---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Sword and the Lotus"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "SWORD"
dategiven: "12 February 1986 pm"
place: " in"
chapternum: "Chapter #23"
chaptertitle: "No beginning -- no end"
acode: "8602125"
shorttitle: "SWORD23"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "75mins"
displaytitle: "The Sword and the Lotus: Chapter #23"
---

```style
.sutra {
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<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
MANY PEOPLE, WHEN THEY TRY TO UNDERSTAND THE ORIGIN OF CREATION, ARE PUZZLED: WHY DOES THE ULTIMATE, WHICH WAS ONE, HAVE TO BE IMMEDIATELY TWO AFTER CREATION? IN OTHER WORDS, POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE, MALE AND FEMALE, AND SO ON. THE ULTIMATE IN ALL ITS POWER, EXISTENCE, FULLNESS, COULD HAVE HELPED CREATION ON A MALE-MALE BASIS, ON A FEMALE-FEMALE BASIS, OR A JOINED TOGETHER BASIS, AS A THEOSOPHIST ONCE EXPLAINED. HE WROTE THAT AT THE TIME OF CREATION THE HUMAN CREATURES, MALE AND FEMALE, WERE BORN JOINED TOGETHER AT BIRTH AND THEY WALKED ON FOUR LEGS.
OF COURSE, THE ULTIMATE IN ALL ITS POWER COULD HAVE SOLVED THE PROBLEM OF PROGENY IN A DIFFERENT WAY FROM THAT WHICH WE KNOW NOW.
IS THIS A QUESTION WHICH IS SOLVABLE, OR WILL IT BE BETTER TO HAVE IT ADDED AS UNKNOWN TO LIMITED THINKING, TO THE MIND AS SUCH?</p>


There are many questions which are created by man himself; they don't have any roots in reality.


First, man starts with assumptions and slowly, slowly forgets that the assumption is not reality. For example, the question of the ultimate -- that in the beginning it was one, then why did it become two? It is absolutely man's creation -- the whole idea.


Nobody has any right to talk about the beginning, because nobody could have been a witness to it for the simple reason that if there was a witness, it was not a beginning. The witness was there -- the beginning must have been some time before the witness. It is a simple, rational and logical understanding that to talk about the beginning is all nonsense.


Christians say that in the beginning was the word. Now this is sheer stupidity because 'word' means a sound with a meaning, and meaning is impossible unless there is somebody to give it meaning.


One thing is certain: in the beginning there cannot be a word. It would have been better if they had chosen sound -- but just better, not right. Even to accept that in the beginning there was only sound, you need some ears to hear it. Without ears there is no sound. This is something scientific which you have to understand.


For example, you see my robe is green. It is one of the very strange things that science has come to discover that when the light rays fall on anything... the light rays have all the seven colors of the rainbow....


On my robe the light rays are falling. The robe is absorbing all the colors except green; that means this robe is not green at all. It is an appearance, and the appearance is possible because it is not accepting the green ray, so the green ray hits your eye. All other colors are absorbed, so they don't come back to your eyes. Only the green is left; it hits your eye, and naturally your eyes see it green. This robe can be any color, but it is not green, in fact it has no color -- only when light falls on it does it have a certain quality of absorbing.


But if you all close your eyes, including me, then this robe will not be green. Then all your clothes will lose their colors, because for colors to exist, eyes are needed.


Take it from a different angle.... Common sense thinks that a blind man lives in darkness -- that is absolutely wrong. The blind man has no eyes; he cannot see darkness. To see darkness you need eyes, and if you can see darkness, who is preventing you from seeing light? The blind man does not know anything about light, nor about darkness. The deaf person does not know anything about sound, and he does not know anything about silence. If there was nobody present and there was only sound -- it is impossible, scientifically impossible, because sound can exist only with ears. Unless the eardrums are struck, there is no sound.


It would have been better if they had chosen silence, but still not right because even for silence somebody is needed to feel it. If there is nobody, silence cannot exist.


What I am trying to show to you is that the very idea of one in the beginning is an assumption. In fact, one cannot exist without two; two cannot exist without three; three cannot exist without four... ad infinitum. If one exists, that means one digit of an infinity; otherwise, one has no meaning. What meaning will you give to one?


