---
section: Library
booktitle: "From Misery to Enlightenment"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "MISERY"
dategiven: "14 February 1985 pm"
place: " in Lao Tzu Grove"
chapternum: "Chapter #17"
chaptertitle: "Religion begins where ideas end"
acode: "8502145"
shorttitle: "MISERY17"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "99mins"
displaytitle: "From Misery to Enlightenment: Chapter #17"
---

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<p class="question">OSHO,
WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING THE GREAT RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND IDEOLOGIES OF THE WORLD?</p>


I am not in favor of destroying anything at all.
My whole approach is creative.
But creation involves destruction. That is not my problem. Creation itself is not possible without destroying something. The moment you create something you are simultaneously destroying something else. But when destruction is on the way towards creation you need not be worried about it. It is not destructive, it is creative. Let me repeat: it is creative destruction. There is a possibility, in the same way, of destructive creation.


What are nuclear weapons? Certainly a tremendous act of creation -- but for what? Where is it going to lead? What is going to be the outcome? -- nothing but pure destruction. So this is creation leading towards destruction. Only fools will call it creativity. And only fools can call my action destruction.


So that is the first thing to be understood. It is not creation in itself or destruction in itself which is significant. What is significant is to what it leads, what it is a seed of? What is going to be the outcome? On the surface it may look destructive....


When the child is born out of the mother's womb as far as the womb is concerned the child is dying because the womb has no way of knowing that the child is being born. The child was there for nine months; it inhabited the world of the womb. The womb was no longer empty, it was full of life. And today comes a sad moment: the life that was filling the womb is disappearing, going somewhere which is inconceivable, simply evaporating.


For the womb, it is a death. And if you can under stand the psychology of the child who is being born, to him also it appears like a death -- because the child has lived a certain kind of life for all those nine months. Scientists say that perhaps never again will he live so pleasantly -- no possibility of ever being more comfortable, no possibility of ever being without any worry, work, responsibility, duty. He lived in tremendous tranquility, silence, without being in any way influenced, impressed, forced, directed.


He was free, and alone, and sufficient, not in any need of the other. And there was not a single thing that was missing. Everything that was needed was provided by the mother's body automatically. You cannot conceive a better period of nine months in the coming seventy years of life when life will be so pleasant, so sufficient unto itself; so without worry, without responsibility, so without fear; so without tomorrows, yesterdays; so free from the crowd.


You will always feel -- even though you are crowded every moment of your life -- you are missing the other. In the very crowd you are lonely. And in the mother's womb, in that very loneliness, you were simply alone. There was no question of the other; the other had not even arisen in your mind.


So the child also feels that it is going to be a death, certainly the death of the life that he has known. As far as the life that is going to come, he has no idea of it, no information; nobody ever told him about it. All that he knows is that he is not going to be what he was; perhaps he is not going to be at all. Without the mother's womb he cannot imagine himself in any way. He is in a shock, perhaps the greatest shock of life.


Even death is not that great a shock, because while the child is coming out of the womb.... Up to then he had even been breathing through the mother, he had not taken even the trouble to breathe on his own -- and he is being thrown into an unknown world where he is so helpless. He knows nobody -- no address, no letter of introduction. He does not know even who he is and where he is going. The shock is tremendous: naturally he feels he is dying.


That's why the child clings to the mother's womb. That is one of the causes why the mother goes through so much pain, and the child goes through so much pain. The child tries to cling to the life that he has lived. That's the only life that he knows, so you cannot complain against him.


And unconsciously the mother has also lived a totally different life for these nine months. She was a different woman before; now she is no longer the same. Those nine months of motherhood have changed everything in her life.


For nine months she has felt pregnant, full of some life: a great excitement, a preparation, a hope, a dream to be fulfilled. She is coming to fruition, just like a tree when it comes to fruition. There is joy -- all over the mother's being there is a joy; otherwise she was empty, something was missing. She was a tree but without any flowers, without any fruits -- what kind of a tree was that?


But these nine months, howsoever troublesome, howsoever painful, were immensely paying. She will never be the same again... and now the child is leaving the womb. It is a very unconscious phenomenon. The mother unconsciously shrinks the womb to hold the child in, not to let it go. Once the child is gone she may be the same way again: meaningless, empty, barren. The mother is not conscious of this, nor is the child; that's what creates the pain.


