---
section: Library
booktitle: "Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "TAO1"
dategiven: "16 February 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #6"
chaptertitle: "I am a cross to you"
acode: "7702160"
shorttitle: "TAO106"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "91mins"
displaytitle: "Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1: Chapter #6"
---

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<p class="question">I SEE THE SWAMIS EAT SO WELL AND SO OFTEN, AND HAVEN'T HEARD YOU MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT THIS DIET. IT IS SAID FOOD QUICKENS THE SPERM AND IS A SIN TO EAT FOR THE TONGUE. IT SHOULD FIRST BE OFFERED TO THE GODS ETC.</p>


The first thing: I am not a believer in fasting, I believe in feasting. My whole approach is that of celebration. I am not against your pleasures -- they are not all, one should go beyond them, but in themselves they are beautiful. A man should not deny anything, because the denied part will take revenge. The moment you start denying you go against Tao. Tao is to be natural: a feast and not a fast. A fast can be used only when it comes naturally.


Sometimes animals fast. Sometimes you may have observed your dog fasting: you put the food down and he will not eat. But he is not a Jain, he is not a believer in fasting; he does not feel like eating. It is not a question of principle, it is not a philosophy -- he is ill, his whole being is against eating -- rather than eat, he would like to vomit. He will go and eat grass and vomit. He would like to relieve himself, his stomach is not in a condition to digest any more. But he is not a faster. It is natural.


So, if sometimes you feel that the fast comes naturally -- not as a law, not as a principle, not as a philosophy to be followed, as a discipline to be imposed, but out of your natural feel for it -- good. Then, too, remember always that your fast is in the service of feasting, so that you can eat well again. The purpose of fasting is as a means, never as an end; and that will happen rarely, once in a while. And if you are perfectly aware while you are eating, and enjoying it, you will never eat too much.


My insistence is not on dieting but on awareness. Eat well, enjoy it tremendously. Remember, the rule is: if you don't enjoy your food you will have to eat more to compensate. If you enjoy your food you will eat less, there will be no need to compensate. If you eat slowly, tasting every bit of it, chewing well, you are completely absorbed into it. Eating should be a meditation.


I am not against taste because I am not against the senses. To be sensitive is to be intelligent, to be sensitive is to be alive. Your so-called'religions' have tried to de-sensitise you, to make you dull. They are against taste, they would like you to make your tongue absolutely dull so you don't taste anything. But that is not a state of health; the tongue becomes dull only in illness. When you have a fever. the tongue becomes dull. When you are healthy the tongue is sensitive; alive, throbbing, pulsates with energy. I am not against taste, I am for taste. Eat well, taste well; the taste is divine.


And so, exactly like taste, you have to look at beauty and enjoy; you have to listen to music and enjoy; you have to touch the rocks and leaves and human beings -- the warmth, the texture -- and enjoy. Use all your senses, use them at their optimum, then you will really live and your life will be aflame; it will not be dull, it will be aflame with energy and vitality. I am not for those people who have been teaching you to kill your senses; they are against the body.


And remember, the body is your temple, the body is a divine gift. It is so delicate and it is so beautiful and it is so wonderful -- to kill it is to be ungrateful to God. God has given you taste; you have not created it, it is not anything to do with you. God has given you eyes and God has made this psychedelic world so colourful, and he has given you eyes. Let there be a great communion between the eye and the colour of the world. And he has made everything and there is a tremendous harmony. Don't break this harmony.


These so-called MAHATMAS are just on ego-trips, and the best way to feel that you are great is to be against the body. Children do it. The child feels that the motion is coming; he holds it, he feels powerful because he feels his will: he will not yield to the body. His bladder is full and he holds it. He wants to show the body'I'm not your servant, I'm your master.' But these are destructive habits.


Listen to the body. The body is not your enemy, and when the body is saying something, do accordingly, because the body has a wisdom of its own. Don't disturb it, don't go on a mind-trip. That's why I don't teach you any dieting, I teach you only awareness. Eat with full awareness, eat meditatively, and then you will never eat more and you will never eat less. More is as bad as less. Too much eating is bad. just like too much fasting; these are extremes. Nature wants you to be balanced, to be in a sort of equilibrium, to be in the middle, neither less nor more. Don't go to the extreme.


To go to the extreme is to be neurotic. So there are two types of neurotics about food: those who go on eating, not listening to the body -- the body goes on crying and screaming'Stop!' and they go on. These are neurotic people. And then there is the other variety: the body goes on screaming'I am hungry!' and they are on a fast. Neither is religious, both are neurotic, both are pathological -- they need treatment, they need to be hospitalised. Because a religious person is one who is balanced: in whatsoever he is doing, he is always in the middle. He never goes to the extreme because all extremes will create tensions, anxieties. When you eat too much there is anxiety because the body is burdened. When you don't eat enough then there is anxiety because the body is hungry. A religious person is one who knows where to stop; and that should come out of your awareness, not out of a certain teaching.