You can say it is not two, but you have brought two into it. You can say it is not three, but you have brought three into it.


These are all assumptions, and once we accept them then they create a thousand and one problems. Then the problem arises: if there was only one in the beginning...


The questioner has been an ambassador to England from Nepal. He is well educated, but even he is not aware of a simple fact: who told you that in the beginning there was one? On what grounds do you accept the ultimate "in the beginning"? Who told you that there has ever been a beginning?


As far as I am concerned there has never been a beginning. Existence has always been here, and there is going to be no end. Existence is going to be always here.


Changes may go on happening -- new forms, new beings -- but the inner core of existence is eternal. And all the philosophies talking about beginnings are childish. But this is a problem -- once you accept an assumption without questioning it, you are getting into trouble.


And that's what happened to the theosophists.... They accepted the ultimate "in the beginning..." then they had to accept that there was a time and there will be a time again when man and woman will be born together, joined together, and will walk on all fours. And this is not only for theosophy, theosophy is a very new movement. It developed in the last century, and it has died out. It has no significance anymore.


Jainism is the most ancient religion in the world. It also has a similar kind of theory -- a little bit different, but the idea is based on the same assumption. Jainism believes that in the beginning, satyuga, the age of truth, every child was born with his partner -- one boy, one girl, together; they were twins, not joined. A man and woman joined together, walking on four legs, looks absolutely ugly. I don't think it is a development, it looks more like a cartoon than like a spiritual ideology.


Jainism has a far better idea: a boy and girl were always born together. They were not brother and sister as it turned out later on; they were husband and wife. That's why the Sanskrit word bhagini has two meanings. Very strange... one meaning is sister; the other meaning is wife. The meaning wife is older, but soon people realized that if twins marry, their children don't survive. Even if they survive they are weak, intellectually retarded, will have some kind of physical weakness.


Once it was realized the process was stopped. And the word 'bhagini', which used to mean 'wife', started to have a new meaning, 'sister', which is a very different meaning. And still the Sanskrit dictionaries carry both the meanings.


Basically the word is very beautiful. It means two persons who have shared the same womb. It says nothing about time -- whether they shared the womb together or at different times -- but that they shared the same womb. People decided it should mean sister, and that it was an ugliness in the beginning when twins started marrying. But they had thought that it was a gift of nature, that nature had chosen who was going to be your wife. Where, in this whole world, will you choose who is made for you? The best way is to have both be born together. But genetics and gynecology studies all agree on one point -- that the man and wife should be as far away from each other as possible. Then their children will be better physically, mentally, spiritually.


We are using it for animals, but we are not scientific enough to understand the thing. We use crossbreeding with animals... you bring English bulls for your cows. If you were really scientifically minded, you would find husbands for your daughters in faraway countries, wives for your sons in faraway countries, so there is no blood relationship possible. That would raise the human quality... age, intelligence, health, everything. But these ideas of why the one became two... It never became two; it has always been two.


And why is there so much of a problem about two? The two are complementary. They make one organic whole, but they are not one. Existence is dialectical. It uses opposites as tension. Now the questioner is asking why God did not only make men, and that he could have made the whole of existence on the same basis. It would have been a very colorless, dull, boring existence -- just males wherever you go... horses, elephants, camels -- all males. You would not find something attractive, because attraction needs some difference. And the opposite, the polar opposite, is the most attractive.


Existence is dialectical: it is male-female; it is positive-negative. And recently, it has been proved beyond doubt that in Africa, in Europe, in America, one of the most dangerous diseases ever is spreading -- AIDS. No other disease can be compared to it because there is no cure for it, and scientists are almost certain that there will be no cure for it. The disease is such that they cannot conceive of any cure. And the person has to die within two years, at the most, two years.


Generally, people will die within six to eight months. If they live in a very controlled atmosphere they may survive two years at the most. Death is absolutely certain. This disease has happened through homosexuality, and that's what you are asking in the question: why God has not created, why the ultimate has not created a single foundation, male and male.


The disease has arisen out of homosexuality -- one male making love to another male. Something seems to be very much against existence.


