Wolves in a sheep's skin

DOGO VISITED NANSEN, WHO ASKED HIM, "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

DOGO REPLIED, "MY NAME IS ENCHI."

NANSEN ASKED, "HOW DO YOU EXPRESS THE PLACE WHERE WISDOM DOESN'T REACH?"

DOGO REPLIED, "I WOULD NEVER EXPRESS IT."

NANSEN SAID, "THAT'S RIGHT. IF YOU EXPRESS IT, HORNS WILL GROW AND YOU WILL BECOME A BEAST."

A FEW DAYS LATER, DOGO AND UNGAN WERE SITTING OUTSIDE THE DORMITORY AND DOING SOME WORK. NANSEN WAS TAKING A WALK, AND WHEN HE SAW DOGO, HE ASKED, "ENCHI, THE OTHER DAY, YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER EXPRESS THE PLACE WHERE WISDOM DOESN'T REACH. NOW, HOW ARE YOU PRACTICING IT?"

HEARING THIS, DOGO SLIPPED INTO THE DORMITORY, WAITED THERE UNTIL NANSEN WALKED AWAY AND THEN APPEARED AGAIN.

UNGAN ASKED DOGO, "WHY DIDN'T YOU ANSWER WHEN OSHO ASKED YOU THE QUESTION?"

DOGO REPLIED, "WHAT A CLEVER CHAP YOU ARE!"

THEN UNGAN CAME UP TO NANSEN AND ASKED, "OSHO, YOU HAVE ASKED A QUESTION JUST NOW OF MY BROTHER-DISCIPLE, ENCHI. HOW SHOULD ONE ANSWER TO IT?"

NANSEN SAID, "HE IS QUITE GOOD AT THE BEASTS' WAY."

UNGAN ASKED, "WHAT is THE BEASTS' WAY?"

NANSEN SAID, "YOU MUST HAVE HEARD THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER EXPRESS THE PLACE WHERE WISDOM DOESN'T REACH. IF YOU EXPRESS IT, HORNS WILL GROW. IF YOU NAME IT SO-AND-SO, IT WILL ALREADY BE WRONG. YOU SHOULD IMMEDIATELY GO THE BEASTS' WAY."

Friends, Comrade Gorbachev seems to be bent upon destroying communism, root and all. He has even stopped using the word 'comrade'.

Sangeet has been going through his books, because I don't waste my time on any rubbish.

She has found a few points which I would like to discuss with you. The first point is about women.

It was one of the great contributions of Joseph Stalin to bring about equality between men and women in every sphere of life. He allowed women the same education, the same financial freedom as the men. He allowed the women freedom to work equally with men.

He brought the woman out of the prison of the home. Russia was the only country in the world where women were given back their dignity, and the whole credit goes to Joseph Stalin.

Now Gorbachev is forcing the woman back into the kitchen. His idea is only valid in the sense that unless the family is again enforced, it will be difficult to bring private property and capitalism to the Soviet Union. He is almost playing into the hands of the Western capitalist countries. Now he wants the woman not to be given equal work, or equal education; she should go back and be a wife, a mother. The house and the family is to be her only field.

All over the world women are fighting for freedom. And freedom is possible only if the woman is educated, has the capacity to earn money for herself, is not dependent on the husband's bank account; if she is not forced to remain within the boundaries of the house, taking care of the children, preparing food, washing dishes and clothes. But that's what Gorbachev is trying to do now.

All the women of the Soviet Union should revolt against it, and all the women outside the Soviet Union should support the Soviet woman's fight for freedom.

These are small strategies for bringing capitalism back. Once the family is solid, and the woman has lost her equality, private property can be brought back in very easily.

Gorbachev is already talking about private property; he is already talking about socialism, he has dropped the word 'communism' also. And socialism is a cunning conspiracy of the capitalists.

All over the world there are socialist parties, and their only function is to prevent people from becoming communist. They are being paid by the capitalists -- as far as India is concerned I am absolutely certain. I know, because the same man offered me money also....

The head of India's biggest super-rich family was Jugal Kishore Birla. He was giving monthly salaries to Jaiprakash Narayan, who was the head of the Socialist Party of India.

Seeing my meetings, where fifty thousand or one hundred thousand people would attend, he was immensely interested.

And I used to stay in Delhi with one of the members of parliament from my constituency, Dr. Seth Govinddas. Both Seth Govinddas and Jugal Kishore Birla belong to the same caste, of marwaris -- they are the Jews of India -- so he had found a medium to reach me. He asked Govinddas, "A meeting is absolutely necessary. You arrange it."

Govinddas said to me, when I was staying with him in Delhi for a few days, "It will be immensely helpful for your work."

I said, "In what way can Jugal Kishore Birla help my work? My work is to destroy Birlas, and Tatas, and Sahus" -- the three great super-rich families of India -- "how can he help me?"

He said, "But there is nothing wrong in meeting the man." I said, "Okay."

So I met the man, and he immediately made an offer to me: "I will give you a blank check, as I have given to Mahatma Gandhi." And he had been supporting the freedom movement, and had a very clear vision of the future, that sooner or later these people would be the presidents, the prime ministers, so whatever he was giving them was an investment. Then he would take the advantage -- and he was taking advantage, after the freedom of India. People who had been on a monthly salary from him... he had purchased their souls.

He told me, "Jaiprakash Narayan is on my payroll."

I said, "If you can give me a blank check without any conditions, I will be grateful to you.

But I don't accept any conditions. I cannot sell myself."

He said, "Conditions are bound to be there; otherwise why should I give you a blank check? I am a businessman."

I said, "You may be a businessman, I am not."

He said, "But my conditions are very simple: preach Hinduism to the world. And the second condition is, create a great movement in India to protect the cows from being slaughtered."

I simply got up and I said, "Throw your blank check to the dogs! I am going." Govinddas was very much embarrassed, because they all felt great respect for his money and his support.

And I told him, "You have asked me to come, and you have insulted me! Nothing can be more insulting than offering money as a bribe, trying to purchase a man. You cannot purchase me -- nobody can purchase me. I am going to speak against Hinduism my whole life! You have strengthened my idea; you have reminded me that I have to take care of Hinduism. And I am going to fight with all those people who are trying to stop cow slaughter."

That's how I came to be the arch-enemy of the Shankaracharya of Puri, because he is the head of the movement to stop cow slaughter.

So I know from the very man himself, Jugal Kishore Birla, that the head of the Socialist Party and perhaps other leaders were on his payroll.

Why was he paying the socialists? What is the function of the socialist? The function is to divide the proletariat, to create barriers so the proletariat, the poor people, the labor unions, don't go to the communists.

And it is easy for the socialists to do it, because the socialists agree with all the superstitions of the masses. They agree with all their superstitions, they don't disturb their religion. They don't disturb anything in their prejudices, they support it, so obviously the masses are attracted to them more easily than to the communists who are non- compromising, who hit hard on everybody's religion, on everybody's theism, belief in God, and all kinds of fictitious ideas and superstitions. Naturally, the Communist Party in India -- which is one of the oldest communist parties in the world -- has not been able to gather any power or any great number of people to be members. And it is not going to.

Socialists pretend that they are Marxists, and that they are going to bring equality, they are going to bring social justice, but without disturbing anybody's superstitions. Now they are talking in absolute contradictions! Without destroying the masses' prejudices, their past-orientation, their superstitions, you cannot bring equality.

God has created only man in his own image, not woman. The woman has been created by taking a rib out of man, so she is just to be a servant to the husband. She cannot claim equality. How can a rib bone be equal to a man? She is almost reduced to being just a body and not a soul.

How are you going to make people equal when God has made them unequal, unless you strike God completely dead? And how are you going to bring social justice to the masses who believe that their poverty is because of their past life's evil acts? They are perfectly satisfied with their poverty -- it is a punishment. And they don't think that the rich people are responsible for their poverty -- they are enjoying the good acts of their past life. If you don't disturb these superstitions, how are you going to bring equality to man?

So socialism is a strategy to prevent the proletariat from going to the communists. It is a very deep and subtle conspiracy against communism. And Gorbachev has started calling the Soviet Union a socialist country, not a communist country. Already he has started making compromises.

The second thing Sangeet has found is about democracy. He wants a democracy of the people -- the same way as America has democracy "for the people, of the people, by the people." But a democracy can exist only the way it existed in Athens, in a city-state -- even there it was not perfect -- with direct democracy, no representatives. The whole city would gather and decide.

That's how they decided to poison Socrates. Fifty-one percent of the population of Athens voted that he should be given the punishment of death by poisoning: "He has been corrupting people's morals, he has been corrupting people's religion. He does not believe in God. He does not believe in anything -- he believes only in rational, logical things, and that destroys our morality. That destroys our religion, our superstitions, and those are our only consolations in life." Just by a very small majority -- fifty-one percent were against him, and forty-nine percent were in favor of his being set free. But a majority is a majority; whether it is one man's majority or two men's majority does not matter.

But even in Athens it was not a total democracy. It was direct, there were no representatives -- because once the representatives come in, it is not the people who rule, it is the representatives who rule. And for five years they have absolute power. Just once every five years they become servants of the people, just for a few days while the election is on; after the election the people don't matter at all. Then they go on doing whatever they want to do. But in Athens, the larger part was made up of slaves. What kind of democracy? -- where people were auctioned, women were auctioned. And these slaves were not citizens, so the greater part of the population of the Athens was not able to vote, not able to participate in the so-called direct democracy. Athens has come closest, but that kind of demacracy is possible only in small cities, not in vast nations.

In vast nations you can't have a government by the people, of the people, for the people.

In vast lands you have to fall back on mediators. So it is just making people blind, giving them good slogans, but in fact democracy exists nowhere. It is always the politicians who are the rulers of the people.

But as I have told you, Gorbachev is too much impressed by America and wants the Soviet Union to be another America. He is not saying it directly, but slowly slowly he is coming closer to it.

Democracy will destroy seventy years' experiment completely. Democracy will bring the rich back, the poor back; a classless society will become again a society with classes.

And whenever there are rich people, they are the real rulers of the country because they can purchase the politicians. Politicians don't have money, and they need money for their elections. No poor man can stand for election because it takes so much money to fight an election.

Even in a poor country like India you need at least a million rupees to fight an election.

