---
section: Library
booktitle: "I Say Unto You, Vol 2"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "ISAY2"
dategiven: "03 November 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #4"
chaptertitle: "Respect and Accept"
acode: "7711030"
shorttitle: "ISAY204"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "105mins"
displaytitle: "I Say Unto You, Vol 2: Chapter #4"
---

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<p class="question">WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GREAT SEXUAL SUPPRESSION AND FREEDOM FROM SEX? ON THE SURFACE, BOTH HAVE NO INTEREST IN SEX. HOW DOES SUPPRESSED SEX BUBBLE UP?</p>


First, suppressed sex has more interest than expressed sex can ever have. The interest is not direct -- it is indirect, it is vicarious, it is cunning; the interest is there, immensely there. If your sex life is normal, unrepressed, uninhibited, the interest cannot be so much, because you will have a kind of satisfaction, a contentment.


It is like when you have taken your food, you forget about food. But if you fast, then you continuously think about food. Fast one day and then go to the market, and you will see only hotels, restaurants, food stores, and you will smell only food smells coming from everywhere. And you had been to this place before many times. It had never happened like that.


Repression cannot free you from interest. The repressed person becomes more interested in sex than anybody else. Maybe he shows antagonism, that's possible, but antagonism is interest. That's why your so-called religious scriptures are full of antagonism towards sex, condemnation. Your so-called MAHATMAS go on cursing sex. That simply shows their interest, nothing else. They are still haunted by it. They may be sitting in their caves in the Himalayas, but they are condemning sex. Why?


It is deep inside them, in their very guts, they are fighting with it. Their condemnation is a way of their fighting with it: they condemn it so that they can remain on top of it. If you don't condemn for even a single day, they start feeling afraid that the real thing from inside may surface, may throw away them and their control and their saintlihood and their holiness.


And the more you repress, the more it accumulates. It becomes more and more powerful.


So the first thing to understand is that it is impossible for a repressed person not to show interest. He will show DIS-interest -- but that is interest upside down. And if you watch, you will see it coming everywhere. A normal sexual life has sex in a normal way. Sometimes it takes possession of you, and it is beautiful.to be possessed by it, because to be possessed by any life energy is to be possessed by God.


That is the only natural way for ordinary people who are not trying to attain some higher consciousness, who are not going into meditation; that is the only way to have a taste of meditation.


When sex possesses you, it is God possessing you -- on the lowest rung, of course. SAMADHI IS the highest rung of being possessed by God, and sex is the lowest rung of being possessed by God. But in both ways you are possessed by God. In sex God has to function through your body, in SAMADHI he functions through your soul. In music, in art, in poetry, in dance, he functions through your mind. But whenever you are in a state of let-go, whenever you are not...


And that is the joy of sex, because you disappear for a moment. That moment is very small, but immense is its impact. For one moment you are no more the ego, you don't think in terms of 'I', for one moment you dissolve into the unity of the all, you become one with the whole, you pulsate with the whole. You are no more an individual, you are no more confined to your body. You don't know limitations, for a moment you are unlimited, infinite.


That is the meaning of sexual orgasm -- that your frozen energy melts, becomes one with this universe, with the trees and the stars, and the woman and the man, and the rocks -- for a single moment, of course. But in THAT moment you have a kind of consciousness that is religious, that is holy, because it comes from the whole.


The attraction for sex is the attraction for God. The attraction for sex is the attraction to let-go. There is nothing wrong in it; it is the beginning of the search for God. And of course the beginning can begin where you are. You ARE in the body. So only in the body can the search start. It should not remain there, that's true, but it cannot start anywhere else. You have to go rung by rung, step by step. The higher you move, the more meaningless the lower starts becoming. Not that you are against it, but because you are gaining higher ecstasies -- who bothers about the lower?


The man who is against sex is below sex. He has fallen below sex, he is obsessed with sex. His twenty-four hours will be full of sexual thoughts, fantasies. and you can watch. He will show his fantasy, his repression everywhere. You can see him walking on the road -- he will not be able to walk naturally. A beautiful woman passes by, then what do you do if you are carrying great repression? Trembling comes in him. He starts looking the other way, or he escapes into a small street to avoid her. He cannot look at the woman.


By looking he is showing where his interest is. But by not looking he is also showing his interest.


The man who is above sex, the man who has become free of sex avoids nothing. He has no antagonism toward sex. He will have compassion for all those who are still in the world of sex. And the man who has gone beyond sex will look at the beautiful woman, and the beautiful woman will not remind him of sex but of God -- because ALL reminds him of God. A beautiful flower reminds him of God, a beautiful face reminds him of God. In fact, all reminds him of God.


A man went to his psychiatrist and the psychiatrist was trying to find out what his problem was.


And psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts have stumbled upon one great fact about humanity: that out of a hundred, ninety-nine problems arise out of sex. Not because of sex, but because of your religious conditioning against sex.


So the doctor was trying to find out where the problem was arising from. He asked the man 'When you see a tree, what does it remind you of?'
And the man said 'Of sex.'


Tree? -- of sex? To be more certain, the doctor asked 'And when you see stars, what do they remind you of?'
And the man said 'Of sex, of course.'


And the doctor, to be still more certain, asked 'When you see a camel walking by what does it remind you of?'
And the man said 'Of sex.'


And the doctor said 'Camel? -- reminding you of sex?'


And the man said 'Yes, everything reminds me of sex... It is not a question of the camel or the tree or the elephant or the dog... EVERYTHING reminds me of sex!'


If you are obsessed, repressed, everything will remind you of sex -- EVERYTHING, because you are carrying such a load, you will go on projecting. There is no need for a real woman to be there, just a SARI, hanging, will do. There is no need for a real woman there, just one of my long-haired sannyasins going by... and from the back you see... and those long hairs... and it is there.


You cannot get beyond sex by repressing it. The way beyond is through. The way beyond is through understanding.

I have heard...


Several men who had been involved in a serious road accident were brought to hospital on stretchers and the dead were separated from the living. One of those believed to be dead had been accompanied by his wife, who was mainly interested in the insurance money to which his death would entitle her.