If I tell you how much to eat, that is going to be dangerous because that will be just an average. Somebody is very thin and somebody is very fat, and if I tell you how much to eat -- 'three chapatis' -- then for somebody it may be too much and for somebody it may be nothing. So I don't teach rigid rules, I simply give you a sense of awareness. Listen to your body: you have a different body. And then there are different types of energies, different types of involvement. Somebody is a professor in a university; he does not exert much energy as far as his body is concerned. He will not need much food, and he will need a different kind of food. Somebody is a labourer; he will need much food, and a different kind of food. Now a rigid principle is going to be dangerous. No rule can be given as a universal rule.


George Bernard Shaw has said that there is only one golden rule, that there are no golden rules. Remember it, there is no golden rule -- there cannot be, because each individual is so unique that nobody can prescribe. So I simply give you a sense.... And my sense is not of principles, of laws; my approach is of awareness, because today you may need more food and tomorrow you may not need that much food. It is not only a question of you being different from others -- every day of your life is different from every other day. The whole day you have rested, you may not need much food. The whole day you have been in the garden digging the hole, you may need much food. One should be just alert and one should be capable of listening to what the body is saying. Go according to the body.


Neither is the body the master, nor is the body the slave; the body is your friend -- befriend your body. The one who goes on eating too much and the one who goes on dieting are both in the same trap. They are both deaf; they don't listen to what the body is saying.


And then you say'It is said food quickens the sperm and is a sin to eat for the tongue. It should first be offered to the gods etc.'


Have you some antagonism toward the gods? If you offer food.... So many people offering food it will quicken their sperm! Have you some enmity toward the gods? And it will help them to fall into sin! Be kind. Leave the gods alone. In fact, when you eat respectfully, lovingly, meditatively, the food is offered to God because God is within you. All food is offered to the God within. Just be respectful. Eat with feeling, eat with gratitude. The food gives you life, it is going to vitalise you, it will become your blood, your bones. Feel grateful -- without it you will not be alive, feel thankful. And if you are eating silently, meditatively and your mind is not rushing here and there, you are totally there, your attention is perfect, this is offering. You have offered the food to God because you are nothing but God's hand, his instrument. Where are you going to offer the food? God himself is eating through you, so don't overfeed God otherwise he feels a belly ache, don't starve God otherwise he feels hungry.


And these things are nonsense, that it'is a sin to eat for the tongue'. Then for what will you eat? Then it is a sin to see for the eye, for what will you see? Then it is a sin to hear for the ear, then for what will you hear? Then there is nothing left for you -- commit suicide, because the whole of life is of the senses. Whatsoever you do, the senses come in. It is through the senses that you flow and relate with life. When you eat with taste, God inside is fulfilled, satisfied; and when you eat with taste, the God within food is respected.


But your MAHATMAS, your so-called'religious gurus', they have been teaching you self-torture. In the name of religion they have been simply teaching you nothing but masochism:'Torture yourself. The more you torture, the more valuable you become in the eyes of God. The more unhappy you are, the more virtue you have. If you are happy, you commit sin. Happiness is sin; to be unhappy is to be virtuous.' This is their logic. I cannot see the point, it is so absurd, so illogical, so patently foolish. God is happy, so if you want to be in tune with God be happy. This is my teaching: God is happy, so if you want to be in tune with God be happy, because whenever you are happy, you fall in step with God; whenever you are unhappy, you are out of step. A miserable man cannot be a religious man.


So if you ask me what is sin -- there is only one sin: to be miserable is to be a sinner. To be happy, tremendously happy, is to be a saint. Let your religion teach you how to sing and how to dance and how to delight in life. Let your religion be an affirmative religion, a yea-saying religion, a religion of happiness, joy, bliss. Throw all the nonsense that you have been carrying for centuries -- that has crippled the whole of humanity. It has made people so ugly and so unhappy and so miserable. And it appeals only to the pathological -- those who want to torture themselves; it gives them an excuse.


To torture oneself or to torture others, both are diseases -- the very idea to torture. Somebody is an Adolf Hitler, he tortures others; somebody is a Mahatma Gandhi, he tortures himself. Both are in the same boat -- maybe standing back to back, but standing in the same boat. Adolf Hitler's joy is in torturing others, Mahatma Gandhi's joy is in torturing himself, but both are violent. The logic is the same -- their joy depends on torture. Their direction is different, but the direction is not the question, their mind has the same attitude: torture. You respect a person who tortures himself because you don't understand the logic of it. Adolf Hitler is condemned all over the world and Gandhi is worshipped all over the world, and I am simply puzzled. How is it possible? -- because the logic is the same. Gandhi says'Don't eat anything for taste. Taste should not be allowed. Eat as a duty, not as a joy. Eat because one has to live, that's all.' He reduces the joy of eating to the ordinary world of work:'Don't eat as play.' Remember, animals eat that way. They eat just to eat, just to exist, to survive. Have you seen animals enjoying food? Not at all. They don't have feasts and parties, and they don't sing and dance. Only man has made eating a great feast.


