The first question
Question 1:
Sophia.
THE DESIRE FOR A CLEAR Understanding is a logical desire. It is a desire to demystify things - and things cannot be demystified. Life IS mysterious, more mysterious than any dream can ever be.
You cannot know it clearly, it cannot be reduced to knowledge - because once something is reduced to clear knowledge it is no more mysterious.
That's what science has been trying to do for centuries all effort to demystify existence.
Wherever science smells any mystery it becomes suspicious - because if the mystery is accepted then the desire for clear understanding will have to be dropped. You cannot fulfill both. If you stick to the desire for clear, logical understanding then the only way is to deny the mystery, to say that it doesn't exist.
That's why God denied existence, the soul is denied existence, love is denied existence.
And when God, soul, love, beauty, truth, all disappear, what is left? A very flat, ugly.
meaningless clarity - boring clarity.
Science has made man utterly bored.
Religion is a totally different dimension. It is an effort to re-mystify the universe - to take away your so-called logical clarity, to give you back again the mysterious innocence of a child, to make you aware of the beauty, of the poetry, of the music of love; to make you aware that you are surrounded by immense mystery. And that mystery is so deep that there is no way to fathom it or measure it: it is immeasurable.
And those who have gone to measure it have disappeared into the mystery, have become dissolved into it. That is the difference between a scientist and a mystic. The scientist becomes afraid of the bottomless, becomes afraid of the immeasurable.
Do you know? The word 'matter' comes from a root which means 'measurable' - that which can be measured. It comes from the same root as 'meter'. Science believes only in the measurable; it denies the immeasurable, it closes its eves to the immeasurable. But it is the immeasurable that brings splendour in life, it is the immeasurable that brings dance and celebration in life. And it is there! - just by denying it, it is not destroyed. By denying it, only one thing happens: you become closed to it.
Lao Tzu says, "Except me, everybody seems to have a clear understanding of life. Except me," he says, "everybody seems to have a very clear understanding of life. I am muddy- headed."
He is stating a fact of tremendous import. He is saying, "I am a mystic. I don't want clarity - what am I going to do with clarity? I don't want logical explanations. I want to love this mystery that life is. I want to dance with the trees and bloom with the flowers and sing with the birds."
That is a totally different way. The mystery is not dissolved but lived, not solved - no effort even to .solve it, but every effort to participate in it.
Sophia, being here with me means dropping the ways of logic and learning the ways of love, dropping the ways of explanations and learning the ways of experiencings. And that's what is happening to you. Don't be worried: feel blessed.
You say: EVERYTHING SEEMS SO UNREAL, LIKE A DREAM.
Because you have a certain idea of reality. Reality has to be tangible, and the beauty is not tangible. If I say, "Look - the rose is so beautiful!" you can immediately ask me, "Where is beauty? Can I touch it? Can I hold it in my hand? Can it he measured? Can it be chemically analysed?" And I will have to answer each time with a no.
Then you can simply say, "Then it doesn't exist. It is your imagination; you are dreaming.
The rose has no beauty - you have projected a dream on it."
If you say, "I have fallen in love," somebody can ask you, "Where is love? What IS love?
Is there any scientific proof for it? Can you logically explain it?" You will have to shrug your shoulders. And the person can say, "If it cannot be proved logically, scientifically, then it is not. You are living in an illusion; it is all dream stuff."
But if you go on this way, what will be left finally? Just a materialist chaos - matter with no meaning, matter with no destiny, great speed but no destination. Then life will be just an accident, a chance phenomenon. There will be no dignity in life. The dignity comes from those mysterious realms which you are calling unreal.
You will have to change your definition of reality. They are far more real. The higher is far more real than the lower - although the higher becomes more and more invisible than the lower. The mud is more explainable than the lotus; the lotus has something of the quality of a dream. The mud is mud; there is no question of beauty and there is no question of poetry, any love affair with it. There is no question which cannot be answered about the mud; the mud is utterly real. That's what you call reality - the lowest.
But hidden in the mud is a lotus, and one day that lotus arises. Now, the lotus has something which is dream stuff poetry, music, beauty. Now you are moving higher; now something will start looking unreal. Unless you are ready to allow this mysterious to penetrate your being and to permeate you, you will deny it. Then you are trying to reduce the lotus to the mud again. Then you are saying the lotus is nothing but mud.
That's how scientists go on answering. If you ask, "What is man?" they say, "Man is matter and nothing else - nothing but matter." If you ask, "What is this world?' "Nothing but matter." If you say, "What is love?" "Nothing but biology. nothing but the chemistry of the hormones." If you ask ANYTHING, it is reduced immediately to the lowest denominator - because only the lowest is graspable.
The lotus has moved into a dimension which is not available to science but is available only to poetry, is not available to the scientific mind and the scientific approach and the scientific methodology, but is available, immensely available, tremendously available to the poetic vision.
Now the poetic vision is thought to be nothing but a dream. The poet is a dreamer; poets are called 'lotus eaters'. But the poet has moved a little higher. The scientist lives int he mud. The poet IS a lotus eater, he has become a lotus.