As soon as she arrived therefore, she approached one of the harassed doctors dealing with the emergency, and pointing to her husband on his stretcher, said 'He's dead, isn't he, doctor?'
'I'm afraid so, madam' said the doctor, incautiously assuming that the judgement of the stretcher-bearers as to who was dead and who was not had been correct.
At this moment, the woman's supposedly dead husband, who was in fact alive and had overheard the conversation, suddenly sat up on his stretcher, and said 'I'm not dead, doctor!'
'Lie down' snapped his wife. 'The doctor knows!'


Now, her interest is in the insurance money. It shows; you cannot hide it. It will show in some way or other. It will empty out of you.


You must have heard about great RISHIS and MAHATMAS doing their meditations in the forest. And then APSARAS, beautiful damsels from heaven, come to distract them. But why should these beautiful women be interested in distracting these poor people, who are not doing any harm to anybody? They are just sitting under their trees doing their JAPA, their meditation. Why should anybody be interested in distracting them?


Indian scriptures are full of these stories. But nobody asks 'Why in the first place...?' Why should God have a portfolio, a special department to distract these poor, fasting, meditating people? But they come. And those beautiful women dance around naked, and they hug the MAHATMAS, and they try to distract them from their meditations. These women are NOT coming from heaven. Heaven has no interest. Heaven really should rejoice that another man is coming higher, reaching to heaven. It is not very populated. Heaven is very uncrowded, almost a desert, because people go to hell. God should rejoice, the angels should dance and sing that a new guest is coming. There should be a sensation in heaven. Why should they send beautiful women to distract? And in the first place, where will they find the beautiful women? They all go to hell.What are they doing with beautiful women in heaven? But they come. They don't come from heaven, they come from the unconscious repressed sexuality


If you fast if you torture your body, if you go on repressing your natural desires, a moment comes when you are so full of it that the fantasy looks almost real. Then you cannot make any distinction between the fantasy and the real. Then the imagination looks objective. You are in a kind of hallucination. These are hallucinations.


No. You ask: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GREAT SEXUAL SUPPRESSION AND FREEDOM FROM SEX?


The difference is great! The difference is: that the man who has repressed his sex will remain continuously giving signals about his sexuality and obsession. He will continuously talk against it, he will condemn it. He will never be able to forgive anybody for being sexual. Just the WORD IS enough to trigger his anger and hatred. If he sees two persons in a loving state, he will be off his rocker.


Just a few days before, it happened. One SHANKARACHARYA came to see me. Now this is the last place for SHANKARACHARYAS to come to. He was staying with a doctor in Poona, and the doctor is interested in me, and he must have persuaded the poor old man -- 'You come.' Somehow he managed and brought him to the gate. He was sitting in the car. The doctor had gone to the office to arrange for the meeting.


When he went back, the SHANKARACHARYA was very angry. And he said 'Take me away from this place immediately!'
The doctor said 'What has happened?'


He said 'Look! Sannyasins -- men and women -- holding hands! I CANNOT remain here a single moment. THIS IS not a holy place! This is AGAINST religion and against culture!' He really got very irritated.


The doctor wrote a letter to me 'I have never seen him in such anger. He was in a rage, a MURDEROUS rage!'


Now where is it coming from? Why should you be worried if a man and woman are holding hands? This is none of your business. They are not forcing you to do anything, they are just going on their way. They have not even looked at you. They are not enraged about you. Why should you be enraged about them?
But about them is not the question.


The repressed sexuality is provoked. Seeing a beautiful woman holding somebody's hand, jealousy arises. To repress that jealousy, sex starts bubbling up. To repress that sex. one has to be very very angry. Only through anger can you repress sex.


People who repress sex become angry. Have you watched it? They become irritated -- small things irritate them. They are never at ease, always in anger. Have you seen people who have repressed sex? They become aggressive, and they start finding ways and means to express their aggression. They become politicians, they become money-oriented. They have to find some way out for their aggression. It may be politics, it may be money, it may be some other kind of ambition, but they become very aggressive.


And have you known this too -- or not -- that if you want to earn money you will have to repress sex? If you don't repress sex you will not have enough aggression left to fight in the market, to compete with people. If you want to become a great politician you will have to repress sex; otherwise, from where will you find this stupid energy to be a politician? You have to repress sexuality so that energy starts becoming more and more accumulated in you. And finding no natural way, it is ready to go into any way, any channelisation where you want it to go.


A man who has-repressed sex is not uninterested in sex -- no, not at all. He is more interested than the ordinary man. His whole interest is centered there. He is continuously afraid of sex, afraid of beauty, afraid of bodies, afraid of his dreams. He cannot sleep well, he cannot communicate well because everything reminds him of sex.


And it is not only that women... If you repress sex toward women long enough you will start turning homosexual. Even men will remind you of sex and nothing else. If camels can remind you of sex, then why not men? People who repress sex are going to have great difficulties, are going to be perverted. Men will remind you... everything by and by will start having a sexual tinge and colour.
Beware of it.


Do you know that Alexander the Great was a homosexual, Julius Caesar was a homosexual? And many other great kings and generals have been homosexuals. And the reason? -- Continuously fighting, continuously on the move, battling on the front women not available -- sex starts turning towards homosexuality. Soldiers -- people in the army, navy, air force, start turning homosexual. Monks, nuns start being homosexual or lesbian, because monks are not allowed any women in the monastery.


Now there are monasteries in Europe where for a thousand years not a single woman has entered -- not even a small baby of seven days old, no. Now what will happen there? A thousand monks in the monastery... and once you enter in the monastery you are not allowed to get out of it; you enter forever. Mount Athos is such a monastery. You enter once, forever -- it is like the grave -- then you never come out of it. Sometimes people come out of graves too, but nobody comes out of Mount Athos. And no woman ever has crossed the threshold -- not even a small baby. The limit is seven days -- a small baby more than seven days old is dangerous. What kind of people are living there? Just think of an eight-day-old girl... These people must be great MAHATMAS -- the same MAHATMAS scriptures talk about -- to whom damsels and beautiful APSARAS come to distract. Now even an eight day old baby is not allowed. It is against the code of the monastery.