Scientists have not yet come to a conclusion about what is causing AIDS, but my understanding is that when a man starts loving another man, the woman within both the men starts dying, because she no longer has any nourishment. She is ignored, she shrinks, and slowly, slowly she dies. And when the woman in you dies, half of you is dead.


You have become only half alive. And the other half was your resistance against diseases, it was your organic support. Now you don't have any support. You have lost contact with nature's dialectics -- this is the cause of the disease AIDS. The patient becomes vulnerable to all kinds of diseases, he has no resistance; any infection and he will get it. He cannot fight any infection; no medicine can cure him of any infection -- he lives almost like a ghost.


I am worried that there are lesbians also, particularly in the West -- women loving women. Sooner or later they will bring an even bigger disease than AIDS.


It took a long time for AIDS to happen. Homosexuality must be as old as your religions, because religions are the cause of homosexuality. They forced men to remain as monks separate from women. The women became nuns, but they could not meet the monks, they had to live separately. So homosexuality and lesbianism are both created by your so-called religions. The whole credit goes to your great religions.


But it took thousands of years for AIDS to happen. Perhaps the woman is more strong... she is. Scientifically she is more strong than a man. That's why lesbianism may take still a few hundred years before a greater disease than AIDS grips women. But it is going to come -- you cannot survive against nature. You can go against it. It gives you enough rope, enough freedom. You can use it for your spiritual growth, you can use it to destroy yourself. And what is the problem if the universe functions through polar opposites?


He is also asking... perhaps he thinks that the way men and women make love is ugly, so he is asking if the ultimate could not create some other way for reproduction, for progeny. Anything would cause the same question.
I will tell you a story....


It happened in the twenty-first century. One couple, very adventurous, went for a space tour. They reached a planet where something exactly like human beings had been living for thousands of years. They were immensely happy. The first house they entered, the people were very generous, very loving -- they offered coffee. They drank the coffee and soon they were discussing things. And both the couples, from the earth and from the new planet, were interested in how children were created in their worlds.


The man and woman felt a little embarrassed. They said, "First you show how you create children."
They said, "It is very simple."
They opened their refrigerator...


The couple from the earth was amazed: "What are they doing? What has a refrigerator got to do with creating children?"


... and they brought two bottles, one with some green liquid, one with some red liquid, and a big jar. And they mixed the liquid from both the bottles in the big jar.


The couple from the earth was laughing: "What are you doing? Have you gone mad?"


They said, "This is the way we make children. Now this jar will remain in the refrigerator for nine months, and after nine months you have a baby -- you take it out of the jar."


The earth couple said, "My God! This is the way we make instant coffee. What a strange method you have got."


They said, "It may look strange to you, but this is how it has always been done here on this planet. Now you show how you do it."


They had to show, because they had promised. They were feeling a little embarrassed, but not afraid, because nobody from the earth was present and these people... idiots, mixing liquids from jars and waiting for nine months.... They could not believe that there was going to be a baby. They dropped their clothes and started making love.


And both the people from the new planet were rolling on the ground with laughter. They could not believe it: "What are you doing?"
The man was doing push-ups on top of the woman!


They said, "You idiots! This is the way we make coffee! This is not the way to produce children!"


It does not matter -- anything would have been questionable. And I think the way things are, it is perfectly good. In fact, to make coffee in this way would be a little dangerous. And hearing that this was the way they made coffee, they both felt so bad because they had already drunk the coffee!

Existence is dialectical.


There has never been one, and there will never be one. It knows a certain kind of oneness, but that is the organic unity of the two.


Yes, a man like Gautam Buddha knows oneness, but that too is dialectical. His inner woman and his inner man have come together to meet in a deep, orgasmic unity. From the outside you see him alone -- he is not. In existence nothing can exist alone. To exist you need the support of the opposite, either from the outside or from the inside. If you can find the support from inside then certainly you have immense freedom, you are no longer dependent on the other.


With the inner unity you cannot produce children, but you can go on reproducing yourself; you can go on giving a new birth to yourself. Each moment becomes a new birth and you go on higher and higher in peace, in silence, in bliss, in ecstasy... and it has no limits.


The sky may have limits, but the growth of the spiritual organic unity within you has no limits. But remember, it is an organic unity between two polar opposites.