And the attitude is the same about other things. Gandhi says'Make love only if you want a child, otherwise never. Let love be only biological. Eating should be only to survive and love should be so that the race survives. Never make love as tun.' That's what animals do. Have you looked at a dog making love? Look in his face, you will not find any fun... a sort of duty. He has to do it, something is enforced from within -- the biological urge. And the moment he has made love, he forgets the beloved, he goes on his own way, he never says even a'thank you'. Finished, the job is done! Only man loves tor fun. That is where humanity is higher than animals -- only man loves for fun; just for the joy of it, just for the beauty of it, just for the music and the poetry of it.


That's why I say the pill is one of the greatest revolutions in the world because it has completely changed the whole concept of love. Now one can love only for joy. There is no need to be under the biological slavery, there is no need to make love only when you want a child. Now sex and love are completely separated. The pill has made the greatest revolution: now sex is sex and love is love. Sex is when it is biological; love is when it is simply a beautiful music of two bodies meeting, engulfing each other, disappearing into each other, losing into each other, falling into a totally new dimension of rhythm, harmony... an orgasmic experience. No problem of the children, no biological push-pull, nothing. Now the act in itself is beautiful, no more a means towards any end -- that is the difference. Work is when it is a means to some end. Play is when the end and the means are together. Play is when the means itself is the end -- there is no other end to it.


Eat for the joy of it, then you are man, human, a higher being. Love for the joy of love, then you are man, a higher being. Listen for the joy of listening and you will be freed from the confinement of instincts.


I am not against happiness, I am all for it. I am a hedonist, and this is my understanding: that all the great spiritual people of the world have always been hedonists. If somebody is not a hedonist and pretends to be a spiritual person, he is not -- then he is a psychopath. Because happiness is the very goal, the very source, the very end of all things. God is seeking happiness through you, in millions of forms. Allow him all the happiness that is possible and help him to go to higher peaks, higher reaches, of happiness. Then you are religious, and then your temples will become places of celebration and your churches will not be so sad and ugly, so sombre, so dead, like graveyards. Then there will be laughter and there will be song and there will be dance and there will be great rejoicing.


Religion has suffered very much because of these people who have been teaching self-torture. Religion has to be freed from all this nonsense. Great rubbish has become attached to religion. The essential religion is nothing but joy. So whatsoever gives you joy is virtuous; whatsoever makes you sad, unhappy, miserable is a sin. Let that be the criterion.


And I don't give you rigid rules because I know how the human mind functions. Once a rigid rule is given, you forget awareness and you start following the rigid rule. A rigid rule is not the question -- you can follow the rule and you will never grow.

Listen to a few anecdotes:


Benny arrived home to find the kitchen a mess of broken crockery.
'What happened?' he asked his wife.


'There's something wrong with this cookbook' she explained.'It says that an old cup without a handle will do for the measuring -- and it's taken me eleven tries to get a handle off without breaking the cup.'


Now if the cookbook says that, it has to be done. Human mind is foolish -- remember it. Once you have a rigid rule, you follow it.


The mob was meeting the big guy, and what the big guy said, went. The buzzer rang and the servant went over to answer the door. He peeked through the slot in the frame, and, recognising the visitor, allowed the panel to swing back.


'Leave your umbrella at the door' the servant told the visitor.
'I ain't got one' answered the visitor.


'Then get back home and get one. The boss told me everyone must leave their umbrella at the door. Otherwise I am not going to allow you in.'
A rule is a rule.


One of my friends is a professor at the University of Calcutta, a very renowned scientist. He went to Rangoon just to gather a specimen of the urine of a certain person. The disease happens very rarely and the urine changes its composition altogether, so he rushed to Rangoon. He wanted to study it -- he was working on, he was researching, that particular disease. He got the urine. He was very happy because the illness happens very rarely, once in a while. But when he came to Calcutta Airport he was prevented by the authorities. They looked into their files -- there was no provision to import urine. So they said 'You will have to leave it. We will have to enquire.'
But he said 'This is nonsense!'


'This is all we can do. You can look in the file nobody has ever imported urine and the government has no idea about it this is something new! We will have to ask Delhi.' And as things go....


So the urine was not allowed; it remained with the airport authorities. And the professor was crying, and he said 'This will be destroyed within forty-eight hours and it will be of no use. I need it right now.'


'But' they said 'that is not possible at all, because we don't even know how much to charge -- how much penalty. We will have to wait.'


After two months the urine was delivered. Because something goes to Delhi, and then the red file, and.... After two months!


Rules are rules. And I don't want you to become government officials, I want you to become intelligent people.


It was a desperate chase but the police-car was catching up to the bank-robbers when suddenly it swerved into a gas station, from which point the cop driving phoned his chief.
'Did you catch them?' the chief asked excitedly.


'They were lucky' replied the cop.'We were closing the gap, only half a mile away, when I noticed our five hundred miles were up and we had to stop and change our oil.'


What can you do when the oil has to be changed after each five hundred miles and five hundred miles are up? You have to change the oil first.


I never give you rigid rules because I know how stupid human mind is and can be. I simply give you a feel, a sense of direction. Be aware and live through awareness.