But then there are even higher realms. One day the lotus bud has opened, it has blossomed, and great fragrance is released. Now, the lotus was at least visible, touchable; this fragrance is invisible, almost non-existential - but it is there. That is the world of the mystic: the world of fragrance. Even the poet will feel a little suspicious about it, even the poet will hesitate to go with it, even for the poet it will look a little like going too much beyond the human mind.
The poet would like to remain with the lotus, just as the scientist would like to remain with the mud. But the mystic knows no boundaries, no limits. The mystic moves with the fragrance. That is the highest phenomenon, the peak - but now it is utterly dreamlike.
From another standpoint it is the essential core, but those who are too much attached to the mud will deny it. Even the poets will hesitate to accept it.
My vision of a total man is that of a scientist, plus a poet, plus a mystic. But the mystic remains the Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas.
Here, please don't try to reduce everything to so-called clear understanding. We are talking about things which are essentially unclear, we are talking about things which exist twilight. We are talking about things which are not things at all. but essences. And listening to me and being here with me, being a part of this communion, it is natural, Sophia, that life will start looking like a dream.
EVERYTHING SEEMS SO UNREAL, you say, LIKE A DREAM. TO ME YOU SEEM TO BE SO UNREAL, FLOATING IN AND OUT OF DISCOURSE EACH DAY.
Yes, in a certain sense I am unreal. I am just the fragrance.... And unless you are ready to be full of this unknowable fragrance, I will look unreal, like a dream. But something is happening.
You say: I DO FEEL SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE HAPPENING IN YOUR PRESENCE.
You may not be able to grasp my presence, but you can see something is synchronizing in you, something is triggered in you. The fragrance has reached your nostrils - you may not be able to grasp it in your hands, but it has reached your nostrils. Your heart is already moved. That's why, Sophia, you have become a sannyasin.
You say: I DO FEEL SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE HAPPENING IN YOUR PRESENCE, AND MORE EACH MOMENT BEING HERE WITH YOU, BUT I CANNOT SEEM TO FEEL A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING.
You will never be able to feel a clear understanding. I cannot promise clear understanding. I can promise you only more and more mystery. The farther you go with me, the more and more the mysterious is waiting for you.
But who cares for clear understanding? It is a very very much lower stage of mind where clear understanding is needed. At the highest peaks, where mountains move into the clouds, where mountains whisper with the stars, it is a totally different world. It is not the world of the ordinary, it is the world of the sacred.
You will have to come with me. Your mind will pull you backwards, your mind will tell you, "Where are you going? Are you going crazy?"
And in fact what I am making available here is only for the crazy - for those who are sane enough to drop the so-called sanity, for those who are courageous enough to move beyond the logical boundaries, for those who are ready to go into a tremendous insecurity, dropping all safety, security, familiarity, knowledge. It is jumping into a totally different dimension: the dimension of the essences.
This is a mystery school. You should not ask about clear understanding. Ask for the experience of the mysterious and the miraculous. And it is happening. If you help it, cooperate with it, Sophia, soon you will be transported into another world.
Look at what has happened in the West, and the same is happening in the East now: the more people are becoming scientific, knowledgeable, educated, the more and more they are feeling a kind of meaninglessness. Their life is becoming more and more insignificant; it is losing all dignity, it is becoming ugly.
Camus says that the only important philosophical problem is suicide. Why? Because the modern man feels the pointlessness of living - what is the point of going on living every day? If there is nothing mysterious, there is no point in living. Then only those who are cowards go on living; because they cannot gather courage to disappear, to commit suicide, they go on living.
But then life cannot have joy. It will be only a long drawn, dragging affair. And deep down you will be waiting for death to come and release you from all this nonsense, from all this meaningless turmoil - this tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing.
If science succeeds in destroying the mysterious totally from the world, man is bound to commit suicide sooner or later. One can only live joyously and with a dance when poetry surrounds you, and one can live with immense rejoicing when God is felt. But these things are not for clear understanding. Those who insist on clear understanding, they are asking for mathematics, not for music, and certainly not for mysticism.
You have to learn how to drop this insane desire to reduce everything to clarity. What are you going to do then with clarity? You will be stuck with it. Ask for those things which are essentially unclear - essentially, I say. That means they can never be clear. Then you open up to love, then you open up to beauty, then you open up to God.
And life blooms only when it is rooted in the mysterious. I teach you the mystery of life, not a clearcut understanding of it. I lead you deeper and deeper into the world where you can also enjoy being muddy like Lao Tzu.
The second question
Question 2:
Pit Kortenhorst,
THE STATEMENT MADE BY JESUS apparently look like that of a fanatic. It is not.
Just one word you will have to change and it will be immediately understood. Jesus says, "Whoever is not with me is against me." Change one word to 'truth' and things will be very clear - and that is Jesus' meaning: "Whoever is not with truth is against truth." Then there is no possible third way.
Jesus is not speaking as a person, he is speaking as truth. He says, "I am the way, I am the door, I am the truth." Jesus is just a revelation of truth. When he says 'me' he does not mean it in the same way as when you say 'me'. He has no 'me' - the 'I' has disappeared long before, and the 'me' is only a shadow of 'I'. When there is no 'I', no ego, there is no 'me'. But he has to use the language that you use; there is no other way, it can't be helped.
But what he is saying is, "Whoever is not with truth is against truth."
And you ask me: NOW THE QUESTION ARISES: IS THE SAME STATEMENT TRUE IN CONNECTION WITH YOU?