When these thousand people live in a complete 'boys' club', naturally the repressed sexuality starts turning into homosexuality; nuns start turning into lesbians. This goes on. This has been so down the ages. That's why I don't like MY ashram to be mono-sexual -- only men or only women. I want men and women to mix and meet. I want this place to be very natural, healthy, whole; only then can you go beyond it, otherwise not.


And the man who has gone beyond sex is free from sex. To say that he has no interest in sex is also wrong. His interest is not personal any more. He has no involvement, that is true, but he is interested in everything -- in the flowers, in the birds, in the animals, in the people; he is interested in everything. His interest is not personal. No involvement of his own being, but he is interested in everything.


If such a man sees a couple looking into each other's eyes, he will be happy. He will thank God that he has seen love energy moving. He will BLESS this couple! He will say 'Go ahead. This is the way. Enjoy these moments.' He will show no obsession this way or that. He will not start thinking of possessing this woman and he will not start thinking of how to escape from this situation, because he has no fear. He can bless the couple.


It happens every day. Couples come to me... Sometimes Indians are also there. They become very puzzled, because Indians cannot think that any sage will give any advice about sex too. They cannot conceive of it. They think a sage only talks about God, ONLY about God. When I advise people on their ordinary life problems, Indians who have never heard of Buddha advising anybody or Mahavir advising anybody even about their sexual problems, feel very uneasy, embarrassed. They cannot understand what is happening. They expect from me only advice about God, meditation and things like that. I should not help a couple in their problems.


But how is this couple going to become meditative, if this couple which is involved, entangled in sexuality, is not helped to go beyond it? How is it possible some day for them to become meditative? I have to take their whole life, and I take great interest in every kind of problem. I get completely lost in their problems, I become completely absorbed. I forget the whole world when somebody is facing me with his problem: that problem is my whole world -- whatsoever the problem. Whether is is sex, whether it is money, whether it is over-eating, whether it is body health, meditation, God, prayer does not matter -- whatsoever it is, the person has a problem which has to be solved, and I have to bring all my energy to solve it. I am utterly interested in everything, because I am not afraid of anything. Why should I not be interested?


But remember, the interest has a totally different meaning. I am interested in a flower, I am interested in beauty, I am interested in poetry, in music, in dance, I am interested in all kinds of possibilities. And God too is interested, otherwise sex would have disappeared long before. Why should sex continue? If MAHATMAS are right, then God is wrong.


George Gurdjieff used to say that your so-called MAHATMAS are all against God, and your so-called religions are all against God. And he is right, he has something very significant to say there. They are, because God goes on creating the world and God goes on creating the world in such variety, in such richness, in all directions. dimensions. And MAHATMAS are monotonous. They just simply do the JAPA, repeat 'Ram, Ram, Ram'... go on repeating.


The life of a MAHATMA IS a very poor life -- no richness, no inner variety, no dimensions to his being. He is linear, one-dimensional.


The man who is free of sex has no personal involvement in it, he has no desire for it. Not that he is against it, just his desires have moved higher.


It is like a child. Once you were a child and you used to play with coloured stones, used to collect shells and stones on the sea beach. Then one day you became a grown-up, now you don't collect. But if your child is collecting sea shells and coloured stones, won't you be able to understand him? Won't you show interest? Won't you say to the child 'Good. This stone is beautiful. Where did you find it? Even I didn't find such stones when I was young, and like you I was searching and exploring sea beaches. You are fortunate.' You will not condemn the child. You will not say 'This is nonsense, rubbish . Throw these stones away! I know they mean nothing.' You will show all interest. That is real grown-upness. If you start shouting at the child, and you say 'This is nonsense and rubbish. Throw all these stones away. Don't carry them, they will dirty your clothes, your pockets. Your pockets will lose shape, this and that, and your mom will be very very angry. Throw them away! I have known through my own experience that they are meaningless' that simply shows you are not yet mature enough.


Maturity is mature enough ONLY when it can accept the immature. Maturity is real maturity when it can not only accept the immature but can bless you, with all the hopes that you will grow out of it. Everybody grows, just time is needed.


You had a teddy bear or a toy that you loved so much that there were days you could not sleep without it. You had to carry it to bed, you had to carry it on journeys. Your parents were feeling a little embarrassed that you have carried this big teddy bear with you, this big toy, and 'You have become a big boy now, or a big girl. Stop it.' But you had to carry it everywhere. And then one day suddenly something changed: the teddy bear got lost. It remained for a few days in the comer of your room, then you threw it out onto the rubbish heap. What happened? How did you get rid of it? You became mature.


You have not repressed the desire, you have not repressed your love affair with the teddy bear. You have simply grown up: you have gone beyond.


Freedom from sex is not repression of sex, it is the understanding of sex. And through understanding one goes beyond it. But that does not mean that you will be angry and against and antagonistic. You will be blissful, you will have a blessing for everybody. And you will bless with the hope that some day they will also go beyond it.


Real religion has to be rooted in the earth. Yes, real religion also has to rise towards the sun. It is like a lotus flower -- rooted in the mud and rising towards the sun. The lotus has to be freed from the mud, but the mud has not to be condemned at all, because the mud is the nourishment. Your sex energy is the nourishment for your SAMADHI. It is out of the mud of sex that the lotus of SAMADHI IS going to bloom. Never repress it! Never be against it; rather, go deep into it with great clarity, with great love. Go like an explorer. Search all the nooks and comers of your sexuality, and you will be surprised and enriched and benefitted.


Knowing your sexuality, one day you will stumble upon your spirituality. Then you become free. Your energy has risen high. Now sex is just like a toy. But you are not angry with other people who are still playing with the toy. You will understand them too, you will have compassion for them. You would like to help them go beyond, but you will not condemn them and you will not want to throw them to hell to be punished. They are not doing anything wrong.