Ordinarily you are living a very unconscious life. You eat too much because you are unconscious -- you don't know what you are doing. You become jealous, you become possessive, because you are unconscious and you don't know what you are doing. You get mad in anger, you become almost possessed of the devil when you are in a rage, and you do things which you don't know that you are doing.


Jesus said on the cross -- the last of his words, but of tremendous import -- he said: Father forgive these people because they don't know what they are doing. Now Christianity has never interpreted these tremendous words rightly. Jesus' message is simple. He is saying: These people are unconscious people. They don't know awareness at all, so they cannot be responsible. Whatsoever they are doing, they are doing in sleep; they are somnambulists, sleep-walkers. Please forgive them. They cannot be held responsible.


So when you eat too much, I pray to God'Father, forgive this man. He does not know what he is doing.' When you fast, I again have to pray to God'Forgive this man because he does not know what he is doing.' The real question is not of doing but of bringing an awareness into your being, and that awareness will change everything. You are like drunkards.

I have heard....


Mike told Pat he was going to a wake, and Pat offered to tag along. On the way Pat suggested a nipper or two and they both got well sloshed. As a result Mike couldn't remember the address of the wake. 'Where is your friend's house?' Pat asked.


'I forget the number, but I'm sure this is the street.'


They had walked along for a few minutes when Mike squinted at a house that he thought was it. So they staggered in but the hall was dark. They opened the door and discovered a living room, which was also dark except for the faint glimmer of candles sitting on the piano. They went down in front of the piano, knelt and prayed. Pat stopped long enough to look at the piano. 'Mike' he said'I didn't know your friend, but he sure had a fine set of teeth.'


This is the situation. This is how man is. The only thing that I would like to give to you is a taste of awareness. That will change your whole life. It is not a question of disciplining you, it is a question of making you luminous from within.
<p class="question">RAJNEESH ASHRAM IS OPERATED WITH CONFUCIAN AND SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDES AND PROCESSES (PLANNING, BUDGETING, ACCOUNTING, RULES, REGULATIONS). WOULD IT BE APPROPRIATE TO ACKNOWLEDGE CONFUCIUS AND WESTERN SCIENCE AS PART OF THE TAO, AND THEREBY SPIRITUAL?</p>


Tao is vast -- science can be included in it. But science is not vast and Tao cannot be included in it. Science is a part of the vast mystery of life. If you take science as a part, then there is nothing wrong; but science pretends, claims, that it is the whole, thereby everything goes wrong. Exactly the same is the situation with intellect, calculation, arithmetic. Nothing is wrong with intellect if it functions as a part and does not start claiming 'I am the whole'. When the intellect claims 'I am the whole', then there is trouble. When the intellect says 'I am just a part of a vast entity, of a huge entity, and I do my work -- beyond that I don't know what is going on', then there is no problem. I am not against intellect as such. I am against the intellect which claims to be the whole.


And that is the standpoint of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu. They are not against intellect. How can they be? They are not against anything. My hand is a part of my body, but if the hand starts claiming 'I am the whole', and if the hand starts saying 'I should dominate the whole because I am the whole, everything else is secondary', then the hand has gone mad, then this hand is dangerous -- it has lost contact with the whole.


Nothing is wrong with science in itself, but science should be a part of religion, then it is beautiful. Intellect should be a part of the totality of human beings, then it is beautiful. Intellect too is beautiful. I go on using the intellect every day. What am I doing here right now? Intellect is so significant that even when you have to talk about something which is not within intellect, you have to us. intellect. Even to talk about Tao, you have to take the help of the intellect, you have to lean on intellect. How can Tao be against intellect. reason? The only thing that Tao wants you to understand is that life is more than reason, vaster than reason. Reason covers a small space, but that is not the boundary of the totality.


Lao Tzu is big and Confucius can be included in him, but Confucius is very narrow and Lao Tzu cannot be included in him. Lao Tzu is Tao. Confucius is Torah. 'Torah' is a Hebrew word, but I like it because it goes well with Tao. Tao means love, Torah means law. In the word 'tarot' is the word 'torah'.'Tarot' comes from two words: TORAH ROTA; it means the wheel of law, the rotating wheel of law. Torah means the law. Law is bound to be rigid and law is bound to be narrow. The law needs to be perfectly defined; if it is not defined, it will not be of any use. The law has to have definitions, clear-cut boundaries, only then can it be of any use.


That's where Jesus entered into the history of the Jews: he brought Tao into the world of Torah. Naturally he asked to be crucified -- it was only natural, because Torah cannot tolerate Tao. The law and the law-oriented mind cannot allow love, because when love comes all law is shattered. Love is so vast, oceanic, and it comes into the narrow world of the law and the law breaks down. The Jews could not allow Jesus because he brought a very foreign climate which had never been part of the Jewish mind.


Jesus is indefinable; Moses is perfectly definable. Moses will easily agree with Confucius, will not agree with Lao Tzu. The Ten Commandments are the foundation of the law-abiding mind, and of course the law-abiding mind can always find ways and means and loop-holes in the law.


