Madmen and Devotees

Question 1:

What's the difference between a madman and a devotee?

Not much. And yet much. Both are mad but their madness has a totally different quality to it; the center of madness is different. The madman is mad from the head; the devotee is mad from the heart.

The madman is mad because of a failure. His logic failed He could not go on with the head anymore, any longer. There comes a point for the logical mind where breakdown is a must, because logic goes well up to a certain limit then suddenly it is no longer real, then it is no longer true to reality.

Life is illogical. It is wild. In life, contradictions are not contradictions but complementaries. Life does not believe in the division of either/or, life believes in both.

The day becomes night, the night becomes day. They melt and merge. Boundaries are not clear. Everything is overlapping everything else: you are overlapping into your beloved, your beloved is overlapping into you. Your child is still a part of you and yet he is independent. Boundaries are blurred.

Logic makes clear-cut boundaries. For clarity it dissects life into two, into a duality. Then clarity is achieved but aliveness is lost. At the cost Of aliveness, logic achieves clarity.

So if you are a mediocre mind, you may never go mad. That means you are just lukewarmly logical, and much that is illogical goes on existing in you side by side. But if you are really logical, then the ultimate result can be only madness. The more logical you are the more you will be intolerant of anything illogical. And life is illogical. So you will become by and by intolerant of life itself; you will become more and more closed. You will deny life, you will not deny logic. Then finally you break down - this is the failure of logic.

Almost all the great philosophers who are logical, go mad. If they don't go mad, they are not great philosophers. Nietzsche went mad; Bertrand Russell never went mad He is not such a great philosopher, he is in a way mediocre. He goes on living with his commonsense - he is a commonsensical philosopher, he does not move to the very extreme. Nietzsche moved to the very extreme and, of course, then There is the abyss.

Madness is the failure of the head and in life there are millions of situations where suddenly the head is irrelevant.

I was reading an anecdote.

A woman telephoned the builder of her new house to complain about the vibrations that shook the structure when a train passed by, three streets away.

'Ridiculous!' he told her. 'I will be along to check it.' 'Just wait until a train comes along,'

said the woman, when the builder arrived for his inspection. 'Why, it nearly shakes me out of bed. Just lie down there. You will see.'

The builder had just-stretched himself out on the bed, when the woman's husband came home.

'What are you doing on my wife's bed?' the husband demanded.

The terrified builder shook like a leaf. 'Would you believe I am waiting for a train?' he said.

There are a thousand and one situations where life comes in its total illogicalness.

Suddenly your logical mind stops - it cannot function. If you watch life you will find you act illogically every day; and if you insist too much on logic then by and by you will get paralyzed, by and by you will be thrown away from life, by and by you will feel a certain deadness settling in you.

One day or other this situation has to explode - the division of either/or breaks down.

Division as such is false. Nothing is divided in life. Only in your head is there division; only in your head are there clear-cut boundaries. It is as if you have made a small clearing in a forest - clean, with a boundary wall, with a lawn, with a few rosebushes, and everything perfectly i., order. But beyond the boundary the forest is there - waiting. If you don't care about your garden for a few days, the forest will enter in. If you leave your garden untended, after a while the garden will disappear - and the forest will be there.

Logic is man-made, like an English garden - not even like a Zen Japanese garden - clean-cut.

Every day there is a difficulty.... Mukta looks after my garden. She is my gardener. And she goes on cutting. I go on telling her, 'Don't cut! Let it be like a forest!' But what can she do? She hides from me that she is cutting, and planning and managing because she cannot allow the garden to become a forest. It should be in boundaries.

The logical mind is like a small garden, man-made, and life is wild forest. Sooner or later you will come against life and then your mind will boggle, will fall down flat. Stretch your mind to the very extreme of logic and you will go mad.

It happened at an airport Moskowitz met his business rival, Levinson, at the airport, and asked him with an elaborate pretense of casualness, 'And where do-you happen to be going, Levinson?'