The birth has to happen, it is a natural phenomenon. You cannot prevent it, but you can suffer it or you can enjoy it. That is your decision. Enjoyment will be a great experience for the mother; but that needs some consciousness, some awareness, some watchfulness of her own unconscious ways so that she can relax, and the unconscious cannot interfere in the process of relaxation.


If she relaxes there is every possibility that the child will also relax, because the child has learned in all these nine months only one thing, just to be with the mother. If the mother is sad, the child is sad. Now there are ways to find out whether the child is sad or not. If the mother is angry, the child is angry. If the mother is in suffering, anguish, that anguish penetrates to the child too because the child is not yet separate. Everything that vibrates the mother's being also vibrates the child; there is a synchronicity.


So if the mother relaxes -- of course we cannot talk to the child, teach the child to let go. It is so difficult even to tell you to let go -- it will be impossible to tell the child. But there is no need. My experience is: if the mother is ready, relaxed, allowing, the child simply falls in tune. He relaxes, feeling that if his mother is relaxed -- not in words, I am not saying that he is thinking, I am saying feeling, that the mother is relaxed -- that means there is no fear, that means there is no death; he can also relax.


But humanity will have to learn it. Even the birth of the child appears to both the child and the mother something like a calamity.


In creative processes, where something is going to take birth, yes, something is going to be destroyed. And I am all for that destruction which lays the foundation for creativity. I don't call it destructive, I call it creative destruction.


And many of your so-called creative activities which are known as creative... I want to make it clear to you that they are not creative.


Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt before the second world war came to an end. That letter proved to be the end of the second world war. In that letter he proposed that he could make atomic bombs which could destroy Germany and Japan, and could make Roosevelt's victory absolutely certain. Albert Einstein was a man of good intentions. But what to do with men of good intentions -- they have always been around, and the world goes on becoming worse and worse.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions.


Albert Einstein's also must be part of the paving on that path. He was not conscious what he was doing. He was a Jew, he had escaped from Adolf Hitler's Germany. He had learned the whole secret of atomic energy in Adolf Hitler's scientific labs, and he was going to make the atom bomb for Germany. That would have changed the whole course of history, who knows to what?


We can't say certainly that it would have been worse, seeing what has happened. Who knows, it may have been better, because nothing great has happened. The world goes on with the same old stupidities, superstitions, uglinesses.


Roosevelt immediately caught hold of Albert Einstein. Politicians, howsoever stupid, are very clever in detecting if, from some place, some destructive energy is available. About creativity they are absolutely blind, color blind. Just as there are color blind people who can't see certain colors, politicians can't see creativity. But destruction? -- their eyes magnify it.


There is some psychological background to it, because they are all people running after power. Will-to-power is their god, and certainly nothing gives you more of a feeling of power than destruction.


When you destroy something you have a tremendous feeling of power. So once in a while, when you have the immense feeling of power and nothing to do, you start destroying things that you know perfectly well.... You may destroy the chair, you may destroy the mirror, you may start throwing things in the room because you are so full of anger -- which is a quality of power, a dimension of power.


You know perfectly well that what you are doing is stupid; it is your own mirror that you are destroying and tomorrow you will be going to the market to purchase another, and bothering about the price, and haggling about the price. You know all that, but that is far away in the background; what you need now is to feel power, that you are not impotent. And in the second world war, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, were feeling really impotent: everywhere there was defeat.


Albert Einstein's letter is one of the most historical documents of the world. Roosevelt jumped upon it. Immediately the work started, and although by the time the atomic bombs were ready, the war was finishing.... This is something to be understood: The war was finishing; Germany was losing, Japan was losing. Just fifteen days more and the war would have ended. But Roosevelt was in a hurry; before it ended the atom bomb had to be dropped -- just to see, "how potent we are; and we proved you utterly impotent."


It was not a question of war, absolutely not. All the generals who were involved in the war were surprised that the atom bomb had to be used, because it was only a question of two weeks at the most; that was the longest period estimated. "Why so much hurry? If we have been fighting for five years, and in two weeks' time the war is going to end, let it at least end in a human way, at least the way it has always been. Don't make it into something even more inhuman."


But Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt, and the other people who were in power, and who had then the atom bomb in their hands, could not wait. This was not the time to wait, because if they waited for two weeks more then where were they going to try out the atom bomb? Where were they going to see the glory of their power? And how were they going to show these enemies, with whom they had been struggling, that once and for all it had to be decided who was the most powerful.


The atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on two cities in Japan, for absolutely no reason at all -- no military reason at all. The reason was psychological, political.


Albert Einstein had the greatest shock because he thought he was creating atomic energy in case the other party created that energy -- then we would be at a loss. So this was a defense measure. That is what he was thinking, that this was a defense measure. In fact, just to have created it was enough for both Germany and Japan to realize, "We are finished." There was no need to destroy those two beautiful cities.


Within seconds a city of one hundred thousand people simply evaporated, and just a moment before there was so much life. I have seen a picture... one of my friends had sent a few pictures of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In one of the pictures a schoolboy, maybe second grade or third grade, carrying his bag is going up a staircase. At the top is his study. At that moment the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima. The boy, with his bag and books, got completely burned and stuck into the wall. With the bag, with the books, his whole body burned like coal tar, stuck -- still with one leg raised towards the higher step, but suddenly everything stopped.


And that very moment more than two hundred thousand people in both cities stopped. And these people were not war criminals, they were not soldiers; these were not in any way concerned with the war. They were civilians -- children, women, old people, unborn children. What was their crime? For what were they being punished?


Now is there any idiot Hindu in the world who can say that these people were punished for their past life's karmas? And how will you explain that two hundred thousand people committed exactly the same past karma in their past life? And they all gathered together in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the same moment to suffer for their karma, for their evil act? Now, this seems to be sheer nonsense. They are not suffering from their karmas, they are suffering from the karmas of the politicians.


Albert Einstein wrote in his diary: "If I had known that this was going to be the result of my creativity, of my whole life's work, then I would never have been a physicist. And if there is going to be another life for me, I pray to God, please make me a plumber rather than a physicist."


Certainly what he did was a tremendous act of creativity, unparalleled in the whole of history. He had come to the most secret thing in the objective world. In fact, he had discovered half of the secret; the remaining half is the living cell in the human body.


This is the dead cell in things, the atom, that he had been able to split. And by splitting it, so much energy is created -- by splitting such a small atom. You cannot see it with your bare eyes, nor can you see it by any technical means; it is only inferred, it is just in the calculations. It is only a figure of speech; you cannot pinpoint where it is, what it is.


Yes, all qualities have been described, descriptions have been given, but they are all inferences. But because they work, they are accepted to be true. Not that we have come face-to-face with the atom, but discovering half of the mystery of the objective world is the greatest achievement of man, of creativity, of inventiveness, of genius.


Certainly the other half is going to be far more difficult. But sooner or later we will be able to know, exactly in the same way, the explosion of the living cell. That day will be of great rejoicing because after that we can program man -- his life, his mind, his genius, his age, his disease, his color of eyes, his color of hair, his height, his weight -- everything in detail can be programmed. Once we can split the living cell then any program can be put into it.


But who knows whether that great act of creation will also be used in the same way as Albert Einstein's atomic research has been used? Most probably it will be, because the people who have the power would like to program man according to their desire, and they will not miss such an opportunity. This is the opportunity they have been searching for for millennia. This is the great opportunity; nothing can be greater than this.


Once you can program man then there is no revolution, no independence, no individuality, no problems, no strikes, nothing. Man then is a robot.
Creativity can serve destruction.
Then it has to be condemned.
Destructivity can serve creation.
Then it has to be praised.


You ask me why I have been destroying -- because I want to create. And there is no other way, there has never been. And I have to destroy all that is wrong in order to create the right. Without destroying the wrong, the right cannot be even proposed. The wrong must disappear, only then can the right appear. But to you, the wrong is not wrong; that is where the problem is.


You say the great religious leaders, the great religious ideologies of the world.... I will have to go into each in detail.


As far as religion is concerned there is no possibility of anybody being a leader. That term belongs to the ugly world of the politician.
In religion there is no led, no leader, no leading.
In religion there is sharing.


