Perfectly imperfect

The first question:

Thomas V. Kempis, I am infallibly fallible! First, I am not a perfectionist because to me perfectionism is the root cause of all neurosis. Unless humanity gets rid of the idea of perfection it is never going to be sane. The very idea of perfection has driven the whole of mankind to a state of madness. To think in terms of perfection means you are thinking in terms of ideology, goals, values, shoulds, should-nots. You have a certain pattern to fulfill and if you fall from the pattern you will feel immensely guilty, a sinner. And the pattern is bound to be such that you cannot achieve it. If you can achieve it then it will not be of much value to the ego.

So the intrinsic quality of the perfectionist ideal is that it should be unattainable, only then is it worth attaining. You see the contradiction? And that contradiction creates a schizophrenia: you are trying to do the impossible, which you know perfectly well is not going to happen -- it cannot happen in the very nature of things. If it can happen then it is not much of a perfection; then anybody can do it. Then there is not much ego nourishment in it: your ego cannot chew on it, cannot grow on it. The ego needs the impossible -- and the impossible, by its very nature, is not going to happen. So only two alternatives are left: one is, you start feeling guilty. If you are innocent, simple, intelligent, you will start feeling guilty -- and guilt is a state of sickness.

I am not here to create any guilt in you. My whole effort is to help you to get rid of all guilt. The moment you are free of guilt, rejoicing bursts forth. And guilt is rooted in the idea of perfection.

The second alternative is: if you are cunning then you will become a hypocrite, you will start pretending that you have achieved it. You will deceive others and you will even try to deceive yourself. You will start living in illusions, hallucinations, and that is very unholy, very irreligious, very unwholesome. To pretend, to live a life of pretensions is far worse than the life of a guilty man. The guilty man at least is simple, but the pretender, the hypocrite, the saint, the so-called sage, the mahatma, is a crook. He is basically inhuman -- inhuman to himself because he is repressing; that's the only way to pretend. Whatsoever he finds in himself which goes against perfection has to be repressed. He will be boiling within, he will be full of anger and rage. His anger and rage will come out in thousands of ways; in subtle ways, indirect ways, it will surface.

Even people like Jesus -- nice, good -- are full of anger, rage: and they are against such innocent things -- you cannot believe.

Jesus comes followed by his followers -- that bunch of fools they call apostles. He is hungry, that whole bunch is hungry. They come to a fig tree, and the fig tree is not in season.

It is not its fault, but Jesus gets so angry that he condemns the fig tree, he curses the fig tree.

Now, how is this possible? On the one hand he says, "Love thy enemy as thyself." On the other hand he cannot even forgive a fig tree which has no fruits because it is not the season.

This dichotomy, this schizophrenia has prevailed in humanity for thousands of years.

He says, "God is love," but still God manages a hell. If God is love, the first thing to be destroyed should be hell; hell should be immediately burnt, removed. The very idea of hell is of a very jealous God. But Jesus was born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew; he was not a Christian, he had never heard the word "Christian." And the Jewish idea of God is not a very beautiful idea.

The Talmud says -- the declaration is made in God's own words -- "I am a jealous God, very jealous. I am not nice! I am not your uncle!" This God is bound to create hell. In fact, to live even in heaven with such a God -- who is not your uncle, who is not nice, who is jealous -- will be hell. What kind of paradise will you have attained by living with him? There will be a despotic, dictatorial atmosphere -- no freedom, no love. Jealousy and love cannot exist together.

So even the so-called good people have been causes of human misery. It hurts because we have never pondered over these things. We have never tried to excavate our past, and all the root causes of our misery are in our past. And, remember perfectly well, your past is more dominated by Jesus, Mahavira, Confucius, Krishna, Rama, Buddha, than by Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Tamburlaine, Genghis Khan, Nadir Shah. History books talk about these people, but they are not part of your unconscious. They may be part of history, but they don't make up your personality; your personality is formed by so-called good people. Certainly, they had a few good qualities in them, but side by side there was a duality, and the duality arose from the idea of perfection.

Jainas say that Mahavira never perspired. How can a perfect man perspire? I can perspire -- I am not a perfect man! And perspiration in summer is so beautiful that I would rather choose perspiration than perfection! Because a man who does not perspire simply has a plastic body, synthetic, non-breathing, non-porous. The whole body breathes, that's why you perspire; perspiration is a natural process of keeping your body temperature constantly the same. Now, Mahavira must be burning inside like hell! How will he manage to keep his body temperature constant? Without perspiration it cannot be done, it is impossible.

Jainas say that when a snake wounded Mahavira's feet, not blood but milk flowed out of the feet. Now, milk is possible only if Mahavira's feet were not feet but breasts -- and a man who has breasts on his feet should be put in a circus! This is their idea of perfection: a perfect man cannot have a dirty thing like blood, a bloody thing like blood, he is full of milk and honey. But just imagine: a man full of milk and honey will stink! Milk will turn into curd and the honey will attract all kinds of mosquitoes and flies; he will be completely covered with flies! I don't like this kind of perfection.

Mahavira is so perfect that he does not urinate, does not defecate; these things are for imperfect human beings. You cannot imagine Mahavira sitting on a toilet seat -- impossible -- but then where does all his shit disappear to? Then he must be the shittiest man in the world.

I have read in the medical journals about a man -- the longest case of constipation:

eighteen months. But these medical people are not aware of Mahavira -- this is nothing -- FORTY years! This is the longest period that any man has been able to control his bowels.

This is real yoga! The greatest case of constipation in the whole history of man... and I don't think anybody is going to defeat him.

These stupid ideas have been perpetuated just to make humanity suffer. If you have these ideas in your mind then you will feel guilty about everything. Pissing, you are guilty -- what are you doing? Sitting on a toilet, and you are falling into hell! If blood comes out of your body -- a deep humiliation.

Jesus walks on water, tries to revive a dead friend, but cannot himself survive on the cross; tries to cure blind people, deaf people, but cannot make a single stupid man enlightened, cannot help a single fool to come out of his foolishness, cannot save a single human being by hitting him hard on the head and saying, "See, the goose is out!"

Thomas V. Kempis, I am very fallible because I am not a neurotic, I am not psychotic, I am not a perfectionist. And I love my imperfections... I love this world because it is imperfect.

It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. Perfection means a full stop, perfection means ultimate death; then there is no way to go beyond it.

I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message.

The psychiatrist leaned back and placed the tips of his fingers together while he soothed the deeply-troubled man who stood before him. "Calm yourself, my good fellow," he gently urged. "I have helped a great many others with fixations far more serious than yours. Now, let me see if I understand the problem correctly. You indicate that in moments of great emotional stress you believe that you are a dog. A fox terrier, is that not so?"

"Yes, sir," mumbled the patient. "A small fox terrier with black and brown spots. Oh, please tell me you can help me, doctor. If this keeps up much longer, I don't know what I'll do..."

The doctor gestured toward the couch. "Now, now," he soothed, "the first thing to do is lie down here, and we'll see if we can't get to the root of your delusion."

"Oh, I couldn't do that, doctor," said the patient. "I'm not allowed up on the furniture."

Once you get an idea deep-rooted in you it starts becoming a reality. Perfectionism is a neurotic idea. Infallibility is good for stupid Polack popes but not for intelligent people. An intelligent person will understand that life is an adventure, a constant exploration through trial and error. That's its very joy, its very juice!

I don't want you to be perfect. I want you to be just as perfectly imperfect as possible.

Rejoice in your imperfections! Rejoice in your very ordinariness! Beware of so-called "His Holinesses" -- they are all "His Phoninesses." If you like such big words like "His Holiness" then make a title such as "His Very Ordinariness" -- HVO, not HH! I preach ordinariness. I make no claims for any miracles; I am a simple man. And I would like you also to be very simple so that you can get rid of these two polarities: that of guilt and that of hypocrisy.

Exactly in the middle is sanity.

St Peter challenged the Archangel Gabriel to a game of golf. St. Peter's first drive resulted in a hole-in-one. Gabriel's first drive produced the same result The same thing happened at the next shot.

St. Peter looked at Gabriel thoughtfully and then said, "What do you say we cut out the miracles and play some golf?"

I am not infallible, and I would never like to be infallible either, because that is suicidal. I would like to commit as many mistakes as possible and I would like to go on committing mistakes to the very end of my last breath, because that means life. If you are capable of committing mistakes even at the very last breath you have conquered death.

A Zen Master was dying... and I have a deep love for the Zen approach for the simple reason that they also rejoice in ordinariness. That's the beauty of Zen: no religion has been able to rise to such heights of ordinariness.

The Master was very old, nearabout eighty. He gathered his disciples and said, "Now this is my last day. I don't think I will be able to see the sunset, and the sun is setting on the horizon. I have called you all to suggest some new way to die."

They were a little puzzled. They said, "What do you mean by 'new way'?"

He said, "People have died in bed, people have died in the bathroom, people have died this way and that. All those things have been done before, and I always like to do things in a new way, in my own way. Can you suggest something? Have you ever heard of somebody dying in a standing posture?"

There was silence. One man said, "Yes, I have heard about a Zen Master who died standing."

He said, "Then that is dropped! Have you heard of anybody dying standing upside-down, on his head, doing a SIRSHASAN, a headstand?"

Everybody said, "We have not heard of such a thing, we have not even imagined such a thing, that anybody would die standing on his head!"

So he said, "That will do!" The old man stood on his head, and it is said that there were all the visible signs that he was dead. But there was a difficulty; the difficulty was that the Zen disciples were in a very puzzling situation: what to do with this old man now? They had never heard of any ritual for somebody dying standing on his head. What had to be done? They knew perfectly well what had to be done when somebody died in bed, but what to do with this man? And he was standing there dead on his head!

Somebody suggested: "We should run... His old sister lives just close by; she is a nun. She may be able to do something or suggest something. And she is even crazier than this old man!"

So they ran. The sister came and shouted at her brother and said, "Look, your whole life you have been a trouble! At least die peacefully, don't make much fuss about it! And why are you driving these poor disciples crazy? Get up and lie down on the bed!"

The old man laughed, got up and lay down on the bed, and he said, "Who has brought this crazy sister of mine here? She won't even let me die in an improper way!"

But he said, "Okay, you be happy. This is your last desire, and I have never followed any advice of yours. At least this much I can do before I depart."

But the woman did not stay there to see him depart. She said, "You just lie down there. I am going. And die on the bed in a proper way. No more trouble."

And she left, and the old man died in the bed in a proper way.

This is how life should be lived.

I am not a saint, I am not a sage. All those hocus-pocus words don't mean anything to me. I am certainly a little bit crazy, but it is because of my craziness that you can rely on me! Never rely on saints, never rely on sages -- they will drive you nuts!

It was teatime in the pad, and the air hung heavy in thick blue folds as the beat bunch and their tourist friends lit up. Suddenly, a loud voice in the hall demanded that they open the door in the name of legality. The smokers frantically gathered their still-smoking weeds and stuffed them in the cuckoo clock. The police entered, searched diligently, found nothing and left. The bunch breathed a sigh of relief and made for the cuckoo clock just as the clock's hands announced 3 a.m. The little door popped open, the bird poked his head out and said, "Hey, man, what time is it?"

The second question:

Prem Prasad, the so-called great men -- Julius Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon and others -- were certainly driven by women; they were trying to prove themselves.

The woman has one very special quality about her: she is, in a way, very contented with small things. Just because she is a woman she has a natural capacity to create children; her desire for creativity is fulfilled -- she becomes a creator naturally, biologically. There, man feels impotent: he cannot produce children. Something like an empty womb hurts inside. He wants to prove before the woman, particularly the woman he loves, that "I can also create," that "I can also conquer," that "I can also show the world that I am not just useless, just like an appendix," that "I have also something to contribute to the world, to its beauty, to its power, to its art, to its music, to its dance. I have to prove it!"

That is a very unconscious longing in every man -- to prove something. And the moment a person falls in love with a woman, immediately the question becomes of predominant importance. He starts proving himself by earning more money, by becoming a president or prime minister, by conquering the world. But whatsoever he does still remains incomplete -- he cannot compete with the woman. She remains so round, so centered and grounded, that the man can go on to the very end of the world, but still he will not be grounded. He will go to Everest, he will go to the moon, he will become a world conqueror, he will discover great truths of science, he will fight wars, he will explore the unknown, but wherever he is he will find that something is missing. That missing link is biological.

Woman has a balanced biology; her chemistry is equally balanced. Man has a biology which is a little unbalanced: one part is heavier and the other part is a little lighter, and that creates an inner tension in him. That's why more men go mad than women, more men commit suicide than women, more men commit murder than women. And if you look at the world you will see it is dominated by man for the simple reason that the woman is not interested in dominating; there is no need -- she feels a certain kind of fulfillment in her innermost core.

Man is always rushing, going somewhere, always on the go. All men are American, tourists!

They cannot be here now.

And it starts even in the womb. An experienced mother who has given birth to one or two children knows perfectly well after a few months whether inside the womb there is a boy or a girl. The boy starts kicking, he starts becoming an Alexander the Great! The girl remains quiet, at ease, meditative; she does not create much disturbance.

It is because of this that woman was easily dominated by man. It is not because of the superiority of man, it is not because of his power, that he was able to dominate the woman, it is just the opposite. The woman is superior in many ways, and because man suffers from inferiority he had to dominate the woman; only then could he get rid of a little bit of his inferiority.

Man has dominated the whole of history, he has in every possible way tried to enslave the woman. But he has not been successful: on the surface it may look as if he has succeeded, but each husband knows perfectly well that the moment he enters the home he is no longer the lion that he pretends to be on the outside. He suddenly becomes a dog, a poor dog, with its tail between its legs! When he goes out of the home he goes like thunder, when he comes home all the gas is lost! Somehow he enters afraid, trembling, and starts reading the same newspaper he has been reading the whole day just to avoid the woman. That newspaper is just a curtain. Even a small woman is enough to bring any Mohammed Ali the Great to his senses.

There is a beautiful story in the life of the Great Indian Emperor Akbar:

One day one of his friends, Birbal, told him, "As far as I know, all men are dominated by women, whatsoever they may pretend." Akbar was offended. He said, "You will have to prove it. There must be a few men who are not dominated; your statement cannot be taken as a generalization. So I will give you two beautiful horses. Go around -- and take a few hens also with you. If you find a man who is henpecked, present him with a hen; if you find a man who is not henpecked, then give him a choice -- he can either have the black horse or the white horse. These are the most beautiful horses I have got, the most costly." In those days horses were of tremendous value.

Birbal went around Delhi, and wherever he went he had to present a hen. Only in one place was he in a little difficulty. A very muscular man -- he had never seen such a strong, muscular body -- was sitting in the sun, massaging his muscles.

Birbal asked him, "Are you a henpecked husband?"

He simply showed his muscles to Birbal and said, "Just hold my hand and I will show you!" He crushed Birbal's hand so that Birbal screamed, and he said, "Now, do you have to ask me again? Then I will hit you! The very question is an insult! Who can dominate me?"

A very little woman was cooking food inside -- just a little woman that the man could have crushed with a single hand. No cross would have been needed, just a little pressure on her neck and she would have kicked the bucket!

Birbal asked, "Where is your wife?"

He said, "That is my wife cooking inside. You can look at her and you can look at me, and you can decide who is the master."

It was so absolutely clear that Birbal said, "Certainly you are the master, so I will have to take my generalization back. You can choose as a gift from the king either of the horses, black or white."

And the man looked at the woman and said, "Which horse should I choose, black or white?"

And the woman said, "Let it be white!"

And Birbal said, "Now you have a hen! It is finished! You may have muscular power, but that does not prove anything."

The woman has a psychological grip.

Andrew Carnegie, one of the great wealthy industrialists of the world, was asked on the last day of his life, "How did you manage to earn so much money? What was the secret behind it?"

He said, "There was no secret. I was just trying to see whether I can earn so much that my wife could not spend it, but I failed, she succeeded."

Prasad, you ask me:

It is true. About the so-called great men it is true because they were trying to be great just to compete with their wives, and about the really great men like Socrates it is also true.

A young man asked Socrates, "I am thinking to get married. What is your advice?"

He had heard all the stories about Socrates and his wife, Xanthippe. She must have been a really dangerous woman, an Amazon! She used to beat Socrates. Once she poured hot water, boiling hot water on him; she was boiling it for tea but became angry and poured it on Socrates' face.

Socrates was an ugly man, very ugly -- snub-nosed, nothing worth looking at, disgusting.

Xanthippe made him more disgusting! Half of his face remained burned his whole life.

So this young man had come to the right person to ask: "You have experienced what it is to be a husband more than anybody else, and the whole of Athens is full of stories about your wife and you, and you are the wisest man, declared so by the Oracle of Delphi, so I have come to ask you -- I am in a dilemma -- should I get married or not?"

Socrates said, "You should get married."

The young man could not believe it -- he had not expected this answer. He said, "You are saying it after your whole experience of having Xanthippe as your wife?"

He said, "Yes. If you get a good wife she will make you succeed in life, she will put ambition in you. And you are young; you will need some ambition. If you get a wife like mine then you will become a philosopher. My wife has helped me immensely to learn the art of remaining unaffected. Whatsoever happens -- success or failure, misery or happiness -- it is all the same to me. She has made me centered. Either way you will not lose, so get married."

There is a possibility -- every possibility, in fact -- that the whole credit for Buddha becoming enlightened goes to Yashodhara, his wife. The whole credit for Mohammed becoming the prophet of God MUST go to his nine wives. There is every possibility that these people were trying somehow not to be disturbed, not to be distracted, and they started searching for a beyond, they started searching for a within, the beyond within, so that they could forget the whole world. The wife, the woman is really the closest world around you: she surrounds you everywhere, from every nook and corner. So your so-called great men are indebted to women, and your many really great men are also indebted to women, although they have not accepted it. That is ugly.

Many times I am asked why women don't become enlightened. The reason is, no man is capable of driving them to that extreme! It has nothing to do with women, it is just the impotence of the man -- he cannot drive them to that point. Moreover, women are always grounded, centered, man is not grounded, not centered. He remains airy-fairy and he needs grounding, he needs centering.

Strolling through London's Soho district, the young cockney noticed an attractive girl furiously struggling to hold down her microskirt in the brisk wind. Tipping his hat, he said, "Airy, ain't it?"

"What the hell did you expect?" she replied. "Feathers?"

Sheila and George were spending the first night of their honeymoon in a quaint medieval town in France. To add piquancy to the evening, Sheila suggested coyly that they make love every time the old night watchman rang his hourly bell. George smiled in delight at this prospect, but four rings later he pretended that he had to go out to get some cigarettes and staggered off to the watchman's tower.

"Listen, old man," he wheezed to the man, "do me a favor, will you? For the rest of the night ring that bell of yours at two-hour intervals instead of hourly!"

"Ah," replied the ancient watchman, fingering his moustache, "I would be happy to oblige, monsieur, but I cannot do this."

"Why not?" George demanded. "I'll give you money, if that's what's troubling you!"

"Not at all," the old man responded. "You see, a beautiful young lady has already bribed me to ring the bell every half hour."

I HAVE ALWAYS MANAGED TO TURN FROM BEING AN ADMIRER OF WOMEN INTO A WOMAN'S FOOL.

If you are an admirer of women you will inevitably turn into a woman's fool, because admiration is illusory; admiration is possible only from a distance. The closer you come the more foolish you will look, and when you are caught by the woman you are bound to be turned into a damned fool. And you were trying in every possible way to be caught, so you cannot easily get out of it either.

A mousetrap never runs after a mouse; the mousetrap simply sits centered, grounded. The mouse in his airy-fairy romanticism starts dreaming about the coziness inside the mousetrap, the smell of the food inside, the spaghetti and all that, and gets caught. It is easy to get caught, it is very difficult to be out again, because the mousetrap has only an entrance and no exit.

So, Prasad, it is going to happen again and again!

I don't admire any woman: I am not a romantic, I am very factual. Whatsoever I say about men or women is simply a fact -- no fiction about it! And once you are caught you will be constantly in difficulty because there are other mousetraps all around which look cozier, warmer, more beautiful, more spicy. In fact, the word "spicy" is only a plural of "spouse." And marriage is a very strange affair: the dessert is served first and then everything goes down the drain!

After a heart-transplant operation the patient was receiving instructions from his doctor.

He was placed on a strict diet, denied tobacco and advised to get at least eight hours sleep at night.

Finally the patient asked, "What about my sex life, doc? Will it be all right for me to have intercourse?"

"Just with your wife," responded the doctor. "We don't want you to get too excited."

A middle-aged husband went to a doctor and explained that his wife was constantly nagging him about his vanishing potency. After giving him a bottle of pills the doctor assured him that they would work wonders.

A month later the man returned, obviously satisfied with the results. "The pills are terrific!" he said. "I've been doing it three times a night."

"Wonderful," the doctor replied. "What does your wife say about your love-making now?"

"How should I know?" the fellow shrugged. "I haven't been home yet!"

You ask me, Prasad:

In my life there is no secret -- or you can call it the open secret. I have nothing hidden: I don't live like a fist, I live like an open hand. Nothing is hidden, nothing is esoteric, nothing is secret; all is simple and plain.

You say:

The open secret is that you can be free only if you have put too many women around you.

Then they are so concerned with each other that they leave you absolutely alone; in fact they forget all about you! Their jealousies, their envies are enough to keep them occupied. If one wants to be really free of women, that's the only way. This is my open secret!

And they all love me for the simple reason that I am not possessed by anybody, nor do I possess anybody. If you possess some woman then there will be trouble, if you are possessed by some woman then there will be trouble. I don't possess anybody, I am not possessed by anybody. I go on sitting doing my own business -- which is nothing -- and I keep the women going round and round. And they have so many problems, they can afford to forget all about me!

And you say:

No, you don't know the limit. Even the sky is not the limit! When the new commune happens you will see: I will put so many women in charge that even if I die it will take you years to discover that the man is no longer there! They will make so much fuss and dance and love and all kinds of foolish things that you will not even come to know whether I am still here or gone.

And I have put them in charge because they are more pragmatic than men, they have a greater capacity to cope with reality, they are earth-bound. Man leans more towards the sky and the woman is rooted in the earth. It is a very pragmatic arrangement.

If the woman takes charge of the whole world, the world will drop many stupid things. For example, wars will disappear. Of course there will be more beautiful clothes, fashion shows, modelling, but weapons, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, etcetera, will disappear -- no woman is interested in all these things. Hiroshima and Nagasaki will not happen again; it is only the man who can do these things. Crusades will disappear, religious wars will disappear, JIHADS will disappear. No woman is interested; her interest is very pragmatic, real. She is more interested in clothes, in cosmetics, in beauty; and those concerns are good -- they keep you more alive. Man's concerns are very dangerous -- political, religious, economic -- and they make more and more mischief.

In the name of serving humanity more mischief happens than anything else: in three thousand years, five thousand wars have been fought and the whole credit goes to man.

Millions of people are killed in the name of love, in the name of democracy, in the name of freedom, in the name of love. Now, no woman can do that. And I don't think you can have a world war because of cosmetics or clothes and designs and dramas and new dishes -- you can't have world wars because of these things!

I want my commune to be very earth-bound, because this is my experience, the observation of many lives: that the tree has first to go deep into the earth; the deeper the roots go, the higher the branches rise. If you want to touch the stars with your flowers then you have to go to the very rock-bottom of the earth.

All the religions of the world have remained a little foggy, confused, for the simple reason that they were all trying to reach the stars, the beyond, to the far away, without ever thinking about the roots.

Buddha was against women, he was not willing to initiate women. He said that his religion would have lasted five thousand years, but because finally he agreed to initiate women his religion would disappear within five hundred years. My own observation is just the opposite:

without women it would not have lasted even five hundred years, because the moment Buddha died all the men started quarrelling -- ideological wars. Thirty-two sects were immediately born, the same day! Even Buddha's body was not yet totally burnt and thirty-two philosophical schools, thirty-two interpretations arose. The war had started.

When Jesus was crucified, all those twelve fools disappeared. Three women were there to take his body from the cross but not a single man. Mary Magdalene was there, the prostitute, her sister was there, Martha, and Jesus' mother Mary was there. And all those apostles, those fanatics, where had they gone? They were preparing for the Vatican, they were preparing for the future. Jesus was finished! Now the question was of theology, the philosophy, the ideology. But those three women were not concerned with theology or philosophy, they were concerned with his body. They were more pragmatic, they were more true, honest, sincere.

They loved the man, they risked for the man, they were ready to be condemned. All those men had disappeared.

One of the most educated of Jesus' disciples was Judas; he betrayed him for only thirty silver coins. No woman could have done that. And he was the most intellectual amongst all of Jesus' disciples. But intellectuals can betray very easily: they are the most renegade people in the world because their hearts are not in it, only their head -- and the head is cunning, the head is calculating. The woman lives through the heart.

Hence, my commune is functioning in a totally new way: it has to be rooted first. That's the way of all gardeners: first you have to give soil, manure, roots to the plant, and then flowers come of their own accord. Flowers will come, but they cannot come without roots.

Roots and flowers are like two wings: if you have both wings then the whole sky is yours. But the most important thing, the first, the basic, the fundamental, is the root.

The woman is the root of all life; man can at the most be a branch, a flowering branch, a beautiful branch -- a longing, an aspiration to touch the stars. They have to go together. That's why, Prasad, I have put so many women here, and slowly slowly they will take over the whole soil and leave you free, leave men free to grow into flowers.

A real commune will have men and women in a deep synchronicity. All the past communes had to die because they depended only on men; they never took any care of the women. And no woman has ever been able to create a commune because she does not aspire to the stars.

A commune means an aspiration, a longing, a tremendous longing to grow, an immense urge to explore. No woman can find reasons to put down the foundation stone for a commune.

Man is always interested in the far away, so he becomes the original source of communes, but no man is capable of giving roots.

And this has been the problem in the past: the woman can provide roots but she is not interested in flowers, and the man can provide flowers but he is not interested in roots. A deep synchronicity is needed, a deep harmony. That's what I am trying to fulfill here.

Obsessed with the idea of pleasing all manner of customers with girls of the very highest order, an enterprising madam set up a three-story house of sport. She had ex-secretaries, selected for their efficiency, on the first floor; ex-models, selected for their beauty, on the second; and ex-schoolteachers, selected for their intelligence, on the third. As time went on the madam noticed that almost all the play went to floor number three. She asked why, and the answer to the puzzle finally came from one of the steady customers.