Levinson, just as casually. responded, 'Chicago.'

'Ah!' said Moskowitz, shaking his finger triumphantly. 'Now I have caught you in a flat- footed lie. You tell me Chicago because you want me to think you are going to St. Louis, but I talked to your partner only this morning, and I happen to know you are going to Chicago, you liar!'

The logical mind goes on weaving and spinning its own theories, its own ideas, and tries to make the reality fit accordingly. The reality should follow your idea - that is what a logical mind is. The effort is that the reality should be a shadow to your ideology, but it is not possible. You are trying the impossible. It is implausible. It cannot happen. Ideology has to follow reality, and when the situation comes where you have to follow reality, the whole structure of your mind staggers, the whole structure of your mind simply drops down - it proves to be a house of playing-cards. A small wind of reality and the palace disappears. That is madness.

What is the madness of a devotee? The center of the devotee's madness is his heart; the center of ordinary madness is the head. The ordinary madness happens from the failure of the head and the devotee's madness happens from the success of his heart When logic fails - ordinary madness; when love succeeds - extraordinary madness; the madness of a devotee.

Love is illogical. Love is irrational. Love is life. Love comprehends all contradictions in it. Love is even capable of comprehending its own opposite - hate. Have you not observed it? You go on hating the same person you love. But love is bigger. It is so big that even hate can be allowed to have its play. In fact, if you really love, hate is not a distraction; on the contrary, it gives color, spice. It makes the whole affair more colorful - - like a rainbow. Even hate is not the opposite for a loving heart. He can hate and continue loving. Love is so great that even hate can be allowed to have its own say.

Lovers become intimate enemies. They go on fighting. In fact, if you ask psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and psychologists, they will say that when a couple stops fighting, love has also stopped. When a couple no longer bother even to fight, have become indifferent to each other, then love has stopped. If you are still fighting with your wife or your husband, your boyfriend or girlfriend, that simply shows that life is still running in it, it is still a live wire, still hot. When love is no longer there and everything is dead, then there is no fight. Of course! For what to fight? It is meaningless. One settles into a sort of coldness; one settles into a sort of indifference.

Love is like wild life - hence Jesus' saying that God is love. What does he mean? He means that if you love you will know many things which are qualities of God that he comprehends opposites, that even the Devil is allowed to have his say, that there is no problem with the opposite, that the enemy is also a friend and deep down related and connected, that death is not against life, but that death is part of life and life is part of death.

The whole is bigger than all the opposites, and it is not just a total of the opposites - it is more than the total. This is the higher mathematics of the heart. Of course a man of love will look mad. He will look mad to you because you function from the head and he functions from the heart; the languages are totally different.

For example, Jesus was crucified. The enemies were waiting for him to curse them, and they were a little afraid; the friends were waiting for him to do some miracle, that all the enemies would fall dead. And what did he do? He did an almost mad thing. He prayed to God to forgive these people because they didn't know what they were doing. This is the madness of love. It is unexpected that when you are being killed you pray that these people should be forgiven because they don't know what they are doing. They are completely unconscious. Sleepwalkers. Whatsoever they are doing is not their responsibility because how can you throw responsibility on somebody who is asleep?

They are unconscious - forgive them.

This is the miracle that happened that day but nobody could see that miracle; it was sheer madness.

Love's language is so foreign to the head. Head and heart are the farthest poles of reality.

There is no greater distance between any other two points as there is between the head and the heart, reason and love, logic and life. If a person is mad because of his love, his madness is not a disease. In fact, he is the only healthy person, he is the only whole person, he is the only holy person - because through his heart he has again become bridged with life.

Now he is no longer fighting; there is no more conflict. He is surrendered, he is in a let- go. He trusts life, he has faith, and he knows that nothing wrong is going to happen. He's not afraid. Even in death he will go laughing and singing, ecstatic, because even in death God is waiting for him. Death also becomes a door. Of course to the logical mind this man looks mad and he is mad, in a sense, because whatsoever he is doing is beyond the comprehension of reason. But to me, he is not mad. Ask Jesus - to him he is not mad.