From where are the people going to get that much money? And that one million rupees is the minimum. It depends on the constituency, and it depends on the rival candidate. If he is throwing away two million rupees, you have to throw away more than two millions; otherwise you are finished. And in a poor country, an uneducated country, people are ready to sell their votes.

In India, anybody who has money can win an election. Not a single poor man has reached the parliament in forty years' time, and it will never be possible, because how can you fight? You need hundreds of jeeps, you need to pay the poor -- because the poor are not interested in who goes to the parliament. It is all the same; only faces change, nothing else changes. The poor go on becoming poorer, the rich go on becoming richer, and all these politicians only go on giving promises.

Even a man like Mahatma Gandhi had promised that the first president of India would be a woman, and not only a woman but a woman belonging to the sudras, the untouchables.

These two classes have suffered the most, because of the Hindu ideology that the untouchables are not human beings but beasts of burden, and the woman has no rights of her own. For centuries....

So just to get the attention of the women, and the votes and the attention of the untouchables... And Gandhi changed the name -- politicians are very clever in changing names -- he started calling the untouchables, harijans. Harijan means "people of God."

Now if harijans are the people of God, then why are they suffering for five thousand years? And those who are not the people of God are exploiting them, reducing them to cattle.

Strange... but even the untouchables enjoyed the word, the change of the word. It gave them a great consolation that they are the chosen people of God. It does not take away your poverty, it does not give you food, it does not give you any dignity, but just the change of the name....

It happened a few years before....

There is a certain animal in the Himalayas which looks like a cow, but it is not a cow. Its color is bluish, so it is called the "blue cow." For centuries that has been its name. It is not a cow -- it is a wild, ferocious animal, and it comes down from the Himalayas and destroys whole crops in North India. And it has been growing in population, just like the Indians are growing.

A time came that the population of these blue cows grew so big that the parliament had to decide to do something, otherwise on the one hand there is a population explosion of human beings and on the other hand this animal goes on destroying the crops. But Hindus were absolutely against it because of the name, "blue cow." They are worshippers of the cow. So there was great agitation all over India, "You cannot kill or shoot the blue cows."

And in this way you can understand how cunning politicians are. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the grandfather of Rajiv Gandhi, changed the name. He proposed to the parliament that "We have to kill these blue horses." Instead of neelgaay, blue cow, he called them neelghora, blue horses.

And no Hindu protested! They were shot in the thousands and thousands, almost their whole race was finished. They don't come anymore to North India. And not a single Hindu, not even this mad Shankaracharya of Puri, could understand a simple strategy of the politicians. When they were blue cows, the whole of India was in an uproar. When they became blue horses, who cares? And they are the same people!

Gandhi promised that he would make the first president of India a woman, and not only a woman but an untouchable woman. But when India became independent, he completely forgot the promise. And he is worshipped, not only in India but outside India, as a great man of truth -- just because he has written his autobiography and titled it, AN EXPERIMENT WITH TRUTH. But he was continuously lying to his own people.

The first president of India, and the first prime minister of India... all were high-caste people. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a brahmin, and the brahmins have been ruling this country for centuries. Again the rule goes to the brahmin priests. And the miracle of the name....

Rajiv Gandhi is not a Hindu, but nobody has said it.

I have to say it: Rajiv Gandhi is a crossbreed. His father, Feroze Gandhi, was a Parsee; and his mother, Indira Gandhi, was a Hindu. But the name -- Gandhi -- gives the feeling as if he is Hindu, because Mahatma Gandhi was Hindu. So people think....

And Parsees are not known very much; they are confined to Bombay, and a few people in Poona, a few people in Surat -- just this small territory. Basically they are confined to Bombay, so all over most of India nobody knows about them, that they also have a surname, Gandhi.

The word gandhi comes not from caste or religion; it means a man who sells perfumes.

Gandh means perfume, and gandhi means a perfume seller. So anybody who sells perfumes becomes "Gandhi." It has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with caste.

Feroze Gandhi's family, sometime in the past, must have been selling perfume. And that was also true of Mahatma Gandhi's parents or forefathers. Somewhere back, they must have been selling perfume; both are called "gandhis."

This word 'Gandhi' gives the impression to the whole of India that Rajiv is a Hindu. He is not. Rajiv is half Hindu and half Parsee. If the whole of India comes to know it, it will be very difficult for Rajiv to come back to power again. I want the whole of India to know it: he is a crossbreed, but the word 'Gandhi' is hiding him. And he goes to the shankaracharyas and to all the so-called Hindu saints and nobody objects, because they all think he is a Hindu. I have to expose him. This man is just like a blue horse who used to be a blue cow.

Changing names is an old, very ancient strategy of the politicians. Now "comrade" is dropped because it was very significant, and only communists used it. And it is a beautiful word. Comrade means friend, brother, belonging to the same path. And Gorbachev has dropped the word 'communism' and is continually talking in his two books about socialism, which was never before mentioned in the seventy years of the Soviet Union's life. It was a communist country. For the first time we hear it is a socialist country.

And he wants private property to come back, he wants foreign money to be invested in the Soviet land. He is completely destroying everything for which so much sacrifice has been made.

It is still time for the Soviet Union to stand up against this man. His whole desire is to be a world leader.

Just a few days ago I had told you that soon he will be getting a Nobel Prize. Today his name has been nominated. It has not been long, and my prediction has come true. These names have been nominated: Gorbachev is first, Ronald Reagan is second, Rajiv Gandhi is third, Dalai Lama is fourth. And the head of the International Football Federation is the fifth!

Nobody has ever heard that the head of the International Football Federation is contributing something to human evolution -- football! And in what way is this football contributing to peace? -- because he has been nominated to be given a Nobel Prize for peace. Strange...?

And what has the Dalai Lama done? He escaped from Tibet when China attacked. If he was really in favor of the Tibetan people he should have remained with his people, even if he was to be murdered.

And when he escaped he did not bring the Buddhist scriptures with him, he brought seventeen camels loaded with gold, because he knew that it would be impossible to get back to Tibet. A man who has betrayed his own people... and they are being killed every day. He has taken the money of the people. It was not his private money. No lama can have private money -- a lama is a Buddhist bhikkshu, he cannot possess anything. The money belonged to the taxpayers, the poor Tibetans. All the gold that was in the possession of the Lhasa Palace of Dalai Lama -- he ran away with all the gold, leaving the Tibetan people in the hands of China. And they are being killed every day, butchered, tortured.

And you will not believe... Every child has to learn Chinese now, not Tibetan. So they are not only destroying people's political freedom, they are even destroying their literature, their whole heritage. The children will be Chinese, because they will be speaking Chinese. Soon, when the old people die, even the Tibetan language will die. And Tibetan scriptures will disappear.

This is an absolute crime against a culture -- they have brought not just a political slavery to Tibet, they are destroying Tibet's whole ancient culture, which has something beautiful in it. They have destroyed all the monasteries of Buddhist monks. They have been turned into hospitals, into schools. And they have brought a great number of Chinese to become residents of Tibet. The number of Chinese is now more than the Tibetans. So now they will bring democracy to Tibet, because now in any case Tibetans cannot win the elections; more Chinese have been infiltrated.

And what has Dalai Lama done?

His younger brother has died just a few days before, because his younger brother -- his name was Panchen Lama -- proved far more courageous than Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama was the head of state and Panchen Lama was number two; if Dalai Lama dies or something happens, then Panchen Lama would be the head. He was not the head, but he took over as Dalai Lama escaped. He did not escape with Dalai Lama, he remained with his people, and he tried in every possible way to prevent this invasion. But Tibet had no armies, Tibet had no arms. Tibet had nothing to fight with, no roads, no tanks, no bombs.

Tibet had only twenty-one guns belonging to the guards of Dalai Lama's palace -- that was all. There were no courts, no police -- because the Tibetan people are such a silent people, such a meditative people.

That's why I feel for the Tibetan people.

If the Nobel Prize was given to the Tibetan people, it would have been absolutely right.

They are suffering and their meditativeness is being laughed at. They are being forced not to meditate, but to go to the fields and work. Under loaded machine guns, meditators are being forced to work.

And Panchen Lama died just four or five days ago, because in a international conference in Beijing he directly hit the Chinese government. He made it clear that Tibet is being completely destroyed -- not only its people are being killed, its scriptures are being burnt, its temples are being destroyed. Nobody can learn Tibetan anymore. The language is being destroyed, the children are being forced to learn Chinese and to speak Chinese.

This is a real generation gap, where children will not be able to understand their own parents. Their parents will not be able to say anything to the children; they will not understand each other's language.

And he lashed out against China, risking his life. Because the conference was international, he wanted the whole world to know what is happening in Tibet at the hands of the Chinese. So he exposed the whole situation, and that very night he was found dead in his hotel. No autopsy was made, no certificate from a doctor that he has died a normal, natural death -- he was a young man, perfectly healthy -- and he was buried. Now they will put someone, their agent -- he may be Tibetan -- as the head of Tibet.

For what is the Dalai Lama getting a nomination? He is not even the head of the International Football Federation! And he is a coward. Cowardice is being rewarded by a Nobel Prize.

And what has Rajiv Gandhi done? He has come accidentally into power because his mother, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated. Naturally the whole nation's sympathy was with Rajiv, her only son. The other son, Sanjay, had died in an airplane accident. But one should see the politician's mind....

Sanjay Gandhi was very much interested in flying airplanes; he had a small airplane and he went flying in it just over his own house. Just two or three blocks from Indira Gandhi's house, where Sanjay lived with his mother, something went wrong. And there is every suspicion that there must have been some political conspiracy, because the examiner at the airport who checked the plane before Sanjay took it said that there was nothing wrong with it, it was absolutely perfect. But just within five minutes... there is a possibility of some sabotage.

And as Indira was informed -- immediately, because she was just two blocks away; she had seen the airplane falling down -- as she was informed, she rushed immediately to the place. I have heard that her first question was not about whether Sanjay was alive or dead -- this is the politician's mind -- her first question was, "He was carrying two keys. Where are those two keys?"

One of those two keys belonged to all the money that she was gathering for the coming elections, and the other key was to a safe in which she was keeping all the files against all the politicians, files that she inherited from her father.

Those files are immensely valuable, because all politicians commit crimes but if they are in the ruling party then nobody ever knows what they have done. But the prime minister knows. He keeps a record of it, what this man has done. If he turns against the prime minister, then he will be exposed immediately to the public as a criminal.