"Well," said the sporting gentleman, "you know how those school teachers are: they make you do it over and over, until you get it right!"

And this is the real open secret: my women sannyasins are really doing perfectly well, and they will make you do it again and again until you do it right!

The morning after the office Christmas party the husband woke up with an agonizing hangover. "I feel terrible," he complained.

"You should," said his wife. "You really made a fool of yourself last night."

"What did I do?"

"You got into a quarrel with your boss and he fired you."

"Well, he can go to hell!"

"That's exactly what you told him."

"I did?" he said incredulously. "Then, screw the old goat!"

"That's just what I did," his wife replied. "You go back to work on Monday."

Very pragmatic!

Sam told his wife, Becky, that because of inflation they had to cut expenses -- no more dining out, theater, concerts, etcetera. Becky chided him in reply, "But, Sam, if you would just learn how to fuck, we could get rid of the chauffeur!"

But man lives in a totally different world!

A man returned from a convention and proudly showed his wife a gallon of bourbon he had won for having the largest sex organ of all present.

"What!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell me you exhibited yourself in front of all those people?"

"Only enough to win, darling," he replied. "Only enough to win!"

The last question:

Anneliese, I have happened to you! Now there is no going back, and even if you go I am coming with you. I will haunt you everywhere! I can understand your irritation. That's my whole joy -- to irritate people! Once they are irritated they are caught.

Of course, you are right that you were fine in the West; now you can never be fine anywhere else, but only now, here. Now no West, no East can be of any help. You have tasted something that you have not tasted before, and once you have tasted something -- something alcoholic, something like LSD -- you can never be the same person again. That taste will linger, it will haunt you.

And this is pure LSD that is happening here! It is not chemical LSD, it is alchemical -- far more refined than chemical LSDs can ever be. It is real soma! It is what has always happened between a Master and a disciple.

There is no need to listen to my words, Anneliese, just being with me is enough, just being in tune, that's enough. Words are only strategies to keep you attuned to me so that you don't fall asleep, so that you remain awake.

You say:

It is! But there is no need to throw it away, otherwise what am I going to do here? Use me as a wastepaper basket, so whatsoever you write, sense, nonsense... it is all nonsense -- as far as I am concerned it is all nonsense. So you can send it to me, and I will make some crazy thing out of it.

After acquiring enough money from handouts, an inhabitant of the Bowery decided to take his refreshment at one of Wall Street's better drinking establishments.

A financial tycoon seated next to him was visibly appalled at the appearance and odor of the down-and-outer, so much so, in fact, that he turned to the man and pointedly said, "Cleanliness is next to godliness -- John Wesley." His words were ignored.

A few minutes later, the financier again intoned loudly, "Cleanliness is next to godliness -- John Wesley." Still he was ignored.

Finally, the visibly irritated financier shouted in the man's face, "Cleanliness is next to godliness -- John Wesley!"

To which the skid-row denizen calmly replied, "Screw you! -- Tennessee Williams."

You can ask me any nonsense thing, and I will give you a bigger nonsense. I am an expert at that, the only expertise I can claim! And the more nonsensical a question is the more I enjoy it, because it expects a more nonsensical answer. If you ask something crazy that means you are asking for something crazy, and I am the last one to be defeated!

Anneliese...

A man went into a restaurant and ordered his breakfast. When the waitress brought his coffee, he observed that her thumb was stuck in the coffee. When the scrambled eggs arrived, again he observed that her thumb was in the eggs.

This was too much, and he said, "Lady, I didn't say anything when I saw your thumb in my coffee, but now I see that your thumb is in my eggs, too."

"Well," said the waitress, "I have a painful arthritis in my thumb-joint, and the doctor told me to put it into something warm and this would ease the pain."

The man was angry and said, "Well, why don't you stick it up your ass?"

"Oh, I do, I do," answered the waitress, "but only when I'm in the kitchen!"