Ask Buddha - to him he is not mad. In fact, he's the only sane person, because now he no longer thinks, he lives; now he is no longer divided, but total; now there is no duality in him - he is a unity.

That is the meaning of the word 'yoga' - that which unites. That is the meaning of the word 'religion' also - that which makes you one, that which puts you again together - 'religere'. You are no longer split.

Otherwise, ordinarily, you are not one person, you are many persons. You are a crowd.

You don't know what your left hand is doing and what your right hand is planning to do.

In the morning you don't know what you are going to do in the evening. You say one thing but you wanted to say something else, and you will go on saying something else still. You are not a unity. You are a crowd. There are many persons inside you revolving in a wheel and each becomes, for a time being, the king. And in that moment, the king asserts things which he cannot fulfill because by the time the moment to fulfill comes, he will no longer be a king.

You fall in love with a woman and you say, 'I will love you forever and forever.' Wait!

What are you saying? Now, at this moment, a certain part of your personality is on the throne and that part says, 'I will love you forever and forever.' But just half an hour later you may repent. And just a few days later, you will completely forget what you had said.

The woman is not going to forget it. She will remember. She will remind you again and again about what you have said - that you would love her forever and forever, and what has happened to your love? You will feel guilty and you will feel impotent and helpless because you cannot do anything. Now you know you should not have talked about the future, but at that moment you could not resist yourself; at that moment it looked as if you would be loving her forever and forever; at that moment it was a truth but the part of the mind that asserted it is no longer the emperor. Now there are other minds. Another part is sitting on the throne and he loves another woman, he chooses another woman.

Whatsoever you promise, you are not going to fulfill it.

A man of understanding never promises because he knows his helplessness. He will say, 'l would like to love you forever and forever but who knows? I may not be the same the next day.' He will feel humble; he will not feel confident. Only fools feel confident.

People of understanding hesitate because they know there is a crowd inside them - they are not one.

That's why it is said in all the old scriptures that if a good thought comes to you, do it immediately. because the next moment you may not like to do it at all. And if a bad thought comes to you, postpone it a little. If anything good arises in you, don't miss the moment. Do it! If you feel it is good you can do it again tomorrow but do it right now, don't postpone. But the ordinary mind goes on doing just the opposite: whatsoever good arises in you, you postpone it for tomorrow, and whatsoever bad arises in you, you do it immediately. If you are angry, you will be angry right now, you cannot postpone it. But if you are feeling compassion, you will say, 'What is the hurry? Tomorrow.' That tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow is non-existential.

Ordinarily, a man is a crowd; in fact, we should not use 'the mind' in singular. We should not say that you have a mind, that is wrong. Only rare persons have a mind. You have minds. You are poly-psychic. The heart - this is the beautiful thing - the heart is always one. It does not know the duality; it is not a crowd. It is a unity. The closer you come to the heart, the one arises and the many disappear, far away. The heart needs no promise; even without promising, it is going to fulfill.

The mind goes on making promises but it never fulfills them. In fact, it promises just to create an illusion because it knows it is not going to fulfill anything. So at least create an illusion by promising - 'I will love you forever and ever.' The heart will never say that but it will do it. And when you can do it, what is the point of saying it? There is no need.

The man of love is mad, mad to the logical mind - but he is not ill.

In the Western madhouses, there are many people who are not mad. If they had been in the Eastern countries they may even have been worshipped. In the West the clarity does not yet exist that a man can be mad head-oriented or heart-oriented. A heart-oriented madman is not a madman he is a God's man; or, he is mad in such a different way that he needs to be worshipped, revered, respected. There is no need to treat him, there is no need to put him in an asylum there is no need to give him shocks. But things go to the extreme always.