Sex is not a sin. Nobody is ever punished for sex. Nobody ever goes to hell for sex; otherwise God would be responsible, not you. He has given it to you, you are born with it; you have not created it. It is nothing like your invention, it is not like an atom bomb, it is not like a bayonet, it is not like a sword, it is not like money, it is not like politics -- these are inventions of man, of the ugly human mind. These people will go to hell, certainly.


But sex is a God-given gift, and it is a great seed. And in the seed is hidden SAMADHI. Once it starts sprouting and finds the right soil, it will become a big tree. Millions of flowers will come to it.


It is not only a child that is born out of sex, it is out of sex that you will be reborn too! Sex is the generating force, sex is the very source of creativity. It is out of sex that new life is born. You will give birth to a child -- this is new life, God coming in another garb, another manifestation, another incarnation of God in your child; but it comes through sex. Just watch it. Sex must be immensely valuable -- God has chosen it to be the passage for life.


What is more valuable than life? What CAN be more valuable than life? God has chosen sex as the vehicle for life. Life comes through sex, in sex, out of sex. And those who know, those who have gone beyond say that another life, spiritual life, also comes through it. Not only your child is born through it, you will be reborn through it: you will become twice-born through it, you will resurrect out of it. It is life-giving energy.


Sex has to be respected. Sex is sacred. Sex is the very temple of God.


So I cannot say the man who is free from sex has no interest, because sex is life. And sex is potential spirituality. How can he be disinterested in it? Yes, he has no personal interest in it. he has gone beyond it; but he is immensely interested. In fact for a man who is free from sex his interest becomes very very great. Now, he is interested in everything.


When you are obsessed with sex you are not interested in anything. You are not interested in poetry, you are not interested in music, you are not interested in beauty, you are only interested in sex. And if sometimes you show interest in music, poetry, beauty, art, you show interest only because some sexuality is there. You become interested in poetry if it is sexual. You become interested in a picture, in a painting if it is nude, pornographic. You become interested in the music if it excites you sexually; otherwise you are not interested.


This is not interest in music -and painting, this is interest in sex. That's why ninety-nine per cent of poetry, music, painting and sculpture is sex-based, because ninety-nine per cent of people don't want anything other than sex. Your films, your novels, your books -- even your so-called religious books -- are all full of sexuality. Sometimes it is in the name of condemnation, but they go on talking about the physical, the sexual. Sometimes they are obscene.


The man who is free of sex, his interest is also free of sex. His interest spreads to the whole of life.

Just the other day I was reading:


In a school, the teacher asked the children -- small children 'How many stars do you see at night?'
One child said 'Thousands.'
Another child said 'Millions.'
And the third child said 'Trillions.'


And then the smallest boy in the class stood up and said 'Three.'


The teacher asked 'Three? And these, your friends, are seeing thousands, millions and trillions, and you see only three?'


He said 'What to do? We've got a very small window.'


Now the small window becomes the frame. Only three stars...


You have a very small window through which to look at life. That window is called sex -- only three stars. When you are free of sex, you jump out of the window. The whole sky becomes available to you. Those three stars are also still there but no longer prominent. Lost, in so many stars... your interest becomes bigger, infinite. The whole sky becomes your limit: that means there is no limit anymore.


A man who has attained to freedom from sex is immensely interested in everything. Everything thrills him, everything excites him to ecstasy, and everything reminds him of God.
<p class="question">WHAT IS HYPERTENSION?</p>


Hypertension is a state of mind when you have been become too much focused on rationality and you have forgotten your feelings. Hypertension comes out of an imbalance; too much trust in reason is the basis of all hypertension. People who live in their heads become hypertense. Relaxation comes through the heart. One should be capable of moving easily from the head to the heart just as you move out of your house and inside your house. One should be fluid between head and heart. These are the two shores of the river that you are. You should not cling to one shore, otherwise life becomes lopsided.


The West suffers very much from hypertension, because it has forgotten the language of the heart, and only the heart knows how to relax, because only the heart knows how to love. Only the heart knows how to enjoy, celebrate. Only the heart knows how to dance and sing. The head knows nothing of dance. the head condemns dance as stupid. The head knows nothing of poetry, the head condemns poetry.


Do you know that one of the greatest philosophers, Plato, thinking about his ultimate utopian republic, said that no poet should be allowed there? In his republic, in his ultimate state of society, poets should not be allowed. Why? -- because he is afraid of poets. He says: Poets bring fantasies, poets bring dreams, poets bring confusion and mysticism, and we don't want any of it. We want a very clear-cut, logical, prosaic society. That society will be hypertense; everybody will be neurotic. In Plato's republic -- if it ever happens... and there is every fear that it can happen -- everybody will be a neurotic, and everybody will always be carrying his psychoanalyst with him. Wherever he moves, he will have to carry his psychoanalyst. That is already coming in the West.

I have heard...


In a New York street two small boys were talking -- as they have always talked down the centuries, but what they said was very new.


One boy said to the other 'My psychoanalyst can lick your psychoanalyst any time.'


Small boys... They have always talked that way: 'My father can lick your father' or 'My house is bigger than your house' or 'My dog is stronger than your dog' -- a small child's beginning of the ego. But 'My psychoanalyst can lick your psychoanalyst any time' -- this is something new.


Three women were talking about their children. One was saying 'He is the topmost in the class. He always comes first.'


The second said 'That's nothing. My child is only seven but he can play music like a Mozart, like a Wagner '


The third said 'That's nothing. My child is only five and he goes to his psychoanalyst all alone.'


Hypertension is a state where you have lost balance. You cannot bring your heart to function in your life; logic has become all -- and logic remains superficial. Logic, when it becomes all, only creates anxiety; it never gives any peace, it goes on bringing new problems. It never solves any problem -- it cannot solve, it is not in its power -- it only pretends, it only promises. It goes on saying 'I will deliver the goods' but it never delivers. And then problems go on accumulating and you don't know how to get out of the problems, because you don't know how to get out of the head. You don't know how to play with children, how to love your woman, how to go and have a talk with the trees, and sometimes have a dialogue with the stars. You have forgotten all, you are no more a poet, you are no more an alive heart.