And the sharing has such a totally different quality that you are not aware of it; a sharing in which both the parties are benefited, and not at the expense of either. Both the parties are benefited by the benefit of the other.


You will have to understand my economics. In ordinary dealings, if two persons are doing a business, one is benefited at the expense of the other. There is no other way. So whosoever is clever, cunning, conniving -- in short, a con man -- is benefited. The other may be given the impression that he is being benefited, but he is not, he is the loser.


But in my mathematics, in religious mathematics, things are totally different. Here, it is something like when you light a candle from another lighted candle. Does the first lighted candle lose some light because you have now lighted your candle? Has your candle gained something at the expense of the first? Or vice versa -- has the first got something by convincing the other to get lighted? No, both are benefited because they are sharing. It is not a business deal, it is a love affair.


In religion there are no leaders. We have to drop the word leaders from the dictionary of religion completely, because the whole idea creates the misery that you see all around.


Somebody is a leader... Ayatollah Rohulla Khomeiniac -- now, he is a great religious leader. Such mad people are leaders! He now has under him two thousand Mohammedan imams. Perhaps never before in the history of Mohammedanism has there been such a great leader with so many imams accepting him as their leader. He has almost come to be equal to the prophet Mohammed; just one step more and he can push aside the prophet Mohammed and say, "Get lost!"


And this man is absolutely mad! If you think about his reasoning, anybody with just a little bit of intelligence.... Just the other day I was listening to a news item. He has been, since he came to power, continually slaughtering people. Corporal punishment is an ordinary thing: every day on every crossroad you will find people hanging naked, beaten, blood flowing from their bodies. For any small thing corporal punishment is immediately given. There is no question of any court deciding, or anything.


This is done by special courts which have been appointed by Khomeini so they have a religious sanction. They are called "Courts of Islam." No advocates are needed, for or against -- the fanatics can just bring in anybody on the suspicion that he seems to be sabotaging the revolution.


The magistrate, who is nothing but a Mohammedan maulvi, a priest, listens to the case. He is really a party to it. If he, this man, is sabotaging your so-called religious revolution, then a religious priest is a party; he cannot be the judge. But he is the judge, and according to the dictates of Islam he gives the man the punishment, which at the minimum can be corporal punishment on the crossroads, naked; he has to be beaten till he falls unconscious. This is the minimum.


And there are many grades: cut off his hands, cut off his legs, destroy his eyes; and finally, cut off his head. Now it has been decided by one hundred and sixty nations that all these kinds of punishments should not be given anywhere. And Iran is one of those nations who have signed this international pact under the U.N.


When the question was raised with Khomeini, that "this goes against the pact" now this is how a madman functions -- he said, "If it goes against the pact then the pact is not right. Then the pact is against Islam; then we withdraw from the pact, Islam is no longer part of the pact. We believe in Islam, and according to Islam, if a man is beaten, if corporal punishment is given, it is not violent. The man needs it, his soul deserves it; it is a purification. If the man needs to be beheaded, according to Islam it is not murder, it is saving his soul."


Now he continues to save people's souls at the expense of their bodies, and the whole world simply just watches. Nobody seems to have any guts. All these great politicians, presidents, prime ministers, kings -- what do all these fools go on doing in the U.N.O.? I cannot understand. They cannot stop a maniac destroying people, and they go on with great grandeur in the U.N.O. making speeches. That's their whole business.


Sheela was just saying to me -- she met somebody on the plane who is in charge of Ethiopia, where millions of people are dying. Never before in history has death been so close to so many people, and in such an ugly way. For four years there has been no rain, and for three years before that last rain there had been no rain. So now even any slight moisture has disappeared from the air.


People are dying of thirst, people are dying of hunger, and millions of people.... And the whole world simply goes on watching football matches, Olympic games. The man who is in charge of Ethiopia was saying that he is approaching every government, and they all say yes -- and no help comes at all.


He said that he approaches small governments; they say, "We will help, but first ask America, because if America cannot afford to help then you should not ask us." And the man said to Sheela, "What has America done? America cannot help Ethiopia because the Ethiopian government has added socialism to its name!"