In the East it has happened that many mad people have been worshipped - those who were mad from the head. They were simply crazy - but they were worshipped because we have worshipped the madman of the heart and it is very difficult for the ordinary common masses to make the distinction. They almost look alike.

Now in the West the opposite is happening. People who would have been saints in the past... just think if Jesus came, was born in America today. Where would he be? Or Saint Francis of Assisi - where would he be? In some madhouse. Jews treated Jesus very well.

They killed him, but they never put him in a madhouse. That was more respectful.

But now, in the modern world, if he came back to somewhere in the West, he would be in a madhouse, Lying down on some Freudian couch, being given some electric shocks, drugged - because psychoanalysts say that he was neurotic, his personality was neurotic, he was mad Of course the things that he said looked mad. He said, 'I am the Son of God.'

What nonsense! Son of God? Megalomania! What is he talking about? He is not in his senses. He lives in a dream. He talks about the kingdom of God. All nonsense. Fairy tales. Good for children's books, but immature. He chose a better time to come.

Saint Francis of Assisi would certainly be in a madhouse. talking to trees, saying to the almond tree, 'Sister, how are you?' - if he were here, he would have been caught. What are you doing? Talking to an almond tree? Sister, sing to me of God', he says to the almond tree. And not only that, he hears the song that the sister almond tree sings! Crazy!

Needs treatment. He talks to the river and to the fish - and he claims that the fish respond to him. He talks to stones and rocks - is there any need for any more proof that he is mad?

He is mad but wouldn't you like to be mad like Saint Francis of Assisi? Just think - the capacity to hear the almond tree singing, and the heart that can feel brothers and sisters in trees, the heart that can talk to the rock, the heart that sees God everywhere, all around, in every form.... It must be a heart of utmost love - utter love reveals that mystery to you.

But for the logical mind, of course these things are nonsense.

To me, or to anybody who has known how to look at life through the heart, these are the only meaningful things. Become mad, if you can, become mad from the heart.

Now the last thing about this question. If your head comes to a breakdown, don't be worried. Use this opportunity of a de-structured state. In that moment, don't be worried that you are going mad; in that moment, slip into the heart.

Someday, in the future, when psychology really comes of age, whenever somebody goes mad from the head we will help him to move towards the heart - because an opportunity opens in that moment. The breakdown can become a breakthrough. The old structure is gone, now he is no longer in the clutches of reason, he is free for a moment. The modern psychology tries to go on adjusting him back to the old structure. All modern efforts are adjustive: how to make him normal again. The real psychology will do something else.

The real psychology will use this opportunity because the old mind has disappeared, there is a gap. Use this interval and lead him towards another mind - that is, the heart. Lead him towards another center of his being.

When you drive a car you change gears. Whenever you change the gear, there comes a moment when the gear moves through neutral; it has to move through the neutral gear.

Neutral gear means no gear. From one gear to another, a moment comes when there is no gear. When one mind has failed, you are in a neutral state. Just now you are again as if you are born. Use this opportunity and lead the energy away from the old rotten structure which is falling. Leave the ruin. Move into the heart. Forget reason and let love be your center, your target. Each breakdown can become a breakthrough, and each possibility for the failure of the head can become a success for the heart - the failure of the head can become a success for the heart.

Question 2:

Once at darshan I heard you say of a visitor that he would be a
good sannyasin. What is a good sannyasin?

First, what is a SANNYASIN? A SANNYASIN is one who has come to understand the futility of so-called worldly life. A SANNYASIN is one who has understood one thing - that something needs to be done immediately about his own being. If he goes on drifting in the old way, he will lose the whole opportunity of this life. A SANNYASIN is one who has become alert that up to now he has lived wrongly, has moved in wrong directions. has been too concerned with things and not concerned with himself, has been too concerned with worldly prestige and power and has not been concerned about who he is. A SANNYASIN is one who is turning towards himself, PARABVRUTTI. A SANNYASIN is a miracle - the energy is moving back towards oneself.

