, your interiority.

Yes, you have been told to be respectful to yourself because you don't know who you are. You have been told to feel worthwhile because you feel worthless. You have been told to love yourself because you hate yourself. And the strange thing is, the irony is, that it is the SAME people who have been doing both things to you.

The same people first make you feel worthless; this is the trade secret of all the churches, of all the so-called religions, of all political ideologies, of all societies, civilizations and cultures that have existed up to now. This is the trade secret: first they make you feel worthless - every child is made to feel worthless. He is told, "Unless you become this or that, you have no worth." When he starts feeling worthless, than we start telling him, "Feel worthwhile, feel some worth. If you cannot feel worthwhile, your life is wasted."

First we tell him to hate himself and condemn himself; everything that he does is wrong, hence he starts hating himself because he is not a beautiful person. The parents, the teachers, the priests, they are all joined in the conspiracy. Every child is reduced to such a condemnable state that he starts feeling, "I must be the ugliest person in the world, because I do things that should not be done, and I don't do things which should be done." And then one day we start telling the child, "Why don't you love yourself?

Otherwise, how will you survive?"

We take all respect away from the child, and when he becomes disrespectful towards himself we start telling him to create respect. This is such an absurd situation! Each child is born with great respect for himself. Each child knows his worth, his intrinsic worth. He is not worthy because he is like Buddha or Krishna or Christ - he simply knows he has worth because he is, he has being. That's enough! And each child loves himself, respects himself.

It is you who teach him just the opposite. First you destroy all that is beautiful in him, and then you start painting a false picture. Destroy the natural beauty and then paint his face, make him absolutely false. But why is this done? - because only false people can be slaves, only false people can follow the stupid politicians, only false people can be victims of utterly ignorant priests. If people are real, they cannot be exploited and cannot be oppressed.

Aradhana, remain confused - it is good. It is good that you have come to this point where a great confusion has arisen in you. You can no longer trust your ego - good! It is tremendously important, because now a second step becomes possible. I will give you your childhood back, your inner worth, which is not a created phenomenon; your natural love, which is not cultivated; your spontaneous respect, which arises only when you start feeling that you are part of God, that you are divine.

Remember, ego is comparative - it always compares itself with others - and the self is noncomparative. When you know yourself it is neither inferior nor superior in comparison to anybody, it is simply itself. But the ego is comparative. And remember, if you feel superior to somebody, you are bound to feel inferior to somebody else. So the ego is a very tricky phenomenon: on the one hand it makes you feel superior, on the other hand it makes you feel inferior. It keeps you in a double bind, it goes on pulling you apart. It drives you crazy.

On the one hand you know that you are superior to your servant, but what about your boss? You force the servant to surrender to you, and you surrender to your boss. You force your servant or your wife or your children to be slaves to you. And then to your boss? You wag your tail there.

How can you be blissful? Both things are wrong. To make others feel inferior is violent, it is a crime against God; and to make yourself feel inferior before somebody is again a crime against God. When you know the real self, both things disappear. Then you are you, and the other is the other, and there is no comparison - nobody is superior and nobody is inferior.

This is what I call real spiritual communism, but this is possible only when self- knowledge has happened. Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels, Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong, these are not the real communists. They live in the ego. The real communists are Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu - nobody knows them as communists but they are real communists, because if you understand their vision, all comparison disappears. And when there is no comparison, there is communism. Equality is possible only when comparison disappears from the world.

Not knowing yourself, you are almost fast asleep; not knowing yourself, you are like a drunkard who asks others, "Where is my home?" The drunkard sometimes even asks, "Can you tell me, sir, who I am?"

Once a drunkard came back to the bartender and asked him, "Have you seen my friend?

Has he been here?"

The bartender said, "Yes, just a few minutes before, he was here."

And the drunkard asked, "Will you be kind enough to tell me, was I with him too?"

There was a drunk standing at a bar one day. He turned to the man on his right and said, "Did you pour beer in my pocket?"

"I certainly did not," said the man.