And whenever any part of the body is repressed, that part takes revenge. If another part of the mind is repressed, THAT part takes revenge. And the heart is the MOST vital part, the MOST fundamental part. One can live without the head, but one cannot live without heart. The head is a little superficial, it is a kind of luxury, but the heart is very essential. The head exists only in man, so it cannot be very essential. Animals live without it and live perfectly well in a far more silent and blissful way than man. Trees live without the head, and so do the birds and the children and the mystics.


The head is superficial. It has a certain function -- use it, but don't be used by it. Once you are being used by it you will become anxious: anxiety will come and life will become nauseous. It will just be a long stretched-out pain, and you will not find any oasis anywhere in it; it will be a desert thing.


Remember, the essential has not to be repressed. The non-essential has to follow the essential -- has to become its shadow. You cannot deny ANYTHING without getting into trouble.

Listen to this anecdote:


One day a flying saucer landed in Elsie Gumtree's garden... right in the middle of her summer bloomers, which could have been quite painful if she had been wearing them. There was a whirring sound, and a strange purple man appeared through the hatch in the side of the saucer. Straight away he headed for Elsie's back door and knocked politely.
Elsie opened the door, and quickly taking in the situation said 'Are you from the flying saucer?'
'Mm' replied the man, as though in pain.
'Are you from Mars?' Elsie asked.
'Mm' went the man again, his face contorted.
'How long did it take you to get here? Ten years?' asked Elsie.
'Mm'
'Twenty years?'
'Mm' said the man, an agonised look on his face.
'Twenty years? You've been all that time in your flying saucer?'
'Mm.' nodded the man, furiously.
'What can I do for you?' asked Elsie.
The little man opened his mouth, and with great difficulty said 'Can I use your toilet, please?'


Deny anything and it becomes overpowering. Now, for twenty years he has not been able to find a toilet and you are asking nonsense questions. 'Where are you coming from?' and 'Who are you?' and 'How many...?' How can he answer all these things? His denied part is there with a vengeance.


Your heart has been denied for so many lives that when it erupts it is going to create great chaos in your life. First you suffer from the mind, its tensions, anxieties; and then you can suffer from the explosion of the heart. That's what happens when a man breaks down. First he suffers from the tense state of the mind, and then one day the heart takes its revenge, erupts, and the man goes mad, goes berserk.


Both situations are bad. First the sanity was too much -- that created the insanity. A really sane person is one who can live between sanity and insanity in absolute balance. A really sane person always has some insanity in him -- he accepts it. A really rational person is one who respects irrationality too, because life is such. If you cannot laugh because of your reason -- because 'laughter is ridiculous' -- then you are bound for trouble, you are destined for trouble.


Yes, logic is good, laughter too is good -- and laughter brings balance. It is good to be serious, it is good to be non-serious too, and there should be a constant balancing.


Have you seen a tightrope walker? He continuously balances himself. Sometimes he leans to the left with his staff, and then he comes to a point where if he leans a single moment more, he will fall. He immediately changes his balance, goes to the other side -- to the right -- leans to the right. Then again a moment comes when one single moment more and he will be gone; he again starts leaning to the left. That's how he proceeds: leaning to the left, to the right, he keeps in between. That's the beauty -- leaning to the left and to the right, leaning toward both extremes, he keeps in between.


If you want to keep yourself in between you will have to lean toward both sides again and again. You are not to choose. If you choose, you will fall. If you have chosen the head, you will fall; you will hypertense. If you choose the heart and forget the head completely, you will become -mad. And if you want to choose anyhow, if you want to choose, then choose being mad. Choose the heart, because it is more essential.


But I am not saying that you should choose. If you insist and you say 'I HAVE to choose', then be mad rather than just dry and sane. Be of the heart. Love, love madly; sing, sing madly; dance, dance madly. That is far better than just becoming calculating, logical, rational, and just suffering nightmares.


But I am not saying... it is not my suggestion that you do that. My suggestion is to remain choiceless. 'Choiceless awareness' is the key word. Remain choiceless, aware, and whenever you see that something is going off-balance, lean to the other side. Bring the balance again, and this is how one moves. Life is like tightrope walking.
<p class="question">WHAT DID JESUS REALLY DO WITH MARY MAGDALENE?</p>


Shiva, no personal questions, please.
<p class="question">HOW CAN I STOP WANTING TO BE SPECIAL?</p>


Because you ARE special, and there is no need to be special. You ARE special, you ARE unique -- God never creates anything less than that.


Everyone is unique, utterly unique. There has been no person like you before, and there will NEVER be a person like you again. God has taken this form for the first time and the last time, so there is no need to try to become special, you already are. If you are trying to be special you will become ordinary. Your very effort is rooted in misunderstanding. It will create confusion, because when you try to become special you have taken one thing tor granted -- that you are not special. You have become ordinary already. You have missed the point.


Now, once you have taken it for granted that you are ordinary, how can you become special? You will try this way and that, and you will remain ordinary, because your base, your foundation is wrong. Yes, you can go to the dressmaker and can find more sophisticated dresses, you can have your hair style done again, you can use cosmetics; you can learn a few things and become more knowledgeable, you can paint and start thinking that you are a painter; you can do a few things, you can become famous or notorious, but deep down you will know that you are ordinary. All these things are on the outside. How can you transform your ordinary soul into an extraordinary soul? There is no way.


And God has not given any way because he never makes ordinary souls, so he could not think about your problem. He HAS given you a special, extraordinary soul. He has never given it to anybody. This is just made for you.


What I would like to say to you, Shaila, is recognise your specialness. There is no need to get it, it is already there -- recognise it. Go into your self and feel it. Nobody's thumb print is like yours -- not even the thumb print. Nobody's eyes are like yours; nobody's sound is like yours; nobody's flavour is like yours. You are absolutely exceptional. There is not a double of you anywhere. Even two twins are different -- howsoever alike they look, they are different. They go different ways, they grow different ways; they attain to different kinds of individualities.
This recognition is needed.
You ask: HOW CAN I STOP WANTING TO BE SPECIAL?


