---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "DHAM3"
dategiven: "15 August 1979 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #4"
chaptertitle: "I am a drunkard"
acode: "7908150"
shorttitle: "DHAM304"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "109mins"
displaytitle: "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3: Chapter #4"
---

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The first question:
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
IF THE JEALOUSIES, THE POSSESSIVENESS, THE ATTACHMENT, THE NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS AND DESIRES AND ILLUSIONS DROP, WILL ANYTHING BE LEFT OF MY LOVE? HAS ALL MY POETRY AND PASSION BEEN A LIE? HAVE MY LOVE PAINS HAD MORE TO DO WITH PAIN THAN WITH LOVE? WILL I EVER LEARN TO LOVE? OR IS IT NOT A LEARNING BUT A GIFT, AN OUTGROWTH OF SOMETHING ELSE? A GRACE DESCENDING?</p>


Satya, love cannot be learned, it cannot be cultivated. The cultivated love will not be love at all. It will not be a real rose, it will be a plastic flower. When you learn something, it means something comes from the outside; it is not an inner growth. And love has to be your inner growth if it is to be authentic and real.


Love is not a learning but a growth. All that is needed on your part is not how to learn the ways of love but how to unlearn the ways of unlove. The hindrances have to be removed, the obstacles have to be destroyed -- then love is your natural, spontaneous being. Once the obstacles are removed, the rocks thrown away, the flow starts. It is already there -- hidden behind many rocks, but the spring IS already there. It is your very being.


It is a gift, but not something that is going to happen in the future: it is a gift that has already happened with your birth. To be is to be love. To be able to breathe is enough to be able to love. Love is like breathing. What breathing is to the physical body, love is to the spiritual being. Without breathing the body dies; without love the soul dies.


So the first thing to be remembered: it is not something that you can learn. And if you learn you will miss the whole point; you will learn something else in the name of love. It will be pseudo, false. And the false coin can appear as the real coin; and if you don't know the real, the false can go on deceiving you. Only by knowing the real, will you be able to see the distinction between the false and the real.


And these are the obstacles: jealousies, possessiveness, attachment, expectations, desires.... And Satya, your fear is right that, "If all these disappear, will anything be left of my love?"


Nothing will be left of your love. Love will be left... but love has nothing to do with "I" or "you." In fact, when all possessiveness, all jealousies, all expectations disappear, love does not disappear -- you disappear, the ego disappears. These are the shadows of the ego.


It is not love that is jealous. Watch, look, observe again. When you feel jealous, it is not LOVE that feels jealous; love has never known anything of jealousy. Just as the sun has never known anything of darkness, love has never known anything of jealousy.


It is the ego that feels hurt, it is the ego that feels competitive, in a constant struggle. It is the ego which is ambitious and wants to be higher than others, wants to be somebody special. It is the ego which starts feeling jealous, possessive -- because the ego can exist only with possessions. The more you possess, the more the ego is strengthened; without possessions the ego cannot exist. It leans on possessions, it depends on possessions. So if you have more money, more power, more prestige, a beautiful woman, a beautiful man, beautiful children, the ego feels immensely nourished. When possessions disappear, when you don't possess anything at all, you will not find the ego inside. There will be nobody who can say "I."


And if you think THIS is your love, then certainly your love will also disappear. Your love is not really love. It is jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, violence; it is a thousand and one things -- except love. It masquerades as love. Because all these things are so ugly, they cannot exist without a mask.

An ancient parable:


The world was created, and God was sending every day new things to the world. One day he sends Beauty and Ugliness to the world. It is a long journey from paradise to the earth. The moment they arrive it is early morning, the sun is just rising. They land near a lake and both decide to have a bath because their whole bodies, their clothes, are so full of dust. Not knowing the ways of the world -- they are so new -- they take their clothes off; utterly naked, they jump into the cool water of the lake. The sun is rising, people start coming.


Ugliness plays a trick: when Beauty goes swimming far away into the lake, Ugliness comes on the bank, puts on the garments of Beauty, and escapes. By the time Beauty becomes aware that "People are arriving and I am naked," she looks around... her clothes are gone. Ugliness is gone and she is standing naked in the sun, and the crowd is coming closer. Finding no other way, she puts on the clothes of Ugliness and goes in search of Ugliness so that the clothes can be changed.


The story says she is still trying to find... but Ugliness is cunning and goes on escaping. Ugliness is still in the clothes of Beauty, masked as Beauty, and Beauty is moving in the clothes of Ugliness.

It is a tremendously beautiful parable.


All these things are so ugly that you cannot tolerate to be with them even for a single moment if you see their reality. So they don't allow you to see the reality. Jealousy pretends to be love, possessiveness creates a mask of love... and then you are at ease.


You are not befooling anybody else, Satya, but yourself.


Mulla Nasruddin was passing by the side of a cemetery. He saw a grave; on the grave there was a stone and on the stone was written: "I am not dead -- I am only fast asleep."