Then the drunk turned to the man on his left and said, "Did you pour beer in my pocket?"

The man said, "I most certainly did not pour beer in your pocket."

The drunk said, "Just like I thought - an inside job."

The second question:

Question 2:

BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE NEW COMMUNE?

Krishna Prem, the new commune is an experiment in spiritual communism. The word 'communism' comes from 'commune'. There is only one possibility of communism in the world and that possibility is through meditation. Communism is not possible through changing the economic structures of societies.

The change of economic structures of societies will only bring new classes; it cannot bring a classless society. The proletariat may disappear, the bourgeoisie may go, but then the ruler and the ruled...that's what has happened in Soviet Russia, that's what has happened in China. New distinctions, new classes have arisen.

Communism is basically a spiritual vision. It is not a question of changing the economic structures of the society, but changing people's spiritual vision. The new commune is going to be a space where we can create human beings who are not obsessed with comparison, who are not obsessed with the ego, who are not obsessed with the personality.

The new commune is going to be a context in which a new kind of man can become possible. Socrates says that the master is a midwife, and he is right: all masters are midwives. They always bring new humanities into existence. Through them a new man is born.

The old man is finished. The old man is no more valid. And with the old man, all that belonged to the old man has also become invalid, irrelevant. The old man was life- negative. The new commune will create a life-affirmative religiousness. The motto of the new commune is: This very body the Buddha, this very earth the Lotus Paradise.

The new commune is going to hallow the earth, to make everything sacred. We are not going to divide existence into this world and that world: we are going to live existence in its totality. We are going to live as scientists, as poets, as mystics - all together!

The scientist is partial. He believes only in the body, he cannot go beyond it; his vision is very limited, shortsighted. The poet clings to another aspect of humanity, the feeling part. He can see the beauty, but his beauty is very momentary. He has no idea of the eternal. The mystic lives in the being, he lives in the deathless, timeless state. Because he lives in the deathless, timeless state he becomes indifferent to the world of time and space. He becomes indifferent both to science and to poetry. These are all three aspects of reality, three faces of God, the trinity, TRIMURTI.

My effort in the new commune is to create a man who is not partial...who is total, whole, holy. A man should be all three together. He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist; and he should be as sensitive, as full of the heart, as the poet; and he should be as rooted deep down in his being as the mystic. He should not choose. He should allow all these three dimensions to exist together.

The East suffered because we became too much concerned with the being; we lost track of science, we lost track of art. The West has suffered, is suffering, because it has lost track of being. The East became inwardly rich but outwardly poor; the West has become outwardly rich, inwardly poor. The new commune is going to be rich in both ways.

I believe in richness. I am not a worshipper of poverty. That is simply stupid. I would like humanity to be rich in all possible ways: rich in science, rich in technology, rich in poetry, rich in music, rich in meditation, rich in mysticism. Life should be lived in its multidimensionality. God should be approached through all possible ways. Why impoverish your soul?

The new commune is going to create a space, a context, for this multidimensional human being to be born. And the future belongs to this new man.

The old man believed in renunciation; the old man believed that if you want to come closer to God you have to be away from the world, as if there is a conflict between God and the world. It is obviously wrong. The world exists through God! The world is God's body - there can't be any conflict! If there had been any conflict, then the world would have disappeared long ago.

The world breathes, is alive, and life is God. The tree is divine because it is alive, and the rock is divine because the rock is also alive in its own way, the rock also grows. The whole existence is full of life, overflowing with life. God is not against the world - how can the painter be against his painting? and how can the poet be against his poetry? and how can the musician be against his music? The world is his poetry, his painting, his music - it is his dance.

The old man lived in renunciation, escaped away from the world to the caves, to the monasteries, to the Himalayas. The old man was escapist, the old man was afraid to live, he was more ready to die. The old man was somehow suicidal.

My new man is going to be deep in love with life. And my religion is not of renunciation but of rejoicing. The new commune will create every possible opportunity to rejoice, sing, dance.