Every man is a woman also, and every woman is a man also. So you can manage an inner unity -- and that is real celibacy. The celibacy that is being taught by the religions -- I condemn it because that is not celibacy... renouncing the woman, hating, getting away from the woman....


Perhaps in hating the woman or the man you may start hating all that is feminine, or all that is male inside you too. You may never be able to accept your inner woman. If you could not accept the outer how can you accept the inner? You will try to kill it in every possible way. But by killing it you will be committing suicide. It will not be spiritual growth, it will simply be spiritual suicide.


That's what I see in your saints. Look into their eyes and you will not find life. Look into their life and you will not find joy. Look into their being and you will not find a dance, a song. All is dead. Their body has become just a grave and they are somehow dragging it towards the graveyard. Their only juice upon which they live is your respect for them. That gives them enough ego -- your respectability, your calling them great saints, mahatmas... That is the only thing they have got -- which is absolutely bogus, but you go on giving that, not knowing that you are helping them to commit suicide, that you are also part in their crime, that you are committing a tremendous sin.


The whole idea should be dropped. There cannot be any beginning. How can there be a beginning? From where will all these things come? And if you can get all these things from somewhere, then this is not a beginning. Places exist from where you are getting all these things; contractors exist who are making all these things; suppliers exist who are ready to supply all that you want...


Out of nothing, do you think there can be a beginning? And there cannot be an end, because where will all this disappear to?


Scientists say you cannot destroy even a single small piece of stone -- there is no way to destroy it. You can cut it into smaller pieces, but still it is there. You can do whatsoever you want, but it will remain in some form or other. You cannot simply destroy it so that it leaves no mark behind. This is one of the basic discoveries of modern science -- that nothing is destructible. If nothing is destructible, then the other end should also be understood: it is not possible to create anything. If you cannot destroy anything, you cannot create either.


We have not been successful in creating anything. Whatever we do is only combinations. You can create water by the combination of oxygen and hydrogen, but they are still there. It is not a creation, it is only a composition.


You take something from one place, something from another place, and you can make a new thing -- but it is not new. Neither has there ever been a creation, nor is there going to be a destruction. There is no god who created, there is no ultimate being who managed to run the world in a dialectical way.


Existence is autonomous and it is eternal. But the problem with theologians, with philosophers, is that they simply invent a name and they forget that their beginning is only invention, imagination. Then they go on questioning and then they go on answering, making a big system.


I have looked into all the systems of philosophy, I have wasted almost my whole life in looking into all the systems of the world, and only one thing that is similar to all of them is that they don't have any base. Their basis is simply assumption.


If you accept their assumption then their whole system looks very logical, very profound. They are all afraid that you should ask anything about their basis, because they don't have any answer. And the basis is the first thing to ask about. The differences in their systems are not much, because their bases are all false; the differences are only of names. Somebody calls it absolute, somebody calls it ultimate, somebody calls it god, somebody calls it some other name. All these names are imaginary, and by changing names nothing is changed.


Just look -- as I was telling you, the Bible says, "In the beginning was the word..." The second sentence contradicts the first: "With the word was God..."


And no Christian has the guts to question that in the second sentence, the first is denied. "In the beginning was the word..." The second sentence is, "With the word, there was God..." So the word was not alone. And in the third sentence it is said that God was the word.


Can't you see the contradiction? -- so apparent. Then why don't you simply say, "In the beginning there was God"? Why say, "the word"? "The word was with God..." And finally, you come to the real thing: "The word was God." Why go this long way? Those first two sentences are meaningless. You should have said, "In the beginning was God."


But to protect God, so that God is not questioned... People will question the word and will get puzzled with the word, so they have created a great philosophy about the word and what it means for the word to be there. They have made a protection for poor God. But anybody who has eyes cannot be deceived.
I am reminded....


It happened in Bombay that a Hindu saint who used to come there always had a big following. He was delivering his morning talk, and a very rich lady was sitting in front of him with her small child who suddenly said, "Mummy, I want to go to the bathroom."


Everybody laughed because the talk was about Vedanta the ultimate god, and suddenly that boy brings the bathroom in.
The mother tried to push him, "Sit down."
He said, "I cannot! I want to piss."


Everybody was laughing, and the saint felt very embarrassed. But the woman was very rich so he could not say anything to her. And he was a guest in the same woman's house, he had been there for many years. But after the meeting he called the woman separately and told her, "You should teach your child some etiquette. In a spiritual meeting he talked about the bathroom and pissing, and that created such a disturbance that all my seriousness was lost and people must have forgotten all the great things that I was saying. That boy is a real devil. Either you should not bring him with you or you should teach him something."


The woman said, "He insists on coming. And he is my only child and I cannot leave him crying and weeping at home. I will not be able to sit listening to you peacefully because I will remember that he will be weeping and crying."


Then the saint said, "I suggest a simple thing to you. You just tell him that if you want to go to the bathroom you need not say that you want to piss, you can simply teach him to change the word 'piss'. Instead of saying 'pissing', say 'singing': 'Mom, I want to sing.' Nobody will know what is going on; it will be a code language. And this is not difficult. Make it clear: 'If you learn this, only then will I take you with me; otherwise no.'"


The boy agreed. He said, "There is no problem for me. Whenever I feel, I will say that I want to sing. You have to understand, don't forget!"


After one year the saint came back. He was staying in the same lady's house and just in the evening the lady said, "I am in a trouble. One of my sisters is seriously sick and I have to go to see her. I may not be able to come back in the night. The child is alone. It will be great kindness if you let him sleep with you in the bed because he has never slept alone."
The saint said, "There is no problem."
The woman left.


In the middle of the night the child shook the saint and said, "I want to sing."


The saint said, "Are you mad? Is this the time for singing? In the middle of the night, disturbing all the neighbors...? Shut up and go to sleep."


The boy remained silent for a few minutes. He said, "It is difficult to shut up. You have to allow me to sing -- it is coming."


The saint said, "What nonsense. The whole day I have been teaching people and in the night you won't let me sleep, and your mother has left you in my care. I tell you, go to sleep. If you want to sing, sing in the morning!"


He said, "I can't wait that long. You don't understand. I have to sing NOW."


So the saint said, "It seems you won't listen, so okay, sing but sing very quietly. Just come close to my ear; sing in a whisper... nobody hears."


The boy said, "I warn you." He said, "Don't tell me later on. It seems you don't know what singing means."


The saint said, "You think you know more than me? You just sing whatsoever you want to. Be finished and go to bed!"


Half asleep, the saint suddenly jumped when the boy started "singing" in his ear.... He said, "My God! This you call singing!"


He said, "It is your teaching... you told my mother.... Otherwise I was always telling the truth. You made me a hypocrite, now suffer."


And the saint said, "This is something. Could you not tell me what singing means?"


He said, "That was the whole point -- to hide the thing that it means. I thought that you have given the suggestion so you must know."


You can change the words but you cannot change reality. You can call it singing, you can call it dancing, you can call it anything, but if it is pissing, it is pissing.


My approach is absolutely scientific and existential. I don't have any assumptions. I cannot tell you that existence ever began, because I am not a witness to it. And I cannot conceive of anybody being a witness to it; it will be a contradiction. And if there has been no beginning, there cannot be any end. Things end only if they have a beginning.


And I don't see that there is anything wrong in the reproductive system; it is perfectly good except for your so-called religious people who have been condemning sex. Sex has nothing to be condemned. It is sacred because it gives birth to life. It has given birth to you. It has given birth to Gautam Buddha... it has given birth to all that we are proud of.


You go on condemning the very origin. You want some changes, but what changes? any change will be questionable. So I don't see any point in questioning.
I accept nature as it is.
And I accept it with gratitude, thankfulness.
It is the most beautiful existence possible.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
AS ONE GROWS OLD, ONE'S IDEAS SLOWLY CHANGE. ARE YOUR IDEAS ABOUT SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS THE SAME? YOUR COMMENT PLEASE.</p>


Perhaps you are not aware that there are two kinds of growth. Most people grow old; a few people simply grow up. I belong to the second category. I don't grow old, I simply grow up.


The body will grow old, but the body has nothing to do with my ideas. My consciousness grows up.


I have more profound ideas about sex and superconsciousness than I had before. There has been evolution about everything in me, but whatever I have said before has deepened, has become more solid. Now I have more arguments for it -- that's what growing up means. Nothing has changed, only everything has become more clear, more solid, more conclusive.


I have been thinking to speak -- because I have never read my books -- on each book again, so that you can see that I have not contradicted a single thing in those books. Although I have gone far away from those ideas, it is in favor of those books, not against them.


Whatever I have said after my enlightenment is unchangeable. It can evolve, it can grow, it can bring more flowers to it, it can have deeper roots in the ground, but its quality, its taste will remain the same.


And I hope that my sannyasins will learn to grow up, not just to grow old. Even animals grow old -- buffaloes, donkeys -- everybody grows old. It is only man's prerogative, his privilege, to grow up.


The body will take its own course, but your consciousness can go on growing up, can go on growing even when you are dying, can go on growing when you are dead, can go on growing wherever you are. That growth is eternal.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
SEERS HAVE SAID -- GURU RAMA, GURU VISHNU, GURU DEVA MAHESHWAR -- THAT THE MASTER IS THE GENERATOR, THE OPERATOR AND THE DESTROYER.
I CANNOT CONCEIVE HOW IT CAN BE TRUE. PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME.</p>


The Hindu mythology has something equal to the Christian trinity. It is called the trimurti, the three faces of god -- Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. These are not three persons, but only three faces of one person.


Brahma creates the world; Vishnu maintains it, sustains it, nourishes it; and Shiva destroys it. This is one cycle.


Then another cycle begins: Brahma creates again, and so on, so forth. It is just a mythology, but mythologies have been so heavy on man's mind that sometimes it is hilarious to see.


Brahma is the creator of the world, but in India there is only one temple devoted to Brahma. Because who cares about Brahma? He has done his work, he is useless. He may be a god, a great god. He created the whole world, but he has no longer any worshippers. Just a single temple is devoted to him. You can see the mind of the people.


I will not talk about the theology but its implication. Most of the temples are of Vishnu, or his incarnations -- Krishna, Ram -- these are all incarnations of Vishnu. Most of the temples are of Vishnu because he has the power, and power has to be worshipped. Right now he is everything, he can do everything, he can change everything -- he is all powerful.


Shiva also has millions of statues, but not many temples. That too is very significant. Vishnu's temples are immensely rich, with great art, sculpture, beauty. Shiva is the poorest god. You can find any axe-shaped marble stone, put it under any tree and it becomes a temple of Shiva.


Who cares about death, destruction? But people are afraid. So once in a while, placing a few flowers is perfectly understandable. But no great temples have been raised for Shiva. He lives under trees in the hot sun, in the rain, in the cold. People worship him just out of fear.


Fear can never become worship; neither can business ever become worship. Vishnu is people's business; Shiva is the god of death, god of destruction. He has to be kept friendly -- he is dangerous.


Another example you will find -- you can look in the books of all the businessmen in India. I don't know, it must be the same in Nepal -- every businessman starts his books with Shri Ganeshaya Namah -- Ganesh is Shiva's son. Why is it that every book all over India, and wherever Hinduism has had any influence, starts with Shri Ganeshaya Namah -- I bow down to Shri Ganesh, the great god? All other gods are forgotten. The reason is that in the beginning Ganesh was a very mischievous fellow -- he used to harm, to disturb. Just to keep him calm and cool -- "Please don't disturb our business" -- people started praising him: Shri Ganeshaya Namah. It was not out of respect, it was a bribery because he was a great destroyer. He was the son of the ultimate god of destruction and he used to play mischief all around. He would disturb people's marriages, people's businesses, so everything that has to be started has first to remember Ganesh.


This is not religion. This is simply persuading Ganesh: "Don't disturb us -- we are on your side. We are not your enemies, we are worshippers..." Mythologies which have no reality in them -- you can see Ganesh and you can understand that this cannot be a reality. Ganesh has the body of a man and the head of an elephant. This is not possible. And above all this nonsense, having the head of an elephant, a big belly because he loves laddus -- and he is sitting on a mouse! That is his vehicle. Can you conceive it? Is it possible? That poor mouse carrying the whole load of a full wagon would have died long ago.


