The first question
Question 1:
Yoga Prem,
THE DIFFERENCE is immense - it is absolutely unbridgeable. Two things will have to be understood: one is personality and the second is individuality.
We ordinarily don't have individuality at all. That's what Gurdjieff means when he says it is very rare to find a person who has a soul. He is the first enlightened Master who has said it so clearly.
Otherwise, Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ, they have all given the impression at least that everybody has a soul. Everybody has a self but not a soul, and the self is a barrier not a bridge to the soul.
Personality is your circumference, not your center. The word "personality" comes from a Latin root persona. In Greek theater the actors used to wear masks; they would speak through the mask. Sona means sound, persona means sound coming through the mask. You cannot see the real person, you cannot see his original face. You only see a facade, something pseudo, something made-up, invented. The word "personality" comes from persona.
When the child is born we start giving him personality - by educating him, by giving him a certain religious attitude, by imparting some philosophy, some political ideology. Slowly slowly, brick by
brick, we create a structure around him in which he becomes imprisoned, so much so that he starts feeling identified with the edifice created by others around him. He does not feel imprisoned.
To feel imprisoned is a great insight, because from that moment one starts making efforts to be free. Whatsoever you are, you are a creation of others. You have been pushed and pulled from all directions, you have been given a certain shape. It is not your originality; it is something imposed, painted. But you have known it from your very beginning. You have known it for so long that you don't remember that you can be anybody else. And you are somebody else - you are not this personality.
This confusion prevails all over the world. Just a few days ago, Sarjano wrote to me saying, "Osho, it seems I have a strong individuality and I cannot surrender to the commune. I cannot possibly become part of the commune. I want to cook in my own way." Now he thinks he has a strong individuality; in fact, he has no individuality at all - not yet.
When you come to me you come only with a personality, a persona. And my work is an absolutely thankless job because I have to destroy your personality; that is the only way to help you to discover your individuality. The individuality is your original face: it is the way God wanted you to be, it is the way you were made by him. Your individuality has the signature of God on it, but your personality is a social phenomenon. Hence there are Christian personalities, Hindu personalities, Mohammedan personalities, and so on and so forth.
Individuality is simply individuality. It is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan, it is neither Catholic nor communist, it is neither Eastern nor Western. In fact, individuality is neither male nor female. It is the personality that has all these divisions, categories, aspects.
Sarjano wrote, "I feel I have a strong individuality." Individuality is never strong; it is very fragile, as fragile as a roseflower. Of course, even in its fragility the roseflower has a certain strength. It can dance in the wind, in the rain, unafraid. It is fearless, but it is not strong in the sense steel is strong.
Buddha is not as strong as Joseph Stalin is. The very name "Stalin" comes from "steel." It was not his real name; it was given because he was a man of steel. Buddha is not a man of steel; he is made out of very fragile elements: the rainbow, the lotus, the fragrance of flowers. He is very feminine - feminine not in the sense of being female but in the sense of being very vulnerable, receptive, very available to existence.
The strong person is one who is stubborn.
Yoga Prem is asking: What is the difference between being an individual and just being stubborn?
Personality is always stubborn, individuality never. Personality has to be stubborn, because it is false. If it is not stubborn it cannot exist at all. It has to be maintained continuously - you have to fight for it. The personality consists of nothing but ego, self, greed, anger, violence, because deep down you are aware of the trembling, of the fear of death. Deep down you know your inferiority. The personality brags about its superiority.
Remember always, whatsoever the personality brags about is exactly the opposite of your reality.
If you are feeling unintelligent inside, your personality will project intelligence. If you are feeling
unloving inside, your personality will create a very sweet, smiling, loving quality. It is not just to deceive others; it is really, basically, to deceive oneself. You want to forget your unlovingness. If you are feeling empty inside, your personality will start gathering a thousand and one possessions.
Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler - these people have lived only as personalities, very stubborn. They have to be stubborn because they know that if they are not stubborn, if they are not continuously fighting, the personality will disappear - because it is a false phenomenon. It is not a reality; it is manufactured by the mind, hence the mind has to go on finding mote props for it But individuality is egoless, selfless, a state of no-mind. It has no ambitions, no desires, because it is immensely fulfilled just being itself. It need not fight for its existence; it is existential. It cannot be destroyed; it is indestructible, but not strong - very fragile, very feminine, never aggressive, always receptive. It never brags about itself - there is no need because there is no inferiority complex in it.
Not that it feels superior! Those are two aspects of the same coin: the inferior and the superior.
The real person, the authentic being, the individual, is neither inferior nor superior; he is simply himself. He never compares himself with others - the idea of comparison does not arise at all; he knows everybody has unique individualities.
The word "individuality" is also significant; it means indivisible, that which cannot be divided.
Individuality is organic. Personality is a patchwork - something from here, something from there.
You go on collecting, and hence you are always afraid it can be taken back.
Somebody says to you, "You are so beautiful!" Now you will be dependent on the person, because he can withdraw his statement any moment. Not only can he withdraw it, he can say, "I have never seen such an ugly person as you!" Then what? You have to cling to his statement, and to cling to his statement you have to compromise. You have to go on persuading him, buttressing him, so that he goes on continuing saying that you are beautiful.
Dale Carnegie in one of his famous books suggests to couples, particularly husbands, that they should go on saying to their wives, whenever there is an opportunity, "I love you. You are the most precious thing in my life. I cannot believe there can be any person more beautiful than you." Whether you feel it or not, that is not the point, he says; the point is repetition.
And the wife has to do the same: "You are the greatest man in the world. There is nobody who even comes close to you. You are divine. You are almost a god to me. I will worship you forever and forever, in this life and afterwards too." Whether you feel it or not, that is not the point. You may feel, "I have never seen such a man, so stupid, so ugly, so cunning, so mean! " Go on feeling that, but never say it because people live on words - personalities live on words.
I asked a woman . . . I knew her husband - he was always in the library. I asked the woman, "Is your husband a bookworm?"
She said, "No, he is just an ordinary worm!"
But these things have not to be told to the husband!
Dale Carnegie has become the prophet of the American way of life. In America, after the Bible, Dale Carnegie's book has been the biggest seller: How to Win Friends and Influence People. And this is the secret - simple: just go on feeding their egos and you can win people; they will be your friends. You can persuade them even to die for you, because all that they need is support for their personalities, and it has to come from all sources. The priest has to support them, the educational system has to support them, the social system has to support them. And if you cannot find ordinary ways - for example, not everybody can hope to become the prime minister or the president - then you start creating your own small clubs: the Rotary Club, the Lions Club. Now, go to a Lions Club and see how many sheep are gathered there pretending to be lions!
Once I went to a Lions Club meeting in Poona - fifteen years must have passed since then - and thinking that they were lions, I shouted and roared. I was staying at Sohan's house. When we came back she said, "You were the only lion there, and they were all sheep!" - because they became so afraid. They were so shocked, because I started destroying all their assumptions.
Now there are Rotary Clubs all over the world. The word "rotary" is because people become president by rotation. So everybody has a chance; you just have to wait for your chance. Sooner or later . . . first you will become the Vice-President, then the President and then the Governor, and so on and so forth. They have a very cunning strategy to fulfill everybody's ego. And then there are committees and chairmen of the committees . . . No work is done at all!
I have been to Rotary Clubs all over the country, and they ha e a placard on the president's table:
"We serve." I have never seen them serving anybody; they must be serving each other. And they do serve each other - they serve each other's personality. It is a tacit assumption that "I will help your ego, you help my ego."
Then there are churches and religions . . . but have you seen the phenomenon? No religion has remained undivided. Why? What happened?
The day Buddha died, Buddhists were divided into thirty-six sects. Why? These people were one when Buddha was alive, and just after Buddha died they started quarreling, as if they were just waiting for Buddha's death. There must have been many egoists around who wanted to be the chief, but how to be the chief when the Buddha is alive? So they must have waited for their opportunity.
The moment Buddha died, immediately . . . the body was burning on the funeral pyre, and they started playing their political game: "Who is going to be the successor?" Now there were thirty-six pretenders so Buddhism was divided into thirty-six sects.
Christianity could not remain one. Since Christ there have been many sects, many sub-sects, and the greatest division was created by Luther. Luther was one of the most egoistic persons ever. He had nothing to do with Christ, he had nothing to do with Christianity, but he was in a constant fight with the Pope. The Pope was just as egoistic, and Luther refused to submit to the Pope's ego. He created the Protestant section of Christians.
The same has happened to Jainism, to Islam, and it has happened more to Hinduism. Hindus have a very quarreling spirit, very quarrelsome. I don't think any country has such a quarreling spirit.
The reason is that Hindus don't fight physically so their whole fight becomes intellectual; it has to
find some way. Now Hindus have so many sects, sub-sects and sub-sub-sects that it is almost too difficult to know how many Hindu religions there are. There are so many, almost unbelievable. And this is not only so about religion; it is so about everything that Hindus have done.
India has never been a nation because the Hindu mind is continuously quarreling and fighting. In Buddha's time there were two thousand Indias, not one India, because two thousand kingdoms existed - just small kingdoms, with each kingdom trying to be the suprememost. And the disease has gone so deep into the Hindu blood that in every sphere, even in politics, it is the same. Now there are so many Congress Parties... not only are there so many Congress Parties - that can be understood - there are so many Communist Parties in India that you will not believe it. Nowhere in the world are there so many Communist Parties. Even the Communist Party - which is an absolutely non-Indian phenomenon, which is anti-religious, atheistic - even the Communist Party is not one in India. There are many Communist Parties quarreling, continuously quarreling. The old Hindu spirit cannot leave you so easily. You may become a communist, but basically you Will go on doing your old tricks.
But the whole thing happens because of personality: "My ego has to be supreme."
In India there are so many jagatgurus. Jagatguru means World Teacher. Now without asking the world, how can you be the World Teacher? And there are so many World Teachers! There can be only one World Teacher; one is enough because there is only one world. I came across so many World Teachers while traveling that I was surprised: in one world so many World Teachers?
In one village they brought a man and they said, He is a world teacher, jagatguru. "
I asked him, "How many followers have you got?"
He looked a little embarrassed. The man who had brought him said, "His philosophy is so abstruse, so difficult to understand, that I am his only disciple."
I said, "Don't feel embarrassed. You do one thing. Jagatguru means the World Teacher; jagat means the world. guru means the teacher. So you change your name: simply make your name Jagat, the world. And he is your gum - Jagatguru, the World Teacher - so the problem is solved! Then you need not feel embarrassed - he is the guru of Jagat!"
Personality is always dependent on others. Because it is dependent on others it is a prisoner, and because it is dependent on others it has to be stubborn. Otherwise others will make you an absolute slave; they will reduce you to the status of a thing. You have to be stubborn, you have to fight, you have to struggle for your survival.
Yoga Prem, individuality is never stubborn. Individuality is very liquid, very flowing - just like a river it goes on moving towards the ocean. It has no fixed route, it has no a priori ideas as to what direction to go in, it has no plans. It adjusts to situations; it is very adjusting.
But the personality is not so adjusting; it has to be on guard. It is not liquid, it is very solid. It is more like ice than like water. But the personality is a false phenomenon. It cannot give you any joy, it cannot make your life a festival, it cannot give you the sense of the divine. It is a human phenomenon, a human structure. It will keep you empty, meaningless; it will keep you miserable.
Individuality makes your life significant. It makes your life a beautiful song, but the song is no more yours, the song is God's. Individuality is divine. You are simply a hollow bamboo: you become a flute on the lips of God or on the lips of the whole existence. Then whatsoever the whole wants, you allow it; you remain in a let-go.
Sarjano is absolutely wrong if he thinks that he has individuality; he just has a very strong ego. And it happens when people come to me, if I see that they have strong egos, the first thing that I do is to start puffing up their egos, pumping up their egos, making them bigger and bigger like big balloons so that they can see, others can see . . . And that's what I was doing with Sarjano.
He became very happy. He misunderstood the whole thing - he misunderstood the device. He became very happy; he thought, "This is the place for me!" He started thinking he had found the right man. He started telling people, "Jesus is nothing compared to Osho. Jesus is just a pygmy!"
Because I was pumping up his ego and making his balloon bigger and bigger, of course he started paying me in the same coin. He thought, "These things are going to help."
Just old, stupid mind games. But I go on making the balloon bigger and bigger, up to a certain point - when I see now the balloon is so thin that it needs just a pinprick and it will burst.
Whenever Devaraj comes to take my blood he always says, "Now comes the prick," and I start laughing inside. I say, "That's my whole work!" He is telling me, "Now comes the prick," and that's what I go on doing, day in, day out.
So when I told Sarjano, "Now comes the prick," he started packing his luggage. Now he is trying to go to Italy. Go anywhere, the prick is bound to come. My prick is long enough! It can reach to Italy - you cannot escape!
The second question
Question 2:
Navin Mehta,
I AM coming! And I am coming with my whole world of orange people. We are going to change the whole color of Kutch - we are going to make it orange! First ten thousand sannyasins will arrive, then more will be coming.
Within five years fifty thousand sannyasins will be there and within ten years one hundred thousand sannyasins will be there.
So, Navin Mehta, tell the people of Kutch: Get ready! We are certainly going to destroy many things - many things which need to be destroyed, which should have been destroyed long ago.
The whole of India is suffering from many stupidities, many superstitions. We are not going to leave a single stone unturned! We are going to destroy every nonsense, howsoever ancient and old it may be. We are going to bring a totally new vision to Kutch.
I have chosen Kutch for the simple reason that it is one of the most innocent parts of India. They are simple-hearted people, and very poor too, because all the cunning people have left it; there was not much possibility for exploitation.
Just one hundred and fifty years ago, the great River Sindh changed its course. It used to go by the side of Kutch; then Kutch was very prosperous, really golden. But the whole prosperity was dependent on the great River Sindh. The Sindh is one of the greatest rivers in the world.
You will be surprised to know that the name "India" comes from the River Sindh. When the Greeks came to India with Alexander the Great they called the country Indus, because in their language Sindh became Sindhus and from Sindhus it became Indus, from Indus the name India.
Kutch was very prosperous, very rich. But once the river changed its course, Kutch became a desert and the people started leaving, particularly the cunning, the ambitious - they all left Kutch. You will find them all over India, particularly concentrated in Bombay. They are one of the richest peoples in India, but outside Kutch.
Kutch is poor, innocent and, because these ambitious people have left it, it is the right soil for us to work in. And because the people are still in a way primitive, they have some quality of childlike innocence, and that childlike innocence can be transformed very easily into a spiritual revolution.
So Kutch is going to be our great experiment. One hundred thousand sannyasins have never lived together anywhere in the world at any time in history. This will be the first sannyasin city. This is going to be something of a unique experiment.
Naturally, there are a few people who are against it, but very few, not more than two percent. But they are very articulate people; particularly the businessmen who have left Kutch, they are afraid of my going to Kutch for the simple reason that Kutch has always been dependent on them. They have not given much to Kutch, but Kutch feels very grateful to them for whatever small amount they give.
And they know that once I am there, once my people are there, we are going to transform Kutch - and then they will be nowhere. Their leadership, their. great altruistic works will fade away. They are afraid of losing their grip on Kutch. The business people, the politicians, they are very much afraid.
I have been looking at the reports in the Kutch papers, in the Gujarati papers: every day there is something about me and my people going to Kutch, for and against. I was surprised to know that the names of those who are opposing me that have come to me again and again through these newspapers are only six - six names - not more than that. The same people, the same six people:
the same person presides over every meeting, and the same speakers participate. They are moving all over Kutch and Gujarat and Bombay trying to create a camouflage to make it appear as if the whole of Kutch is against me. But their game is political.
These are the defeated politicians, these are the followers of Morarji Desai - Morarji Desai's hand is behind it. Now they have nothing else to fight for, to create chaos for. They have found this: that my
coming and my people's coming will destroy the culture of Kutch, it will destroy the religion of Kutch.
As if Kutch has a different culture than India and a different religion than India! As if Kutch has something special! It shares in the same stupid culture that the whole of India has - and wherever I am, I am going to destroy it! And in fact it is going down the drain by itself, because it has no future.
It has a great past but no future at all. It has become absolutely irrelevant.
Two politicians were walking along a beach where they saw some boys catching crabs. The boys were storing all the captured crabs in a bucket.
One of the politicians approached the lads and said, "Hey, why don't you cover the bucket? What if some crabs climb out?"
One of the boys replied, "You needn't worry, mister. These crabs are like politicians: if one of them tries to climb up, the others will pull it down!"
Now because Indira's Congress Party has come into power in many parts of the country, in Gujarat particularly, the defeated politicians are trying to find some excuse or other. And because Indira is favorable to me and the Gujarat government is favorable to me . . . The Chief Minister of Gujarat, Solanki, just declared two days ago that he is determined to give the land to me and to invite me to Kutch, and this small opposition cannot deter him.
These six people immediately ran to Indira. They went to Delhi, seeing that the Chief Minister was determined. But Indira herself wants me to go to Kutch. She can understand the benefits that will become possible for Kutch. She can understand the transformation that can happen to Kutch.
So, Navin Mehta, tell the people of Kutch that just because of these few people, who can be counted on your fingers, I am not going to be prevented. I am going to come And these stupid politicians, what can they do? It is my birthright to be anywhere in India; nobody can prevent me. In fact, that's why I have not left India, because in any other country they can easily prevent me, but in India they cannot prevent me from going anywhere. This is a freedom guaranteed by the Indian constitution - the freedom of movement. And of course, when I am there, nobody can prevent people from coming to me, to visit me. Wherever I am, my whole world will be there.
Hector, being an idiot, decided to have a brain transplant. He went along to the hospital and was given the choice of two brains: an architect's brain for fifty dollars and a politician's brain for ten thousand dollars.
"Does that mean the politician's brain is much better than the architect's?" asked Hector.
"Not necessarily," said the brain transplant salesman, "it's just that the politician's brain has never been used!"
So these stupid people cannot prevent me, and I am really enjoying the challenge! It is going to be a beautiful journey to Kutch - they are making it almost adventurous. Just a few people, but they are creating so much dust that in the smoke and in the dust they may be thinking there are many people.
They are making so much noise that they may be deceived by their own noise. And politicians are drunk with power, with money, with prestige; they can't see clearly.
Navin Mehta is from Kutch. His other friends are here: Mavji Savla is here, Nirmal Vaswani is here, and many people from Kutch have started coming to see the ashram. And they are all feeling sorry because we were going to move two years ago to Kutch but because of Morarji Desai it became impossible. He created such a cunning atmosphere that I thought it was better to wait for a while, because I knew perfectly well this man could not stay long. He was just accidentally prime minister of India - he never deserved it, he had no capacity for it. But sometimes just because of some accidental situation it can happen, and it happened.
He pretends to be a Gandhian, a lover of truth, but whatsoever he did was absolutely untrue. He tried to persuade the army to prevent me, to say that my moving to Kutch was dangerous for the security of the country. And once the army says that it is dangerous to the security of the country, then it becomes very difficult to move. Now all those files have been looked into - the army has never raised any objection to it. It was all fabricated, it was false. It was declared in the name of the army without the army saying anything about it. Maybe Morarji simply persuaded them to keep quiet while he created the atmosphere that it is dangerous for the country's security.
And now these four, five people are again raising the same old thing, that it is dangerous for the country's security. But they are making such a noise that they may themselves be deceived by it.
A drunkard leaves a bar late at night. The road is deserted, but in the dark he manages to stagger into a lamppost. He takes a few steps back, then stumbles forward again and bumps his head into the same lamppost. He steps back, reels forward and crashes straight into the same lamppost.
"Oh, my God!" he exclaims. "I am lost in an impenetrable forest!"
And there are a few pundits, scholars, saints, mahatmas who are also trying to create some antagonism against me. That is natural, expected. They are the people who are afraid; their vested interests are there. They have lost their lives in futile exercises, but that has become their profession.
Now they are exploiting others and destroying their lives.
My presence there is bound, is certainly bound, to bring many people from their folds to my commune - that is their fear. So Jaina munis, Hindu monks and other priests and scholars, they are creating a little bit of a stir.
A professor was taking a sea voyage on a small boat. One night he goes up on deck, meets with an old sailor, and after introducing himself asks him, "Hey, old man, what do you know about oceanography?"
The old sailor says he does not know what the word means.
The professor, amazed, says to the old salt, "You've wasted a quarter of your life! Here you are voyaging across the seas and you don't even know what oceanography is."
The next night the professor goes up to the old man and says, "Hey, old man, what do you know about metereology?"
The old sailor shakes his head in ignorance.
"So you have wasted half of your life!" exclaims the professor.
The next night the professor goes up to the old man and asks him, "What do you know about astronomy?"
"Nothing," replies the old sailor.
"Here you are out on the ocean needing the stars to navigate, and you don't know anything about astronomy? You have wasted almost all of your life, old man! "
The next night there was a storm at sea and the old sailor comes rushing up to the professor and cries, "Hey, professor, what do you know about swimmingology?"
The professor replies, "Well, nothing really. I have never heard about it. What do you mean?"
The old sailor says, "I mean, do you know how to swim?"
The professor says, "No!"
"Pity!" says the sailor. "The boat is leaking! You have wasted your whole life and, mind you, not almost but the whole of your life!"
These people have wasted their lives. They have not learned anything about the truth. Hence they are afraid that if I come there and I start telling people the simple truth of life, their whole business will be in danger.
And, Navin Mehta, I don't own many newspapers. I, in fact, don't own any newspapers. Newspaper people have been coming to the Foundation asking for money, saying, "If you give us money we will start writing for you." I have said, "We cannot give a single cent to anybody. Go and write against us!
That's my way of spreading my word to people."
They are being paid by the priests, by the industrialists, by the rich people, by the munis - they have been paid! Now this is a well-established fact: they have been paid to write against me. But what can newspapers do?
Just a few days ago Laxmi went to Kutch and thousands of people gathered around her, and they were asking, "When is Osho coming? We are ready to welcome him." Not a single person against!
But newspapers can create - at least outside Kutch - an impression in people's minds as if the whole Kutch is against me.
The whole Kutch is for me! And you will see - when we go there you will see the whole of Kutch receiving us!
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon were viewing a military parade in Moscow.
Alexander could not take his eyes off the tanks.
"If I had had chariots like these," he said, "I could have conquered all of Asia!"
Caesar eyed the missiles. "With such arrows I could have ruled the world!"
Napoleon glanced up from the copy of Pravda he was reading. "With a newspaper like this," he exclaimed, "no one would have ever heard of Waterloo!"
The third question
Question 3:
Chaitanya Kabir,
HE HAS neither Diogenes nor Diogenius or Dionysius. He was Diorajneesh!
The fourth question
Question 4:
Ilas,
IT SEEMS you have fallen into wrong company! This is not the right place for you. Get lost as quickly as possible, because this is the last place where you can make your "hardened minds more mature." We destroy minds! We don't make them more mature.
This is the last place where you can get more inspiration. We don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is just a beautiful word for imitation. I am against all imitation, against getting inspired. You are not to be inspired by me, you have to understand me. Inspiration is a state of hypnosis: you become hypnotized. It is the impact of a charismatic personality: you become enslaved. It is not a good situation to be in.
And you want your mind to be universal. The mind can never be universal. It is the mind that is not allowing you to be universal.
But, Ilas, you must have been studying all kinds of occult and esoteric nonsense, that's why you talk about "levels of sensual and mental and spiritual thinking."
We are against thinking! What levels are you talking about? We are against all levels of thinking.
Our effort here is to create a mind which is not a mind at all. To be more correct, we are here to create a state of no-mind, agnosia, as Diorajneesh says!
And you are searching for spiritual exercises. We don't do any exercises here. What to say about the spiritual? - not even physical exercises! People simply sit silently doing nothing, waiting for the spring and for the moment when the grass grows by itself. Why bother? The whole universe is running so beautifully well without your spiritual exercises! And do you think that just by standing on your head you are going to help it run better or in a more smooth way?
But you are too full of knowledge. You have not heard me. You are just hearing what you can hear; you are not hearing what is being said.
A gay guy at a Hollywood party was so excited to meet Burt Reynolds that when Burt asked him his name he didn't understand and said, "I beg your hard on?"
When one is too full of one's own mind one goes on hearing things which are not being said. You are too preoccupied.
The triplets were talking while waiting inside their mother's womb. The baby located furthest inside said, "When I grow up I want to be a doctor. I want to care for those people in worse positions than myself."
The baby in the middle said, "I want to be an engineer a master of balance."
"I want to be a detective," said the baby closest to the outside world.
"A detective?" chorused the other two babies.
"Yes, so I can discover who it is that comes and pushes me about every evening!"
Preoccupations from your mother's womb! And then your whole life you are preoccupied with your ideas. You never see what is, you never hear, you never taste, you never sense anything of the reality. Your preoccupations always interfere.
If you want to really understand me, Ilas, you will have to drop your a priori conceptions.
You say: The many problems of the world ask for new human solutions.
Do you think the world has ever been with less problems than it is today? The problems have always been there. And do you think new human solutions will solve everything? They will only create new problems. Man has been evolving solutions, and each solution creates a new problem. You do one thing and something else goes wrong.
Hence I teach non-doing, so nothing can ever go wrong. Or even if it goes wrong, it is perfectly okay.
So what? We don't have any expectations. We are not interested in solving the problems of the world; we are more interested in becoming problemless ourselves, because to me a problemless person radiates a certain quality, a certain vibe which helps others to solve their problems.
He does not give them instructions for solving their problems, he does not give them commandments - he is not a Moses - he simply lives his life peacefully, lovingly, without any worry and without any hurry, and just because he lives in a certain grace he creates around himself the vibe, the music, the unheard music which starts pulsating many hearts.
Ilas, if you want to be here, be here with your heart, not with your mind.
You say: Your discourses and your inventions in all fields demonstrate...
What nonsense are you talking? What discourses? I am just telling a few jokes! These are not discourses. Discourses are delivered by priests, bishops, popes. I am an ordinary person, just a madman, so utterly mad that there is no cure for it. I simply go on telling a few jokes. These are not discourses, these are not even talks, at the most you can call them chit-chats - gossipping, not gospels!
And when you write about my great ideas don't call them gospels, just call them gossips - divine gossips if "gossips" does not satisfy your ego - because the disciple always feels hurt. "Gossips?
So we are hearing gossip?" So hear divine gossips! But from my side they are just gossips.
You may be thinking I use jokes as illustrations - you are wrong. Jokes are the main thing; everything else is just an illustration. First I choose a joke and then I look at the questions. Whichever question fits the joke - that's how I choose the question, not vice versa.
And you say: ... your art of thinking...
I have never learned the art of thinking. I don't know how to think, I know only how not to think!
When you ask me a question I don't think about it, I simply start talking about it, hoping something will come out. If something comes out, good; if nothing comes out, far out!
But you have some investment in thinking, in philosophy, in occultism, in theology, in theosophy. You must be reading Leadbeater, Colonel Olcott, Blavatsky, Annie Besant. You must be reading Rudolf Steiner. And there are so many fools ... the whole world is full of them! They are such articulate people and they put their bullshit in such beautiful packages that one tends to buy, one is tempted.
And you are very greedy. You want some spiritual ambition to be fulfilled. Here we are not trying to help anybody to fulfill any spiritual advancement, any spiritual growth. Any idea of being somebody else somewhere else is a projection of the mind.
What my simple approach is is totally different from ambition, achievement. It is just to be as you are. Enjoy the moment to its fullest. Love the moment with intensity, passion, totality. and forest all about spiritual growth. For five thousand years men have been trying for spiritual growth, for spiritual planes, and all that is meaningless. The only spirituality that I know is of the moment, now, here.
But your greed knows no bounds. It is greedy for money, and then it is ready to do anything. It is greedy for power, and then it is ready to do anything. If somehow you manage to shift your greed from power and money then it becomes greed for spirituality. Again it is ready to do anything.
A rough-looking building worker entered a bank in an expensive part of town and was received at the counter with some distaste by a rather prim and proper female bank clerk.
"Good morning, sir. In what way may I be of service to you?"
"I want to open an account and get a fucking checkbook with it," stated the laborer.
"I beg your pardon?" answered the lady indignantly.
"I said I wanted an account with a fucking checkbook! "
"If you insist upon using such language while addressing me," announced the flustered lady, "I will have to summon the manager who will have you ejected!"
Looking impatient the laborer repeated, "Just give me an account with a fucking checkbook. I haven't got all day! "
The distressed lady called the manager and described the man's behavior. Taking on a commanding air of authority the manager told Miss Hopkins not to worry, he would deal with the matter. He then approached the worker . . .
"I am sorry, my good man, but I am afraid Miss Hopkins finds your manner offensive. I must request you to leave our bank premises immediately."
The laborer replied, "Look, bozo, it is simple! I have just won two hundred and fifty thousand pounds on a National Lottery and I want to open an account with a fucking checkbook!"
"Well," replied the manager, "don't just sit there like an old cow, Miss Hopkins. Get the gentleman an account with a fucking checkbook!"
Greed is ready to do anything, and greed goes on changing its face. And you have to be aware of the ways of greed, ego. The moment the greed and the ego and the ambitiousness of your mind fall through understanding - jut through understanding, not through any effort - individuality arises, spirituality arises. It has been there all along, just covered; it has to be discovered. It has not to be achieved - it is not far away somewhere else - it is within you. The solution of solutions is within you. It is in your meditativeness, in your state of no-mind.
And please, don't hope for any miracle. New people who come here come with the idea of fulfilling their greed their desire, by some miracle. Miracles happen only in stories and nowhere else.
I am not a magician and I am not a miracle worker. I am out and out an ordinary person. If you want to be ordinary, be here with me. If you want to have some extraordinary spiritual status, then go somewhere else. The only miracle I know of is to be absolutely ordinary. Not desiring to be anybody else is the greatest miracle. All other miracles are only in stories.
A young couple checked into a hotel room for the first night of their honeymoon. The young bride shyly went into the bathroom to change into her nightgown. Catching sight of her skinny body in the mirror she sighed and said sadly, "I wish I had a set of forty-fours!"
Zap! Crash! Poof! Suddenly she had tits out to here... Excitedly, she ran into the bedroom to tell her new mate.
"It is incredible!" she blurted. "There is a magic mirror in the bathroom that gave me these beautiful boobs!"
The husband could not wait to try his luck, so, standing in front of the mirror, he said, "Magic mirror, I want a prick that will touch the floor when I am standing up!"
Kabang! Scrunch! Poof! And there he was - standing on four-inch legs!"