The new commune is going to be of a totally new kind of religiousness, spirituality.

Nobody is going to be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Jaina, but everybody is going to be religious - just religious. To me, religion needs no adjectives.

And the moment a religion becomes attached to an adjective, it is no longer religion - it becomes politics.

Bayazid is not Mohammedan. Mohammed himself is not Mohammedan, cannot be.

Christ is not Christian and Buddha is not Buddhist. They are simply religious. They have a certain flavor, a certain silence, a certain grace, surrounding them. They are windows to the beyond. Through them you can see the beyond, through them God goes on singing a thousand and one songs.

The new commune is not going to be of any religion. It will be religious. But the religion will not be unearthly, it will be very down to earth; hence it will be creative, it will explore all possibilities of being creative. All kinds of creativity will be supported, nourished.

The real religious man has to contribute to the world. He has to make it a little more beautiful than he found it when he came into the world. He has to make it a little more joyous. He has to make it a little more perfumed. He has to make it a little more harmonious. That is going to be his contribution.

In the past we respected people for wrong reasons. We respected somebody because he was fasting. Now, fasting contributes nothing to the world. And the man who goes on long fasts is simply being violent with himself. To respect him is to respect violence, to respect him is to respect suicidal instincts, to respect him is to respect masochism. He is mentally ill! He is not natural, he is abnormal. He needs psychological treatment, he needs help. But you respect him, and because of your respect, his ego becomes puffed up; so if he was going to fast for one month, he will fast for three months. And the more he fasts, the more he tortures his body, the more respect you give to him.

The new commune will not respect any masochistic tendencies. It will not respect any asceticism, it will not respect any abnormal, unnatural tendencies - it will respect the natural man. It will respect the child in man, it will respect innocence, and it will respect creativity. It will respect a man who paints a beautiful picture, it will respect the man who plays beautifully on the flute. The flute-player will be religious, and the painter will be religious, and the dancer will be religious; not the man who goes on long fasts, who tortures his body, who lies down on a bed of thorns, who cripples himself.

It is going to be the beginning of a new humanity. It is needed, absolutely needed. If we cannot create the new man in the coming twenty years - by the end of this century - then humanity has no future. The old man has come to the end of his tether. The old man is ready to commit a global suicide. The third world war is going to be global suicide. It can be avoided only if a new kind of man can be created.

This is going to be an experiment, a great experiment on which much is going to depend. It has tremendous implications for the future. Be ready for it. Be prepared for it. This ashram is just a launching pad.... On a small scale I am experimenting. The new commune will be on a big scale: ten thousand sannyasins living together as one body, one being. Nobody will possess anything; everybody will use everything, everybody will enjoy. Everybody is going to live as comfortably, as richly, as we can manage. But nobody will possess anything. Not only will things not be possessed, but persons also will not be possessed in the new commune. If you love a woman, live with her - out of sheer love, out of sheer joy - but you don't become her husband, you can't. You don't become a wife. To become a "wife" or a "husband" is ugly because it brings ownership; then the other is reduced to property.

The new commune is going to be nonpossessive, full of love - living in love but with no possessiveness at all; sharing all kinds of joys, making a pool of all the joys.... When ten thousand people contribute, it can become explosive. The rejoicing will be great.

Jesus says again and again: Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! But he has not been heard yet.

Christians look so serious, and they have painted Jesus also in such a way that it doesn't seem that he ever rejoiced himself. Christians say Jesus never laughed! This is ridiculous. The man who was saying "Rejoice!" the man who used to love good food, good wine, the man who used to feast and participate in festivals, the man around whom there was always feasting - he never laughed? Christians have given a false Christ to the world.

In my commune, Buddha is going to laugh and dance, Christ is going to laugh and dance. Poor fellows, nobody has allowed them up to now! Have compassion on them - let them dance and sing and play. My new commune is going to transform work into playfulness, it is going to transform life into love and laughter.