But people never ask, never question their own mythologies. The same is true about Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh -- just creations of the human mind. The world has never been created so there is no need of any Brahma. And it is not going to be destroyed, so there is no need of any Shiva. And between the two is Vishnu.


The world is autonomous, it does not need anybody to maintain it. But all over the world people have strange kinds of mythologies dominating their minds. And they have devoted millions of hours, money, artists, to make temples for these imaginations. And then to look at people worshipping their own imaginary gods is so ridiculous.


My father used to take me to a temple which was very close. It was a very beautiful Jaina temple with a standing statue of Mahavira, an ancient statue. I loved the peace of the temple. I loved the statue, its art, but I never felt like worshipping. A statue has to be appreciated as a beautiful object of art, there is no question of worship. You don't worship the painting of Picasso.


And my father would say to me, "You have to worship Mahavira because he is equivalent in Jainism to the supreme god. He has the same qualities. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient -- he can see everything: past, present, future. He is everywhere present and he is all powerful."


I told him, "To tell you the truth, I have seen a mouse sitting on his head pissing, and your great saint Mahavira could not do anything. Perhaps he could not see above his head. All powerful? Everywhere present? And he could not even throw the mouse away? I have seen it with my own eyes, and if you want to see it I can bring a white mouse which my friend has, and I can manage the whole scene again. I can bring another friend who is a photographer and we will distribute the photograph all over the town: 'This is your omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient god -- now stop worshipping!' He has lost power over rats, what can he do for you?"


He said, "Don't do any such thing. If you don't want to worship, keep quiet."


I said, "You have to keep quiet. This was just an instance for you so you don't continue harassing me that I have to worship."


This is man's creation -- beautiful. It should be kept in a museum, but it is not to be worshipped. For worshipping you have the whole universe which is not man's creation -- the stars in the night, the sunrise in the morning, the sunset in the evening, a bird on the wing... But I have never seen any religious person worshipping all that is not man-made and has such tremendous beauty, so much alive. And we are part of it, and you go on worshipping a stone that you yourself have named. That much for the mythology part.


But your question is that the seers have said that the master is all -- he is Brahma the creator, he is Vishnu the maintainer, he is Shiva the destroyer. This is the ugliest thing that anybody can write. And these seers are writing about themselves that they are the masters. You worship them because they are all three in one. They are Brahma, they are Vishnu, they are Mahesh.


Where are you going to worship in the temples when the master is present?


This is the ugliest part in it. If some disciple had written it, it would have been understandable -- his gratitude. But the gurus, the so-called masters are writing these lines and they have been perpetuated for centuries. Nobody has even questioned that this self-appraisal is simply ugly, disgusting.


I have heard that one day Mulla Nasruddin came into the restaurant and declared, "My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world."


Everybody was shocked, everybody knew his wife... he himself knew it.


People gathered around him and said, "Mulla, have you had a revelation? Who told you? Has she been chosen Miss Universe? What has happened that you have to declare?"


He said, "She has not been chosen, she has told me herself. I am a faithful servant. Whatever she says I believe it. She said that she is the most beautiful woman, and I said, perfectly right; I will go and tell my friends."


The seers themselves are saying to you that they are better than Brahma, better than Vishnu, better than Mahesh, because those gods have only one quality each and they have all the three qualities together.


It is possible for a disciple who loves the master to call him God, because he has seen something of godliness for the first time in his life. But if the master himself declares that he is the god then it is ridiculous. Then it is not worth consideration at all.


Those seers are simply being stupid. This kind of statement makes one think that they must have been idiotic. This is so egoistic -- you cannot find any other statement which is more egoistic. These are the people who are teaching everybody to drop the ego, and they are the biggest egoists in the world.


I would like to say to you that any master who claims that you have to worship him is no longer considered to be a master. A real master can only be a friend, not a god.


It is possible for the disciple to feel the godliness of the master -- that is another matter.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT OF JAINA AND SUFI RELIGIONS -- IS THERE ANY GENUINE MASTER IN THE PRESENT MOMENT ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD?
PLEASE GIVE SOME LIGHT ON THIS MATTER.</p>


Can't you see the light?
			

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