So all those files belonged to Indira. And Sanjay was very ambitious to become the prime minister after Indira Gandhi. He was younger than Rajiv but more political and more crazy for power. The rumor is that he even slapped Indira Gandhi once because she would not give him the keys.

Finally he got those two keys, which were of immense importance: all the money -- one never knows how much money it was; it must have been a few million rupees or even more. And the second was even more important. To control all enemies completely, just the fear was enough, that the file is there and immediately an investigation can be started and they will lose all face, all their hypocrisy will be exposed.

She did not ask what happened to Sanjay. She immediately asked, "Where are those two keys he was carrying with him?" So they said, "Those two keys have been put in the hands of the police. You can get them from the police station." She did not go directly to the hospital to see Sanjay, who was dead; first she went to the police station, got the keys.

Then she went to the hospital.

When Rajiv Gandhi came to power, he told the country, "I promise you that I will lead the country into the twenty-first century." And after the election he never said that again.

Now he is talking about simple methods, simple solutions for complex problems. He is talking about the past and the heritage, the great culture, of India. Now he is not looking forward.

Nobody can take the country into the twenty-first century except me! I can take it to the twenty-second century! There is no problem, we can have quantum jumps. But he cannot.

He has no plan for the country; all his promises are lies.

Four days ago he spoke to an international conference of scientists in New Delhi, and then he said, "Nations should disappear; there should be no boundaries on the earth. The whole earth is one." I suspect he must have been reading my books! If he is not reading them, then it must be the secretary who is preparing his speeches. "We should dissolve all differences -- nations, boundaries, races -- and create one humanity." That was in front of the international conference.

And four days later he was speaking to a Hindu conference, and there he completely forgot about dissolving the boundaries. He started talking about the great Indian heritage -- "We have to protect it." The great Indian morality -- "We have to protect it."

If you are going to protect the Indian heritage, why should Germans not protect their heritage? Why shouldn't Japanese protect their heritage, and Americans protect their heritage? Where has the one earth gone?

But people are blind and utterly in darkness; they cannot see simple contradictions. The man talks to the international conference, and talks in terms of one world. And when he talks to the Hindus, then he says, "Our culture is the best in the world."

But that's the stupidity which everybody is doing. That's how nations are divided, races are divided against each other, religions are divided, because everybody is claiming, "We are the best!"

He talks about making things simple, and on the other hand he has started creating nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are simple things? It is the most complex and the most ultra-modern. And in what way does it belong to the Hindu heritage? You should go back to bullock carts, and you should go back to the spinning wheel -- that is the only technology that belongs to the Hindu heritage. You should return to satipratha -- killing women alive on their husband's funeral pyre, and you should keep the untouchables as animals, as Hindus have kept them for centuries. This is the Hindu heritage!

But all these people have no dedication to any truths. These are all opportunists.

A Nobel Prize for Rajiv Gandhi? What has he done? But this is part of bringing him together with Gorbachev, because India and Russia are in a treaty for another thirty years in the future: they will be friends and they will defend each other, and they will fight for each other. If somebody attacks Russia, India will fight. If somebody attacks India, Russia will fight. And Russia has been absolutely supporting India, in every possible way. But now, as Gorbachev is moving towards America, it is good to give a Nobel Prize to Rajiv Gandhi also, so both can move together towards America. There is no other reason except a political strategy to give these people a super-ego.

And I was surprised... it is perfectly okay to give a Nobel Prize to the International Football Federation's head, but what has Ronald Reagan done? There are so many crimes that he has committed under his regime that it is just a coincidence that he has not been arrested and brought to the Supreme Court -- a coincidence, a very strange coincidence.

The American Constitution gives the Supreme Court absolute power. Even the president cannot overrule the Supreme Court's orders. But the president has one power in his hands: if one of the judges -- and there are nine judges on the whole Supreme Court bench -- if one of the judges dies, then the president can appoint a new judge. From the best judges of all the state supreme courts, or high courts... anybody he wants he can appoint.

Those people who made the constitution never conceived that five judges could suddenly retire. The time of retirement for five judges had come when Ronald Reagan was in power, so if five of the judges retired -- it is just a rare coincidence -- he could appoint five men of his own. Now in the Supreme Court, five out of nine judges are Reagan's men, and four are a minority. That's how he has escaped being punished for his criminal acts during his presidency. The Supreme Court cannot do anything because the majority of the judges are his men. He has come out of the White House completely white, snow- white, clean.

There were rumors all over America and all around the world -- "What will happen about all the crimes he has commited? Will he be impeached?" But nothing has been done. And he has been doing things against the Senate, he has been doing things against the constitution, he has been doing things against the common law of the country... and now he deserves a Nobel Prize!

They should start giving Nobel Prizes to the great criminals. Why not be frank? That will be more truthful.

None of these people deserve anything.

Gorbachev is getting a Nobel Prize because he is destroying a seventy-year-old great experiment for the human future.

Ronald Reagan is being given the Nobel Prize for all his crimes which prevented any change in the social structure, in the social status quo of America.

Rajiv Gandhi is being given the Nobel Prize because he is preventing the communists, he is preventing any kind of revolutionary step in India. He is keeping the same bureaucracy....

Albert Einstein during his whole life was working on the speed of light, and finally he figured it out. And then he wondered: the speed of light is the greatest speed in the world... what is the lowest? He could not find out, and he died before I could have told him.

The lowest speed is the Indian bureaucracy. The file moves so slowly from one table to another table... and on each table you have to bribe. Then the file moves to another table.

Then you have to bribe again. Then it moves to the third table. By the time it reaches the final table, perhaps you may be finished!

I know about a case against one of my very respected friends. He was an old man, but it has been my strange fate to be in contact with the oldest people. This man was a revolutionary, Pandit Sunderlal, and he fought his whole life against the British government. Somewhere in 1914, when he was young, very young, he wrote a book on Indian history in which he contradicted what the British were teaching in the schools about Indian history.

Those histories were written by the British, so naturally they were not talking about the brutalities the British had committed. But he collected all the facts and he wrote a history.

The British government started a case against four persons: the publisher, the writer, the editor, and the printer. In the Allahabad high court the case started.

I saw Pandit Sunderlal in 1970 for the last time -- he was very old. I asked him what had happened with the case. He said, "Don't ask. Somebody has to write a history about the case, because all the judges who tried it are dead; all the advocates from my side and from the government's side are dead. The case was started against four persons -- three are dead, only I am alive. The case was started by a government which is no longer here!

Now India is free, but the case continues. It will end only when I am dead."

There is no way. Such is the bureaucracy... sixty years continuously, an ordinary case, and everybody died! Even the British Empire died! And now the Indian government is carrying the case. Great bureaucracy....

I could have told Albert Einstein that I have found that the Indian bureaucratic files have the slowest speed in the world. Nothing moves slower. And if you don't bribe, it does not move at all.

You can go into any bureaucrat's office and you will see on every clerk's table, piles of files. You won't see the clerk, you will see two piles; the clerk is hiding behind. You give, from underneath the table, a ten-rupee note, and your file is brought to the top. But after half an hour another person comes and he gives ten rupees -- his file goes on top of your file. After a month you find your file has reached to the same old place, it is on the same table. And the clerk needs high piles so you can't see his face. You just find his hand underneath the table with your hand, and you cannot even report who has asked you for money because you have never seen the face, you just see the hand!

And these people like Rajiv Gandhi are keeping the same British Empire bureaucracy -- no change at all.

The country is becoming every day poorer, with more population, more population.... No guts in this man Rajiv Gandhi! Because now, birth control needs almost military action - - nothing else will help. And armies are sitting around unnecessarily. Bring those armies to every village and sterilize people!

But the fear... in the election these people will defeat you, and the fear is right. Indira Gandhi got defeated on the same point, because Sanjay was too much interested in birth control, sterilization. And he was absolutely right, but because of him Indira Gandhi was condemned that she was giving him the power and he was going too far.

Not voluntary birth control -- because voluntary birth control won't succeed. People believe that children are given by God and to interfere in the work of God is a sin. So unless it is compulsory, such that either you get sterilized or otherwise you get shot...

You can choose -- this is freedom of choice. But no politician has the guts to give this freedom of choice.

Just within two days all this nonsense of population explosion can be stopped. Within two days! Just bring the guns and give the freedom to the people to choose -- either the doctor or the army! But please don't misunderstand me -- I simply want that something drastic should be done to prevent the population explosion. Things can be done only Stalin-style, there is no other way. But Joseph Stalin never got the Nobel Prize, and these pygmies are getting Nobel Prizes.

The third thing Sangeet has found in Gorbachev's book is about cutting back the army and weapons.

American experts are suggesting to President George Bush that he go on increasing weapons, nuclear weapons, more refined missiles, and not stop it. What will be the outcome of it? If Russia cuts back its army and weapons, and America goes on piling up nuclear weapons, there will be no need of any war. Just a threat will be enough to finish Russia -- just a threat, that "If you don't listen to us we are going to attack you."

A great world power, just because of one man, is losing all its dignity. I hope that somebody shoots this man! He deserves it; rather than destroying a whole country, it is better to get rid of Gorbachev. Just put him to eternal peace -- I don't mean it literally, but Gorbachev has to be removed from office. There is still time....

And you can see his workings. He is talking about democracy and he has taken all the power in his hands. He is the most powerful man in the whole of Russia's history -- even Stalin had not that much power.

He has become the president of the country, and the prime minister has become nominal, and has no power. He has changed the whole Communist Party's high command, the Politburo. All the old people have been thrown out, and he has put all his own people into the commanding body. He has changed the head of the KGB, which is the country's most powerful agency, and he has put his own man as the head.

Now he is in complete control of the KGB, the Communist Party, and he is also the secretary of the Politburo, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. So he has all the powers -- and he is the president of the government. These are the three most important posts; he is holding all three himself.

You can see that he is not a democratic man at all.

The academician Sakharov used to be the director general of the Academy of Sciences.

Because he accepted the Nobel Prize... Gorbachev himself asked him not to accept the Nobel Prize. And because he did not listen... Sakharov is a man of some integrity; he knew perfectly well that this could mean a lifelong sentence in a concentration camp in Siberia. Before him, three scientists from his own academy had received the Nobel Prize, but because they did not listen to the government they were thrown into Siberia, into labor camps. He knew this could happen to him also, but he risked. And he had some influence over the Russian masses as a very great scientist. Perhaps he is the greatest scientist alive in the world.