Remember the motto again - to hallow the earth, to make everything sacred, to transform the ordinary, mundane things into extraordinary, spiritual things. The whole of life has to be your temple; work has to be your worship, love has to be your prayer.

This very body the Buddha, this very earth the Lotus Paradise.

The third question:

Question 3:

BELOVED MASTER,
I AM A PSYCHOLOGIST. I WAS HOPING THAT STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY
WOULD HELP TO CHANGE MY LIFE, BUT NOTHING LIKE THAT HAS
HAPPENED. WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?

Psychology is still a very very immature science. It is very rudimentary, it is only the beginning. It is not yet a way of life - it cannot transform you. It can certainly give you a few insights into the mind, but those insights are not going to be transforming. Why? - - because transformation always happens from a higher plane. Transformation never means solving problems - remaining on the same plane - that means adjustment.

Psychology is still trying to help you adjust - to adjust to the society which is itself insane, to adjust to the family, to adjust to the ideas that are dominant around you. But all those ideas - your family, your society - they themselves are ill, sick, and to adjust to them will give you a certain normality, at least a superficial appearance of health, but it is not going to transform you.

Transformation means to change the plane of your understanding. It comes through transcendence. If you want to change your mind, you have to go to the state of no- mind. Only from that height will you be able to change your mind, because from that height you will be the master. Remaining in the mind and trying to change the mind by mind itself is a futile process. It is like pulling yourself up by your own shoestrings. It is like a dog trying to catch hold of its own tail; sometimes they do, sometimes they behave very humanly. The dog is sitting in the warm sun early in the morning and he looks at the tail just resting by his side - naturally, the curiosity arises: Why not catch hold of it? He tries, fails, feels offended, annoyed; tries hard, fails harder, becomes mad, crazy. But he will never be able to catch hold of the tail - it is his own tail. The more he jumps, the more the tail will jump.

Psychology can give you a few insights into the mind, but because it cannot take you beyond the mind it can't be of any help.

Sam became a psychiatrist and began to prosper. He bought a big expensive limousine and drove it out for the first time. After he had been riding for a few moments, another car slammed into him. He jumped out of his smashed Cadillac, went over to the car that had rammed his, shook his fist at it, and roared, "You idiot! You moron! You crook of a rat! You son of a...!" Then he suddenly remembered he was a psychiatrist and lowered his voice and softly asked, "Why do you hate your mother?"

Psychology cannot help. I have heard another story about this same Sam - a story of when he was no more in the world, he had died.

The widow was tending to the plants around her husband's grave. As she bent over, some blades of grass tickled the bare flesh under her skirt. Startled, she turned around quickly, but there was no one in sight. Sighing, she turned back to the grave and whispered, "Sam, behave yourself! And remember, you are supposed to be dead."

Neither in life nor in death is psychology going to help you much. You can be helped only by religion.

Now the psychologist is trying to play the role of the master, which is utterly pretentious. The psychologist, the psychoanalyst and the psychiatrist are not masters!

They don't know themselves. Yes, they have understood a little bit about the mechanism of the mind, they have studied, they are well informed. But information never changes anybody, it never brings any revolution. Deep down the person remains the same. He can talk beautifully, he can give you good advice, but he cannot follow his own advice.

The psychoanalyst cannot be the master. But in the West particularly he has become so successful professionally that even the priest is in tremendous awe. Even the priests - the Catholic and the Protestant - are studying psychoanalysis and other schools of psychology, because they see that people are not coming to the priest anymore, they are going to the psychoanalyst. The priest is becoming afraid that he is losing his job.

The priest has dominated people for hundreds of years. He was the wise man - he has lost his attraction. And people cannot live without advisors; they need somebody to tell them what to do because they never grow up. They are like small children, always in need of being told what to do and what not to do. Up to now the priest used to do that; now the priest has lost his charm, his validity. He is no longer contemporary, he has become out of date. Now the psychoanalyst has taken his place, HE is the priest now.

But as the priest was false, so is the psychoanalyst. The priest was using religious jargon to exploit people; the psychologist is using scientific jargon to exploit the same people.