Mulla had a belly laugh. He said, "You are befooling nobody but yourself."


Satya, these things are not love. So what you know as love, what you have known up to now as love, will disappear. It has nothing of poetry in it. Yes, passion is there, but passion is a feverish state, passion is an unconscious state. Passion is not poetry. The poetry is known only by the buddhas -- the poetry of life, the poetry of existence.


Excitement, fever, are not ecstasies. They look alike, that is the problem. In life many things look alike and the distinctions are very delicate and fine and subtle. Excitement can look like ecstasy -- it is not, because ecstasy is basically cool. Passion is hot; love is cool, not cold but cool. Hatred is cold; passion, lust, is hot. Love is exactly in the middle. It is cool -- neither cold nor hot. It is a state of tremendous tranquility, calmness, serenity, silence. And out of that silence is poetry, out of that silence is song, out of that silence arises a dance of your being.


What you call poetry and passion are nothing but lies -- with beautiful facades. Out of your hundred poets, ninety-nine are not really poets but only in a state of turmoil, emotion, passion, heat, lust, sexuality, sensuality. Only one out of your hundred poets is a real poet.


And the real poet may never compose any poetry, because his whole being is poetry. The way he walks, the way he sits, the way he eats, the way he sleeps -- it is all poetry. He exists as poetry. He may create poetry, he may not create poetry, that is irrelevant.


But what you call poetry is nothing but the expression of your fever, of your heated state of consciousness. It is a state of insanity. Passion is insane, blind, unconscious, and it is a lie. It is a lie because it gives you the feeling as if it is love.


Love is possible only when meditation has happened. If you don't know how to be centered in your being, if you don't know how to rest and relax in your being, if you don't know how to be utterly alone and blissful, you will never know what love is.


Love appears as relationship but begins in deep solitude. Love expresses as relating, but the source of love is not in relating: the source of love is in meditating. When you are absolutely happy in your aloneness, when you don't need the other at all, when the other is not a need, then you are capable of love. If the other is your need you can only exploit, manipulate, dominate, but you cannot love.


Because you depend on the other, possessiveness arises -- out of fear. "Who knows? -- the other is with me today; tomorrow he may not be with me. Who knows about the next moment?" Your woman may have left you, your children may become grown up and will be gone, your husband can desert you. Who knows about the next moment? Out of that fear of the future you become very possessive. You create a bondage around the person you think you love.


But love cannot create a prison -- and if love creates a prison, then nothing is left for hatred to do. Love brings freedom, love gives freedom. It is nonpossessiveness. But that is possible only if you have known a totally different quality of love: not of need but of sharing.


Love is sharing of overflowing joy. You are too full of joy; you cannot contain it, you have to share it. Then there is poetry and then there is something tremendously beautiful which is not of this world, which is something that comes from the beyond. This love cannot be learned, but obstacles can be removed.


Many times I say learn the art of love, but what I really mean is: learn the art of removing all that hinders love. It is a negative process. It is like digging a well: you go on removing many layers of earth, stones, rocks, and then suddenly there is water. The water was always there; it was an undercurrent. Now you have removed all the barriers, the water is available. So is love: love is the undercurrent of your being. It is already flowing, but there are many rocks, many layers of earth to be removed.


That's what I mean when I say: learn the art of love. It is really not learning love but UNlearning the ways of unlove.


The moment you are centered in your being, rooted in your being, you become full of grace, as if God has penetrated you. You are empty and God starts descending in you. He can descend only when you are not: your absence becomes his presence.


God is not a person but a presence. And two swords cannot exist in one sheath: either you can exist, or God. You have to disappear, evaporate. Your absence is what sannyas is all about.


The process of sannyas is the process of becoming absent more and more, so that one day there is only empty space left inside and nothing else. In that emptiness, whenever it is total, instantly God is felt. God is felt as a presence -- and God is another name for love. And to know God is to know poetry, to know God is to know celebration, to know God is to know bliss -- SAT-CHIT-ANAND.


That's how the mystics in the East have defined God: SAT means truth, CHIT means consciousness, ANAND means bliss. If you are utterly empty, you will come to know these three things. For the first time you will have some taste of truth, some experience of consciousness, some flavor of bliss.


But, Satya, right now, although it will hurt you because it will be very destructive... what I am saying is going to shock you. You have believed in your poetry, in your passion, you have believed in your illusions and dreams and you have felt great because of all this. And I am saying: all this is simply nonsense. Although the majority of humanity lives in such illusions, all these are mirages. If you really want to encounter life you will have to be ready for many shocks, you will have to be ready to be shattered into pieces.


The function of the master is to destroy you, because only when you are destroyed the context is created in which God can be felt. Your death is the beginning of a divine existence.


Die! Die to the ego, die to your past, and you will be resurrected. That resurrection will make you go beyond death, beyond time, beyond misery, beyond the world -- what Buddha calls "beyond this shore."

The second question:
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHY DOES JESUS TELL HIS DISCIPLES: BE AS CUNNING AS THE SERPENTS AND AS INNOCENT AS THE DOVES?</p>


Anand Jayesh, the serpent is the symbol of wisdom. In all the ancient cultures of the world -- Hebrew, Hindu, Chinese -- the serpent is the only symbol which is common.


By 'cunning' Jesus does not really mean cunning as you understand it. In the ancient Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, there is only one word for both 'wisdom' and 'cunning', hence the wrong translation.


But why have Christians chosen to translate it as 'cunning' and not as 'wisdom'? -- because of the biblical story that it is the serpent who seduced, corrupted the mind of Eve, persuaded her to go against God's commandment and to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Because of this biblical story the serpent has become the original source of sin. It is the serpent who persuaded Eve, then Eve persuaded Adam and humanity fell from the grace of God. Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden; hence the serpent became a condemned phenomenon.


But in reality the parable has a totally different meaning. Christians will not concede to that meaning. What meaning do I give to that immensely significant parable? It has many meanings. That is the beauty of ancient parables: they have many-dimensional richness. They are not one-dimensional, they are multidimensional. They can be interpreted in a thousand and one ways; that is their richness. They have many facets; they are like a diamond -- and the more facets a diamond has, the more valuable it is.


When the kohinoor was found for the first time it was a very big stone, the biggest diamond the world has ever known. Now it is only one third of its original weight, because down the ages the jewelers have been polishing, cutting, and polishing and cutting; they have been giving new facets to the diamond. Now it is one third of its weight but millions of times more valuable. So are ancient parables: they are kohinoors. But the problem with the so-called religions is that they become addicted to one meaning. Then they become afraid of other meanings, other possibilities.


The serpent is not cunning, the serpent is wise in the parable. It is because of his wisdom that humanity was born. If there had been no serpent, you would not have been here -- not even Jesus would have been, nor Buddha. The world would have lacked humanity. It is the serpent and his wisdom that creates this great journey of humanity -- and it has been of immense value; otherwise there would have been trees and animals and birds, but no Lao Tzu, no Zarathustra, no Krishna, no Buddha, no Mohammed, no Christ, no Kabir, no Nanak. Yes, trees would have been there and birds and animals, but the existence would have missed something of immense importance; it would have missed humanity, it would have missed human consciousness, which is the ultimate growth point up to now. It is the serpent and his wisdom! The serpent was far more wise than Eve and Adam, because he taught them rebellion.


Wisdom is always rebellious. In fact, if you ask me, God was giving an opportunity to Adam and Eve to rebel; hence the commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This is a simple psychological fact. The garden was so big that Adam and Eve, left to themselves, would never have discovered the tree of knowledge; it was only one tree and there were millions and millions of trees.


But God pointed out the tree and said, "Don't eat the fruit of THIS tree." By saying this he is provoking. In fact, the first seducer is God; the serpent is the second seducer. The serpent is simply an agent of God, a messenger of God. God must have waited for long after he prohibited.... Now Adam and Eve are bound to eat the fruit of knowledge.


You can try it. Prohibit the children, "Don't eat ice cream. Don't go near the fridge!" -- and then they are bound to go. They might not have gone if you had not told them NOT to go. Prohibition becomes invitation. You are challenging them; you are challenging them to assert themselves.


God has challenged Adam and Eve, and then he must have waited for long. The challenge didn't work; Adam and Eve must have been very obedient people. They were the first people on the earth; hence they may not have tasted of rebellion and the joys of rebellion and the growth that rebellion brings. The agony and the ecstasy of rebellion were unknown to them. Hence the serpent was used as a messenger; in the whole animal kingdom, the serpent was chosen to be the messenger of God. The serpent is a symbol of wisdom -- and it is because of the serpent that you are here. The serpent is really the father -- the father of humanity.


The original statement of Jesus means: Be as wise as the serpents and as innocent as the doves. But the word 'cunning' is also beautiful. Gurdjieff used to say that unless you are cunning you cannot escape from the bondage of the world -- because the bondage is so complex that you have to be very sly. Gurdjieff used to say that if you want to learn from a master you have to be very sly, cunning. That's how he learned. He moved for at least twenty years from one master to another master -- but masters take their own time, they are not in a hurry. They don't live in time, they live in the eternal, so there is no hurry. But Gurdjieff was in a hurry, so rather than waiting until whenever the master feels the time is right and he will impart his knowledge, he will impart his wisdom, he started stealing wisdom from the masters.


Gurdjieff says he learned by stealing, by being cunning. It looks strange to use the words 'sly', 'cunning', in reference to spirituality, but Gurdjieff is a rare man. If you understand him rightly, what he means simply is: be clever, be intelligent, be utterly alert, be wise.


In the East, the serpent has become the symbol of the energy that is dormant in you. In yoga we call it KUNDALINI -- the serpent power. It is dormant in your sex center, like a coiled serpent, fast asleep, snoring. At the lowest center of your being your energy is asleep; it has to be awakened. And once the serpent starts rising in you, you will be surprised that you are not so small as you appear from the outside. From the inside you are as vast as the sky; even the sky is not the limit.


The serpent is a beautiful symbol. It has no legs, still it moves so fast; its movement is a miracle. Zen people say: God cannot be explained, truth cannot be defined.


To define truth is like putting legs on a snake. The snake moves without legs, there is no need of any legs. If you put legs on the snake you may stop its movement totally; it may not be able to move at all.


So is the case with wisdom: it moves without legs. It moves without information, without knowledge. It moves without intellectuality; it moves intuitively.


The serpent dances listening to music. Scientists were very much puzzled in the beginning, because the snake has no ears at all, it cannot listen. But how can you deny it? -- everybody knows that the serpent becomes absolutely hypnotized by music; it sways, dances. How does it become possible? -- because it has no ears. Then after great inquiry and research it was found it has no ears but it hears from every cell of its body. Its whole skin functions as an ear; it is all ears.


And that's how a disciple has to be: all ears; not only listening from the ears but listening from the feet to the head, listening from each cell of one's being so that each fiber of your existence starts pulsating, falls in rhythm with the master.


The serpent is of great significance. Jesus is right. You became puzzled, Jayesh, because of the word 'cunning'. It simply means wise.


Sheikh Mustapha needed one more horse before setting off on a trip into the desert. Two steeds were brought to him from a nearby village, but the owner of each horse, not wanting to give up his animal, insisted his nag was worthless, brokenwinded, old and crippled.
"It is a simple thing to settle," said the sheikh. "We will stage a race. The winning horse will be taken."


An advisor stepped forward and whispered, "It won't work, Your Highness. Neither man will let his horse run fast."
"They will," said Mustapha. "Let each man ride the other's horse."


You can call it cunningness, you can call it wisdom. The sheikh is wise, is cunning, is sly. He says, "Let each man ride the other's horse." Then there is not going to be any difficulty to decide who comes first, because each will try the hardest possible to bring the horse first -- it is the other's horse.


Jesus says: Be wise, be cunning, be sly -- because life is complex, very complex, and your bondage is very ancient. You have become accustomed to your slavery. Unless you behave very intelligently, there is no possibility of your ever getting out of this imprisonment. You will have to focus all your energy on a single point: how to attain freedom.


It is like a prisoner: if he wants to get out of the jail he will have to be really cunning, wise, sly. He will have to watch from where to escape, he will have to watch continuously what side of the prison is less guarded. He will have to watch very carefully which guards can be bribed. He will have to make some connection with outside people; only if he can get some help from the outside -- a rope, a ladder, certain informations: at what time of the night he should escape, at what time the guards are changed, at what time the guard falls asleep, how to get the rope, how to get a ladder.... If he behaves stupidly he will be caught, and he will be far more in danger than before. It is better not to try to escape if you are not intelligent enough.


Hence each master sharpens your intelligence. Wherever you find that your intelligence is being dulled, escape from that place as fast as possible.


And that's what is being done in almost all the so-called spiritual places. The so-called ashrams and the temples and the mosques and the churches, they dull you, they console you. They tell you that you are already free, there is no need to go anywhere. They tell you that the prison does not exist -- this is your home. They tell you the guard is not your enemy, he is your friend. He is not guarding you so that you cannot escape, no; he is guarding you so that nobody can enter in and harm you. They say decorate the prison. They give you all kinds of suggestions and advice how to decorate it and how to make it beautiful. They console you. And the more you are consoled, the more you are lulled into sleep, the less becomes the possibility of your ever becoming a buddha, ever becoming awakened, ever becoming really free.


Your so-called saints go on singing lullabies; they help you to sleep better. And you will be surprised that the so-called mantras are nothing but a way to fall deeply asleep. That's what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation is. If you repeat ANY word... it does not matter what word you repeat -- Rama, Rama, or Krishna, Krishna, or Christ, Christ, or Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola -- anything will do. If you go on repeating a certain word continuously it will help you to fall deep asleep, because the mind becomes bored with it. When the mind becomes bored it starts feeling dull, sleepy. When the mind becomes bored there is only one escape from the boredom -- to fall asleep.


Mothers have known it for centuries. Transcendental meditation has been used by all the mothers all over the world. Whenever the child is not going to sleep they start repeating a single line, a lullaby. Anything will do; just go on repeating the same again and again and the child starts falling asleep.


And that's how hypnosis functions: any repetition -- a mantra is not necessarily needed -- ANYTHING. You can make a black spot on the wall and go on looking at it, looking constantly at it, and within minutes you will be fast asleep, because consciousness needs flow, consciousness needs something new to keep alert, consciousness needs movement. Consciousness is a stream.


In fact it is because of this that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation -- which is neither transcendental nor meditation -- has become so significant in America. America is the country which suffers most from sleeplessness, the only country which can sleep only through tranquilizers, sleeping pills -- and even those are no longer working -- the only country which has become so restless that sleep has become almost impossible. New methods are needed, more subtle methods are needed.


But to fall asleep is not meditation, it is consolation. It will give you a little rest and tomorrow you will find yourself a little more fresh. It is good -- I am not against it. It is a nonmedicinal tranquilizer. If you use tranquilizers you can use transcendental meditation -- far better. At least you are not stuffing yourself with chemicals which may have any side effect. It will not harm you, but it is not meditation at all -- because meditation means sharpening of intelligence. Meditation means becoming more alert, more bright, more brilliant, becoming more luminous, becoming more wise.


Jesus is right when he says: Become as cunning as the serpents. Have you watched a serpent -- how alert he is, how watchful? A slight disturbance, just a dry leaf in the wind, and the serpent escapes. You walk, your footsteps are enough... just a little sound and the serpent is gone like the wind. He is so alert, so watchful.


Learn that watchfulness, learn that alertness. Learn that beautiful movement, that flexibility, that fluidity of a serpent. And be as innocent as doves.


Jesus is bringing both the polar opposites: be wise, intelligent, but not knowledgeable, and be innocent. You may misunderstand wisdom as knowledge; hence he adds: be innocent as doves. If you are innocent and wise you cannot be knowledgeable; you will be intelligent, but you will not be knowledgeable. You will not go on accumulating knowledge, you will not become a walking ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. Those kind of people are almost always stupid.


I have come across a man who was really a walking ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; that was all that he was reading. Now, the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA is not something to read; once in a while you can consult it. But this man was continuously reading it. You could have asked any question; if it is in the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA then that man was able to answer it exactly like that. For a few days he stayed with me; I have never seen such a stupid man -- very knowledgeable and very stupid.


This happens because his knowledge has not given him more consciousness, his knowledge has given him only information. Information becomes accumulated in the memory part of your brain -- and memory is not consciousness; consciousness is a totally different phenomenon. Consciousness is the witness in you, it can witness your memory.


Sometimes you see a person, you remember that you remember him, but still the name is not coming. You say it is just on the tip of the tongue, you KNOW it is just on the tip of the tongue, and still it is not coming. What is happening? Your consciousness says it is in the memory, but somehow the memory is blocked, somehow the memory is not in a state to deliver what you need. There may be some obstacle; maybe you are so much in a hurry that the memory has become tense. You try hard; the harder you try, the more difficult it becomes. Then in tremendous frustration you drop the whole project. You go into the garden, you sit under a tree, you start smoking... and suddenly it bubbles up, it surfaces.


Your consciousness is a totally different phenomenon. Your consciousness was saying, "It IS in the memory..." but somehow you have not been able to find it. And then sitting under the tree, smoking relaxedly, it surfaces. Now your consciousness watches it surfacing; now you know it has come in front of you. You are seeing it coming up; you are the seer, you are never the seen. You are never the content of consciousness, you are consciousness.


The knowledgeable person gathers content, and the meditative person sharpens consciousness. The meditative person becomes wise; the knowledgeable person remains simply knowledgeable. But if some situation arises in which his knowledge is not applicable, he will behave very stupidly. He will not know what to do, he will be completely at a loss. If the answer is in the encyclopedia he will repeat it like a gramophone record, but if the answer is not there in the encyclopedia then he will be simply dumb; he will not be able to respond spontaneously.


Wisdom is a spontaneous response; knowledge is depending on the past. Knowledge is mechanical; it can be done by a computer. And sooner or later it is going to be done by computers, because memorizing is a wastage of time, an unnecessary wastage of time. A small portable computer can do everything: you can keep it in your pocket and it can remember the whole ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; just pushing a button any information can be available.


In the coming century the whole education system is going to be totally transformed and changed because of the computer. It will be stupid to teach children history, geography -- unnecessary, there is no need. All that can be done by a computer; the child can carry the computer.


And my own observation is: the less you depend on memory, the more intelligent you become. That's why it happens that in the universities you will not find very intelligent people. Professors, chancellors, vice-chancellors -- I have seen many, but it is very difficult to find some intelligent person there. You can find more intelligent people in the farmers, in the gardeners, in the villagers. And the reason is clear: because they are not knowledgeable they cannot depend on the memory. They have to respond to reality, they have to respond to challenges, they have to bring their consciousness to respond -- their consciousness remains more sharp. A farmer, a villager, is far more wise than a professor in the university. The professor can depend on the memory, the farmer cannot depend on the memory.

I have heard:


A woman purchased some canned fruits, but it was a new type of can and she did not know how to open it. So she told the cook, "You wait. I will look in the literature -- the literature has come with the can. Let me see: they must say how to open it."


She went to look in the literature. After half an hour when she had studied the whole literature she came back, but the cook by that time had opened the can. She asked, "How did you manage? It was even difficult for me to find out in the literature how to open it! How did YOU manage?"


The cook said, "Because I can't read I have to depend on my intelligence. You can read; you need not use your intelligence."


Be wise -- that means be more conscious. And be innocent -- that means be more like a child, full of wonder and awe. If these two qualities are there, wonder and awe, intelligence and wisdom, you cannot miss God; it is impossible to miss God.


Then you will not ask where God is, you will ask where God is not. He is everywhere, within and without.

The third question:
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHY DO MEN HAVE HAIR ON THEIR CHESTS?

Well, Sahajanand, they can't have everything!

The fourth question:</p>
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
L. RON HUBBARD'S WORK FOCUSES ON CLEARING THE MIND, WHEREAS YOU OFTEN SPEAK OF DROPPING THE MIND. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? PLEASE COMMENT.</p>


Anand Salam, L. Ron Hubbard's work is psychological, it is not spiritual. To clear the mind is a psychological work: to drop the mind is a spiritual revolution. Clearing the mind you remain attached to the mind, and howsoever you clear it, it remains. Even if the glass wall is absolutely transparent and you can see outside as clearly as if you are outside, still you are not outside. The very clear, absolutely transparent glass wall still keeps you imprisoned. You can see the butterflies in the sun, you can see flowers, you can see birds flying in the sky, you can see clouds and the moon and the stars....


And if you don't try to get out you may remain in the deception that you are out in the open. But if you try to get out, you are in for a great surprise: there is a transparent wall that prevents you -- you are still a prisoner.


The mind can be made very clear, but the mind remains. In fact the more clear it is, the more you will be deceived by it -- because it will become more and more transparent. You will not feel enclosed by it, you will become identified with it. And the clear mind will give you great insights, great visions -- of light, of love, of the beyond -- and you may start thinking that you are having spiritual experiences.


NO experience is ever spiritual; ALL experiences are psychological. To go beyond your psychology is what I mean when I say drop the mind.


Hubbard's work is very ordinary; it should be part of the psychological literature. But in the West people have forgotten completely what spirituality is all about; hence it is very easy to deceive. And I am not saying that Hubbard is deceiving others -- he may be deceived himself. He has a clear mind and his processes are good as far as clearance of the mind is concerned, but it is not spiritual work. It cannot take you to the eternal and it cannot make you aware of your innermost core. It keeps you identified with the mind, and the more mind becomes clear and beautiful, the more you become attached to it because the more precious it looks. And when it starts giving you visions and spiritual experiences, then it becomes absolutely impossible to drop it. It is easier to drop an unclear, confused mind; it is difficult to drop a clear mind.


So I am not interested in making your mind clear. My whole effort is to make you aware of your confused mind, to make you aware of your ill mind, to make you aware of your insanities, to make you aware of your schizophrenia, to make you aware of your whole pathology, so that you are bound to drop it, you cannot cling to it anymore.


And the moment mind is dropped, the moment you know you are not the mind, a mutation has taken place. You are transported into another world; you have entered into the world of consciousness.


The body is there. The physiologists work on it and they think the body is all -- they don't even believe in mind. Mind is an epiphenomenon, just a by-product; it is nothing but the functioning of the body. Then there are psychologists who think man is more than the body: he is psychology, he is mind, he is not just the body. But their mind also is going to die with the body; maybe it is separate but it cannot exist on its own.


The psychologist has not moved very far away from the physiologist. And in fact psychology and physiology are two aspects of the same coin. Man is neither body nor mind but both: man is bodymind, man is psychosomatic. The body affects the mind, the mind affects the body; hence they are not separate. You drink alcohol; the alcohol goes into the body but affects the mind. You can take LSD or marijuana; it goes in the body, it changes the chemistry of the body, but immediately your mind is totally different.


Even a man like Aldous Huxley was deceived by LSD. He thought that under the impact of LSD what he was experiencing was exactly what Kabir had experienced in his mystic experiences, in his mystic world. A man like Huxley, a man of far more clear mind than Hubbard, got deceived. He thought that, "We have found the shortcut to spiritual experience: LSD is enough. There is no need now to fast for years, no need to stand on your head for years, no need to torture your body, no need to do the old, ancient austerities. Those are bullock-cart methods, and we are in a jet age and we have found a spiritual shortcut -- LSD." He was deceived because he also thought that the mind is all. And LSD can give you great mental experiences because it can change your mind.


Change the body, the mind changes. Change the mind, the body changes.


That's how hypnosis works. If you are hypnotized and told that tomorrow you are going to have a great fever, if it is insisted again and again and you are conditioned that tomorrow, early morning, as you wake up you will find yourself with a great fever.... Nothing has been done to the body, just your mind has been conditioned: tomorrow morning you are going to suffer from fever. One can even die.


In 1952, a few countries of the world made laws against hypnosis. They made it clear that only authorized hypnotists can be allowed to hypnotize people, because in one of the universities of America a great accident happened. Four students, all psychology students, were studying about hypnosis and the history of hypnotism, and they became intrigued and they wanted to try it. So they hypnotized one of their friends; he must have been really very vulnerable.


Thirty-three percent of people are very vulnerable; out of three one person is very ready to be hypnotized. These thirty-three percent are the problem in the world; up to now they have been the problem: anybody can hypnotize them. Adolf Hitler depended on these thirty-three percent, Mao Zedong depended on these thirty-three percent. All wars, all fanatic crusades, have depended on these thirty-three percent. One third of the people of the world are very prone, very ready, to be hypnotized.


By coincidence that boy must have been one of those people, and those three tried hard to hypnotize him. They hypnotized him and they were feeling great, because whatsoever they were saying, he was doing. They told him to dance, he danced. They told him that, "This is very hot water," and they gave him ice-cold water, and he could not drink it. He said, "It is too hot, my mouth will be burned." And they were surprised when they put a small pebble on the palm of the hypnotized person and told him that, "This is fire." He was already burned, immediately burned, actually burned -- by a cold pebble. They became more and more intrigued by the whole phenomenon.


They tried the last thing. They told the person to lie down and they told him, "You are dead!" -- and he died. Then they tried hard to wake him up, but it was too late. Because of that incident many countries have made laws against hypnosis. Only authorized professionals should be allowed to use it because it can be dangerous. It can affect your mind, and through the mind your body.


Mind and body are not separate, but YOU are a third entity. You are in the body, in the mind, but you are not identified with them. You are a witnessing consciousness.


My work is totally different from Hubbard's work: his work is psychological, my work is spiritual. My effort here is not to give you a clear mind; my effort here is to give you a state of no-mind, because only through no-mind will you be able to know the reality -- the reality within and the reality without. But the no-mind is the door, the only door.

The fifth question:
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHY IS IT THAT THE JOURNALISTS NEVER SEEM TO UNDERSTAND YOU?</p>


Kavyo, it has nothing to do with me. They have never understood Jesus, Socrates, Buddha, Kabir. They cannot understand; it is against their investment.


The journalist lives on creating sensations. Any news is news only when it is sensation. They live on rumors and they have to make rumors very spicy. They have no interest in truth, because truth is never news. Truth is so ancient, truth is always the same. I am saying the same truth. Buddha said it, Christ said it, and all those who have known. It is nothing new -- how it can be news?


And they come here in search of news. They have to invent -- and it is really interesting how inventive people can be.


Just a few days ago I was reading a report in a Punjabi magazine about this commune, this ashram. The man says, the journalist says, that he has been here for fifteen days, stayed in the commune, and whatsoever he is writing is based on his own experience. Because he introduced his article in this way I became interested: what has he seen? So I went through it. Ordinarily I don't read what journalists go on writing, it is impossible. We have a big press department for that, at least thirty persons continuously reading and collecting, because it is happening all over the world, in all the languages. So much is being published that it is impossible for me to keep any track of it. But because this man said that, "I have been in the ashram for fifteen days," I looked into the article. I was amazed!


He says that the ashram is spread over fifteen square miles! Now, I think even Poona is not spread over fifteen square miles. He says the moment you enter the gate the first thing that you see is a big white marble statue of a naked woman! Because I very rarely go to the gate, I asked Laxmi, "What has happened? Where is this statue?"


He says that there are artificial lakes, artificial waterfalls, thousands of sannyasins swim naked in the lake. There are underground air-conditioned halls where ten thousand people can sit together. Each morning I deliver a discourse in an underground hall. You are sitting in an underground hall, air-conditioned, and not only that -- all the disciples have to sit in absolute nudity! Feel your clothes -- if you think you are wearing clothes you are deceived. You are all naked.


Now these people have a great investment in creating rumors. That's how the magazines, the newspapers sell. They have nothing to do with truth. This man has never been here.


They cannot understand for two reasons. First: if they understand, they will not be able to write anything. That has happened to a few journalists. Those who have understood, they have become sannyasins; they have forgotten all about writing. They had come to write; now they have decided not to go again back, they have decided to be here.


Not only journalists... here are detectives from many countries. And a few detectives even have become sannyasins! And they have confessed to me that they had come as spies, but now they have understood what is happening here and they would like to become part of the commune.


If a journalist goes and reports exactly what he has seen, nobody is going to believe him. That's what happened with Satyananda. He had come from a famous German magazine, STERN, to report; then he became a sannyasin. His becoming a sannyasin created a trouble. His own people with whom he had worked for years -- the chief editor, the editors and others -- they thought that he had been hypnotized. He tried hard for months to convince them that he had not been hypnotized, but they wouldn't listen. They were not even ready to publish what he had written. They said, "You are too much influenced, you are not in your senses." And even when they agreed after months of argument to publish it, they cut the whole article into half in such a way that it lost all context, it lost all its wholeness, it became fragmentary.


In the first place, the journalist lives on rumors. He is not here to understand me, he is here to MISunderstand me; that is his investment. Secondly: the people who become journalists -- not all the people but almost ninety-nine point nine percent of the people who become journalists -- are very uncreative people. In fact those who can create, they create; those who cannot create, they criticize. Uncreative people become great critics.


It is easy to criticize poetry, it is difficult to write poetry. It is very easy to criticize painting -- you can criticize Picasso, but you cannot paint like Picasso. It is easy to criticize anything.


Turgenev has written a story, THE FOOL. In a certain town there was a man who was known as the greatest idiot in these parts. He was very much worried because wherever he would go people would laugh at him, whatsoever he would say people would ridicule him. Even if he was saying something right, people would laugh at him because nobody could believe that the idiot could say anything right. It was assumed that he was a perfect idiot.


A Sufi mystic was passing through the village. The idiot went to him and he said, "My whole life is wasted -- everybody thinks I am an idiot. Can you help me?"


He said, "It is so easy! You just start doing one thing -- you start criticizing, and after seven days you come to me. I will remain here for seven days just for you; within seven days everything will be changed. But you criticize! If somebody quotes Shakespeare, immediately say, 'What is there in it? It is all nonsense, rubbish!' If somebody says, 'The moon is beautiful, look!' -- just say, 'What is it? I don't see any beauty. Prove what beauty is there!' Nobody can prove it, because beauty cannot be proved. If somebody says, 'What a beautiful morning!' -- immediately jump upon it and start criticizing. You do only one thing for seven days: go around the town and criticize everybody."


Within seven days the man came back -- not alone, followed by hundreds of people, and they all said, "You have done a miracle! The greatest idiot has become the greatest wise man. Nobody can argue with him."


It is easier to criticize, very easy to criticize. It is very difficult to create.


And what I am creating is something invisible. Unless you have very sympathetic eyes you will not be able to see it. Unless you fall in rapport with me you will not be able to understand it.


Father Murphy was a priest in a very poor parish. He asked for some suggestions as to how he could raise money and was told that a racehorse owner always had money.


He went to a horse auction, but instead of buying a horse he got a donkey. However, he thought he would enter it in the race and the donkey came in third. The next day the headlines in the paper read, "Father Murphy's ass showed." The archbishop saw the headlines and was displeased.


The next day the donkey came in first and the headlines read, "Father Murphy's ass out in front." The archbishop was up in arms and figured something had to be done. Father Murphy had entered the donkey once again and the donkey came in second.


The headlines read, "Father Murphy's ass back in place." The archbishop thought this too much, and forbade the priest to enter the donkey in the next race.


The next day the headlines read, "Archbishop scratches Father Murphy's ass."


The archbishop ordered Father Murphy to get rid of the donkey. He was unable to sell it, so he gave it to Sister Agatha for a pet. When the archbishop heard this he ordered Sister Agatha to dispose of the animal at once. Since she could not give it away, she sold it for ten dollars.


The next day the headlines read, "Sister Agatha peddles her ass for ten dollars."
They buried the archbishop three days later.


Journalists live on such stupid things. Their whole investment is wrong, their priorities are wrong. And they know perfectly well how to report about politicians because that is their business. The politician understands them, they understand the politician; they speak the same language. But when they come across a person like me, the distance is so vast. They speak one language, I speak totally another. They can't understand what I am saying: they go on misunderstanding it, they go on putting their own interpretations on it.


And the journalists think themselves very clever, they think themselves very knowledgeable, they think themselves very intellectual. A great misunderstanding prevails that they are part of the intelligentsia -- they are not!


Intelligence is always creative; it is only nonintelligence which is critical. Criticism is not of much value; hence I don't pay any attention to what they go on saying. And you need not be worried about them -- leave them to themselves.

The last question:
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO SPEAK YEAR IN, YEAR OUT, AND STILL IT IS ALWAYS AS FRESH AS THE MORNING RAYS OF THE SUN?</p>


Suryananda, I am a drunkard! I don't know what I have said yesterday. In fact I don't know what I have said today. And slowly slowly you also become drunkards with me, so you go on forgetting. Hence it appears every day fresh and new, because neither I remember nor you remember! And there is no need to remember either.


The new priest at his first mass was so afraid he could hardly speak. Before his second week at the pulpit he asked the other priest how he could relax.


The priest replied, "Next week it may help if you put a martini in the water pitcher. After a few sips, everything should go smoothly."


The following week, the young priest put his elder's suggestion into practice and really talked up a storm.


After his sermon, he asked the other priest how he liked the sermon.


The elder priest replied, "There are a few things you should learn before addressing the congregation again:

1. Next time sip instead of gulp the martini.
2. There are twelve disciples, not ten.
3. There are ten commandments, not twelve.


4. David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him.


5. We do not refer to our savior Jesus Christ and his disciples as J.C. and the boys.


6. Next week there is a taffy-pulling contest at Saint Peter's, not a peter-pulling contest at Taffy's.
7. We do not refer to the Cross as the Big T.


8. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Big Daddy, Junior and Spook.


9. Last but not least, it is the Virgin Mary, not Mary with the cherry."

Enough for today.
			

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