It is always true in connection with all enlightened people, whoever they are, wherever they are. It is true with Krishna, it is true with Lao Tzu, it is true with Pythagoras, it is true with Patanjali, it is true with Buddha, it is true with me. And it will be true with you if you disappear too, if you drop this ugly idea that you are separate from existence.
That's what the ego is - the idea of separation. It is not true, it is only an idea. Once this idea is dropped and you see the truth that you are part of the whole, that you are not an island - no man is an island, we belong to the continent called God, we are all parts of an infinite island - the moment you are no more there as a separate entity, whatsoever is spoken through you is spoken by God.
That's why Jesus says, "I and my Father in heaven are one." Krishna has said to Arjuna, "Leave all your religions and come unto my feet." It looks as if he is the greatest egoist there can ever be. "Leave all religions and come unto my feet. Surrender to me!" he says again and again.
If you understand it according to your understanding you will miss the whole point. He is not saying surrender to Krishna the person. He is saying, "Now there is no more Krishna the person. You can surrender and the surrender will reach God. I have disappeared, I am no more in between. Touching my feet will not be touching my feet: you will be touching God's feet."
How can you be neutral to truth? Either you can be for or you can be against. There is no possibility of a third way.
And it is good, Kortenhorst, that the idea has arisen in you. The very idea shows a longing - maybe yet unconscious in you - to be with me. But some hesitation is there; it is always so - every intelligent person hesitates before taking the jump.
To be with me is a quantum leap. You will have to drop the whole identity that you have carried your whole life. Whatsoever you have been up to now will have to be dropped - that will be the meaning of being with me. That seems too risky, too sudden. And there is no guarantee of what is going to happen next.
I cannot guarantee you anything: truth cannot be guaranteed. Truth cannot be insured.
And Kortenhorst is a great banker, so security, insurance, guarantee, must be deep down in his unconscious.
And one thinks before one takes a leap. But this is not a leap which can be thought about - this is a leap of love. You cannot decide beforehand whether it is right to go into it or not right to go into it. You can decide only when you have gone into it, but then there is no point in deciding. It already starts happening. You can be with me, only then will you know what it means to be with me. You have to participate, you have to dissolve, you have to lose the idea of your ego.
The Master is only a device to help you to lose the idea of the ego. Once the ego is gone, you will be surprised that there is no person as the Master. You will not find Jesus, you will not find me either. When you lose your idea of ego, you will face a deep nothingness in me, a tremendous zero.
But in that zero you will start seeing that God is overflooding. In that emptiness you will not find emptiness but overflowing divineness. That nothingness is all. But once you drop your idea of being a person, then only will you be able to see that there is no person here.
Abhinandan has got the point in a limerick:
Oh, what a strange Master we've got, He feels neither cold nor the hot.
He sits in his chair With his little toes bare - I suppose it's because he is not.
Come closer and closer to me to find that I am not. But you will be able to find that only when you are not. Only two nothings can meet and see and understand each other. The Master is not, the disciple has to disappear. The Master is only a device for the disciple to disappear.
But Jesus is right: "Whosoever is not with me is against me." The statement looks like that of a fanatic - it is not. He is one of the greatest enlightened Masters of the world.
The third question
Question 3:
Sona,
IT DOES NOT FEEL RIGHT because you have not yet gone into it ever, or you have gone only so far but not far enough. You have gone into it only with a conditioned mind.
You have not been able to dissolve into it even for a single moment. You have gone into it with all the guilt that the priests have produced in you. You have gone into it not with an innocence; you have not gone into it as virgin.
Now you will be surprised by my use of the word 'virgin'. A virgin is one who can go into sex innocently. It has nothing to do with physiological virginity; it is something immensely, deeply psychological, almost touching the boundary of the spiritual.
Virginity means a person who can go into sex without any ideas that others have imposed upon him.
In that sense, it is very rare to find a virgin person, because the society contaminates everybody. You have been given ideas against sex - that sex is a sin, that sex is ugly, that sex is animal, that sex is undivine, that sex is the barrier between you and God. With all these ideas you have gone into it, Sona, how can you go with so many things holding you back? A long chain of priests holding you back - how can you go into it? You have gone only partially.
But even when you have been in it, your priests have been clamouring inside you, shouting against you, condemning you. That's what conscience is all about. Your so- called conscience is nothing but the voice of the priest that has been implanted in you. It is one of the greatest harms that has been done to humanity down the ages.
Now scientists have discovered a far more efficient method for doing it: they put electrodes in the brain. And if an electrode is put in your head you will never know about it, because inside the head you don't have any sensitivity. You will be surprised - it has happened many times: in wartime a person gets a bullet in the head and forgets all about it, and after years, accidentally, the bullet is found inside the brain. And he has not been aware of it.
Inside the brain there is no sensitivity. So if a stone is put inside your head you will not be able to know about it. Electrodes can be put in your head.
One of the most famous psychologists of this age, Delgado, has experimented with animals. An electrode is put into the head of a bull; now he can be controlled from the outside. A small box having a few knobs on it and buttons on it, and the bull can be ordered. For example, the bull can be made angry just by pushing a button. He receives the wireless message in his head, and immediately he becomes ferocious, for no reason at all. Nobody has provoked him from the outside; nobody has given him a signal or a red flag - he has not seen a sannyasin. There is no provocation from the outside. But Delgado just pushes a button, it touches some center in his head - a center which functions to create ferociousness, anger, rage - and rage is released. The bull rushes towards Delgado, mad to kill him.