Neither was the priest awakened, nor is the psychoanalyst awakened.

Man can be helped only by somebody who is a buddha already; otherwise he cannot be helped.

All your advisors will make more and more mess out of you. The more you listen to advisors, the more you will become messed up - because they don't know what they are saying! They don't even agree amongst themselves. Freud says one thing, Adler says another, Jung says still another. And now there are a thousand and one schools.

And every school is fanatical about its philosophy - that it has the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Not only does it say that it is true; it says it has THE truth, and everybody else is lying, deceiving.

If you listen to these psychoanalysts, if you go from one psychoanalyst to another, you will be more puzzled. The only help that they can give to you is that if you are intelligent enough you will become so fed up with them, so bored with them, that you will simply drop the idea of being transformed, and you may start living your life normally, without bothering much about transformation - IF you are intelligent, which is very rare, because intelligence is crushed from the very beginning. You are made mediocres. From the very beginning, intelligence is destroyed. Only a few people somehow escape the society and remain intelligent.

Nagesh, you ask me, "What should I do now?"

My suggestion is: you have done enough. Now learn something which is not DOING but nondoing. Be here, and learn - not to do but to be. Sit silently, doing nothing.

Within three to nine months, if one is patient enough and if one can simply go on sitting for hours together every day - as much as one can find time just sit.... In the beginning, great turmoil will arise in your mind; everything from the unconscious will start surfacing. You will see it as if you are going mad. Go on watching - don't be worried.

You cannot go mad because you are already mad, so there is nothing to lose and nothing to fear.

A politician, a great politician, was consulting a psychoanalyst. The politician was suffering from an inferiority complex - all politicians suffer from inferiority complexes.

If they don't suffer from inferiority complexes, they will not be politicians in the first place. To be a politician means striving to be superior, to be in power, so one can prove to others and to oneself, "I am not inferior. Look! I am the prime minister. Look! Only I am the prime minister of the country and nobody else - how can I be inferior?"

Politics arises out of the inferiority complex - all power politics arises out of the inferiority complex. So it was not rare that the politician was suffering from an inferiority complex.

The psychoanalyst worked on the politician year in, year out. After two or three years, listening to all his gibberish nonsense...because what can a politician say? For hours together he would lie down on the couch and talk nonsense.

After three years, one day when he came, the psychoanalyst received him with great joy and said, "I am glad to declare, after three years' research on you, that you don't suffer from an inferiority complex. I have come to this conclusion after such a long effort that it can't be wrong. You don't suffer from an inferiority complex - simply forget all about it."

The politician was very happy and he said, "I am grateful to you, but can you tell me how you arrived at this conclusion?"

The psychoanalyst said, "Because you ARE simply inferior - how can you suffer from an inferiority complex?"

Nagesh, you need not be worried. If sitting silently you start feeling madness arising, don't be worried - you can't be more mad than you already are. Man cannot fall more.

He has fallen to the rock bottom. Now there is no further to fall.

Sitting silently you will see madness arising in you, because it has remained repressed.

And you keep occupied with things - psychology etcetera - now you will become occupied with meditation and sannyas, but these are all occupations and you are not allowing your unconscious to reveal itself to you. It is frightening.

My suggestion to you is, just sit silently as much as you can find time to. Zen people sit silently at least six to eight hours per day. In the beginning it is really maddening. The mind plays so many tricks on you, tries to drive you crazy, creates imaginary fears, hallucinations. The body starts playing tricks on you...all kinds of things will happen.

But if you can go on witnessing, within three to nine months everything settles, and settles of its own accord - not because you have to do something. Without your doing, it simply settles, and when a stillness arises, uncultivated, unpracticed, it is something superb, something tremendously graceful, exquisite. You have never tasted anything like it before - it is pure nectar....

You have transcended the mind! All mind problems are solved. Not that you have found a solution, but simply they have fallen by themselves - by witnessing, by just witnessing.