Just listen to the fact. Just go into your being and see, and the effort to be special will disappear. When you know that YOU ARE special, the effort will disappear. If you want me to give you some technique so that you can stop being special, then that technique will disturb. Again you are trying to do something, again you are trying to become something. First you were trying to become special, now you are trying not to become special. But trying... trying... improving in some way or other, but never accepting the you that you are.


My whole message is: Accept the you that you are, because God accepts it. God respects it, and you have not respected your being yet. Be immensely happy that God has chosen you to be, that God has chosen you to exist, to see his world, to listen to his music, to see his stars, to see his people -- love and be loved -- what more do you want? Rejoice! I say again and again rejoice in it! And in that very rejoicing, by and by, it will explode in you like lightning that you are special.


But remember, that will not come as an ego that you are special as against others. No, in that moment you will know that everybody is special. The ordinary exists not.


So this is the criterion: If you think I am special' -- more special than that man, more special than that woman -- then you have not understood yet. It is the ego game. Special, not comparatively; special, not in comparison with anybody -- special just as you are.


A Zen Master was asked -- a professor had come to see him -- and the professor asked 'Why am I not like you? This is my desire. Why am I not like you? Why am I not silent like you? Why am I not wise like you?'


The Master said 'Wait. Sit silently. Watch. Watch me, and watch yourself. And when everybody else has gone, if the question still remains, I will answer.'


And the whole day people were coming and going, and disciples were asking, and the professor was getting very very restless -- time was being wasted. And this man said 'When everybody is gone...'


Then came evening and there was nobody. And the professor said 'Now enough is enough. I have been waiting the whole day. What about my question?'


And the moon was rising -- it was a full moon night. And the Master said 'Haven't you got the answer yet?'
The professor said 'But you never answered me.'


The Master laughed. He said 'I have been answering many people the whole day. If you had watched you would have understood. But come out. Let us go in the garden, the full moon is there in the garden, and it is a beautiful night.' And the Master says to him 'Look at this cypress tree' -- a big cypress tree, standing high, almost touching the moon. The moon was intertwined in its branches -- 'and look at this small bush.'


But the professor said 'What are you talking about? Have you forgotten my question?'


The Master said 'I am answering your question. This bush and this cypress tree have lived for years in my garden. I have never heard the bush asking the cypress tree "Why am I not like you?" And I have not heard the cypress tree ask the bush "Why am I not like you?" The cypress tree is the cypress tree, and the bush is the bush; and they both are happy in being themselves.'


I am myself, you are you. The comparison brings conflict. The comparison brings ambition, and the comparison brings imitation. If you ask 'Why am I not like you?' then you will start trying to BE like me, and that will be the undoing of your whole life: you will become an imitator, a carbon copy. And when you are an imitator you will lose aU respect for yourself.


It is very rare to find a person who respects himself. Why is it so rare? Why isn't there reverence for life -- your own life? And if it is not for your own life, how can it be for others? If you don't respect your own being, how can you respect the rose hush and the cypress tree and the moon and the people? How can you respect your Master, your father, your mother, your friend, your wife, your husband? How can you respect your children if you have not respected yourself? And it is very rare to find a person who respects himself.


Why is it so rare? -- because you have been taught to imitate. From the very childhood you have been told 'Become like Christ' or 'Become like Buddha.' But why? Why should you become like Buddha? Buddha never became you. Buddha was Buddha. Christ was Christ. Krishna was Krishna. Why should you become like Krishna? What wrong have you committed, what sin have you committed that you should become like Krishna? God never created another Krishna. He never created another Buddha, another Christ -- never! Because he does not like to create the same things again and again. He is a creator, he is not an assembly line -- one Ford comes, another Ford, another Ford -- Ford cars go on coming, all alike, on the assembly line. God is not an assembly line. He is an original creator: he never creates the same.


And the same will not be valuable. Just think: a Krishna walking again -- the same type of man. He will look like a joker. He will only get some place in a circus, nowhere else, because he will be repetitive. He will say the Gita again -- whether Arjuna is available or not, whether the Mahabharata, that great war, is happening or not -- but he will have to repeat his Gita. And he will walk in his clothes, and they will look very odd.


Just think of Jesus amidst you again. He will not fit! He will be out of date, he will be antique, he will be useful only in a museum, nowhere else.


God never repeats. But you have always been taught to become somebody else. 'Become somebody else -- the neighbour's son... become like the neighbour's son. Look how intelligent he is. Look... that girl, how gracefully she walks. Be like that!' You have always been taught to BE LIKE SOMEBODY ELSE. Nobody has told you: BE YOURSELF, and be respectful to your being; it is God's gift.


Never imitate -- that's what I say to you. Never imitate. Be yourself -- that much you owe to God. Be yourself! Be authentically yourself and then you will know that you are special. God has loved you so much, that's why you are! That's why you are in the first place, otherwise you would not have been. It is indicative of his tremendous love for you.


But your specialness is not in comparison with anybody else, it is not that you are special in comparison to your neighbours, friends, your wife, husband. You are simply special because you are alone. You are the only person just like you. In that respect, in that understanding, efforts to become special will disappear.


All your efforts to become special are like putting legs on a snake. You will kill the snake. You think... because of compassion you are putting legs on the snake. 'Poor snake, how will he walk without legs?' Just as if the snake has fallen in the hands of a centipede. And the centipede has great compassion on the snake, he thinks 'Poor snake. I have one hundred legs and he has none. How will he walk? He needs at least a few legs.' And if he operates and puts a few legs on the snake he will kill the snake. The snake is perfectly okay as he is, he need not have any legs.


You are perfectly okay as you are. This is what I call respect towards one's own being. And to respect oneself has nothing to do with ego, remember. To respect oneself is not self-respect. To respect oneself is GOD'S respect! It is to respect the creator, because you are just a painting -- his painting. Respecting the painting, you respect the painter.