When for the first time the experiment was done, fifty thousand people had come to see it. Their breathing stopped; they had never seen any bull so ferocious. And the experiment was done in Spain - they know about bulls and bullfights. They had never seen such a ferocious phenomenon; it was certain that Delgado was going to be killed.
And he had no protection, not at all - only that small box.
And the bull came closer and closer and closer, and just when he was two feet away and people were watching - "Now it is finished" - he pushed another button, and an immediate stop. The bull stopped THEN and THERE, almost as if he had become frozen.
Now Delgado says the same can be done with man. He has put these electrodes in the brains of rats and given them also a box so they can push the buttons. The electrode is connected to the sex center. You will be surprised - the rats go crazy. They simply go on pushing the button, sixty times a minute! Each second they are having orgasms, their whole bodies shivering with joy, thrilled. They forget about food, they forget about everything. Day and night, they don't sleep. They just go on pushing, till exhausted they fall in a coma. Now the woman is not needed; nobody else is needed.
In fact, that is what happens when you make love. The woman triggers your sex center in the brain, the man triggers the woman's sex center in the brain. Delgado says that now these are old, out-of-date methods. You can have a small box, just the size of a matchbox, in your pocket; you can just push the button and immediately there is a great orgasm, a total orgasm.
This is one of the most dangerous discoveries that Delgado has made - because it is going to be used by politicians, it is going to be used by dictators. It is possible that it may have already been used in countries like Russia, China. Each child can be fixed with an electrode; nobody will know. In the hospital, just when the child is being given birth to, he can be... just a small operation, a very small operation, and a small electronic thing just the size of a button can be forced into the head. And it can be connected with the center that makes you obey. That's enough. Then Morarji Desai can push a button in Delhi and the whole country says, "Morarji Desai, JINDABAD. Long live Morarji Desai!" You just order, "Right turn!" and the whole country turns right; "Go and kill the enemy!" and people start killing.
Delgado has released a more dangerous phenomenon than atomic energy. People have not yet understood all the implications of it. It will change the whole future of man - man can disappear because of it, because man can lose all freedom. Man can become just a machine.
But this is exactly what the priests have been doing, down the ages. Their methods were not so sophisticated, but still they have been doing it. They create conscience in you - that is parallel to an electronic device. They create conscience in you; from the very childhood they start saying and repeating a certain thing: sex is sin. In the school, in the church, in the home - everywhere they go on talking against sex. They are creating a mechanism in you. Repeated thousands of times, in thousands of ways, you become hypnotized by the idea. It becomes a part of your inner being. It is nothing different from Delgado.
Delgado has only done things in a more scientific way, precise, sophisticated - but the priests were the real discoverers. For five thousand years they have been doing this to humanity. And once the idea settles in your mind, then the priest is inside you.
You may be making love, Sona, but you are not alone. The priest is pulling your strings from behind; he is saying, "This is sin. You will suffer in hell." You are making love and in your mind you are seeing hellfire. How can you go into it?
You say: I CERTAINLY HAVE NOT TRANSCENDED SEX...
Neither can you go into it nor can you transcend it - because transcendence requires first going into it. Only those who go totally into it can attain to transcendence. Knowledge, experience, helps you to transcend. Experience liberates.
Now the trick is that the priest does not allow you to experience it - its beauty, its liberation, its joy, he does not allow you to experience it. And the mind goes on thinking about it again and again. And whenever you go into it you are in a dilemma: you cannot go totally into it, so you go on missing the experience.
When you are not in it the mind fantasizes about it - because the mind needs the experience. It is a natural desire, a natural longing; the mind wants to be fulfilled. And when you go into it the priest pulls you back. So you become pornographic - in your mind you think of sex, in your dreams sex filters in, in your behaviour... everywhere it is so obvious. Negative or positive, but you are full of sex. But whenever you go into it the priest pulls you back. Whenever you go into it, Delgado is there - he pushes the button and you stop. Just two feet away, the bull stops.
You come out of it frustrated. And because of frustration you desire more. This is a dilemma that the priest has created in humanity. The priest has been the greatest enemy of humanity.
You will never transcend sex. You may become perverted, but you cannot transcend sex.
Transcendence is only when you have gone into it totally and seen into it and seen the momentariness of it - and seen that it is not really sex that was your longing but something else. Sex was just an excuse to experience something else. When you have experienced sex totally, you will become aware of THAT something else.
What is that? In the total orgasmic joy of sex, time disappears, ego disappears - these two things disappear. That is the greatest longing in you. Once you have known that in deep sex two things disappear - ego and time.... You are not aware of time, you move into eternity; and you are not aware of separation, the ego is not functioning at all - that is the joy. Once understood that this is the root cause of joy, you are free of sex. Because now the whole thing is that you can drop ego and time without going into sex. And sex can make it happen only for a moment, then darkness settles again. That light comes only for a moment.