Ordinarily, the energy is moving away from you - towards things, targets, in the world.

The energy is moving away from you, hence you feel empty. The energy goes away, never comes back; you go on throwing away energy. By and by you feel dissipated, frustrated. Nothing comes back. By and by you start to feel empty. The energy is just oozing out every day - and then comes death. Death is nothing else but that you are exhausted and spent. The greatest miracle in life is to understand this, and to turn the energy towards home. It is a turning-in. This turning-in, PARABVRUTTI, is SANNYAS.

It is not that you leave the world. You live in the world - there is no need to leave anything, or go anywhere else. You live in the world, but in a totally different way. Now you live in the world but you remain centered in yourself; your energy goes on returning to yourself.

You are no longer out-going: you have become in-going. Of course you become a pool of energy, a reservoir, and energy is delight, sheer delight. Just energy there, overflowing, and you are in delight, and you can share, and you can give in love. This is the difference.

If you put your energy into greed, it never comes back; if you put your energy into love, it comes back a thousand-fold. If you put your energy into anger, it never comes back. It leaves you empty, exhausted, spent. If you use your energy in compassion, it comes back a thousand-fold.

So now I will tell you what a good SANNYASIN is. I don't mean a moral or immoral SANNYASIN. My word 'good' has nothing to do with morality. It is something to do with what Buddha calls AES DHAMMO SANANTANO, what Buddha calls the eternal law of life.

A good man is an understanding man. A good man is alert, aware - that's all. Awareness is the only value for me - all else is meaningless. Awareness is the only value for me. So when I say a good SANNYASIN, I mean a SANNYASIN who is aware. Of course, when you are aware, you behave according to the law, the fundamental law. When you are unaware, you go on destroying yourself - you go on being suicidal.

If you behave according to the fundamental law, you will be enriched tremendously.

Your life will become richer and richer every moment. You will become a king. You may remain a beggar in the outside world, but you will become a king, a pinnacle of inner richness. What Jesus calls the kingdom of God will be within you. You will become a king of the kingdom that is within you. But more awareness is needed.

So don't misunderstand me. When I say a good SANNYASIN I don't use the word in any moralistic sense. I use it in a more fundamental sense, because to me, morality is just a by-product of awareness, and immorality is a shadow of unawareness. I am not concerned with shadows and by-products; I am concerned with the fundamental, with the essential. Be aware and you will be good; be unaware and you will be bad.

I have heard a small anecdote.

An old farmer was watching his young son. Luke, lighting the wick of the hurricane lamp prior to departing for the evening.

'What is the lantern for?' he asked.

Said his son casually, 'I am off courting Dad, don't worry, I will pay for the oil.'

'Dang me!' said the father, 'When I was a courting, I never took me no lamp along, son.'

'That figures,' came the reply. 'Look what you got!'

If you don't take the lamp of awareness with you, you are going to create a hell around you. Light your lamp wherever you go - courting, not courting, that is not the point.

Wherever you go, whatsoever you do, always do it in the inner light, with awareness.

And don't be worried about moralities - about concepts, about what is good and what is bad. Good follows your inner light just like a shadow. You take care of the inner light.

That's what meditation is all about - to become more alert. Live the same life, just change your alertness - make it more intense. Eat the same food, walk the same path, live in the same house, be with the same woman and the children, but be totally different from your inside. Be alert! Walk the same path, but with awareness. If you become aware, suddenly the path is no more the same, because you are no more the same. If you are aware, the same food is not the same, because you are not the same, the same woman is not the same, because you are not the same. Everything changes with your inner change.

If somebody changes his within, the without changes totally. My definition of the world is this - you must be living in a deep inner darkness, hence the world. If you light your inner lamp, suddenly the world disappears, and there is only God. The world and the God are not two things but two perceptions of the same energy. If you are unaware, the energy appears to you to be as the world, the SANSARA; if you are alert, the same energy appears as God. The whole thing depends on your inner awareness or unawareness. That is the only change, the only transformation, the only revolution, that has to be made.