Gorbachev removed him from the directorship of the academy. And a small meanness...

he took away his car also, which was given to him as a director, so he could not have much freedom of movement. Now Sakharov is only a member of the academy.

The Academy of Sciences in Russia has a certain quota in the parliament. A few members are chosen by the academy for the parliament, and Sakharov stood for a post, and he was perfectly certain that he would be chosen. He has been the director of the academy, all these people know him, they have worked under him. There was no question that he would not be chosen. But he was not chosen because Gorbachev is behind the idea that he should not be chosen. He does not want any other man of world renown in the parliament except him. This is democracy!

And now Gorbachev has to see what happens to his Nobel Prize. If he is a man of any honesty he should refuse it -- because he has been forcing Soviet scientists to refuse the Nobel Prize; now the question has come to him. If he accepts the Nobel Prize, that man is a chicken! He should refuse immediately; even the nomination he should refuse: "I don't want to be nominated."

Show some consistency, some honesty! And why have you prevented Sakharov from being chosen? The whole academy must have been forced by the KGB -- "You cannot choose him, or your life is at risk."

Now Sakharov has led thousands and thousands of people in a procession -- this must be the first procession in seventy years -- to President Gorbachev's Kremlin, shouting slogans like "Where is your democracy?" and "Where is your socialism?" and "Where is your openness to the world? What happened to all that?" Thousands and thousands of people joined the march at the risk of their lives.

Sakharov is loved immensely. Gorbachev must have felt, "This man can be a competitor, so don't let him enter into the parliament." Now Sakharov is being supported by the people, and they have asked him: "You stand -- not from the academy, you stand as a general candidate against the Communist Party candidate, and we will support you." Now he is standing for election from his district where he lives, and I hope he succeeds. I hope he confronts Gorbachev in the parliament on every point.

People say one thing, do something else, and think something else. These are the politicians of the world.

Now it is absolutely stupid, but it is a compromise: Gorbachev will get a Nobel Prize if he cuts down his army and weapons. If he opens the doors of the Soviet Union to capitalism, he will be given a Nobel Prize. And a world-famous leader... he will become the topmost leader in the world, but at the risk of destroying the sacrifice of twenty million Russians and a tremendously great experiment in changing the social structure of the society. Nobody for hundreds of years will be able to do it again.

The fourth thing he has been insisting is to cut down military aid to small communist countries.

One can see clearly that his mind is determined to completely demolish communism from the earth. Now those small countries like Cuba, or Czechoslovakia, or Yugoslavia -- they are so small that if the Soviet Union is not behind them, capitalist countries can run over them, there is no problem. Cuba will be immediately finished. Once the Soviet Union withdraws its armies from Cuba, America will take over it without any difficulty.

Gorbachev is behaving very unconsciously, not understanding exactly the implications for humanity. He is playing into the hands of enemies.

Question 1:

One sannyasin from the Soviet Union -- she is here -- has asked me a question:

It is very difficult to predict, and I am not a prophet. I can only hope for the best, that one man cannot undermine twenty million people. Somebody is bound to finish him, because other than that, nothing is going to help.

And anyway the Soviet Union has enough experience of what the dictatorship of Stalin managed to do: raise the poorest country in the world to the highest peak of power. Even America was threatened, continuously living in paranoia. A single man managed to raise the country to such a power....

Millions of people in the Soviet Union must be feeling that Gorbachev is destroying their dignity. They will belong to a backward country. Once their doors are open to capitalist money and to all kinds of spies from capitalist countries, once Gorbachev reduces his army and weapons, the country will be in need, just as other poor countries are in need, of foreign aid.

I hope somebody in the Soviet Union, or somebody who understands the revolutionary strategy from outside the Soviet Union, can do something to stop this insane man from the destructive step that he is going to take -- that he is already taking.

Question 2:

The second question:

The truth is, the whole controversy is absolutely wrong. It is based on prejudices, not on an experience of human nature.

I speak from the experience of my own humanity, that the deeper you go the more cultured you are; the deeper you go the more graceful you are. The deeper you reach the more human you become. So I can say with absolute certainty and guarantee that man is not by nature ugly.

Man by nature is born absolutely innocent, neither ugly nor cultured, just a tabula rasa.

Whatever you want to write on him he will become.

If you are alert and aware, you will not write anything; you will leave the child alone.

You will help him to be stronger, you will help him to be well-nourished, you will help him to be more healthy, you will take every care, in the way a gardener takes care of a rosebush. You will not force anything on the rosebush -- roses will come in their own time, they are hidden; you have just to take care.

Every child has roses, lotuses, buddhas hidden in him, in his innocence. Help him to remain innocent. Don't force so-called culture, society, in the fear that "if we don't force, he will become a barbarian."

Without any experimentation, this controversy has been going on for centuries. I know; I have been fighting in my university with my professors, because the same thing comes up again and again in every psychological and social effort to understand what to do with the child. And my standpoint from the very beginning has been not to do anything with the child; you simply protect.

Your function is to nourish the child, to make him healthy, to keep him intelligent. Let him be himself, his innocence intact -- he will find meditativeness very easy. If you want, if your temptation to teach is too much, teach meditation. That will make him more innocent. Don't teach knowledge, culture, civilization. That becomes the burden, that becomes the false personality, that becomes the hypocrisy.

We are living in a hypocrite world, not a cultured world. It is not really a cultured or civilized world. H.G. Wells was right.... He was writing a world history and he had almost completed it -- it is one of the greatest histories ever written, by a man of a very clear insight into things. A friend asked, "You know about the whole of world history.

What is your idea about civilization?"

H.G. Wells said, "It is a good idea, but it has to happen. It has not happened yet.

Somebody has to bring it to humanity. Humanity is still barbaric."

Just look at your armies, just look at your arms, just look at your nuclear weapons. Even barbarians are not that barbaric; even animals are not that animalistic. Have you seen any animal killing his own species?

A dog will never kill another dog. Sometimes you can see them fighting, but watch closely. Be a witness, and you will be surprised to discover... because I have been watching. I have not only been watching human beings, I have been watching all kinds of beings. I have never missed any opportunity to watch, to figure out what is happening.

When two dogs are fighting, you can see they are not really hitting each other, they are just barking. Everybody is showing his power and both are watching each other: "Who is more powerful?" This is arithmetic! Once it is decided, both understand clearly that one is weaker, then the weaker one simply puts his tail underneath his legs. Just a symbol, that "There is no point. I am weaker, you are stronger. Finished." And they stop barking, and the stronger does not take advantage of the weaker. That will be too un-dogly.

Once the weaker has accepted that he is weaker, then the stronger simply moves away; there is no point in fighting. In fact, they may become friends -- most often they become friends. Once things are settled, that one is weaker and one is stronger, what is the point of fighting, unnecessary killing?

And there is no humiliation in accepting your weakness. If you are weak, what can you do? You are weak, you are simply accepting the truth. There is no insult, there is no humiliation. You are simply giving the signal to the other person that "I am weak, and if you want to kill me you can kill." But that will not be fair, and that will not be just, and the stronger person immediately understands that "this poor fellow needs protection rather than attack." They become friends.

No animal species kills its own people except man. And no animals have weapons, so the fight is face to face, it is an encounter, direct. It has a dignity in it. It is only man who has invented weapons. And what is the purpose of the weapons? To shoot the enemy from far away, so you don't have encounter him face to face, eye to eye.

First, man invented arrows and the bow to kill faraway animals, faraway birds. You don't know... you cannot fight even with a strong dog. You cannot fight with a monkey, although Charles Darwin says you are the evolution of monkeys. But your retarded brothers are far stronger than you.

Even a man like Vivekananda, who was really fat, big, and an arch-egoist... He was passing somewhere in the Himalayas and one monkey started threatening him. And Vivekananda started running, forgot all about God, forgot all about spiritual powers. The monkey looked very strong -- they are strong, you cannot compete with them. From tree to tree they go, from house to house they jump. You cannot do that.

As far as monkeys are concerned, my feeling is they must be thinking that human beings are a fallen race, not evolved, because you have fallen from the trees onto the ground.

They are still higher than you! They must be laughing at Charles Darwin's one-sided judgment. Nobody has asked a monkey -- it is a one-sided judgment. Man is deciding on his own that he is the evolution of apes, of gorillas, of chimpanzees.

Have you seen chimpanzees and gorillas and apes? Just one chimpanzee is enough for five men! Within minutes you will be finished.

Man started with arrows, but the idea was to be able to kill from a distance. This was a cowardly idea, so that the animal cannot attack you; the animal is far away. Then came gunpowder, even more powerful. And your so-called great hunters sit up in a tree where the lion cannot reach. To deceive the lion they put a goat underneath the tree, so the lion smells the goat, and he comes to catch the goat. And when he is killing the goat, you -- from the top of the tree where he cannot reach -- shoot him. And you are a great hunter!

I have heard about a hunter. His wife was always asking him, "Sometimes you should take me also." This time she was adamant. She said, "Either I come, or you don't go. And not only I am coming, my mother is also coming."

The hunter thought for a moment, and he said, "If your mother is also coming, then come."

They put the old woman in a cave to watch the scene and they both sat in the tree, the husband and wife. The wife suddenly nudged the husband and told him, "Look! One lion has entered into the cave where my mother is!"

The hunter said, "It is the lion's own fault. I cannot help. Why has that idiot entered there? Now he will suffer as I am suffering."

Now there are missiles, which are the ultimate: you can kill somebody in America from here, and you don't have to see the enemy at all. Missiles are computerized -- you simply tell the computer, you press a button. And you don't know where the missile is. It may be somewhere in the ocean on a warship, but the computer knows where it is and the computer knows where it has to go. You can sit inside your house and destroy the whole of America, or the whole of the Soviet Union, or the whole of India, just by pressing buttons on the computer -- it is exactly like a typewriter. This is the remotest way of killing millions of people, not encountering them.

Now there are airplanes without pilots; the computer manages the plane. It will go to any city, it will drop the hydrogen bombs, or atom bombs, whatever you want the computer to do. The computer manages the flight, and the airplane will drop the bombs at the right place and turn back and come home. And there is no need for any human being to be inside the plane, because that is dangerous.

This is the latest development of the arrow. The arrow was the beginning of remote killing. The highest development of the arrow are the missiles controlled by computers.