Respect, accept, recognise, and all those foolish efforts to be special will disappear.
<p class="question">WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MIND AND EGO? OSHO USES MIND WITHOUT EGO SO THEY CAN'T BE THE SAME. IS MIND ONLY DANGEROUS WHEN IT IS WORKING ON THE PAST OR FUTURE? I WOULD BE HAPPY TO FIND NO EGO, BUT I DON'T WANT TO DROP MY MIND LIKE A BANANA PEEL ON THE ROAD FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO SLIP ON (AND/OR FOR BUFFALOS TO EAT).</p>


Niraj, buffalos are not so foolish. If you throw away your mind like a banana peel, no buffalo is going to eat it.


Yes, there is a possibility that some man may swallow it -- that much stupidity exists only in man. Buffalos are not interested in minds at all: they are perfectly okay, mindless.


But mind and ego are not synonymous. Ego is an illness of the mind. Ego means an ill mind, non-ego means a healthy mind. Ego is a constriction, a limitation on the mind. When the ego disappears, mind becomes Mind with a capital M.


In Buddhist literature they use mind in two ways: Mind with a small, lower case M, and Mind with a capital M. The capital M Mind is cosmic mind: the ego has disappeared, the whole has taken possession of you, you have surrendered. you are no more, God is. And the lower case M mind is you, the ego. It is against God, it separates you.


It is like an earthen pot... You take the earthen pot to the river, you fill the earthen pot with water, the pot is underneath the water. The water inside the pot is the same, and that outside of the pot is the same, but there is a wall -- an earthen wall, dividing. The wall disappears... then again the inside of the pot and the outside of the pot is one.


Ego is like a wall, an earthen wall that surrounds you and divides you from God. The question is not of the mind, the question is of the ego.


But you don't know any other mind, you only know this ego-mind. So when I am talking to you and I say to you drop the mind, I mean drop the ego. When you have dropped this mind, the ego-mind, then the cosmic Mind arises in you. Then you start functioning not from your own, you start functioning from the original source. Then God functions through you.


Beware of the ego. Sometimes even the idea of God can be used by the ego.


One man came to me. He had a big suitcase with him. He opened the suitcase and there were many files. And he said 'Now, look. God comes every day to me in the night, and he gives me messages. And in the middle of the night I have to write messages.' He was a Mohammedan, and the Mohammedans were very angry, because he was saying 'The NEXT Koran is descending on me, just as it descended one thousand years before on Mohammed. A higher dispensation is coming to me.'


I looked in his files. They were all rubbish! There was not a single word of any significance. But that man had come to me, he wanted me to recognise that he was a prophet, that God had spoken through him, that here was the proof.


And he said 'I know nobody else will recognise me, but you will recognise me.'


Now he had come with great hope and I felt great compassion for him. He was in a very very ill state, he was almost schizophrenic. One part of his mind was befooling another part of the mind. One part was saying things to the other part, and the other part was writing. No, he was not deceiving anybody, he was himself deceived. But the ego was feeling very good -- that God had chosen him to be a special messenger.


The ego can even play with the idea of God. It can claim to be God, it can claim God's realisation. One has to watch very carefully, because the ego and its games are very subtle.


It is related of Bernard Shaw that he once opened his front door to find himself face to face with two earnest young men, one of whom had some pamphlets in his hand.
'Who are you and what do you want?' asked Shaw.
We're Jehovah's Witnesses' said one of them.
'Really?' replied Shaw. 'I'm Jehovah. How are we doing?'


Now he is simply joking, but this is how the ego functions.


It happened in Baghdad that a man was caught because he declared himself a prophet of God. He was thrown in jail. After seven days the Caliph went to see the man. For seven days he had been kept starving, had been beaten continuously and was tied to a pole, swollen, scratched all over the body, very badly beaten, starving, dirty.


The Caliph asked him 'Now, what do you think? Do you still think that you are the prophet of God? Because there is only one God and there is only one prophet, Mohammed. So you take your statement back, otherwise you will be killed.'


The man started laughing and he said 'But when I was coming from God, when he appointed me as the prophet, he told me "You will be tortured, people will beat you, just as in the old days they have done with other prophets. They will insult you, they will kill you, as they have done with Jesus." So your beating, this jail and all this torture simply prove that I am a prophet. It does not disprove a thing. So I was right! In fact I was thinking that so many days had passed and nobody was beating me, and nobody was torturing me -- am I a prophet or not? You have proved that I am a prophet!'


And just then another man who was tied to another pole, started laughing very loudly.


And the Caliph asked 'Why are you laughing? What is the matter with you?'


And the man said 'This man is a liar. I myself AM GOD, and I never sent this man!' -- he had been caught one month before because he had declared himself to be God.


And I am not saying that there have not been people who have become God. Mansoor was right when he declared: ANA EL-HAQQ: I am God. The seers of the Upanishads were right when they declared: AHAM BRAHMASMI: I am God. Jesus is right when he says: My Father in heaven and I are one and the same. If you have seen me you have seen my Father


But it is a very delicate matter, because pretenders are there, egoists are there, ego-maniacs are there. You have to be very careful. You have to watch, you have to see into yourself so no ego starts claiming. When the ego has disappeared, when you have become just an emptiness, a nothingness, then the voice of God starts floating through you. That is cosmic mind.


Ego and mind are not synonymous. IN YOU they are! Right now they are. But if ego is dropped, then a totally new quality of mind arises in you which has nothing to do with you, which has existed before you, which is eternity. That's what Jesus means when he says 'Before Abraham was, I am.' He is saying 'Abraham' as the ego, as the personality. And when he says 'Before Abraham was, I am' he is using the words 'I am' as cosmic mind.


I can say to you 'Before Jesus was, I am'. Then 'I' is no more used in the sense of ego, it is just a linguistic way of saying that the eternal precedes the temporal, that the formless precedes the form, that the nameless precedes the name, that the egoless precedes the ego.


You are right, mind and ego are not the same. But don't get deceived by the idea. It can be dangerous, it can prove fatal. In you they are the same.


Drop the ego -- just peel it like a banana skin and throw it. And don't throw it on the road because, that's true, somebody can slip on it. You have been slipping on it for so many lives. And don't throw it on the road. As far as I know, no buffalo will eat it, but who knows? Some buffalo may have become stupid through living with men too long and may eat it and may get into trouble.
<p class="question">ARE WE NOT PUNISHED FOR OUT SIN?</p>


No, We are punished BY our sin, not FOR our sin.


Sin itself is its punishment. You over-eat, you suffer; you over-indulge, you suffer. It is not that the suffering will come later on, that suffering will come as a result, no. Suffering comes in the act itself. So let me tell it in this way: We are punished BY our sin, not for our sin.


That FOR has created great difficulties for man, because 'for' means 'in the future', maybe in the other life. 'Who bothers about the future? And we will see when it comes if some ways and means can be found to avoid it. Or we can always go to the priest and confess, or we can go to the Ganges and take a bath and be relieved of the sin. Or we can go to a saint and be blessed by him.' Some strategy can be found, but I tell you you are not punished FOR sin, you are punished BY sin. So there is no way to get rid of it.


If you eat too much, you go against nature, and immediately... the punishment. The punishment is instantaneous, it is not afterwards; it is then and there, it is immediate. So nobody can avoid it. If you want to avoid it. you have to be very very conscious not to commit sin.


Sin is a kind of unconsciousness. You become angry. In that very anger you suffer, not that you will suffer afterwards. Anger is fire, anger is poison. It poisons your whole system: it disturbs your health, it disturbs your mind, it disturbs your tranquillity, it disturbs your soul; and then it hangs with you for days together. The disturbance has to settle again, and before it settles, you become angry again. Then it becomes chronic. Then it hangs with you.


My approach is that in the very act is the punishment, and in the very act is the reward, obviously. When you are loving, there is heaven; when you are hateful, there is hell.
<p class="question">I WANT TO SERVE PEOPLE. ISN'T THAT RIGHT?</p>


It depends. It depends on you. If you have come home, if you have become that which is your destiny, if your own problems have disappeared, if you don't have any more anxiety, any more desires, any more unconsciousness, then there is no need to ask the question; service will flow from you, it will overflow. It will be a constant sharing -- not deliberate; it will be very natural, spontaneous. Wherever the need will arise you will be in service. If somebody is drowning in the river, you will jump. If somebody's house is on fire, you will rush with water. If somebody has fallen on the road, you will help him to get back up. But all these things will not be deliberate. Not that you will plan, not that you will seek for these situations, not that you will go out of your house thinking 'Where to serve? How to serve people?' You will live your life, and if some situation arises you will respond to it, with I10 plan. You will never become a servant. You will always be of service, but you will never become a servant.


These public servants are mischievous people. Never become a public servant. These are the people who have been creating trouble for man. And sometimes when you are a public servant, you go on serving whether the other person likes it or not.

I have heard...


One school in Manchester had a canal running alongside the playground. One day, two little boys came running into the headmaster's office in a state of great agitation.
'Sir, sir' said the first one, 'Bobby Armstrong fell in the canal!'
'Good heavens l' said the headmaster. 'Did you get him out?'
'Yes. sir.'
'Did you give him artificial respiration?'
'We tried to, sir, but he kept getting up and running away!'


I have heard about a missionary who told his children in the Sunday School to help people.
One child asked 'How? What should we do?'


So just as an example he said 'If some old woman wants to cross the street, help her.'


After seven days, he asked next Sunday 'Did you help somebody?'


Three hands were raised. He asked the first 'What did you do?'
He said 'I helped one old woman cross the street.'


The priest was very happy and said 'God will bless you. This is very good.' He asked the other 'What did you do?'


He said 'I also helped an old woman cross the street.'


A little suspicion arose in the priest's mind whether they both got two old women. But old women are there, they can get them -- it is not such a big thing. He asked the third, and the third also said 'I helped an old woman to cross the street.'


Then it was too much. He said 'You all three got three old women?'


They said 'Who is saying three? It was only one woman.'


The priest was more puzzled, he said 'Then...? Three boys were needed to help the woman to cross?'


He said 'Even with three it was difficult because she didn't want to cross. It was so difficult, sir, but we did it ANYHOW! We carried her to the other side.'


Never become a deliberate public servant. Service should come as a natural growth of your meditation, otherwise you can be dangerous.


One man asked Buddha 'I would like to serve people.' Buddha looked at him and became very sad.


He said 'But why are you looking so sad? Why did you suddenly become so sad?'


Buddha said 'YOU ARE NOT. How can you serve people? First be; otherwise, in the name of service, you will do some harm. You are not yet beyond harm, you are carrying much poison in you. If you start serving people your poison will spread.'

It happened:


The chaplain of a large London hospital was doing his rounds of the wards when he came across a Chinese, desperately ill, in a side ward. He was in an oxygen mask, and looked close to death's door. The chaplain learned over him and said 'How are you feeling, old chap?'
The reply was necessarily muffled; however, it sounded so frantic and urgent that the chaplain asked him to repeat it. But he could not understand what the unfortunate man was trying to tell him. And then to his distress the Chinese, obviously suffering acutely, expired before his very eyes. He was haunted by this last word from a poor, lonely man in a foreign land, friendless and unable to communicate, so he sought out a professor of Oriental languages and repeated the, man's last phrase as exactly as he could remember it.
'Now' pleaded the chaplain what was he trying to tell me? What did he say?'
'He said' the professor answered "'You are standing on my oxygen pipe"!'
<p class="question">OSHO, THEY SAY THAT WHEN DRUNK THE ENGLISHMAN TENDS TO BOAST, THE IRISHMAN TO FIGHT, AND THE SCOTSMAN TO GO TO SLEEP IN CASE HE'S ASKED TO BUY A ROUND OF DRINKS. NOW I WANT TO KNOW WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT AN INDIAN?</p>


There is no difficulty. The question is very simple. When an Indian is drunk, he delivers a little spiritual discourse -- minimum time limit ninety minutes.
			

> [!info]
> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
>