But through meditation, that light becomes a reality in you. You start living out of time and you start living out of ego. What you attain in a sex orgasm for a single moment, Buddha lives in it twenty-four hours a day. That's why he does not need sex. That is transcendence.
Sona, transcendence is possible only when you have known the whole secret of sex. The secret is it is a biological, natural device to make you aware of meditation. It is through sexual orgasm that meditation was discovered. The first person who discovered meditation is bound to have discovered it through sex; there is no other way - because sex is a natural phenomenon. Meditation is a discovery, it is not a natural phenomenon. It is going beyond nature, it is a transcendence.
You say: I CERTAINLY HAVE NOT TRANSCENDED SEX. WHY THEN, EACH TIME I GO INTO IT, DOES IT SOMEHOW NOT FEEL RIGHT?
THEY ARE BOTH INTERDEPENDENT You have not transcended sex and you will not transcend - till you start feeling that it is absolutely right. The idea that it is not right is Delgado's. The idea that it is not right is of the society, of the religion you are accidentally born into. It is given by others to you, and it was given to those others by others.
It has made you split. And you go on doing something for which your total heart cannot say yes. And you cannot resist either, because your total heart cannot say no either. You are pulled apart in different directions; you start falling into pieces.
And remember, the phenomenon is very complicated. Whenever something is repressed it becomes more and more attractive. Less and less will you be able to experience it, but more and more attractive it becomes. And you will find vicarious ways, cunning ways - or you may simply turn your whole life upside-down.
Rajen has sent me a beautiful limerick:
There was an old man from Darjeeling Who was travelling from Hyde Park to Ealing.
A sign on the door Said "Don't spit on the floor," So he carefully spat on the ceiling.
What else can you do? The anti-idea will make you stand on your head. If you are not allowed to stand on your feet, what else can you do? SIRSHASANA - you have to stand on your head - the headstand. That seems to be the logical consequence of repression.
Repression cannot help you towards transcendence. Only expression can take you to transcendence.
Sona, let the priest disappear. The priest has to be dropped, all guilt feelings have to be dropped. And I know it is difficult to drop, because that's your whole mind, and the whole society is in support of it. The whole society believes in it. You will feel very alone in dropping it, you will feel very fearful in dropping it - because in dropping it, you will no more be a part of the crowd. You will no more be a sheep, you will become an individual. And it is frightening to be alone.
Hence people go on following the herd. The herd goes on repeating old stupidities, superstitions, meaningless nonsense. Positively harmful things it goes on repeating, but we go on believing in it - because if we don't believe, we are left alone. And people are very much afraid of being left alone.
That is the courage a sannyasin needs. Sona, be courageous enough to be alone. And experiment with your life and your life energy without any hindrance from any source.
God has given you this energy: use it to go deep into experiences.
Sex is one of the most profound experiences. And the greatest thing about it is that if you go into it you transcend it. Out of sex, BRAHMACHARYA IS born, true celibacy is born - but only out of sex, only out of true, authentic sex.
Now, this is a problem. I teach you to go deep in love and sex, only because that is the only way to go beyond. My effort is to help you to go beyond - because without going beyond, you will remain tethered to the earth, you will not be able to fly into the sky.
Without going beyond, you will remain in the prison of biology. Without going beyond, you will remain part of the animal kingdom. You will not really become human - what to say about being divine?
Going beyond sex, you go beyond the animals. Going beyond sex, you shatter the biological prison cell around you. Going beyond sex, you go beyond the earth. For the first time you start looking at the sky and the stars, and the faraway lights start showering on you. And faraway, distant music is heard. You are moving towards your real destiny, towards your real fulfillment.
Animal, human, divine: these are the three layers in you. The animal layer consists of sex, the human layer consists of love, the divine layer consists of prayer. It is the same energy, being expressed in higher and higher forms: the mud, the lotus, the fragrance.
Please don't go on spitting on the ceiling. Spit on the floor! Be natural. And remember the paradox: being totally natural is the way of going beyond nature - entering into super- nature.
Your mind is perverted by the priests. You have to be very alert about it. The conditioning is very long, centuries and centuries old. And we have been taught to respect whatsoever is old - the older it is, the more we are taught to respect it; the more ancient it is, the more respectability and credit it has.
And why did the priest go against sex in the first place? The Buddhas were never against it. They were ALL for transcendence, as I am for transcendence. The Buddhas were for transcendence - but listen: when I say you have to go beyond sex, it can be interpreted as if I am against sex, because I am saying you have to go beyond sex. You can interpret that I am against sex - otherwise why should I say you have to go beyond sex?
Buddhas have always said, "Transcend sex," but they were never against it. It has to be used as a stepping-stone.
But the priest cannot understand what the Buddhas are saying. He interprets the Buddhas in his own way. He says, "Avoid sex, be against sex. Listen to what Buddha has said."
Transcendence of sex becomes antagonism towards sex. That is a natural misunderstanding that always happens. I say one thing, you understand something totally different - even diametrically opposite.
It reminds me of an old opera troupe performing once in a small out-of-the-way town.
One old tonsorial veteran wept through shaky but loud strains of Pagliacci.
At the close of the aria, one listener stood up and cheered, "Bravo! Bravissimo!"
A man sitting by his side was stunned that any opera-goer would cheer this shoddy performance. He turned to him and asked, "Did you like his performance?"
"I am not applauding his voice, but his colossal nerve."
It is easy to misunderstand - words are always capable of being misunderstood. And you live on one plane, in the valley, the dark valley, and the Buddhas move on the sunlit peaks, What they say belongs to the sunlit peak. By the time it reaches you it is no more the same. It is an echo of an echo of an echo.
And the people, the cunning people amongst you, become the interpreters - they become the priests. They say, "We have understood. Now we will explain it to you - this is the meaning."
Buddhas have always been misunderstood, will always be misunderstood. It is something natural that cannot be avoided, because the language that is spoken on the sunlit peaks is not the language that is spoken in the dark valley of ignorance. The language of the morning is not the language of the night.
But there are cunning people who always become mediators. They say, "We know what Buddha means; we will interpret him."
And one more reason: this interpretation, that Buddhas are against sex, gives the priests great power over you. If you transcend sex the priest will not become powerful, but if you repress sex he will become powerful - because by repressing it you will become guilty, unnatural, ugly, in conflict, continuous conflict, dissipating your energy in a civil war.
You will become weaker and weaker every day. And the more weak you are, the more easily you can be dominated, possessed.
The priest has been powerful, not because he is powerful but because you are weak. His power is located in your weakness. Once you become powerful, the priest will fade away of his own accord.
In my vision of a future humanity, when the new man has really arrived on the earth - powerful, life-affirmative, tremendously celebrating, joyous, positive, affirming - the priests will disappear. They will wither away. Who will bother about the priests? Life is more than enough to teach all that you need.
And when you learn from life, you will be able to understand Buddhas more easily, with less misunderstanding - because by living your life totally, you will start having a few experiences, a few peak experiences. They will come like lightning and disappear, but you will have a few glimpses of the highest peaks, of the plenitudes of consciousness.
And Buddhas will be able to talk to you more conveniently.
Communication will become more easy between you and Buddhas if the priests disappear as mediators. They are not mediators, they are not bridges; they are walls, they are barriers. Hence I am against all kinds of priesthood.
If you can find a Master, be totally with him, but avoid priests. Avoid those people who have not known truth themselves but are simply like parrots repeating others. If somebody has known the truth, if you see that somebody has the presence and the fragrance, if you feel then BE... be totally with the person. Don't miss the opportunity, because priests are millions, Buddhas are rare.
Once in a while you come across a Buddha, and you may not come across a Buddha again for many lives. So whenever you come across a Buddha, don't miss the opportunity: risk all! Whenever you come across a person who has truth, authority.... And remember, the man of authority is not authoritative; the man of authority is very humble.
The authoritative; man is not the man of authority - he is not humble, he is arrogant. In fact he pretends to be powerful, he pretends to be authoritative, but his authority rests in the Vedas, in the Koran, in the Bible. His authority has no source in his own being, it is not his own experience.
A Jesus is a man of authority.
Somebody asked Jesus, "By what authority do you speak?" The questioner was asking, "Are you speaking on the authority of Moses or Abraham or Ezekiel? On whose authority are you speaking? The authority of the Talmud? The authority of the ancient seers, the Jewish prophets? On WHOSE authority?"
And Jesus said, "I speak on my own authority. Before Abraham was, I am."
Abraham was three thousand years before Jesus, and Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am. I am at the very source, I am at the very beginning. You can get deeper into your being and you can attain to that source."
When you come across a person who IS a source, then be with him by all means. And remember, he will never say to you, "Follow me." He simply says, "Be with me" - and that is a totally different matter. He says, "Imbibe me." He says, "Commune with me." He says, "Let us be bridged" - and that very bridging is the art of disciplehood.
If you allow the Buddha, he starts pouring his energy into you. It is not a question of verbal communication, but it exists on the energy level. And then you will understand that Buddhas are never against life. They are always for life. Life is God - how can they be against it?
Priests are always against life, because the priests can have power over you only if you are weak. And to make you against life makes you weak. Then all kinds of perversions settle in.
SONA YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN WHAT SEX IS YET You may have loved, you may have moved into the gestures of love, you may have even made love to people - but it has remained something physiological. You have not been able to move into it spiritually.
You have remained an outsider; you were not a participant in the mystery of it.
You don't know how to participate, hence the problem. You don't know the language of participation, the art of falling in tune with the energy of the other person, of connecting with the other person on all possible levels of energy - not only of the body but of the mind, of the soul; not only of the lower centers but of the higher centers too.
But nobody has been told. And remember, in animals sex is an instinct; in man it is an art. In man everything is an art, in animals everything is an instinct. For example, if you bring a buffalo into the garden the buffalo will eat only certain grasses and will leave everything else. Her choice is predetermined; she is not conscious. She is not really choosing; the choice is mechanical, she is functioning like a robot. It is instinctive.
With man, nothing is instinctive. Man has become loosened from the grip of instinct - and that is a great phenomenon. It is your glory that you are no longer instinctive. You have a certain freedom.
That's why man eats all kinds of things. No animal eats like man; every animal has a fixed food. Only man eats ALL kinds of things - imaginable, unimaginable. You cannot believe it! I have been looking into people's habits around the earth, and this is my feeling, that there is not a single thing in the world which is not being eaten somewhere or other.