Man is the most barbarious animal, and he kills man. And just now it had been discovered... perhaps it has been discovered before but was kept secret for a right time to release it. Hirohito, the emperor of Japan, has died, and immediately America released the news that after the second world war when Japan was defeated, there were many Japanese on small islands, in the forests -- guerillas, fighting. Because Japan was defeated, Germany was defeated, these people were left in the jungles of Burma. Having no food, they started eating the dead bodies of the British soldiers in the jungles of Burma. They have released that news just now, when Hirohito's funeral was about to take place. That has created a great problem. The Prince of Wales was going to attend, but he refused. Then Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, was asked to go to the funeral of the emperor of Japan. He said, "I can go, but I belong to a special club that has been created by Mountbatten." Mountbatten was the viceroy in Burma for almost his whole life; only in the last part of his life he came to India. He created a special club of all the royal princes and old royalties of the world. So Prince Philip is a member of that Burma Club.

I had never heard about the club, because it was a secret club. Just now Prince Philip has said, "If I go, then I will be immediately expelled from the Burma Club. So I don't think it is right for me to go."

Just to prevent every important person around the world from participating in Hirohito's funeral, that news release was waiting.

Now, it is... The second world war ended in 1945. For what reason has this release been kept back? Just to insult Emperor Hirohito in his death! This is ugly behavior. And my feeling is that even Prince Philip, in the position of those Japanese soldiers who had been hungry for months, would have eaten the corpses. He should just think for a moment, "If I was in their position, what would I do?"

I know about the famous famine in Bengal -- even mothers ate their own children. There is a limit... man is very frail. A woman who has been hungry for one month, and the breast is no longer bringing any milk, the child is hungry... it is a double problem. She is suffering from hunger so she cannot give milk. There is no milk, she has become a skeleton, and the child is dying without milk. Just put yourself in that situation....

So the women ate their own children, or those who were a little more conscientious sold their children, so others ate them and they got the money to purchase something to eat.

But it is the same, just a little roundabout.

And there are cannibals, you know, in Africa. All the missionaries know -- missionaries are the only people who get caught by the cannibals, because nobody else goes into their forests. They used to be three thousand in the beginning of this century; now they are only three hundred. They have eaten their own people -- what to do?

Once in a while a missionary comes. Then there is great rejoicing, drums are beaten, the whole tribe gathers, and the missionary thinks that they are gathering to listen his sermon.

And sometimes, if the missionary is thin and not worth boiling at this point, they keep him, feeding him fruits, whatever is possible, and the missionary thinks these are very good people: "Unnecessarily they have been called cannibals, and they are serving me!"

And when he becomes really fat, then the drums beat again....

I have heard about one missionary. When he was put in a big pot in boiling water, he could not think what to say to these people. He said, "Just wait a little. You can kill me later on -- first let me give you a little taste of Christianity."

They said, "Wait! That's what we are trying. When we drink the soup, we will have a taste of Christianity! You just wait, don't be in a hurry -- and anyway you cannot escape."

Man is the ugliest animal in the sense that the people who think they have civilized him, they have cultured him, are absolutely wrong. All their culture and civilization only goes skindeep. Just scratch, and immediately comes the barbarian.

The only thing to make man really and authentically cultured is to bring up children in their innocence, and help their bodies to be healthy and their innocence to be meditative.

The child can reach his center very easily because he has nothing to obstruct him, no ideas, no thoughts, no prejudices. He is not Catholic, he is not Hindu; he knows nothing.

So when you say, "Go in," he simply goes in. And the road is clean, because no Bibles, no Korans, no Bhagavadgitas are standing like a China Wall preventing him. Children can learn meditation more easily than anybody else.

So my suggestion in response to your question is that every child is born innocent.

Neither barbaric nor a very cultured and religious person -- just innocent. And all that the child needs from the parents and the society is not knowledge, but a deepening of innocence. Meditation is the only way of deepening innocence, and if a child grows with his center blossoming you will have for the first time a society which is cultured, a society of the buddhas, the awakened ones. That's my whole effort here.

Now the sutras:

Enchi in Chinese means "round" and "wisdom." A man of wisdom becomes round.

Not physically -- if he becomes round physically, he will have to become a member of the TV Couch Potatoes! He will have to be in America. Then just sit on your sofa and watch television for seven and a half hours per day, average. And you cannot leave a sensational murder or rape story. You cannot leave a man who is raping a woman, in the middle, can you? So a special club is being created which is called the TV Couch Potato Club. You become a member of the club with a certain fee, and you have a card and a number. Whenever you feel that you need ice cream, or you need your lunch, or your supper, or your dinner, whatever -- you simply... By your side is the phone. You go on watching the TV, the rape. Nobody wants to miss any details. Just phone the number and give your membership number from the Potato Club, and tell the hotel, "Bring my dinner here." And immediately your dinner will be served just in front of you. You can go on watching.

People are even making love doggie-style because the man wants to watch the TV and the woman also wants to watch the TV. So a totally new fashion, absolutely original and American -- more particularly, Californian.

I don't know who gave this name to California, because it should be Californiac.

"Fornication" -- that is the basic root from which California should come. Whether it comes from that or not I don't bother.

Enchi means a man who is wise. And when a man is wise he does not have corners. His whole consciousness becomes round, shapely, graceful. The roundness represents grace.

And if you have sharp corners here and there, that means you are dangerous, you can kill anybody with your corners.

You know, in America they call the old-fashioned people "squares." The square has four corners. Hippies brought that word into existence. "Squares" -- they have corners, they are just looking to hit somebody. They are just ready to be angry and enraged.

In ancient Chinese symbolism, roundness, enchi, is a symbol of wisdom. One has lost all the corners of anger, violence, murder, rape, crime. One has lost all corners and has become completely round. The round shape certainly gives a feeling of peacefulness, settledness, grace, beauty, perfection.

So when Nansen asked Dogo, "What is your name?" DOGO REPLIED, "MY NAME IS ENCHI" -- wise and round. Certainly it was not his name. He was describing his inner being.

The name is just a label put on you by your parents. You can change it. Just go to any court and change your name, there is nothing in it. It has no deep connection with you, it is just on your skin. You are labeled, it is a social convenience, because if everybody lives namelessly it will be very difficult. Somebody wants to call you -- now what to do? How to call you? How to address you? Somebody falls in love with you and wants to write a love letter. To whom? He will have to write, "To Whomsoever It May Concern"!

You are all nameless, born nameless. And you know it: that name is a fiction. So when a man like Nansen, a great master, a great buddha, asks Dogo, "What is your name?"...

Dogo was his name, but he did not say, "Dogo is my name." Because a master like Nansen will not ask about labels, he will ask about your very being.

Nansen could not deceive Dogo, although there was every possibility to be trapped, because he was asking, "What is your name?" And if Dogo had said, "My name is Dogo," he would have fallen in the eyes of the master -- "He is not worth much. It may be a wastage of time to accept him as a disciple."

But Dogo said, "My name is Enchi" -- wisdom, and perfectly round.

You are saying you are wise, and you are saying you are perfectly round. Okay, just tell me the place where wisdom does not reach.

Certainly there is a place inside you where there is only silence, absolute silence. An eternal space, infinite sky, but nothing can reach there, not even wisdom.

The master is asking, "How do you express the place where wisdom does not reach?"

Another trap. But Dogo is really meditative. He says, "I would never express it."

Nobody can express that space where wisdom cannot reach. If wisdom cannot reach it, how can you express it? -- "So I will never express it. I will experience it, enjoy it, love it, dance it, but I will not express it. No explanation is possible."

NANSEN SAID, "THAT'S RIGHT. IF YOU EXPRESS IT, HORNS WILL GROW AND YOU WILL BECOME A BEAST."

You will become just an idiot, a buffalo. If you start expressing that which is inexpressible, you will fall below human intelligence. It is right that you are saying you will never express it. Remember: IF YOU EXPRESS IT, HORNS WILL GROW AND YOU WILL BECOME A BEAST -- a buffalo, utterly content, chewing grass.

Still, buffalos are not prohibited by any government: "Don't chew grass" -- "grass" in inverted commas; you know what grass I mean. But buffalos don't bother, they go on chewing the whole day. And so contented... they have never shown their discontent, they have never taken a procession against the government. They are not interested in any revolution, they are perfectly at ease with existence.

In utter ignorance, also, a certain contentment happens. But it is a contentment of ignorance. Another contentment happens when you are luminous; all darkness disappears, all ignorance is gone. That contentment is possible only if you are a buddha, not a buffalo.

Nansen said, "That's right. You are a right person who has come to me. But remember, even by mistake if you express it, immediately you will become subhuman." That's what symbolically he means: you will become an animal, a beast, you will grow horns. So please keep it a secret, hidden deep inside you. You know it, that's enough. Don't make it a knowledge, and don't make it an explanation, an expression.

he said,

"Enchi, the other day you said you would never express the place where wisdom does not reach. Now, how are you practicing it?"

Another trap. The master's function is to create traps and your function is to jump, not to get trapped. This way the master helps you to come closer and closer to the truth.

He asked,

In a very different way... If the man is bogus and not authentic, if he is simply repeating some answer which he has heard or read, he will be caught. The master will try from every angle possible. Now he is not asking about expressing, he is asking about practicing.

You cannot practice your enlightenment. You may not have thought about it....

Enlightenment simply is. You cannot practice it. It overflows you, it expresses in every gesture. It is all around you, but you don't have to practice it. It is your very nature. Do you practice anything that is your very nature?

The blood is circulating in your body -- are you practicing it? The food is being digested by your stomach -- are you practicing it? One day try: try to practice digesting the food, and your whole stomach will be upset for the first time in your life, and it will be very difficult to put it back.

You cannot practice. What is natural is already happening. Your practice may be a disturbance but not a help, a hindrance but not a help.

When he asked, "How are you practicing it?" very nicely, he was setting the trap. If Dogo says, "I am practicing it this way or that way," he is caught. Then Nansen could have said, "All that you have said before is borrowed, it is not yours."

But it was certainly his.

When the master asked you the question, why did you not answer? Ungan was Dogo's brother.

But he has answered. By slipping into the dormitory and waiting there until Nansen walked away, he has answered by his action. He is saying, "It is so deep, just like my slipping back into the dormitory so that you cannot even see me. It is so deep, there is no question of practicing it; it is simply there. It is spontaneously functioning, not practicing!"