What is socialism when people are simply dying? Whether they are socialists or communists, Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, does not matter. A man is dying and you are bothering to ask, "Are you a socialist? Can I give you water or not?"


I have heard of a Jew who had fallen on a road. It was so hot a day and he was so tired, and too miserly; so, not getting a taxi, he was just trying to go by foot as far as possible. And he managed to go far but finally he fell unconscious on the road. People gathered there.


A Christian priest, seeing that the man was dying, whispered in his ear, "Remember God the father, the son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost."


The Jew opened his eyes towards the crowd and he said, "Take this fool away! I am dying and he is trying to tell me to solve puzzles: God the father, the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ. I am not in a position to solve puzzles right now. I am dying, can't you see?"


America will not give. The man said to Sheela, "We had purchased some arms and we had given the advance payment to America, but now America refuses either to pay back the advance or to give us the arms, because meanwhile Ethiopia has turned socialist. So they say any arrangements made before the socialist government are no longer valid; that government is no longer in existence." Perhaps that arrangement may have been made by King Haile Selassie, whom the socialists have thrown out; they have taken over the government. And since these idiot socialists have taken over the government, Ethiopia has been in trouble.


It had never been in trouble for forty years while Haile Selassie ruled over it. This is strange. That man had a certain wisdom of a very strange kind; yes... one has to accept that the man had a strange wisdom.


The U.N.O. had sent a delegation to Ethiopia because in Ethiopia it is a customary thing to drink water collected by the sides of the road, in the rain. Now, that is contaminated. And the doctor's board touring Ethiopia found that ninety percent of the diseases of Ethiopians can disappear if pure water can be made available -- which is not very difficult.


They told Haile Selassie, "It is a very simple thing: pure water has to be made available. People have to be prevented... and taught that they should not drink all kinds of water which has simply gathered in the rains by the sides of the roads. Animals are moving in it, drinking in it, children are taking a bath in it, and people are drinking the water. And that is how ninety percent of the diseases will disappear."


Haile Selassie listened silently. He said, "Your report is right, your advice is right, but I am not going to do it, because if I save ninety percent of the people then what am I going to do with the crowd, with the overcrowding? Then are you going to help me? Then who is going to help me? Let nature take its course. You will make us beggars before the world.


"At least right now we have our dignity. We are not beggars; we are not hungry, we are not starving. What can one do? People understand it: disease comes, people die; death is natural. I understand you perfectly," he said. "Don't carry the misunderstanding that I have not followed your idea -- your idea is one hundred percent correct -- but keep quiet and just go home."


Those people reported in all the news media, "This man is just mad! We are giving him scientific information: We worked three months touring Ethiopia risking our life, we prepared this whole report, and that man said, 'It is one hundred percent correct; just take it home and rest and forget all about Ethiopia'!"


Everybody thought that this Haile Selassie was mad, but even at that time perhaps I may have been the only person who spoke up for him. And I said, "I think he is right; you have to answer his questions. He is right: if ninety percent of dying people are saved, then who is going to provide food and clothes and shelter for them? Ethiopia has no means, it is a poor country; it can only support a small population. Then from where are these doctors going to bring all the necessities? To save a person is not very difficult, but to keep him living for seventy years is very difficult."


But the young people of Ethiopia thought that Haile Selassie was mad, that he had become cynical, that he was too old. And of course he had ruled from the first world war; he was perhaps the only ruler who remained ruling throughout both the wars. But he was not cynical, he was really a very sane man.


When the revolution took place he did what I can think only a very sane man can do: he came out of the palace and asked the revolutionaries, "What do you want to do with me? Don't be unnecessarily destructive -- your problem is me, so what do you want to do with me?"


They said, "You sit down in the car and come with us."


He said, "That's perfectly okay." He sat down in the car and went with them to the military camp. Never before in history has a revolution happened so easily. But this was a sane man, really a sane man. He said, "Why unnecessarily destroy and kill? My people will kill your people, your people will kill my people. Just take me, so every problem is solved. You take over."


And since they have taken over they have taken advice from all kinds of experts, and all kinds of doctors, economists, finance experts -- and the whole result is this: Ethiopia is dying. And now, I say, they should remember what Haile Selassie has said: "You can save people, but then...? It is better to let nature take its own course."