A woman, a married woman, fell in love with a young man and the young man wanted to make love to her. But she said 'This is not right.' She was a Jew and she said 'This is against the law. And we will be breaking a commandment.'


And the young man said 'So what? Nine are still left!'


Law is narrow, and so narrow that one has to find loop-holes otherwise life would become impossible. Law creates the hypocrite, law creates the cunning person, law creates the criminal -- otherwise life would become absolutely impossible. Law does not allow you to live; it makes life so narrow that you have to find ways and means.... And then comes the lawyer. He helps you, he helps you to break the law and yet remain within the law -- that's his whole work. The lawyer is needed because the law creates the criminal on the one hand and the lawyer on the other, and both are the same.

I have heard....


A priest was saying to a young man 'Listen to this story. There were two brothers. One was very law-abiding and became a lawyer and the other was very rebellious and became a criminal. The one who became a criminal is now in jail for his whole life. What do you say about it?'


And the young man said 'I can only say one thing: one has been caught and the other has not been caught yet.'


The lawyer and the criminal are both by-products of the law, the Torah. I am not against Torah because such a vast humanity has to exist; Torah is needed, the law is needed. You have to keep to the left of the road. If everybody starts walking anywhere they want -- as people do in India -- then it will be very difficult, it will be very dangerous. One has to follow the law.


But law is not life. One should remember that the law has to be used, has to be followed, and yet one has to remain available to Tao, the beyond. Tao should be the goal and Torah should become just a means. And Torah should not claim 'I am the whole'. Once Torah claims 'I am the whole', life becomes meaningless. Once logic claims 'I am the whole', life becomes meaningless. Once somebody says 'Life is nothing but science'. then it is a reduction and everything is reduced to the lowest denominator. Then love is nothing but chemistry -- a hormonal thing. Then everything can be reduced to the lowest, then the lotus is nothing but mud.


One should remain available for Tao; following Torah, one should remain open to Tao. In fact, Torah is right only if it leads you in the direction of Tao. Law is really right if it leads you towards love. If it goes against love, then that law is illegal.


For example, the law says that you should make love only to your wife. Good, if you love the wife then the law goes towards love. But if you don't love the wife, then it is immoral to make love to her: then law is going against love. If you make love to a woman to whom you are not married, it is love not law. And if you can manage to get married to the woman, it becomes law also -- but it is not against love. A wise man will see that his life always uses the law for love. Torah is a stepping stone towards Tao.


This ashram, naturally, has to be run according to Confucius, but Confucius here is in the service of Lao Tzu. You see this mad man here? Confucius is in the service of Lao Tzu: Torah in service of Tao. Then there is no problem. Vice versa, then things go wrong; then you are standing on your head and something has to be done immediately.
<p class="question">YESTERDAY, ALTHOUGH SITTING IN AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION, I SLEPT DEEPLY THROUGH MOST OF YOUR LECTURE. I DON'T FIND YOUR DISCOURSES BORING, SO WHY DID I SLEEP?</p>


Nothing wrong. If you enjoy the sleep, perfectly good. Just remember one thing: don't start snoring because that disturbs other people's sleep.


A man started to snore in his seat at the opera. 'Please stop your snoring' the usher pleaded 'you are disturbing the others.'


'Look, kiddo' the man said angrily. 'I paid for this seat and I'll do as I please.'


'Yes, sir' replied the usher. 'But you are keeping everybody awake.'


Sleep is good -- nothing like it. Enjoy it to your heart's desire.


And sometimes it happens.... There are two possibilities: listening to me, either the talk becomes boring, then you can fall asleep; or the talk can become like a lullaby, then too you can fall asleep. The talk can become like a song around you, a warm song around you, then you can fall asleep. Or it can become a jarring note, very boring, so you have to escape somewhere. And my guards won't allow you to escape from here easily, so the only possible escape is to close your eyes and go to sleep. That is an escape so that you need not listen. Both are the possibilities.


Sometimes what I am saying may look boring to you because whatsoever I am saying is one truth again and again and again. And I have to repeat it because I have compassion for you. Otherwise every morning I could come and sit in this chair, say 'ditto', and go away.


The great novelist had gone insane, but now there seemed to be some hope for his recovery. For three months he'd been sitting at a typewriter in his room and pounding out a novel. At last he announced that it was completed and brought it to the leading psychiatrist at the institution who grasped it eagerly and began to read: 'General Jones leaped upon his horse and yelled "Giddap, giddap, giddap, giddap, giddap."' Then the doctor thumbed through the rest of the book. 'Why there's nothing here but five hundred pages of "giddaps"!' he exclaimed.
'Yeah' said the writer. 'Stubborn horse!'


So what can I do? I have to say 'Giddap, giddap' every day. Stubborn horse.... Unless you listen, I am going to repeat it again and again. It is not going to help you much escaping into sleep, it is not going to help you much. I will hammer you out of it.


Sometimes it is boring. I know it, because sometimes I myself fall asleep. Then I have to look at the clock.


The psychiatrist was late for the appointment. He came barging in and was very apologetic. 'Think nothing of it' said the patient. 'I kept busy.'
'How?' asked the doctor suspiciously.
'I was in the corner talking to myself.'
'Was it an interesting conversation?'
'Not very. You know me!'


Certainly I know myself more than you know me. I know sometimes it becomes too boring, so don't feel guilty. Just remember one thing: don't snore. Sometimes it becomes a lullaby. If you love me, and you love me tremendously, then whatsoever I say goes and surrounds you like a warm blanket; you start feeling cosy, comfortable. Maybe the physical posture is not very comfortable. It has been made in such a way that you cannot be physically very comfortable in this Chuang Tzu Auditorium. The marble underneath, cold, hurting, and my guards all around. And they don't allow you anything, they don't even allow you to cough, sneeze; and you have to be completely alert, otherwise.... The posture is not comfortable -- even then you fall asleep. Think: if the posture were comfortable then you would fall into a coma! But you love me and while my words reach you they become lullabies. But there is nothing wrong in falling asleep once in a while. Don't make it a permanent habit!
<p class="question">WHEN I BECOME ENLIGHTENED, HOW AM I GOING TO KNOW THAT I HAVE BECOME ENLIGHTENED?</p>


Safari. Africa. Big-game hunting -- and the woman was driving the handsome white hunter crazy with her barrage of questions.
'How will I know if I trap a tiger?' she asked.
'By his yellow coat and stripes, madam.'
'And how will I know if I trap a lion?'
'By the brown colour and his flowing mane.'
'And how will I know if I trap an elephant?'
'That, madam' sighed the white hunter 'is the easiest of all. By the slight odour of peanut on his breath.'


Don't be too worried. This enlightenment is such a big thing -- like an elephant -- you will not be able to miss it. You will not even be able to escape it! Once it happens it is self-evident: it needs no other proofs of what it is.


It is like a dead man coming back to life -- will he need any proof? He will know that he is alive. It is like a blind man whose eyes are healed -- will he ask for any proof? He will know because suddenly he will see all the colours, the sun and the moon and the stars, and the faces all around. And the darkness will have suddenly disappeared that has always been there. And everything will be full of light and colour... and the rainbows.... Will a deaf man need any proof when his deafness is gone? Suddenly, so many sounds which he has never heard before will be there; he will be surrounded by them.


But even these things are not real metaphors for enlightenment. It is so tremendous, it is so radical that there is no way of missing it. Don't be worried about such problems. Rather try to become enlightened.
<p class="question">IT SEEMS AS IF YOU SPEAK ONLY FOR ME, AS IF YOU GO ON ANSWERING ONLY MY QUESTIONS. CAN I ASK HOW YOU DO IT?</p>


Mulla Nasruddin was telling me:


'I went to the country on my vacation and the little birds sang so merrily under my window every morning that when I left I went out and thanked them for the beautiful melodies. The landlord came out and said "I hope you don't think those birds are singing for you?"
"Why, of course I do" I said.


"Those birds are singing for me" he said, angry-like.


'I knew I was right... but we got into a big fight over it. So we were brought before the judge. He fined us both ten rupees each. "Those birds" he said "were singing for me."'


When I am talking to you, everybody will feel that I am talking to them because whatsoever I am saying is so fundamental that it has to be related to everybody. I am not particularly talking to anybody, but I am talking about such fundamental things that it is impossible not to be related with those fundamental things -- everybody is related, more or less. When I talk about love, you will all feel that I am talking to you because love is your problem -- everybody's problem. When I talk about the mind, of course you will think I am talking to you, because you have a mind as everybody else has, and all minds are mad.


So when I touch on a fundamental truth, everybody is bound to feel that there has been a special message for him. But remember, I am only talking about the fundamental truths. They are addressed to everybody here but not to anybody in particular, though I know everybody will feel. Good, that's beautiful that you feel directly connected with me.


The two hunters sat in their boat, hidden from the view of any ducks that might happen. They waited and waited. Suddenly they heard a noise in the growth alongside them and upon parting the reeds found another hunter -- cockeyed drunk and working on the death of another fifth.'Hey!' they warned.'This is our spot. Get the hell downstream.'


The drunk said nothing. He just killed the bottle and then paddled two miles away. A single duck came skimmering by a short time later. The two hunters each fired two shots and missed. Then they watched downstream as the drunk took one shot and bagged it.


They paddled down to offer congratulations.'Say' they told him,'that was pretty fast. How'd you do it?'


'Aww...' said the drunk.'With all them ducks up there, how could I miss?'


That's how the situation is here. With so many orange ducks around, I can go on shooting. There is no need to make any target how can I miss? It is impossible to miss.


But good that you feel personally connected -- but remember, don't make it an ego-trip. The mind is very cunning and you have to be constantly alert about its subtle ways, otherwise you will think'I am somebody special. Osho is talking just to me.' And then you will start fantasizing and projecting, and you will be lost in your fantasy world. Yes, I am talking to you too, but not specially. I am talking in a very general way; I am telling you that which is fundamental -- naturally it is your foundation too.
<p class="question">IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INNER DISCIPLINE AND LOVE?</p>


There is none: with the inner discipline a love arises naturally. But there is a great difference between the outer discipline and love -- not only difference, but antagonism. If you force an outer discipline on yourself it will kill your love qualities. it will kill your love sensibilities, it will make you dull. You will lose your fine receptivity because any discipline forced from the outside is against your sensibilities, and love is the culmination of all sensitivities.


When you fall in love with a woman, you fall in love from all the five senses. You may not be aware because man has become so alienated from his own senses that he is not aware, but watch the animals which are still more rooted in their beings -- howsoever unconscious, but still rooted in their beings. A dog is going to smell his girlfriend before he makes love. It is not only a question of seeing a beautiful woman, you should feel the smell too. Sometimes it happens that the face is beautiful and appeals to you, but the smell is not appealing. Then, if you marry this woman, you will be in trouble. Your one sense will be constantly divorcing and your other sense will be constantly marrying, and there will be conflict.


Real love happens only when your five senses are in harmony like an orchestra. Then there is a sort of eternity to your love. Then it is not temporal, then it is not momentary. When you love a woman, you love her sound, you love her touch, you love her smell, you love the way she walks, you love the way she looks at you, you love her totality. And this totality can only be glimpsed through all the senses.


But man has become very much eye-oriented. No other senses are allowed to say anything, you just look through the eyes -- the proportion. In your world beauty contest they don't smell the body. This is foolish. This is simply foolish. A woman may have a beautiful proportion of the body and may stink! She may have the right proportion, but may not have the right voice, the right sound. Her sound may be unmusical, then she is not beautiful -- something is missing. A real world beauty contest will have to be based on all the five senses. Why should the eyes dictate and dominate? This is very dictatorial. Just the eye is dictating the whole life; naturally you are not happy because one sense has become Adolf Hitler. There should be a democracy in your being, in your body. All the senses should be allowed to say their things, and you should listen to all.


If you enforce any discipline from the outside, it is going to kill your love, because all disciplines from the outside are bound to dull you. That is the meaning of an outer discipline. That's what Mahatma Gandhi goes on saying. That's what Adolf Hitler did -- imposed a discipline on the whole nation from the outside, and imposed it so perfectly that people started doing things which they could not have even dreamt about. But the discipline had dulled them completely, they were no longer sensitive. Millions of Jews were burnt and the people who were in charge of burning these millions of Jews were standing there unaffected. What happened? Their sensitivity had been dulled. A great layer of dullness had been imposed on their being.


That's what is being done in every army. The whole training of the military is nothing but how to dull a person, how to dull his sensitivity and how to dull his intelligence. You will never find army people intelligent -- impossible, otherwise why should they be in the army? Can't they find anything else to be? The army should be the last thing. And the whole training is nothing but the creation of dullness. Left turn, right turn, left turn, right turn' three, four hours in the morning, continuously.


Once a professor became a soldier and he was a man of great intelligence. So, when he was ordered 'Right turn!' he stood wherever he was standing. And then the general asked 'Why are you standing there when I have said "right turn" and everybody has turned?'


He said 'Sooner or later you will say "left turn", so what is the point? They will come to the same position again, and this is going to happen for three, four hours why bother?'


Why this continuous 'left turn, right turn'? There is a trick in it: it is a conditioning; you are not allowed to think. 'Left turn' means 'left turn' -- you have to do it. Go on doing something, obeying something, by and by you lose your intelligence. Then you don't think, then some day you are ordered to kill the enemy and you kill. It is just like 'right turn, left turn'. You don't think, you don't ponder over the fact 'What has this man done to me? Why should I kill him?' The 'why' never arises -- you simply do it. You become a robot, a mechanical thing; you are no more a man.


In India, the Sikhs, the Punjabis are the best army people, the best soldiers, and naturally the whole country thinks they are the most stupid. These two things go together. If a race is very perfect as far as war is concerned, then the race becomes less intelligent. It is bound to happen -- both things cannot go together. An intelligent person will have to think before he acts. The soldier has to act before he thinks. That is the whole process: he should act before thinking. And then what is the point in thinking when you have acted already? Then there is no need.


Any outer discipline, whether it be of a soldier or of a saint, kills your sensitivity. kills your fineness, receptivity; and naturally it kills your love because love is nothing but the harmony of all your senses and intelligence. But with the inner discipline there is no contradiction with love. With the inner discipline, love arises. But again remember: the love that will arise with the inner discipline will not be the love that you have known up to now. Your love is everything other than love.


The limousine pulled up in front of the madhouse and the aristocratic-looking gentleman got out. 'Is this an asylum for the insane?' he asked the gate attendant.
'Yes, sir' said the gateman.


'Do they take inmates upon their own recommendation?'
'How should I know? Why?' said the gate keeper.


'Well, you see, I've just gotten hold of a package of my old love-letters and... and I feel that I'm mad.'


Just look at your old love-letters and you will also feel like going to the nuthouse -- on your own recommendation. Whatsoever you call love is a frenzy, a fever, a sort of chemical neurosis; it is not love. How can you love? Love happens only as a shadow to meditation. When you have become so alert, there arises a new quality -- that is love. Right now what you call love is jealousy, competition, possessiveness, anger, hatred. Maybe you are fed up with yourself, you cannot be with yourself, so you need somebody; and you call it love. You cling to somebody, you dominate somebody, you try to manipulate somebody. It is politics not love, it is ambition to dominate not love. And naturally it leads you to hell, naturally it makes you more and more miserable.


What has your love done to you? Dreams and dreams and dreams. And dreams are only when you look at your love somewhere there in the future, then it is a dream. When you look back at the love that has happened, then it is a nightmare. All dreams prove nightmares. No, this is not love, otherwise the whole earth would have been happy. So many people loving, everybody is loving... the mother is loving, the father is loving, the son, the sister, the brother, the wife, the husband, the friend, the priest, the politician, everybody is loving to everybody, love must be so much.... But look into people's eyes -- there is only misery and nothing else. Then something has gone wrong, something else has been named love. It is not love. On the container it says'love', but look into the content: jealousy, possessiveness, anger, hatred, domination, all ugly things are there. Yes, the container is very beautiful, very well packed, like a Christmas gift. Open... and inside, just hell.


This love I am not talking about. When you go inside your being a totally new energy arises. You have so much energy that you would like to share it, then love is a SHARING. Then you don't need love, then you are not in need of somebody to love you. For the first time you have possessed your treasure of love; and a new need arises to share it, to give it to whomsoever needs it. Share it and give it. When love is a need and you want somebody to love you, it is going to create misery. It is a beggar's love, and beggars can't be happy. When love has been known -- and that is only possible when you move inwards and come to the innermost shrine of your being


When you have known the reservoir of love there, then a new need arises to share it, to give it, to whomsoever needs it. Give it, and you feel thankful that somebody has taken it. Then there is happiness, then love is heaven.


But then a need has taken a radical turn: now you need to give. Right now, you need somebody to give to you -- you are a beggar. Then, you become an emperor. The inner discipline makes you an emperor.
<p class="question">SO BE IT.</p>


It is from Sudha.
You will not be able to understand the question because the questioner has a long history. Sudha has been asking for months together, again and again, and I have not been answering her because I always suspected that her question was not the true question and the true question was hiding behind it. Then, one day, out of desperation, she wrote the real question. The real question was: 'Osho, I want you to tell me that Sudha is my greatest sannyasin, and you never say it, you never even mention my name.' But I didn't answer even that. So now, finally, she writes this question: 'So be it.'


Now the time has come to answer it. Remember, whenever you ask a question, there is always a hidden meaning in it. It may not even be apparent to you, you may not even suspect it. You may think'This is the question that I am asking', and there may be something else. You may want me to pat your back, to say 'Very good.'


There are a few questioners who ask such cunning questions. For example they will say Osho, great silence is coming, great energy is arising. What do you say about it?' If I take their question at the surface and if I say'Good', then I have conceded that they are arriving very close to enlightenment. All that great energy and all that great experience that they go on writing about again and again in their questions is not happening. If it were happening, they would become more silent. If it were happening, their questions would disappear. If it were happening, they would not be in any need of confirmation, they would not be in any need of approval. It is not happening.


You ask a question; you are in great need somehow: your ego has to be strengthened. I am here to shatter your ego; I am not here to strengthen it. If I strengthen your ego I will be your enemy and not the friend. It hurts: if I shatter your ego it hurts. But finally, you will come to know that that was the only thing to be done. It is surgical, it hurts; but only this surgery is going to transform you.


Sudha is beautiful, but as humanly weak as everybody else. As everybody would like to be patted on the back, she also likes to be patted. I am not a miser, I can pat -- there is no problem in it. I can say 'Sudha, you are great', but that will poison you. That is not going to help. That will hinder you. That will inflate your ego more. You will become more solidified in your egoistic projections. No, I cannot say that because I would like you to really become great, and to really become great means to become egoless. The only way to be really happy is to be without the ego.


You seek in the world, through money, power, prestige. Then you become a sannyasin and then you start seeking the same old disease in the new names. The old politics comes back, you start competing.


Drop all these things. Here, at least with me, be plain, be ordinary. And the more ordinary you are, the more extraordinary you will become. The more you efface yourself. the more you will be. The moment you cease utterly. you become divine. Nobody is barring the way except your own ego, except you.


Sometimes the ego is such that it can take nourishment from anywhere.


'Now, Mistress O'Grady' the attorney asked 'you say your husband never said a kind word to you since you were married. Are you sure of that?'
'Come to think of it' she replied 'once in a while he did say "You're a foine one".'


Now the ego can even have nourishment from where no nourishment is possible. Remember the subtle ways of the ego. My whole work here consists in dissolving you, in dismantling you, in destroying you, so that a new being is born, so that a resurrection becomes possible. I am a cross to you, so that I can also become a resurrection to you.
			

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