Insects are being eaten, snakes are being eaten. Snakes? But it is a very delicious food in China. Ants are being eaten in Africa - it is very good for small children, and small children start collecting ants. There is not a single thing that is not eaten.
And there is not a single thing that has not been condemned. Everything has been condemned too. Man has absolute freedom.
Instinctively, man should be a vegetarian - because his intestines prove absolutely that instinctively he should be a vegetarian, he should not be a meat-eater. Meat-eating animals have small intestines. Man has a very long intestine. The long intestine belongs to the vegetarians, because the meat-eating animal can eat once and then it is enough for twenty-four hours.
The lion eats only once a day, but the monkey eats the whole day, goes on eating - because when you eat vegetables you have to eat in much greater quantity. Much is roughage in a vegetable which will have to be thrown; only a very small part of it will be absorbed. The meat can be absorbed totally; it is already an absorbed thing. Some other animal has done the work of absorbing it; you are eating something ready-made. But if you eat vegetables then it takes a long time to absorb it, and it needs a longer passage so that it can remain in your body for a longer period.
Physiologically man is a vegetarian, but instinct no longer decides. Even sex is no longer just an instinct. That's why you can find so many variations in man - you will not find them in animals. Animals are not homosexuals, animals are not bisexuals. And remember, I am not talking about the animals which live in the zoo - because in a zoo they learn from human beings. I am talking about the wild animals. In a zoo you will find animals doing all kinds of things; it is an unnatural state. But in the wild they are always heterosexual.
Why has man so many ways of relating - heterosexual, autosexual, homosexual, bisexual, one-to-one or in a group? Man has freedom to choose. And this choice can make you pathological or this choice can make you a Buddha. Now it depends on you, how you use your freedom.
Freedom is a dangerous phenomenon - immensely important, but dangerous too. You can fall below the animals and you can rise above the gods - that is the whole range of freedom. No animal can fall from the state he is in. Only Adam and Eve fell; other animals are still living in the Garden of Eden. No other animal has yet eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge - not even the snake who persuaded Adam and Eve, he has not eaten it himself. He is still in the Garden of Eden. Have you heard of the fall of the snake? It has not happened yet.
Man has immense freedom, hence he can fall. He is no more grounded in the instincts, he is very loose. He is not like a tree, rooted, fixed; he can move, he is a moving tree. His roots are not fixed but flowing. That is something great - but very few people use it rightly.
You can fall like Adam or you can rise like Jesus.
Sex has to be learnt. And there is nobody to teach it; no schools exist. No schools are ALLOWED to exist. Everybody is allowed to poison you against sex; nobody is allowed to teach you the right way to sex. Nobody is allowed to make it an exquisite art - it is.
There was this boy who at the age of four was washed ashore on a desert island and lived there for many years, until one day when he was twenty-one, this gorgeous blonde was washed up on the beach.
They met. She said, "Who are you?" and he said, "Why, I am the sole inhabitant of this island."
She said, "What do you do all day?"
He said, "I hunt and I fish and I climb trees and I sit on top of that rock over there and flip pebbles into the sea."
She said, "Well, what do you do about sex?"
He said, "Sex? What is sex?"
So right there and then, on the beach, she showed him. When it was all over she said, "What do you think of that, then?"
He said, "Well, it is all very nice - but look what you've done with my pebble-flipper!"
Man has to be taught everything. Man has no instinctive grounds, so everything is possible. And if you are not given right directions you will have to grope in the dark.
Pythagoras' school was such a school where it was taught how to transcend sex by going deeply into it. That's why he was tortured, persecuted his whole life, from one city to another. He was running his whole life, from one island to another island. And finally he had to make it an absolutely secret thing. There was no need to make it secret, because he was having some beautiful experiences. He wanted to relate to the people, but the people were not even ready to listen. Hence, secrecy entered.
Secrecy is just a safety arrangement. Pythagoras had to go secret. Then only those who were part of the innermost core were told the real secrets. And they were kept oral - nobody was allowed to write about them. Even Lysis does not mention them. And whatsoever he says... you will be surprised. It seems nothing is worth keeping a secret.
He is saying simple things: "Take care of your health" - what is the secret in it? Or the golden mean: "Be always in the middle" - why keep it a secret? You will not come across a single secret in all the sutras, because if the secrets were in the sutras then the sutras would have been burnt long before; you would not have found them at all.
The day Pythagoras died, the whole school was burnt. disciples killed, massacred, and the whole secret tradition that he had made alive in the West for the first time.... He had searched in the East for years - his whole life he had devoted to the search. All those secret teachings were destroyed.
This has always been the attitude of the crowd. This is their attitude towards me, because I am talking openly about some secrets.
Man has to be taught everything - how to eat, how to love, how to be. If he is not taught he remains a shoddy affair, he remains something very lousy, vague, ambiguous - something uncertain, something always hesitant. He goes on doing a few things because he can feel a few stirrings of the instinct in him. But there is no clearcut direction, there is no sense of direction.
Sona, you will have to learn what sex is. And when I say that, people understand that I am saying that you have not known sex. No, you have known - but your knowing is very superficial. Your knowing is not yet an art, it is not yet a philosophy. You may have a few children too, so you can think that you know what sex is, because you have children.
Having children does not mean that you know what sex is. Having children is as easy as putting the light on and off. By putting the light on and off, don't think that you know what electricity is. Or do you think that you know what electricity is because you can put the light on and off? A few people think that way, that they know what electricity is.
I have heard the beautiful story about the man who made the first electric bulb - Edison.
For three years he tried hard and then he succeeded. It was a miracle - for the first time, electricity was functioning in human hands. That great energy, that tremendous power, was channelized into human service. And he had worked for almost thirty years on and off, and for three years continuously.
And of course when the first electric bulb was on, he was dazed, mystified. He was sitting there looking at it. Half the night passed, and more and more hours started slipping by. And the wife came and she said, "Have you gone mad or something? What are you doing here looking at that stupid light? Go to sleep!"
She called it "that stupid light". And it is said that Edison cried. He said, "You call it stupid light? Do you know what electricity is?"
And she said "I know" - because she had always been watching him putting things on and off, this and that. And she said, "I know - you put that on or off. That is electricity."
Another story I have heard about Edison: He went to a small town, just for a holiday. The school of the town was celebrating its annual function, and the small children of the school had made many things to exhibit. He also went. Nobody knew that he was Edison.
They had made a few electric toys, and Edison asked the boy who was showing the toys - - who had made them and was very proud - "What is electricity?"
And the boy said, "What is electricity? I don't know. I will ask my teacher - you wait."
He brought his teacher, a postgraduate in science, and Edison asked, "What is electricity?"
And the teacher said, "But nobody asks such questions - 'What is electricity?' Electricity is electricity! But wait, I will call my principal - he is a Ph.D. in science, he may be able to explain it."
He came, and he tried to explain somehow. But how can you explain to Edison? He was the first man to know anything about electricity, one of the greatest geniuses of the world - the only man who made at least one thousand inventions. But the principal was also unaware of whom he was talking to. And he went on giving him explanations, but Edison would say, "That doesn't fit. Just tell me what electricity is, SIMPLY. What you are saying is not answering my question - you are trying to explain it away."
The principal started perspiring, and a crowd gathered. And then Edison felt great compassion. He said, "Don't be worried - I am Edison, and I myself don't know what electricity is."
Just by giving birth to children you don't know what sex is. Sex is a far deeper phenomenon than electricity - it is bio-electricity. It is yet to be discovered. It is a totally different phenomenon. The electricity that you know is a material counterpart of sex; sex is the spiritual counterpart of it. The electricity that you know is just a dead phenomenon.
Sex is alive: it is electricity plus life. It is a far higher synthesis - it has yet to be discovered.
There have been a few people who have been working, but they have always been tortured by the society. Wilhelm Reich was one of the persons who was working on sex electricity, but he was condemned, forced into a madhouse, declared mad. He was not mad - he was one of the sanest persons alive in this century.
But because he was moving into those secrets of which the priests and the politicians are always afraid, he was going deeper into the mysteries which priests and politicians don't want to be revealed to the ordinary humanity - because once they are revealed, man will be free - he was persecuted his whole life, and then forced into a madhouse. He died condemned, a criminal, a madman, and he was neither.
This has been the case with Tantra all along. For three thousand years the science has been developed in fragments, but always the society destroys it. It is too afraid of giving men great secrets which will make them independent individuals.
SONA YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SEX IS You please say goodbye to all the priests.
Get rid of all the nonsense that you have been told about sex. Experiment freshly again, innocently. Go into it meditatively - it is prayer. It is one of the most sacred things, the holiest of the holy, because it is through sex that life arrives, and it is through sex that you can penetrate to the very source of life. If you go DEEP into sex you will find God. You will find God's hands somewhere deep in the world of sexual experience.
Sex has to be a meditation and you have to learn the art of it. Sing, dance, celebrate. Sex should not be a hasty affair, it should not be a hit-and-run affair - as it is. Savour it. It should be a great ritual. That's how Tantra rituals arose. Prepare for it. Become more sensitive, open, silent. When you are going into lovemaking you are entering into the temple of God. Enter only when you are prayerful, otherwise not.
Don't enter with lust, enter with prayer - then you will be able to know the secret of sex.
Don't enter to exploit the other, enter to share with the other. Don't enter as if sex is just a kind of relief - that is the lowest form of sex. The highest form is not relief but ecstasy.
Relief is negative.
Yes, sex unburdens you of certain energy, but it simply unburdens - then you have missed the positive part. The positive part is when that energy nourishes you - not only unburdens you but nourishes you, creates something higher in you. When sex is just used as a relief, like a sneeze, it is the lowest form of it.
The highest form is tremendously creative: energy is not thrown out of your being, energy is recirculated on higher planes. Energy takes a flight, it starts rising above gravitation. It starts penetrating your higher chakras. It is not a release only, but a tremendous ecstatic flight. And then only will you know that at the deepest moment of orgasm, ego and time disappear. Once you have known that, you will not need sex any more. Sex has revealed its secrets, it has given you the key, the golden key.
Now you can use that golden key without going into any sexual activity. Now you can sit silently in zazen, vipassana. Now you can sit silently, dropping your ego and forgetting time. And you will reach to the same heights and you will stay on those heights longer and longer.
And a day arrives when you become a permanent resident on those peaks. That day is the day of great rejoicing: one becomes a Buddha.