You are already too knowledgeable. No more knowledge is needed; you need unlearning. Knowledgeable people are very cunning people - they can always go on finding excuses to remain the same.

A professor of philosophy and psychology was addicted to moonshine whiskey. One night, after guzzling a large amount, he went into his cabin, undressed for bed, and tried to blow out the candle. His alcoholic breath burst into flame.

Sadly shaken by the experience, he called out to his wife, "Bring me the Bible, Martha.

This here has been a terrible lesson to me. I am going to swear off."

The happy housewife brought the Bible in a hurry, stood by while her man put his hand on it and looked heavenward: "I swear by all that is holy," intoned he, "that I will never again blow on a lighted candle."

Mind is cunning. You have to go beyond mind - that's what meditation is all about.

The last question:

Question 4:

BELOVED MASTER,
YOU SEEM TO BE THE FIRST ENLIGHTENED MASTER WHO TELLS JOKES
- WHY IS IT SO?

Garima, I will tell you a story. The following story in the Talmud was particularly cherished by the great Hassid master, Baal Shem.

Rabbi Baruch used to visit the marketplace where the Prophet Elijah often appeared to him. It was believed that he appeared to some saintly men to offer them spiritual guidance.

Once Baruch asked the prophet, "Is there anyone here who has a share in the world to come?"

He replied, "No."

While they were conversing, two men passed by and Elijah remarked, "These two men have a share in the world to come."

Rabbi Baruch then approached and asked them, "What is your occupation?"

They replied, "We are jesters. When we see men depressed we cheer them up."

God loves laughter, God loves cheerful people. God is not interested in seeing you with long faces.

When Baal Shem was dying, somebody asked, "Are you prepared to meet the Lord?"

He said, "I have always been ready. It is not a question of becoming ready now - I have always been ready. Any moment he could have called me!"

The man asked, "What is your readiness?"

Baal Shem said, "I know a few beautiful jokes - I will tell him those jokes. And I know he will enjoy them and he will laugh with me. And what else can I offer to him? The whole world is his, the whole universe is his, I am his, so what can I offer to him? Just a few jokes!"

Baal Shem is one of the great buddhas who has come out of the Jewish tradition, one of the most loved by his disciples. He was the founder of Hassidism.

And remember, I am not the first to tell you jokes. There have been many.... But people are so sad that they forget about people who have been sources of laughter and joy - they remember only sad people. People are sad; hence they find a certain affinity with sad people. You remember only sad buddhas - even if they were not sad, you make them sad. In your mind you fabricate stories, you manufacture ideas, and you make them look sad.

Now, a Jaina will be very much offended if I say that Mahavira laughed. Laughter seems to be so mundane, so worldly. How can Mahavira laugh? If I say Buddha laughed, Buddhists, particularly the Hinayana Buddhists, will be angry. I have been in tremendous love with Buddha; I think there is no other man on the earth today who has loved Buddha as much as I. But just the other day I was reading in the newspapers: the president of the Buddhist Society of India is going to raise questions against me in the parliament in the coming session. I can understand, these people must be feeling very much offended because I am giving Buddha a new color - HIS color, Buddha's color. I am trying to bring his reality to you. And these people have distorted his image totally; they have made him look so sad, they won't allow him to laugh. If he laughs, they will raise questions against him in the parliament.

I am offending people because I am trying to live religion not according to their ideas. I tell you, privately of course, that Jesus used to joke - but don't tell it to Christians, they will not understand. They can understand only the Jesus who was crucified. In fact, they are worshipping death, not Jesus; they are worshipping the cross, not Christ.

Hence I call Christianity, Crossianity - it has nothing to do with Christ. I know the man, I personally know the man!

He used to love all the good things of life. How can he avoid joking? He loved to gossip, and they say he was only delivering gospels! He was a very very earth-rooted man. He moved with gamblers, with drunkards, with prostitutes too. He was not afraid of all these fools - that's why he had to suffer.

That's why I am to suffer....

Enough for today.

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