So just to avoid the answer in language, he gave it in a gesture: "Whenever I want to feel it, to experience it, I simply slip inside myself, hide myself from the whole world. There is no question of practicing. Don't ask such a question." That's why he has not paid any attention to the master's question.

UNGAN ASKED DOGO, "WHY DID YOU NOT ANSWER WHEN OSHO, the master, aSKED YOU THE QUESTION?"

You are just a clever chap; you don't understand anything.

A "clever chap" does not mean a man who knows. A "clever chap" simply means a man who intellectually comprehends that which is incomprehensible.

Dogo became enlightened before Ungan. Ungan lagged far behind because of his intellectuality, his cunningness. His clevernesses were all obstacles. They are good in the outside world, but in the inner world they are great obstacles. Don't be clever, just be innocent.

Your brother is very wise. He knows how to avoid the beasts' way.

When he said, "He is quite good at the beasts' way," he is saying that he is quite good at knowing what is the beasts' way and how to avoid it. "He avoided my question completely, did not answer. And in a subtle way he expressed by his gesture of hiding deep in the dormitory, that in the same way that space is hidden inside you. It comes to explosion on its own accord. There is no question of practicing it."

You cannot practice enlightenment; you can become enlightened.

So all those who are trying to practice are going on the beasts' way. Those who are not practicing but just relaxing into their innermost being, are avoiding the beasts' way. And they will be the only ones who will become enlightened.

It is a beautiful anecdote to be understood.

Shiki wrote:

These haikus are so different in every way from anything that has been written by man anywhere else. Superficially you will see what is here:

Unless I give you the key you will not be able to understand it.

What is he saying? ALONE, I GO THROUGH A TINY VILLAGE... He is saying, alone I go through the tiny village of the mind. It is full of thoughts, but I pass alone, silently, without getting identified with the villagers of my mind, the whole crowd. I remain alone even in the crowd.

ALONE, I GO THROUGH A TINY VILLAGE. Of course, your skull is a very tiny place -- but still so full of crowd, so many images, so many dreams, so many projections, so many thoughts, almost incalculable.

The mind, when you enter into meditation, becomes almost a barking dog. It creates as much noise as possible to bring you back: "Where are you going? Are you mad? Leaving the mind and going out of it? -- that is the way of madness! Just come back in immediately and close the door!"

In India they have a beautiful proverb. The elephant is thought by the Indians, symbolically, to be one of the wisest animals in existence. And why have they thought that it is the wisest? -- because whenever an elephant passes through a village all the dogs gather... they cannot tolerate such a big animal; it is too hurtful to their egos. Just a mountain! and they look so tiny. Now it is unbearable; something has to be done.

So all the dogs -- and every village in India has so many stray dogs you won't believe, because no corporation, no municipal committee is allowed to kill anything, not even mad dogs. So they go on, everything in India goes on growing. As many dogs start barking, others who are far away immediately run -- "Something great is happening." So the whole population of dogs follows an elephant.

The proverb says, "Dogs go on barking, but the elephant does not even pay attention." He does not even stand and look at the dogs, he just goes on his way as if he has not heard them. It is because of this -- that he does not get into a fighting mood with the dogs. He pays no attention, remains absolutely indifferent.

And that is the way of a meditator: be indifferent to all the barking dogs of your mind. It is a tiny village and there are many stray dogs, which are going to bark at you with great arguments. They will give evidence: "It is wrong to go out of the mind. Have you not heard that every man who becomes mad, becomes mad because he has gone out of the mind? And where are you going? Out of the mind! Just come back. Regain your intelligence, don't lose it."

All the dogs bark, but the meditator goes on like an elephant without paying any attention. What they are saying is, in a way, true: you can go out of the mind from two doors. Either you fall below the mind -- then you are insane. If you fall above the mind, then you are enlightened.

There is a little similarity between the madman and the enlightened man, because both are out of the mind. That is the similarity. But one has gone beyond the mind, and one has gone below the mind -- although both have gone outside the mind. So the mind has a certain truth in the argument, "Don't go out of the mind; that is the way of becoming mad. Come back home."

But the meditator goes alone, just like an elephant -- dogs barking, barking, barking....

Slowly slowly, their barking fades away, far away, as if it is just an echo in the valleys, or maybe a dream you have seen somewhere. The farther you go beyond the mind, the less and less you hear the barking of the dogs, their arguments, their ideologies, their philosophies. Their religions, their theologies, their political beliefs, their social beliefs, their educational conditioning... all goes on barking, barking, but you go on like an elephant, reaching farther and farther, deeper into yourself. Soon you will be so far away, you won't even listen to the barking of the dogs.

And once you are that far away, dogs lose interest. They go on their way to do the work they had been doing, separately. Now there is no need of the assembly, the elephant has gone. Perhaps they believe he has gone because they were barking -- this is how mind functions: "Perhaps the elephant became afraid."

I have heard...

One elephant was passing over a bridge with a small fly sitting on his head. The bridge started wavering -- it was an old bridge -- and the fly said to the elephant after they had passed the bridge... It didn't fall, but it was wavering and there was every possibility. The fly said to the elephant, "Son, we were too much for the bridge!"

The elephant heard somebody saying something. He said, "Who are you? And where are you? And as far as my mother is concerned, she cannot sit on my head."

The fly came closer to his eyes... and it is strange that elephants are so big, but their eyes are very small. That shows God has not made this world. Such an unscientific attitude!

Such a big animal, and with such tiny eyes... must be the work of some idiot. It cannot be the work of an intelligent God.

So the elephant looked at the fly, and he said, "Mother, it is right. Because of us two, the bridge was shaking."

The idea that elephants are very wise comes from such stories. He accepted it: "Don't bother, don't argue with this stupid fly who calls me her son, and thinks that because of both of us the bridge was shaking. There is no point in arguing. It is better to accept that, 'Mother, you are right,' and just go on your way."

Don't be distracted.

Not to be distracted is wisdom.

Flies will be there, and mosquitoes will be there -- although you have the biggest mosquito net in the whole world! But they are waiting outside! They are very silent people, and very musical; when they get you caught, they sing a small song. And they are the ancient enemies of the meditators, but you have not to bother. You have to go on.

Mosquitoes, and flies, and dogs -- the whole world in fact, is against the meditator. They will all be barking at you! If you are sitting silently your wife will come rushing in, "What are you doing? Why are you silent? Speak!" And if you speak, you are in trouble.

Just open your mouth, and you have not even completed the sentence, and the wife jumps on you. Whatever you do you are in trouble.

The whole world is against the meditator, because the meditator is doing something which the world is avoiding. He is trying to become a buddha, an Everest of consciousness -- that hurts everybody. Everybody will try to distract you. The priest, the politician, the parents, the neighbors, the friends -- everybody will try to bring you out:

"What are you doing wasting time?"

My whole childhood I had to listen to everybody... finally they decided, "Either he is going to be insane, or who knows? He may become a buddha. But he is not going to be a normal human being." Because everybody was telling me...

My uncles would come to me, my aunts would come to me, and it was a big joint family.

Wherever you go somebody is watching, "What are you doing? Why are you sitting silently?"

I would just tell them, "I am not sitting silently; silence is just happening to me, what can I do?"

"Happening to you? It does not happen to us."

I said, "What can I do if it does not happen to you? It happens to me! Don't disturb me."

By and by they became accustomed of me, so much accustomed that... My mother is here. I would be sitting in the house and she would ask me, "Have you seen anybody here? Because I want some vegetables to be fetched from the market."

And I would say, "I have not seen anybody. If I see anybody I will report to you." People finally accepted that "This man is absent. Just don't count on him." Once or twice they depended on me, and felt, "He is not reliable." In the morning they would send me to fetch some vegetables. In the middle of night I would come back to ask, "I have forgotten for what you have sent me." And they had been waiting the whole day, and they would beat their heads: "Where have you been the whole day?"

I said, "You know, on every point there are people ready to argue with me. And then I get so much involved in the argument, by the time I reach the market I have completely forgotten for what I had gone there. Seeing no reason, I went into meditation; I went to the river."

One day one of my aunts sent me, saying, "You can bring some bananas."

I said, "You really mean bananas? I can bring many! The whole city consists of bananas."

She said, "I don't mean that banana, I mean the fruit!"

I said, "Okay, I am going." So I went to the first shop in the market, the vegetable market, and I asked the man, "Which are the most precious and best bananas you have?"

And the man knew me, that I had never come into the vegetable market. He was the first shop near the door of the market. He knew that I was a little eccentric, so he gave me the worst bananas, almost rotten, and asked me the highest price. I gave him the highest price and brought those rotten bananas back.

I could see what was happening, but I said, "This is a good device to get rid of these bananas forever." So I gave those bananas to my aunt. She said, "Are you mad? These are all rotten!"

I said, "I asked the man to give me the best and said I would pay the highest price. So I have paid the highest, and you call them rotten? Now that man knows better about bananas than I know. I have no concern with bananas, either human or fruit."

She said, "Just take them out! There is a beggar woman sitting under the tree; just give them to her."

Even she did not accept them. She told me, "Throw them away. Do you think I am mad just like you? These bananas... In your whole life, for the first time you have come to give me something. These rotten bananas -- just throw them! Nobody is going to accept them."

I said, "That's okay." So I threw them into the gutter. After that nobody asked me to bring anything. I was accepted as an absent member of the family. And I enjoyed it because that relieved me of all the trouble, all kinds of barking. Nobody talked with me; nobody even took any note that I was present.

Even my mother was asking me, "Have you seen anybody?" -- and I am there, present!

And I would say, "Although I have not seen anybody in the house -- the whole house seems to be empty -- if I come across somebody, I will inform you."

The whole world is against the meditator because the meditator is becoming a stranger.

Everybody is going outward and you are going inward.

One drunkard was driving his car and his wife was continuously nagging him, "Be careful, be careful, be careful!"

The drunkard said, "Don't be worried. We must be reaching home because I am hitting more people. As I go ahead, hitting more and more people, that means the village is coming closer. Don't be worried! And I am going fast so that I will hit less people; otherwise, if I go slow, I will hit more. So don't be worried, you keep quiet."

And she told him, "Where are your glasses?"

He said, "With glasses on and this drunk, one starts seeing elephants and kangaroos and zebras and all kinds of things! I never wear my glasses when I am driving. Then you simply hit human beings. If you hit an elephant which does not exist, you are in trouble."