Question 3:

I feel sick with cowardice.

There must be a desire not to be a coward - that desire creates the problem. If you are a coward, you are a coward. Accept it. What can you do about it? Whatsoever you do will create more problems, more complexities.

And who is not a coward? When life is constantly in danger of death, how is it possible not to be a coward? k is impossible! When any moment you can die, and life can be taken away from you, how is it possible, in face of such danger, to be brave?. You can pretend, you can manage to show that you are brave - but deep down you are going to remain a coward. It is natural. Just look at the tininess of human beings: so tiny, and existence is so vast. We are not even like drops fighting against such an ocean. How is it possible not to be a coward?

Try to understand it. Accept it. It is natural. Don't create a goal against it because that goal is coming out of your cowardice. That goal is not going to help you. At the most you can become very tense and pretend that you are not a coward. You can move to the opposite extreme just to prove to the world and to yourself that you are not a coward.

That's what your generals and your great leaders are doing - just trying to prove to the world that they are not cowards. And because of their efforts, the whole world has suffered tremendously. Please, don't try any foolish thing like that. Just accept. It is helplessness. One has to accept it. Once you accept it, and you start understanding it, you will see that by and by it disappears. It is not that you become brave - but one day you simply find that through acceptance it disappears.

There is no fight; it disappears. There is no resistance; you accept it and it disappears. It is not that you become brave, you simply become more understanding. Bravery is not a goal, but you have been taught from your very childhood, 'Be brave!' so you go on trying to be brave. That creates much anxiety and tension. You are trembling everywhere inside - and on the outside you are like a stone statue. Divided.

This has created much misery in you. The goals that have been taught to you from your childhood are foolish, are simply not based on reality. It is as if you say to a small leaf on a tree, 'When strong winds come,. don't shake, don't waver, don't tremble - that is cowardice.' But what can a small leaf do? When the strong wind comes, it shakes; the whole tree shakes. But trees are not so foolish. They won't listen to you - they go on doing their thing.

Have you watched two dogs fighting? They don't start fighting immediately. First they move in a mock fight; both start barking. That is just a game to gauge, to judge, who is more strong. They are not going to fight immediately because that is foolish, stupid; that is done only by human beings. First they will try to bark at each other, jump at each other, show their totality - the one will show: 'I am this,' and the other will show: 'I am this.' Then immediately they judge - that judgment needs nobody else to convince them.

Immediately one feels that he is weaker, and he puts his tail down and moves. 'This is finished. What is the point of fighting? I am weaker and you are stronger and the stronger is going to win! The point is lost.' It is not that he is a coward - he is simply wise. I don't call this cowardness.

Human beings will stick - even if you feel that you are weak. The more you feel that you are weak, the more you will be afraid to leave. People will say you are a coward, so you must fight.... and you will be beaten badly and unnecessarily hurt. There is no point. It is a simple calculation - and the stronger one doesn't go and show the other dogs that he has won. No, the thing is simply dropped. He also knows that he is stronger, so what is the point? He doesn't go on advertising that he has won. No, the fight is dropped, he forgets all about it.

But in the human situation the whole thing has taken a very wrong shape, because you have been taught wrong goals. Each child should be taught to be true to life. If there is fear, then be afraid. Why hide it? Why pretend that you are not afraid? If you want to cry, cry. Why be afraid of tears? But we have been taught not to cry, particularly men. With small children the mother will say, 'Don't be a sissy. Don't start crying. That is only for girls.' And the boy becomes hard. Look, men cannot cry. They have missed one of the most beautiful things in life. Nature has not made any difference between man and woman; man has as many tear-glands as woman, so the thing is proved - there is no difference. Tears are needed. They are cleansing. But how to cry? What will people say?