Sometimes these doctors, finance experts, look very creative, what they are saying looks creative -- to save life. And Haile Selassie looks very destructive -- letting nature take its course. But when I look closely at both, I think Haile Selassie is finally right, and these educated idiots don't know what they are doing. And that's what they have done all over the earth. Now the population is so much that by the end of this century there will not be space enough to stand. Everything is going to be so crowded, and so ugly, and so dirty, and so sick.
And it has already started happening.


This man told Sheela that he asked the Soviet Union to help. They said, "We are willing, but then we want an entry; our armies will be there." And this is certain: if Soviet Russia enters with its armies to help, America will immediately be ready to enter with its armies to help.


But this is not help, this is the worst kind of exploitation. They are dying, and you are bargaining: "Let our armies enter and we can help." One does not know what help they will give. One thing is certain, that their armies will never come back out.


These are the leaders. Religion has no leaders. And never use the word "great" with religious people. Religious people are very ordinary, very simple. Why has this idea of "great" become joined...? Either those were fanatics who themselves claimed to be great, or their followers were feeling very competitive with other followers and had to go on magnifying the greatness of their leader, their originator.
But this is all politics, business.
It has nothing to do with religion.


It is surprising that not a single religion says, "Our religious originator was just an ordinary human being." It would be so pure, so clean, so respectable. On the contrary, they go on claiming stupid things which only make them a laughingstock.
To me there are no great religious leaders.


And what ideologies are you talking about? What has religion to do with ideology? The word ideology consists of two words: idea and logic. Now, religion has nothing to do with ideas or with logic. Ideas are mental, psychological.
Religion begins where ideas end.
Religion starts where ideas and their weight drop.


Religion has wings, but only if ideas are no longer top-heavy on it.
No ideas.... and there is religion.


Your head is full of ideas, and there is no possibility of religion at all. Ideas simply mean you don't know and you are trying to figure out what it is. A blind man thinking about light; that is an idea. A man who knows light has no idea about light, he simply knows light.


A religious man knows truth, reality, existence, as it is. He has no idea at all.


So all ideologies or philosophies, they have nothing to do with religion. And logic is just a mind-created game. You can play with it as much as you want; it has no base in reality. And it never comes to any conclusion at all: logic knows no conclusion. Religion is not interested in the whole process, the gymnastics of logic.
Religion's interest is, How to know that which is?


It is not a question of logic. Logic is good in science, love is good in religion; they are polar opposites. Love knows nothing of logic, and logic has never been able to taste even a fragment of love; they are worlds apart.
Logic is basically mathematics.
And religion is basically meditation.


Mathematics is working through figures, finding out distances, such as how far away is the nearest star? -- four light-years. When we say four light-years it does not look very far, but if you figure out completely what four light-years are, then you will see even the nearest star is so far away that there is no human possibility of reaching it.


In one second light travels 186,000 miles. Make it sixty times more -- that means in one minute it travels that many miles. Then make it sixty times more and that is one hour's mileage. Then make it twenty-four times more; then that is one day's mileage. Then thirty times more -- that is one month's mileage. Then twelve times more -- then that is one year's mileage. Then four times more -- then you will have come to a figure which will run into hundreds of zeros. That many miles away is the nearest star. And remember, that is the nearest star.


There are stars and stars; at least three million have been counted. But that is only because of the limit of our ability to count: we don't have any finer instruments, but as instruments become finer, we go on discovering more and more.


With your naked eye in the night you cannot see more than three thousand stars, whatever you do. You can try counting -- you may go mad. But the best counter up to now has been able to reach three thousand. Even three thousand seems to be too much; by nearabout just three hundred you will get confused as to which ones are left and which ones have been counted.


How that man managed three thousand! -- I wonder whether anybody managed or if this is just a myth. Three thousand! I cannot manage -- I cannot manage thirty! I have tried, and before thirty I said, "It is pointless. It is not for me."


Three million stars -- and that is not the end of it; there is no end to it: there are millions and mil1ions of stars. That is the world of mathematics, the world of distances. I want to emphasize that: the world of distances. The farther away you go, the more you are in the grip of mathematics. The nearer you come, the less mathematics is needed.


The world of truth, the world of religion is within you.


There is not even a single centimeter's distance. What mathematics is needed? There is no distance at all.
You and your awareness are one, so there is no question of measuring.


This word reminds me... this word is beautiful: measure. You may have never thought about it, but the English words matter and measure both come from the same Sanskrit root. That's why in a few languages it has become "meter." In Sanskrit matra means quantity; matra in Hindi means quantity. Measure is quantitative -- that which can be measured. Matter is that which can be measured.


Mathematics is the science of measurement, is the science of matter. But it is not the science of consciousness, awareness; there, there is no matter, no quantity. Yes, there is a quantity.... Normally quantity is something tangible, measurable; you can weigh it, you can divide it; but of consciousness no such quantity is there.


There is quality -- immeasurable, unweighable. But that quality has many quantities. Now you will have to understand the word quantity in a totally different way than it is used, because quality which is not a quantity does have many quantities.


For example, it has contentment, tremendous contentment.


It has a feeling of arrival, very tangible, touchable.


It has an immense quantity of blissfulness, so overflowing that even if you want to prevent it, it cannot be prevented.
It has to reach to millions of people:
Whether you speak or not, it is going to reach.


It has its own kind of vibration. It pulsates and vibrates.


But all these are beyond the scope of logic, mathematics, science.
The only word they all fall within is meditation.
You have to be just silent:


Not going anywhere, not leading anybody, not being led by anybody. You have to be simply sitting, doing nothing. There is not even ideation -- no thinking, because that is enough to take you far away, farther away than the stars.


You have to be simply nobody because just a little bit of an idea of who you are, and the politician comes in, the power trip begins.
I am nobody, and that's the truth.


It is not that I am saying it out of humbleness, because if you say "I am nobody" out of humbleness you have missed the point. You have claimed humbleness; you have made yourself already somebody who is humble. And if somebody else says, "My brother is more humble than you," then immediately you will see a great tension arising in you.


Religious teachings have been telling people, "Be humble." I don't say it because if you become humble you are befooling yourself. You are in a danger: you will go on becoming more and more egoistic, and you will never feel the bitterness of the ego because of this sugar-coating of humbleness -- which is never thicker than your skin and can be scratched very easily.
When I say I am nobody I simply mean it.
For no special reason, I am nobody.


That's how it happens to be, what can I do? I am nobody.


I have looked into myself in every possible way, I don't find anything worth claiming: just an absolute silence, an ordinariness, which is the very nature of existence.


To be extra-ordinary is to always be in a tension. Have you thought about it? To be somebody special is to be always tense. But if you know that you are nobody -- not that you are trying to be nobody, because that means you are trying to become somebody special called "nobody." Just these simple mistakes may lead you astray.


Just finding that "I am nobody"... and that's how existence is. What is a marigold flower? What is a rose? They are both nobodies. And we belong with them. Once this settles in you, the idea of nobodiness, silence starts descending on you. There is no idea, no picture -- no Jesus Christ, no Krishna, no Buddha:
You are utterly empty.
And in this emptiness is the light.
In this emptiness is enlightenment.


I am not destroying anybody, I am simply destroying all the obstructions in your mind. When I say something against Jesus or Buddha or Mahavira, do you think I am saying something against Jesus, Buddha or Mahavira? Then you misunderstand me. When I say something against Jesus I am hammering the Jesus within you. And I have to force that Jesus out of you.


Jesus used to dispossess people of evil spirits. My work is totally different. I am trying to dispossess you of good spirits: Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed. And evil spirits are very easy, because when Jesus used to dispossess people, those evil spirits would come out so easily, in the form of pigs, and run away.


I have been thinking, In what kind of form will good spirits come out and run away? Pigs do not look right. No, even I will not agree with it, that Jesus, Confucius, will be running like pigs out of you; no, that is not right. But I have not been able yet to find... I think they will not take any form, they will run without taking any form.


And it is not a question of their running, it is a question of your dispossessing them. They are not possessing you, you are possessing them. Just relax your hands and let them go.


I am not against anybody and I am not destroying anybody.


Certainly I am destroying much in you, because I know that if all these hindrances are destroyed then you will assert on your own, in your full glory.
And that glory I call godliness.
			

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