The wife simply sat silently. "There is no point, this man is absolutely drunk -- can't see, because I know his eyesight. And going so fast and hitting so many people... but still he is logical. That village is coming closer."

When everybody is going outward and you are going inward then you are hitting many, many people and everybody is angry: "Where are you going? When the whole crowd is going this way, where are you going? Against the current, against us all -- do you think we are mad?"

So remember: don't pay any attention to barking dogs. That's what Shiki is saying:

Alone, move silently. Don't pay any attention to anybody. Dogs or no dogs, they will be barking; that is their nature.

Question 3:

A question from Maneesha:

Maneesha, there is a tendency in the human mind always to be a victim of the new. To prevent this tendency every society tries to program you that the old is gold. Every society from the very childhood conditions the mind against the natural tendency for the new -- turns it almost diametrically opposite: "Everything old is good. The more ancient the scripture, the more truthful." Every religion tries to prove that their scripture is the most ancient.

Why this attraction for the ancient? Every society thinks they have passed the golden age.

These are the conditionings from society. Culture -- whatever you have -- religion, education... these are to prevent you from falling for the new.

Otherwise, the natural tendency is to believe the new. But neither to believe the old is right, nor to believe the new is right. Not to believe is right.

Without believing anything, just be clear, like a mirror without any dust, and respond to reality with your totality. And you will always find the truth. No news media can deceive you -- nobody can deceive you. You get deceived because your clarity is not there, your mirrorlike ability to reflect the reality as it is, is not there. You are thinking through prejudices.

When the whole news media says that Stalin is a bad guy, it fits with your morality, with your puritan upbringing, your Christianity, your Hinduism. It fits with your upbringing that because he killed so many people....

Majid was saying to Amrito, my personal physician, that it is not only in the Soviet Union that Stalin killed one million people; he also killed revolutionaries in Spain, in Italy, in other countries. It is true, but I want Majid to know that there are revolutionaries and revolutionaries. There are revolutionaries who are really counter-revolutionaries, but they pretend to be revolutionaries. They are in the service of the status quo.

And Stalin certainly murdered people outside the Soviet Union because his conception was not that of a nationalist. His conception belonged to the original Marxian idea of one earth; the revolution has to happen all over the world, and if it is not coming from within a country on its own, then the countries which have become communist should help to bring the revolution to these other countries also. And every country which is capitalist, to prevent the communists, create pseudo-revolutionaries. They talk of socialism, they talk of beautiful things, but all these things are just to create barriers and confusion in the proletariat.

So Majid is right that Stalin killed many revolutionaries outside the Soviet Union, but he does not know whether those revolutionaries were revolutionaries, or anti-revolutionaries pretending to be revolutionaries. Their whole effort was to counteract the oncoming revolution of communism, and they succeeded to a large extent in deceiving people.

Stalin was not deceived.

I see that man with very clear eyes. He knew who was a counter-revolutionary, who was a wolf in the skin of a sheep. So you see that he is killing a sheep, but he is killing a wolf.

And so much fuss will be made by the countries where so-called revolutionaries are killed because those are the agents of the capitalists.

They were not revolutionaries.

Joseph Stalin's understanding about revolution was very pragmatic and practical. He was not a dreamer. He could see exactly how things are happening.

I can see it happening in India. The Socialist Party of India is known all over the world as a revolutionary party, but they are paid by the capitalists and they are the agents of the capitalists. One of Mahatma Gandhi's closest disciples, Vinoba Bhave... it is said that Gandhi had two successors. One was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, his political successor, and one was Vinoba Bhave, his spiritual successor.

Vinoba Bhave created a very great movement. He walked all over the country for almost twelve or thirteen years, and he created the idea in the mind of the people that this was real revolution, because he was asking from the landlords.... Eighty percent of India is in the villages, and eighty percent of its poor people are in the villages. So Vinoba Bhave would approach the village, sing devotional songs, his disciples would sing devotional songs... and he was considered to be Mahatma Gandhi's spiritual successor, almost a "mini-mahatma."

So people would gather, the landlords would gather, and he would talk about VEDAS and UPANISHADS -- which are appealing to the people -- he would talk about Ramayana, and give interpretations which are absolutely wrong, but appealing to the people.

And he would ask, after he had talked to people, that "Those who have lands -- if you have five children, let me be your sixth child. Give me the sixth part of your land and I will distribute it to the poor." And he collected millions of acres of land. But he became very much disappointed....

He was supported by all the landlords, capitalists, the government -- even Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who never liked the man before India became independent, because Jawaharlal was an ultra-modern man, educated in the West. Although he was a brahmin, he was not a vegetarian; he was eating meat, he was drinking alcohol. He was an ultra- modern, Western man, and Vinoba Bhave is absolutely antique. So Jawaharlal never liked the man, but he was very close to Gandhi so he had to suffer his presence.

But after freedom Jawaharlal started going to Vinoba Bhave. Whenever Vinoba Bhave was having annual conventions, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was present there, because thousands and thousands of people would gather. He could not miss the opportunity to show them that he was in support of Vinoba Bhave, and Vinoba Bhave would feel great that the prime minister comes to his every conference.

So it was a mutual conspiracy. And it was said even by the capitalists that Vinoba Bhave had to be supported because he was diverting the poor people from the communists. Poor people were thinking that if just by being asked, the landlords are giving their land, what is the problem? Why unnecessary violence? Why does revolution have to be violent when without violence people are giving their land?

And they thought, if people are giving land, they will also give money... because Vinoba Bhave was not yet working in the big cities. First he wanted to transform the bigger part of India which lives in the villages and later on... the big cities are not many. If he succeeds in transforming eighty percent of India, he will be able to transform the remaining twenty percent without any difficulty. And he certainly became one of the greatest hindrances for the communists.

Communists believe that revolution has to be violent, there is no way out of it. People are not going to drop their private property easily. But Vinoba proved that they were dropping it, so even communist strongholds became weaker.

But the reality is that all the land that was given... and when it was distributed, somebody got half an acre, somebody got one acre because they had a bigger family. It was distributed according to the number of people in the family. But what are you going to do with one acre? And finally it was found that all the land that he had received was absolutely useless, unfertile. Those landlords were giving land that was so stony, on the hills... Vinoba never went to those places to see what kind of land he was receiving, he was just receiving it in public meetings. When it was distributed, then it was found that the poor people refused to take it, saying, "What will we do with this land?"

And those who received it were at a loss, because just the land is not enough. In the first place it was too small a piece of land; it was not going to give them enough nourishment, they would remain undernourished. Secondly, they need bullocks, they need a plow, they need seeds, they need manure. They don't have anything, what to do with the land? And the land is so stony, unless hard work is done those stones cannot be removed.

They needed tractors and bigger mechanical devices to make their land fertile; but they were so poor, from where to get all these technological devices? They could not even purchase two oxes to work for them. And not only that, it became a trouble for them because they had to pay property tax. And the land is not even giving anything to them -- property tax!

So they gave the land back to the distributing committee of Vinoba Bhave, and Vinoba Bhave was so disappointed that he went back to his ashram in Pavnar near Wardha.

But for thirteen years he was thought to be one of the great spiritual revolutionaries. And the government and the capitalists all supported him, because "this man can divert the poor from the communist party." And he certainly diverted them for a time.

So you have to understand, Majid, that all revolutionaries are not revolutionaries. Many of them are wolves wearing a sheep's skin. They could not deceive Josef Stalin. He killed them -- he was killing the wolf. You saw that he was killing a sheep.

It needs immense clarity to see the world as it really is, and to see how society creates certain dynamics, certain pseudo phenomena to protect itself. There are more counter- revolutionaries in the world pretending to be revolutionaries than there are authentic revolutionaries. But it needs a tremendous clarity, coming only out of meditation, so that you can figure it out.

I know you have been in deep love with me. That's why I can hit you without mercy -- mercy is for the enemies, not for the friends. Even Jesus has not said, "Love your friends." He has said, "Love your enemies." That's good! As far as friends are concerned, hit them! This is my improvement on Jesus.

Majid belongs to a radical party in Italy. The head of that radical party wanted to come to me and discuss with me how things should to be done. Of course Majid was the mediator; he had persuaded the man to come to me. But I saw an interview he had given to a journalist, in which the journalist asks, "We hear that you are going to Poona. Are you interested in the philosophy, in the ideology of Osho Rajneesh?"

And he said, "I have nothing to do with his philosophy or with his meditations or with his ideology. My sole concern is that if he can give me ten thousand sannyasins in Italy to become members of the Radical Party, I will go and kiss his feet."

When I saw that interview, I could see that the man is bogus. And I informed Majid that "I don't want to see that man. His whole interest is that I should tell sannyasins in Italy to join the party."

It is not a radical party, Majid; it is not revolutionary. And you can see it, even though you are not so clear about things. Just to get votes, your Radical Party leader arranged a woman... she must have been a prostitute or must have been having the mind of a prostitute. She remained sitting in the square, the main square of Rome, with uncovered breasts and said to people, "I will allow you to play with my breasts, I will allow you to kiss my breast, or to kiss me, if you become part of the Radical Party." A membership drive, and she managed to get ten thousand people to become party members.

Do you think this is revolution? This is absolutely prostitution! And the people who have become members of your party don't understand anything about your party. These must be the most third-rate people in Italy, because I can't think that people who were standing in queues to play with her breasts... I don't think any intelligent person, any person who has any self-respect, will stand in those queues. These must have been the worst people, pimps and all kinds of idiots.

A crowd was there watching all this scene. And that woman must be just a vegetable -- a cabbage, not even a cauliflower. I make a distinction between the two, although they are the same. But a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education. These people who have become members of the Radical Party just by touching the breast of an idiot woman, you think are revolutionaries?

But the head of your party was behind the whole scene. I refused. I said, "Don't bring him here because he is not a revolutionary. He simply wants to have a great ego, become more powerful." Perhaps he hopes to become the prime minister of Italy.

I don't prevent my sannyasins. They are free to join anything, but I would always remind them: join something out of your meditativeness, out of your clarity. I am not in any way preventing anybody. Your freedom is absolutely sacred to me. I will not interfere -- even if you are going wrong, I will not interfere. I will tell you that you are going wrong, but you are free to go.

Now I could not tell my people to belong to the Radical Party. It is not a radical party.

Majid, I would like you to create a real, authentic revolutionary party. Don't collect pimps and prostitutes.