They will say, 'You, and crying? Your wife has died and you are crying? Be a man. Be brave. Bear it. Don't cry.'

But you understand? If you don't cry, by and by your smile will be corrupted, because everything is joined together. If you cannot cry, you cannot laugh; if you don't allow your tears to flow naturally, you will not be able to allow your smiles to flow naturally.

Everything will become unnatural, everything will become strained, everything will become a forced thing, you will move almost in a diseased way and you will never be at ease with yourself. That is what has happened, and now you are miserable.

Life consists of flowing. If you are a coward, be a coward. Be honestly a coward. And I tell you there is nobody else who is not a coward. And it is good that people are not that way; otherwise, even while they are so helpless, they would feel so egoistic. If they were not cowards they would be almost dead stones - they would not be alive - just egos, frozen. Don't be bothered. Accept it. If it is there, it is there - a fact of life. Try to understand it And don't listen to others; you are still being manipulated by others.

I was reading an anecdote.

Mistress Jones pursued her small husband through the crowds at the zoo brandishing her umbrella and emitting cries of menace. The frightened Mr. Jones, noticing the lock on the lions' cage had not quite caught, wrenched it off, flew into the cage, slammed the door shut again, pushed the astonished lion hard against the door, and peered over its shoulder.

His frustrated wife shook her umbrella at him and yelled furiously, 'Come out of there, you coward!'

This man a coward?

But each husband is a coward in the eyes of the wife. In others' eyes, you are a coward.

Don't trust the opinion of others too much. if you feel yourself to be a coward, close your eyes, meditate on it. Ninety-nine per cent is others' opinion - the wife, brandishing her umbrella, 'Come out, you coward!' Ninety-nine per cent is others' opinion - drop it; one per cent is reality - accept it; and don't create any antagonistic goal. Accept it and then you will see that cowardice is no longer cowardice. Rejected, it becomes cowardice - the very word 'cowardice' is a condemnation - accepted, it becomes humbleness, helplessness. That's how it is. We have to be humble, we are not the whole. We are the parts of a tremendously vast whole - very tiny parts, atomic parts, small leaves on a big tree.

It is good to tremble sometimes. Nothing wrong in it. It helps you to shake off the dust.

You become again fresh.

My whole point is: accept life as it is and don't try to change it into something else. Don't try to change your violence into non-violence; don't try to change your cowardice into bravery; don't try to change your sex into celibacy; don't create the opposite. Rather, try to understand the fact of violence and by and by you will become non-violent.

Understand the fact of cowardice and cowardice will disappear. Understand the fact of sex and you will find a new quality arising in it which goes beyond it. But always move through the fact, never against it.

Question 4:

My father is obsessed with genealogy. Is there anything to
such pursuits?

Must be, otherwise why should your father be obsessed? He may have taken a wrong route, but there must be something in it. Even when people go astray, they go astray for a certain reason - although they may not be aware of it.

For example, let me tell you an anecdote first.

Young Willie, aged eight, came to his father one morning and said, 'Daddy, where did I come from?'

Willie's father felt a sinking sensation in his stomach for he knew he was now up against it. He was a modern parent and realized a question like that deserved a full and frank answer. He found a quiet spot and for the next half hour, he carefully indoctrinated Willie into what are euphemistically called the facts of life, managing to be quite explicit.

Willie listened with fascinated absorption, and when it was over, the father said, 'Well, Willie, does that answer your question?'

'No,' said Willie, 'it does not. Johnny Brown came from Cincinnatti, where did I come from?'

If your father is interested in genealogy he has misunderstood his inquiry. This is a natural question in everybody's being: from where do we come? From where? From what source? Now, if you get into genealogy, you are not getting anywhere. The basic question is religious; it has nothing to do with genealogy. The basic question is: who is the ultimate father, or ultimate mother? Now this is pointless. I have a father, and my father had a father, and of course this goes on and on and you can go on searching and you can make a big tree of your family, but it is pointless because the question remains the same - - who is the first?

Searching into genealogy, you cannot come to the first. Always the question will remain - - from whom? I can move a hundred generations back, or a thousand generations back, but the question remains the same; it is not solved. From where? From where? From what source has life arisen?

Your father has missed; he has misinterpreted a religious inquiry. He has been thinking that it is a question of genealogy. It is not.

This question, 'From where do I come?' has to be asked because unless I know that, it is impossible to know who I am.

There are two ways to know it. Either you ask, 'From where do I come?' That is the way of the Christian, the Mohammedan and the Judaic religion. If you know from where you come, what the ultimate source is, what God is, then you will know who you are. Or, the Indian religions have a different way of solving it - and a better and more scientific way.

Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism - they say it is difficult to say from where you come.

There is more possibility that you may be lost in thinking and in philosophical doctrines.

The better question is, 'Who am l?' If you know this, you will know from where you come. So they say forget all about God. They are not worried about who created the world; they are worried about, 'Who am l?' In a way that is more scientific, because if I can understand the quality of my being. that will immediately give me the key to understand the whole and what it is. If I can understand myself... Because the source must be existing in some way within me still. The tree goes on still existing in the seed. If you can understand the seed, you will be able to know the tree; in the fruit the whole tree exists.

If we can understand ourselves.... Of course this is the closest approach possible because I am closer to me than anything else. Just close your eyes and you reach into yourself.

The only problem is how to drop the thoughts - then suddenly you start sinking into your being. From there is the door to the whole, to the source.

When you go back home, tell your father that genealogy is not going to help. He must have some religious inquiry within him which he has misunderstood. Once he is made aware of It, his inquiry will be on the right lines.

It is happening in the West because religion is no longer an accepted inquiry; it is a rejected inquiry. So people go on seeking religious inquiries through vicarious ways. You cannot accept directly that you are seeking God - people will think you are mad! 'It is foolish. What are you talking about? You are not a contemporary then. God is dead, have you not heard? What are you doing?' But the desire arises to know the source, and you cannot accept it in religious ways because religious ways are no longer accepted by the modern mind. So you have to search for it in a vicarious way. Then you start asking about genealogy.

Religion is a valid inquiry; whether society accepts it or rejects it, it doesn't matter. Man is a religious animal and is going to remain that way. Religion is something natural. To ask from where you come is relevant; to ask, 'Who am l?' is going to remain relevant always. But the modern mind has created a climate of atheism so you cannot ask such questions. If you ask, people laugh. If you talk about such things, people feel bored If you start inquiring in these ways, people think you are slipping out of your sanity. Religion is no longer a welcome inquiry.

Tell your father. And of course, genealogy will remain an obsession because this is not the right inquiry; but once his consciousness shifts to the religious dimension he will be released from the obsession - and then something is possible. Something of tremendous import is possible. He wants to know who the real father is, who has fathered existence, or, who is still mothering existence?.

Question 5:

Osho, how do you manage it - to have always the right
anecdote at the right moment?

Let me answer you by an anecdote.

A king, passing through a small town, saw what he took to be indications of amazing marksmanship. On trees, barns and fences there were numbers of bull's-eyes, each with a bullet-hole in the exact center. He could not believe his eyes. It was superb marksmanship, almost a miracle of achievement. He himself was a good marksman, and he had known many great marksmen in his life, but never anything like this. He asked to meet the expert shot. It turned out to be a madman.

'This is sensational! How in the world do you do it?' he asked the madman. 'I myself am a good shot, but nothing compared to your skill and art. Please tell me.'

'Easy as pie!' said the madman and laughed uproariously. 'I shoot first and draw the circles in later!'

Dig?! I choose the anecdotes first, and then draw the circles! I am just like that madman.

There are other people who use anecdotes to illustrate some theoretical point. I do just the opposite. I use theoretical points to illustrate the anecdotes.

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