And Maneesha, just as Stalin is a bad guy, and you have accepted it because all the propaganda of the communist world was small in comparison to the propaganda of the capitalist world... The capitalist world has all the newspapers, magazines, television stations, radio stations. They have the whole propaganda machine in their hands. So when they propagated that Stalin is a bad guy... just repeat any lie again and again and again and it becomes almost true. If not truth, then at least a truism.

Now those same people of the same capitalist propaganda machine are telling you Gorbachev is a good guy. I don't bother what they are saying. I look who is behind the screen. Who is forcing these people to propagate the idea that Gorbachev is a good guy?

The same people, because they want Gorbachev to become personally involved in his ego. That will be their success and that will be the destruction of the Soviet Union and the great experiment of communism I have been telling you about.

But unless you have the eyes of a meditator, it is very difficult. One German Biblical scholar has written a book comparing me and Jesus. A very honest man -- because he is a Christian; still he praises me higher than Jesus, compares us point by point, and on every point my score is better than that of Jesus. He writes in his book a few very revealing facts about why in Germany the whole news media is creating rumors and lies about me. And that's what people read, that's what people believe.

The reason is that the whole propaganda machine in Germany is owned by Christians, and they are cutting out anything positive about me. I know what happened to one of the STERN journalists. He had come here and STERN was interested only in something sensational. Whether it is true or not, who cares? Sensational stories sell. They bring more subscribers to the magazine.

But Satyananda became so interested and involved that he became a sannyasin -- I don't know what his German name used to be. He became a sannyasin. He thought that it would be far better to write the story from the inside, joining all the meditations, joining all the groups. "I will be reporting more intimately, honestly. Just being a spectator from outside is one thing, but to be a meditator..."

So he became a sannyasin and he meditated and he joined the groups and he really became involved. In the beginning it was just to have an inside view. But once you are inside, it is very difficult to get outside! He wrote a beautiful story about the commune and what is happening here, and when he went back, the STERN owners simply refused to print anything because, "He has been hypnotized. Otherwise how can he write such a story? He has been completely brainwashed -- and why have you become a sannyasin?"

He said, "I wanted to write honestly, and to write honestly was possible only if I became an insider. In the beginning it was just a show that I was a sannyasin, so I could get in.

But as I experienced meditation and groups and the change that came to me, now I am really a sannyasin. And I am not hypnotized and I am not brainwashed."

But they would not publish his story. He simply renounced his post -- and he was their best journalist -- and came back to India. And he lived here, he lived in the commune in Germany, in America, and he is making money to come back here so that he can be here forever.

This man writes that all the magazines that go on propagating against me in Germany are owned by the Christians, Catholics or Protestants. So they cut out anything that will strike a sympathetic note in people's minds. They just go on creating antagonism; on any point, they invent something. And it is very easy to invent lies.

Now Gorbachev is a "good guy" because this is the way to persuade him to destroy communism. I would like Majid to create a really revolutionary party, and my sannyasins will be helping you. And Italy is one of the lands I own! It is very strange -- Italy I own, Germany I own, Japan I own. These are the three countries which were fighting together against the whole world!

It is very strange that amongst my sannyasins number one are the Germans, number two are the Japanese, number three are the Italians; others are here in very small numbers. But these three countries were together in the second world war, so something brings them to me. They are utterly fed up with war, they are utterly fed up with fascism, they are utterly fed up with people like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hirohito. That frustration brings them here in search of a world which will not have wars, because they have suffered so badly. Others have not suffered so badly. That's why I own these three countries.

And I would like you to create a revolutionary party on your own. Why be a second-hand man in that Radical Party? Be the leader of a revolutionary party and I will support you!

And more and more Italians are going to come; just all that we need is more spaghetti!

It is time for Gurudayal Singh. He always manages to find the right place and the right time.

Gorbachev is intent upon really getting rid of the memory of Joseph Stalin. So he orders Stalin's bones to be removed from his grave in the little village in the Caucasus, and tries to find some other country where Stalin can be buried.

Gorbachev calls up Margaret Thatcher in London, and asks her if Stalin can be buried in England.

"Sorry, old chap," replies Thatcher, "but we already have Karl Marx buried here. Two big-time communists would be too much and too many for us!"

Then Gorbachev dials Berlin, and asks if Stalin can be buried there.

"Sorry, comrade," says Helmut Hamburger, the government spokesman, "but we already have Adolf Hitler buried here. Two such tyrants in one place would be too much for us."

But Rubin Rosenbaum, from the Israeli government, hears of Gorbachev's problem and phones the Kremlin.

"Since Stalin fought against the Nazis," says Rubin, "we agree to bury him here, in Jerusalem."

"Thanks," replies Gorbachev, "but no thanks! We cannot risk another idiot getting resurrected!"

Gorgeous Gloria goes to have her eyes checked with Doctor Peek, the eye specialist.

"Doctor," says Gloria, anxiously, "I think I am going blind!"

So Doctor Peek gives Gloria a thorough check-up, but cannot find anything wrong.

"Your eyesight seems perfect to me," says Peek. "Twenty-twenty vision."

"Yes, but you don't understand!" insists Gloria. "The problem happens every time I make love."

"Really?" says Doctor Peek, eyeing Gloria. "Well, in that case, I shall have to make a more thorough examination!"

"Ah! Doctor!" says Gloria, taking off her clothes, and lying down on the couch. "If you insist!"

A few minutes later, Doctor Peek is huffing and puffing, and Gloria is moaning and groaning.

"I still don't see any problem," gasps Doctor Peek.

"Go on! Go on!" cries Gloria, moaning louder and louder.

Suddenly, Gloria lets out a loud, orgasmic shriek -- "Now, doctor! NOW! I cannot see a thing!"

Paddy makes a lot of money on his used furniture stall one year, so he shuts up shop and goes to Paris for a holiday.

Two weeks later he is back in Ireland, sitting in the pub and telling Seamus all about his adventures.

"Oh! It was great!" says Paddy. "Paris is out of this world!"

"Really?" says Seamus. "But how did you get on, without knowing a word of French?"

"It was simple," says Paddy. "For example, I met a girl in the park. So I took out a pencil and a piece of paper and drew a picture of a taxi. She knew what I meant, so we went for a drive. Then I drew a picture of a knife and fork and she knew that I wanted to take her out to dinner."

"That sounds great," says Seamus.

"I'm not finished yet," says Paddy. "Then I drew two people dancing and we went to a night-club. At the end of the evening, she took the pencil from me and drew a big double bed."

"Amazing!" cries Seamus. "She even knew that you were in the furniture business!"

Nivedano...

(Gibberish) Nivedano...

Be silent. Close your eyes and feel your bodies to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to enter in and rush towards your very center of being.

Gather your whole energy, your total consciousness and rush faster and faster, deeper and deeper....

As you come close to your center, a great silence descends over you.

Just like soft rain... so cool, so serene, so peaceful... as if in the Buddha Auditorium there is no one.

A little deeper and you will find tremendous blissfulness.

Just one step more and you are at the very center of your being.

A great ecstasy arises in you, a great divine drunkenness; you feel almost drowned in ecstasy, and you encounter your original face for the first time.

Your original face is the same as the buddha's face.

Everybody is a born buddha. Whether he realizes it or not, that is his choice. The buddha has only one quality, and you have to understand that quality because only if you understand that quality, buddha can become your reality, your day-to-day reality.

Then you don't need meditation. Your whole life is meditative. That quality is witnessing.

Witness that you are not the body.

Witness that you are not the mind.

Witness that you are only the witness.

At this moment you are the buddha, the awakened one. This is your birthright.

At this moment you enter into an eternal life, immortal existence. All the cosmic doors open for you.

At this moment you are the most blessed people on the earth because everybody on the earth is involved in trivia -- money, power, prestige. You are moving into a totally different dimension, diametrically opposite -- just trying to find the origin of your life.

The origin is also the goal.

When the origin is found, you have found the goal. The circle is complete. From the same silent space you had arisen, just like a wave arises in the ocean and again disappears in the ocean... Meditation is a way of disappearing as a dewdrop, as a wave, and appearing as the ocean.

To make the witnessing more clear, Nivedano...

Relax, let go. But remember only one thing: You are a witness.

As your witnessing deepens, Gautam the Buddha Auditorium starts turning into an ocean.

You start disappearing like dewdrops, slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean.

No waves, no ripples. Absolute, perfect silence.

This is your very nature, dhamma.

This is your very being, the buddha.

This very body is the buddha and this very earth the lotus paradise. Only people in deep meditation can understand such a tremendous sutra.

Gather the many flowers that are growing all around you, gather the ecstasy and drunkenness which is divine.

You have to bring this drunkenness, this ecstasy, all these flowers of blissfulness, to your day-to-day life. And don't forget, you have to persuade buddha to come along with you.

He has to come, he is your nature. It is just that you have never asked him, never invited him. He has remained just a seed hidden deep in the center of your being.

Once you start asking him, requesting him, welcoming him, he has to come.

These are the three steps of your enlightenment:

First he will be coming just like a shadow behind you. But his shadow will be almost tangible, you can touch it, you can feel it. He will surround you with a strange fragrance from the beyond.

Second step: you will become his shadow.

And the third step: you will disappear into the buddha. You will not be anymore; only the buddha, only the existence. You are burned in the Zen Fire, and the Zen Wind has taken all your ashes far away.

Nothing is left.

This nothing is your inner sky.

This nothing is your very nature.

Buddha is nobody. Buddha is a pure nothingness, an open space, infinite and eternal.

Nivedano...

Come back, but remember to come as a buddha -- with the same grace, the same silence, the same beauty, the same blissfulness.

Sit for a few moments just to recollect what space you had entered. Remember you had gone beyond your mind, remember you had touched the greatest experience in the world -- of witnessing -- and you followed a golden path which leads exactly to the hidden buddha, to the hidden splendor inside you.

And just feel, the buddha is behind you. His coolness is almost tangible, his fragrance fills your whole being. His luminosity makes you more and more drunk.

My whole effort here is to create drunkards, drunks of the divine -- people who have found their buddha, their dhamma, their nature. Once you find it, everything starts growing in you, to your very potential. You will reach the highest peak, the Everest of consciousness, and you will reach to the greatest depth of the Pacific Ocean of your being.

The day you merge with the buddha, the day you disappear and only buddha remains, will be the greatest day of your life.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind