Question 1:

NATURE in itself is innocent. But the moment man becomes aware of it many problems arise, and what is natural and innocent is interpreted. And when it is interpreted it is neither innocent nor natural. Nature in itself is innocent. But when humanity becomes aware of it man begins to interpret it, and the very interpretation begins to produce many concepts of guilt, of sin, of morality, of immorality.

The story of Adam and Eve says that when the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was eaten, for the first time they became aware of their nakedness and felt ashamed. They were naked, but they had never been aware of it. The awareness, the very awareness, creates a gap. The moment you are aware of something, you begin to judge. Then you are different from it. For example: Adam was naked. Everyone is born naked like Adam, but children are not aware of their nakedness. They cannot judge it - whether it is good or bad. They are not aware so they cannot judge. When Adam became aware that he was naked, judgement entered over whether this nakedness was good or bad.

Every animal was naked around him, but no animal was aware of his nakedness. Adam became aware, and with this awareness Adam became unique. Now to be naked was to be like an animal, and Adam, of course, would not like to be an animal. No man likes it, although every man is.

When for the first time Darwin said that man is a growth, a growth from certain animal species, he was opposed vehemently because man has always been thinking of himself as a descendant of God - just a little bit lower than the angels. And to conceive of the ape as man's father was very difficult - in a way, impossible. God had been the father, and suddenly Darwin changed it. God became dethroned and apes were throned; the ape became the father. Even Darwin felt guilty about it as he was a religious man. This was a misfortune, that the facts were saying that man has come through animal evolution, that he is part of the animal world, that he is not something different from animals.

Adam felt ashamed. That shame came because he could now Compare himself with animals. In a way, he was different now because he was aware. Man clothed himself just to differentiate between animals and himself. And then we are always ashamed about something which looks animal-like; the moment someone is doing something animal-like we say, "What are you doing? Are you an animal?" We can condemn anything if we can prove that it is just animal-like. We condemn sex because it is animalistic. We can condemn anything if somewhere it can be linked with animals.

With awareness came condemnation - condemnation of the animal. And this condemnation has produced the whole body of suppression, because man is an animal. He can go beyond it; that is another thing. But he belongs to animals. He can transcend, but he comes from the animal. He is an animal. One day he may not be; he can go beyond. But he cannot deny the animal heritage. It is there. And once this thought came to the human mind, that we are different from animals, then man began to suppress everything in him that was part of animal heritage. This suppression has created a bifurcation, a split, so every man is two, double. The real, the basic, remains the animal; and the intellectual, the cerebral, goes on thinking in terms of fallacious things that are abstract - about the Divine. So only a part of your mind is identified by you as yourself and the whole is denied.

Even in the body we have divisions. The lower body is something condemned. It is not only physically lower; it is lower in terms of values also. The upper body is not only upper; it is higher. You feel guilty about your lower body. And if someone says, "Where are you located?" you will point to your head. That is the locus - the cerebral, the head, the intellect. We identify ourselves with the intellect, not with the body. And if someone presses us more, then we will identify ourselves with the upper body, never with the lower. The lower is something condemned.

Why? Body is one. You cannot divide it. There is no division. The head and feet are one, and your brain and your sex organs are one. They function as a unity. But to deny sex, to condemn sex, we condemn the whole lower body.

Sin came to Adam because for the first time he could feel himself different from other animals. And sex is the most animalistic thing. I use the word "animalistic" in a purely factual way, without any condemnatory tone. The most animalistic thing is bound to be sex, because sex is life and the origin and the source of life. Adam and Eve became conscious of sex. They tried to hide it not only outwardly: they tried to hide the very fact even in inner consciousness. That created the division between the conscious and the unconscious mind.

Mind is also one, just as the body is one. But if you condemn something then that condemned part will become unconscious. You condemn it so much that you yourself become afraid of knowing it, that it exists somewhere within you. You create a barrier; you create a wall. And you throw everything that is condemned by you beyond the wall and then you can forget it. It remains there, it goes on working from there, it remains your master, but still you can deceive yourself that now it is no more.

That condemned part of our being becomes the unconscious. That is why we never think that our unconscious is ours. You dream in the night: you dream a very sexual dream or a violent dream in which you murder someone, in which you murder your wife. In the morning you do not feel any guilt; you say it was just a dream. It is not just a dream. Nothing is just something. It was your dream, but it belongs to your unconscious. In the morning you identify yourself with the conscious, so you say, "It is just a dream. It does not belong to me; it just happened. It is irrelevant, accidental." You never feel associated with it. But it was your dream and you created it. And it was your mind and it was you who did the act. Even in the dream it was you who murdered, who killed or who raped.

Because of this condemnatory phenomenon of consciousness, Adam and Eve became afraid, ashamed of their nakedness. They tried to hide their bodies - not only their bodies, but later on their minds also. We are also doing the same thing. What is "good", what is taken as good by our society, you put into your conscious, and what is "bad", what is condemned by our society as bad, you throw into the unconscious. It becomes a rubbish bag. You go on throwing things into it and they remain there. Deep down in your roots they go on working. They affect you every moment. Your conscious mind is just impotent against your unconscious, because your conscious mind is just a by-product of the society, and your unconscious is natural, biological; it has the energy, the force. So you can go on thinking "good" things, but you will go on doing "bad" things.

St. Augustine is reported to have said, "My God, this is the only problem for me: whatsoever I think is worth doing I never do, and whatsoever I know is not to be done I do always." This is not a problem only for Augustine - it is a problem for everyone who is divided into the conscious and unconscious.

With the feeling of shame Adam was divided into two. He became ashamed of himself. And that part of which he became ashamed was cut loose from his conscious mind. Since then man has lived a bifurcated, fragmented life. And why did he become ashamed? There was no one - no preacher, no religious church - to tell him to be ashamed.

The moment you become aware, ego enters in. You become an observer. Without awareness you are just part, part of a great life; you are not different and separate. If a wave in the ocean can become aware, the wave can create an ego different from the ocean that very moment. If the wave can become aware and think "I am", then the wave cannot think itself to be one with the ocean, one with other waves. It becomes different - separate. Ego is created. Knowledge creates the ego.

Children are without egos because they are without knowledge. They are ignorant, and ego cannot come up in ignorance. The more you grow, the more you grow toward ego. Old men have very strengthened, deep-rooted egos. It is natural. Their egos have existed for seventy or eighty years. They have a long history.

If you go back in memory and try to remember your childhood you may be surprised to know why you cannot remember. You cannot regress beyond your fourth or third year. Ordinarily, you can remember facts which belong to your fifth year or fourth year, or at the most to the third year, but the first three years are just vacant. They were there and many things happened, but why can we not remember? It is because the ego was not there, so it is difficult to remember. In a way, you were not, so how can you remember? If you were there you would remember, but you were not.

You cannot remember. Memory exists only after the ego has come into existence, because memory needs a center on which to hang. If you are not, where will the memory hang? Three years is a big thing. and for a child every moment is an event. Everything is something phenomenal; nothing is ordinary. Really, he should remember more. He should remember the first years, the first days of life, because then everything was colourful, everything was unique. Whatsoever happened was new. But there is no memory of it. Why? Because the ego was not there. The memory needs an ego on which to hang.

The moment the child begins to feel himself as separate from others, he will begin to feel shame. He will begin to feel the same shame that came to Adam. Adam found himself naked - naked like animals, naked like everything else. You must be different and unique, you must not be like others; only then can you grow in ego. The first act was to hide nakedness. Suddenly Adam became different. He was not an animal.

Man is born like Adam and with Adam's shame; with Adam's feeling of shame, man is born. A child is not a man. He becomes a man only when he begins to feel himself separate, different from others - when he becomes an ego. So, really, it is not religion which gives you the feeling of guilt, it is your ego. Religion exploits it; that is another matter. Every father exploits it; that, too. is another matter.

Every father is saying to his son, "What are you doing, behaving like an animal? Do not laugh, do not cry; do not do this, do not do that; do not do this before others. What are you doing? - behaving like an animal!" And if the child thinks that he is an animal, his ego is hurt. To fulfill his ego, he follows, he falls in line.

To be an animal is very blissful, because there is a freedom, a deep freedom, to move, to do. But it is painful to the ego, so one has to choose. If you choose freedom, then you will be like the animals - condemned. In this world and in the other world, too, you will be condemned; you will be thrown into Hell by the society. So you must "Be a man; do not be like an animal!" Then the ego is fed.

One begins to live around the ego, then one begins to act according to what is ego fulfilling. But you cannot deny nature absolutely. It goes on affecting you. Then one begins to live two lives: one, the pre-Adam life; the other, the after-Adam life. One begins to live two lives; one begins to live a double-bind existence. Then a face is created to show to the society. One is a private face and one a public face. But you are your private face, and everyone is Adam - naked, animal-like. But you cannot show it to the public. To the public you show the after-Adam face - everything clean, everything fitted to the social norm. Everything you show to the other is not the real but the desired, not that which is but that which should be.

So everyone has to go continuously from one face to another. From private to public you are changing every moment. This is a great strain. This dissipates much energy. But I am not saying to be like an animal: now you cannot be. The forbidden fruit cannot be returned. You have eaten it; it has become your blood and bones. There is no way of throwing it; there is no way to return it and go to God the Father and say, "I return this - this forbidden fruit of Knowledge. Forgive me." There is no way! There is no way to go back!

Now it is your blood. We cannot go back; we can only go forward. There is no going back. We cannot go below knowledge. We can only go beyond knowledge. Only a different innocence is possible - the innocence of total awareness.

There are two types of innocence. One is below knowledge - the childlike, the pre-Adam-like, the animal-like. Below knowledge you are not, the ego is not, the troublemaker is not; you exist as part of the Cosmic Whole. You do not know that you are part, you do not know that there is a Cosmic Whole: you know nothing. You exist without knowing. Of course, there is no suffering because suffering is impossible without knowledge. One has to be aware of suffering to suffer it. How can you suffer if you are not aware?

You are being operated upon: a surgeon is operating on you. If you are conscious, you suffer. If you are unconscious, there is no suffering. The leg is cut completely, thrown, and there is no suffering because suffering is nowhere recorded, nowhere known - you are unconscious. You cannot suffer in unconsciousness. You can suffer only when you are conscious. The more conscious, the more you suffer. That is why the more man grows in knowledge, the more he suffers.

Primitive people cannot suffer so much as you can suffer - not because they are better, but because they are ignorant. Even today, villagers are not yet part of the modern world and they live in a more innocent way. They do not suffer so much. Because of this, many fallacies have come to the thinkers, to the philosophers. For example, Rousseau or Tolstoy or Gandhi: they think that because villagers are more blissful it would be good if the whole world became primitive again, went back to the jungle, back to the forest, back to nature. But they are wrong because the man who has lived in a civilized city will suffer in a village. No villagers have suffered that way.

Rousseau goes on talking about going back to nature, and he continues to live in Paris. He himself will not go to the village. He talks about the poetry of village life, of the beauty, of the innocence, but he himself will never go. And if he goes, then he will know that he will suffer as no villager has suffered, because once consciousness is attained you cannot throw it. IT IS YOU! It is not something that you can throw; it is you! How can you throw yourself? Your consciousness is you.

Adam suffered shame; he felt his nakedness. Ego is the reason. Adam attained a center; though false, it was still a center. Now Adam was different from the whole Cosmos. Trees were there, stars were there, everything was there, but Adam was now an island suffering. Now his life was his life, not part of the Cosmic Whole. And the moment your life is your life, struggle enters. You have to fight inch by inch to exist, to survive.

Animals are not in a struggle. Even if they appear to us or to Darwin to be in a struggle, they are not in a struggle. They appear to Darwin to be in a struggle because we go on projecting our own ideas.

They cannot be in a struggle. They appear to us to be in a struggle because for us everything is a struggle. With the ego everything is a struggle. They seem to be fighting to exist, but they are not fighting to exist: they are just flowing in the Cosmic Unity. Even if they are doing something, there is no doer behind it. It is a natural phenomenon.

If a lion is killing some victim for his food, there is no doer, there is no violence. It is a simple phenomenon - just hunger after food. There is no hungry one but simply hunger - a mechanism of finding food, not violence. Only man can be violent, because only man can be a doer. You can kill without hunger, but a lion can never kill without hunger - because in a lion the hunger kills, not the lion. A lion can never kill in play. There is nothing like hunting for a lion. It exists only for man. You can kill in play, just for fun. If a lion is satisfied, there is no violence, no play, no game, nothing. It is a hunger phenomenon. The doer is not there.

Nature exists as a deep Cosmic flow. In this flow Adam becomes aware of himself, and he becomes aware because he has eaten the forbidden fruit of knowledge. Knowledge was forbidden: "Do not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge!" was the commandment. Adam disobeyed it, then he could not go back. And the Bible says that every man will suffer for Adam's rebelliousness, because in a way every man is Adam again.

But you cannot suffer for it. How can you suffer for something someone else did somewhere? But it is a continuous history repeated every day. Every child has to pass from the Garden of Eden to the expulsion. Every child is born as Adam, and then he is expelled. That is why there is so much nostalgia in poets, in painters, in literary persons. In all those who can manipulate to express, there is always a nostalgia. They think that the golden age was childhood.

Everyone thinks that childhood was something good, utopian, and everyone wants to go back to it. Even an old man just on the deathbed thinks nostalgically of childhood - of the beauty, of the happiness, of the bliss, of the flowers, of the butterflies, of the dreams, of fairies. Everyone is in a wonderland in his childhood - not only Alice but everyone. This shadow follows.

Why is childhood so beautiful, so blissful? Because you were still a part of the Cosmic flow, with no responsibility, with absolute freedom, with no conscience, with no burden. You existed, not as if it was something to be done by you, rather it was just there, taken for granted. And then comes the ego, and then comes the conflict and the struggle. Then everything becomes a responsibility, and every moment is a bondage with no freedom.

Psychologists say that religions only reflect this nostalgia - the wish to be again in childhood. And they go even further: they say that ultimately everyone longs to be in the womb of the mother because when you were in the womb you were really part of the Cosmos. The Cosmos was even feeding you. Even to breathe was not required of you. The mother was breathing for you. You were not aware of the mother, you were not aware of yourself. You were there without awareness.

The womb is the Garden of Eden. So every man is born as Adam, and everyone has to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge, because the moment you grow you grow in knowledge. That is inevitable. So it is not that Adam rebelled. Rebellion is part of growth. He could not do otherwise: he had to eat the fruit. Every child has to rebel, has to eat the fruit. Every child has to rebel, has to disobey. Life demands it. He has to go further away from the mother, from the father. He will long for it; again and again he will desire and dream, but still he will go further away. This is an inevitable process.

It is asked:

This is the meaning: knowledge gives you ego; ego gives you comparison, judgement, individuality. You cannot think of yourself as an animal. Man has done everything to hide the fact that he is an animal. He has done everything! We are doing things every day to hide the fact that we are animals. But we are animals. And by hiding the fact, the fact is not destroyed; rather, it becomes a perverted fact. So whenever that hidden perversion comes up, man proves to be more animalistic than any animal. If you are violent, no animal can compete with you. How can it? No animal has known anything like Hiroshima, Vietnam.

There is no comparison. All the animals in all of history are just playing with dolls in comparison to Hiroshima. Their violence is nothing. This is accumulated violence - hidden, accumulated. We go on hiding, and then we are accumulating. And the more we accumulate, the more ashamed we feel, because we know what is hidden inside. We cannot escape it.

A certain psychologist was experimenting with hidden facts, which, howsoever you try, you actually cannot hide. For Example, if someone says that he is not attracted to women, he can practise not being attracted, and he can convince himself and others also that he is not attracted. But Adam is bound to be attracted to Eve, Eve is bound to be attracted to Adam; that is part of human nature - unless one goes beyond, unless one becomes a Buddha.

But then Buddha never says, "I am not attracted to women" - because even to say that, you have to think in terms of attraction and repulsion. He will not say, "I am repelled by women," because one cannot be repelled by anything unless one is attracted. If you ask him, he will simply say, "Men and women both have become irrelevant to me. I am neither. If I am a man, then a woman will be there hidden somewhere. If I am a woman then a man will be there hidden somewhere."

Anyhow, this psychologist just recently experimented with a man who said, "I am not affected by women." And he was not, as far as outer things go. He was never seen to be attracted to anyone. Then this psychologist showed him some pictures - ten pictures of different things. Only one picture was of a naked woman. The psychologist was not seeing what picture he was seeing. He was just seeing his eyes. The back of the picture was in front of the psychologist. He would show a picture to the man and just look in his eyes. He said, "If you are not attracted, I will know. Otherwise, I will tell you when you are seeing the picture of a naked woman just by seeing your eyes. I am not seeing the picture, just your eyes."

The picture was shown, and that very time the psychologist said, "Now you are seeing the naked woman," because the moment a naked woman is there, the eyes extend. And that is non-voluntary; you cannot control it. You cannot do anything. It is a reflex action. Eyes are made that way biologically. The man says, "I am not attracted," but this is only the conscious mind. The unconscious is attracted all the same.

When you hide certain facts they go on manipulating you, and then you become more and more ashamed. The higher the civilization and the higher the culture, the more ashamed the human being will be - the more ashamed! Really, the more ashamed you are about sex the more civilized you are. But then civilized man is bound to be insane, schizophrenic, divided. This division started with Adam.

And, secondly, it has been asked:

Of course, it is. But not only that. Sex is the first knowledge, and sex is also the last knowledge. When you enter humanity, the first thing you begin to feel and be aware of is sex, and the last thing, when you go beyond humanity, is again sex - the first and the last. Because sex is more foundational it is bound to be the first. It is the alpha and the omega.

A child is just a child unless he becomes sexually mature. The moment he becomes sexually mature, he is a man. With sexual maturity, the whole world becomes different. It is not the same world because your approach, your outlook, your way of seeing things, changes. When you begin to be aware of women, you begin to be a man.

Really, in the old Biblical texts, the word "knowledge" is used in the Hebrew language with a sexual meaning. For example, with such sentences: "He did not 'know' his wife for two years" or "She did not 'know' her husband for two years," it means there was no sexual relationship for two years. "He 'knew' his wife for the first time on that day": it means there was a sexual relationship for the first time. "Knowledge" in Hebrew is used for sexual knowledge, so it is correct that Adam became aware of sex after eating the apple.

Sex is most foundational. Without sex there is no life. Life exists because of sex and life disappears with sex. That is why Buddha and Mahavir say that unless you go beyond sex you will be born again and again. You cannot go beyond life, because with the sexual desire inside you will be born again. So sex is not only giving birth to someone else; ultimately, it is giving birth to yourself also. It works in a double way. You reproduce someone through sex, but that is not so important - because of your sexual desire, you are reborn; you reproduce yourself again and again. Adam became aware of his sex; that was the first awareness. But this sex is only a beginning. Then everything else will follow.

Really, psychologists say that every curiosity is sexual in a way. So if a person is born impotent, he will not-be curious about anything - not even about Truth, because curiosity inside is basically sexual. To discover something hidden, to know something which is not known, to know the unknown, is sexual. Children will play with each other to find out the hidden parts of the body. That is the beginning of curiosity and the beginning of all science - to find out that which is hidden, that which is not known.

Really, it happens that the more sexual a person, the more inventive he can be; the more sexual a person, the more intelligent. With less sex energy, less intelligence exists and with more energy, more intelligence - because sex is a deep fact to uncover: not only in the body, not only in the body of the opposite sex, but in everything that is hidden.

So if a society is very sex-condemning, it can never be scientific, because then it condemns curiosity. The East could not be scientific because of so much antagonism toward sex. And the West also could not have become scientific if Christianity had retained its hold. It was only when the Vatican disappeared, when Rome was not significant at all, only within these three hundred years when the palace of Christianity came down and disappeared, that the West could be scientific. The release of sex energy also became a release into research.

A sexually free society can be scientific, and a sexually prohibited society will be non-scientific.

With sex everything begins to be alive. If your child begins to behave rebelliously when he attains maturity, sexual maturity, forget it. It is but natural. With a new energy coming into his veins, with a new life running, he is bound to be rebellious. That rebellion is just a part. He is also bound to be an inventor. He will invent new things, new ways, new styles, new manners of life, a new society. He can dream new dreams, he will think about a new utopia. If you condemn sex, then there is no rebellion of youth. All over the world, the rebellion of youth is a part of sexual freedom.

In the old culture there was no rebellion because sex was so much condemned, the energy was too much suppressed. With that energy suppressed, every rebellion is suppressed. If you give freedom to sex energy, every rebellion will be there, every type of rebellion will be there.

Knowledge in itself has a sexual dimension, so it is right in a way to say that Adam became aware of sex, the dimension of sex. But with that dimension of sex he became aware of many other things also. This whole extension of knowledge, this explosion of knowledge, this probing into the unknown, this going to the moon and to other planets, is a sexual thirst. And it will go further and further into knowledge, because now the energy is released, and now the energy will take new shapes, new adventures.

With sex and the awareness of sex, Adam started on a long journey. We are on it, everyone is on it, because sex is not just a part of your body - it is you. You are born of sex, and you will die of sex, exhausted. Your birth is a birth of sex and your death is a death of sex. So the moment you feel that sexual energy has vanished, know that death is coming near.

Thirty-five is the peak age. Sex energy is at the peak, and then everything declines and one begins to be old, on the dying path. Seventy or so will be the death age. If fifty can be the peak of sexual energy, then a hundred will be the death age. The West will soon attain a hundred years as a normal, average age, because now a fifty-year-old behaves like a boy. It is good. It shows the society is alive. It shows that now life will be lengthened.

If a hundred-year-old man can behave like a playboy, then life will be lengthened to two hundred years, because sex is the basic energy. Because of sex you are young and because of sex you will be old. Because of sex you are born and because of sex you will die. And not only that: Buddha and Mahavir and Krishna, they say that because of sexual desire you will be born again. Not only is your present body run by sex, but all your bodies in continuity are run by sexual desire.

Of course, when Adam became conscious for the first time, he became conscious of sex. That is the most foundational fact. But this was misinterpreted by Christianity and then much nonsense followed. It was said that because Adam became aware of his sex and felt ashamed, sex is bad and a sin - the original sin. It is not. It is original light. He became ashamed not because sex is bad; he became ashamed because he saw that sex is an animal affair and thought, "I am not an animal." So sex has to be fought, cut and thrown. Somehow, one has to become without sex. This is a misinterpretation - the Christian interpretation of the parable. So: "Fight against sex!" Religion became just a fight against sex. And if religion is a fight against sex; then religion is a fight against life.

Truly, religion is not a fight against sex. Rather, it is an effort to go beyond, not against. If you are against you will remain on the same level with sex. Then you can never go beyond.

So Christian mystics and saints, they are fighting until their deathbed against sex. Then temptation comes, and every moment they are tempted. There is no one there to tempt them. Their own suppression is the creator of their temptation. They live in a very tortured world of the inner mind in which they are constantly fighting with themselves.

Religion is to go beyond, not against. And if you want to go beyond, you have to step beyond sex. So use sex energy to transcend it. You have to move with it, not fight with it. You have to know it more. To be ignorant now is impossible. You have to know it more. Knowledge is freedom. If you know it more and more and more, and the moment comes when you are totally aware, then sex disappears. In that total awareness, the energy is transformed, mutated. You now have a different dimension of the same energy.

Sex is horizontal. When you are totally aware, sex becomes vertical. And that vertical movement of sex is kundalini. If sex moves horizontally, then you go on reproducing others and reproducing yourself. If the energy begins to move upward, vertically, you just go out - out of the wheel of Existence: as the Buddhists say, out of the wheel of life. This is a new birth - not in a new body, but in a new dimension of Existence. This Buddhists have called Nirvana. You can call it MOKSHA - liberation - or whatsoever you like to call it. Names do not mean much.

So there are two ways. Adam became aware of his sex, then he could suppress it: he could move horizontally, fighting with it in a constant anguish, always knowing that the animal is hidden inside and always pretending that it is not there. This is the anguish, and one can move horizontally for lives together reaching nowhere, because it is a repetitive circle. That is why we call it a wheel - a repetitive circle. But you can jump out of the wheel. That jumping will not be through suppression; it will be through more knowledge. So I will say you have eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree; now eat the whole tree. That is the only way. Now eat the whole tree! Do not leave even a single leaf! Let there be no tree: eat it totally! Only then will you be free from knowledge - never before.

And when I say eat the whole tree, I mean now; when you have become aware, be aware totally. Fragmentary awareness is the problem. Either be totally ignorant or be totally aware. Totality is bliss. Be totally ignorant; then you are in bliss. You will not be aware of it, but you will be in bliss; just as when you are in deep sleep - not even dreaming, but simply asleep with no movement of the mind - you are in bliss, but you cannot feel it. You can say in the morning that the night's sleep was very blissful, but it was not felt when the sleep was there. It was felt only when you came out of it. When knowledge enters, awareness comes, then you can say the night was very blissful.

Either be totally ignorant, which is impossible, or be totally knowing, which is possible. With totality there is bliss. Totality is bliss. So eat the tree, root and all, and be aware. This is what is meant by an Awakened man - a Buddha - an Enlightened One: he has eaten the whole tree. Now no one is left to be aware, but a simple awareness exists. This simple awareness is a re-entry into Eden. You cannot find the old way again; it is missed forever. But you can find a new way; you can enter again. And, really, whatsoever the Devil promised to Adam will be fulfilled: you will be like gods. He was right in a way. If you eat the fruit of knowledge, you will be like gods.

We cannot conceive of this in our present state of mind because we are just in a hell. Because of this Devil's temptation, we are in hell. We are as if suspended in between two things, always divided - in agony, in anguish. It seems that the Devil deceived Adam, deceived us. This is not the whole thing; the history is incomplete. You can complete it, and only then can you judge whether whatsoever the Devil said was right or not. Eat the whole tree, and you will be like gods.

A person who has become totally aware is Divine. He is not human. Humanity is a sort of disease - I mean a "dis-ease", a continuous "dis-ease". Either be like animals and you are healthy, or be like gods and you are healthy - healthy because you are whole, in a wholeness.

The English word "holy" is good. It doesn't only mean fully pure; really, it means to be whole. And unless you are whole you cannot be holy. Be whole! And there are only two types of wholeness: one is the animal type, the other is the god type.

Question 2:

As man is, he is without a center - without a real, authentic center. He has a center, so to speak, but the center is false. He only thinks he has a center. The ego is a false center. You feel that it is there, but it is not. If you go to find it, you will not find it at all.

Emperor Wu

Bodhidharma reached China 1100 years after Buddha. He was a Buddha himself. The Emperor Wu came to receive Bodhidharma. When no one was there, he asked Bodhidharma, "I am very, very disturbed. My mind is never at ease. What can I do? Tell me. Make my mind at peace, at ease. I am in deep conflict; an inner struggle continues - so do something."

Bodhidharma said, "I can do something. Come early in the morning at four o'clock, but remember to bring your self."

The Emperor felt: "Either this man is mad or I have not understood what he is saying." He said, "Of course, I will come. I will come with my self."

Bodhidharma still insisted, "Do not forget. Bring your self with you. Otherwise, whom am I going to put at ease?"

The whole night the Emperor could not sleep. It was such a strange thing. It looked weird. What does this man mean? And then he began to feel doubtful about whether to go or not, and it was to be in the early hours, at four o'clock in the morning. And Bodhidharma had said to come alone: "Let your self only be with you; no one else." So no one could know what he was going to do, and he looked mad. It was even dangerous. But still, he was tempted. This man was really a different type of being. He attracted! He was magnetic! So the Emperor couldn't stay at home, he came.

When he was coming near, Bodhidharma said, "You have come, but where is your self?"

Wu said, "You make me puzzled. The whole night I couldn't sleep. What do you mean by 'my self'? I am here."

So Bodhidharma said, "Give me your self. I will make it silent, at peace, at ease. Close your eyes and find out where it is. Point it out to me and I will make it disappear totally, and there will be never any problem again."

So the Emperor Wu closed his eyes and sat before Bodhidharma. The morning was absolutely silent. No one was there. He could even hear his own breath; he could hear his own heartbeat.

And Bodhidharma was there constantly telling him, "Go in and find out where it is. If you cannot find it, then what can I do?" And he searched and searched and searched for hours together. Then he opened his eyes, and he was a different man.

He said, "I do not find it anywhere. It is all void. There is no self."

Bodhidharma said, "If there is no self and there is void, are you disturbed now? Is someone at a dis-ease inside? Now where is the anguish you were talking about? So much talking about it, and now where is it?"

Wu said, "It is nowhere, because the person has disappeared, so how can dis-ease exist without him? I tried and tried, but it is nowhere to be found. Really, I was myself in deception. I always thought 'I' am inside. I tried to find it, and it is not there. There is simply a void - SHOONYA - an emptiness, a nothingness."

So Bodhidharma said, "Now go to your home, and whenever you feel that something is to be done with your self, first find out where it is."

The ego is a false entity. Because we have never searched for it, it seems to exist. Because we have never gone in, we go on talking about the "I". It is not there. So the first thing to be understood is that if you meditate, if you become silent, you will feel a void, because you cannot find the ego. The ego was all the furniture; now the furniture has disappeared. You are just a room - rather, a room-ness. Even the walls have disappeared. They were part of the ego. The whole structure has disappeared, so you will find a void.

This is the first step - when the ego disappears. It is a false entity; it is not there. It only appears to be, and you go on thinking that it is there. It belongs to your thinking, not to your being. It belongs to your mind, not to your existence. Because you think it is there, it is there. When you go to find it, it is not found. Then you feel the void, emptiness. Now persist in this emptiness, remain in this void.

The mind is very cunning. It can play games. If you begin to think and observe this, this voidness, if you begin to think, you will fill it again. Even if you say, "This is void," you are out of it, already out of it. The void has disappeared - you have come in. Remain with the void; remain void. Do not think. It is difficult, very frightening.

One gets dizzy. It is an abyss - an infinite abyss. You are falling down and falling down with no bottom to reach. One gets dizzy; one begins to think. The moment you think, you have found the ground again. Now you are not in the void.

If you can remain in the void without escaping it, by any thinking whatsoever, suddenly the void will also disappear, as the ego has disappeared - because, really, it is because of the ego that it looks like a void. Ego was the thing which was fulfilling. That was the furniture, and there was no void. Now the ego has disappeared; that is why you feel it as a void. This feeling of emptiness is just because something which was always there is now not there.

If you see me in this chair, then suddenly if you do not find me in the chair, the chair will look empty - not because the chair is empty, but simply because someone was there filling it and now he is no more there. So you see the void, not the chair. You see the void because the absence of something looks like an emptiness. You are still not seeing the chair. You were seeing a person there; now you are seeing the absence of the person. But the chair is still not seen. So when the ego disappears, you feel the void. This is only a beginning, because this void is also the negative part of the ego - the other aspect. This void must also disappear.

It is reported about Rinzai, a Zen Master, that when he was learning with his Teacher, the Teacher always insisted that he should attain the void, the nothingness, the shoonya. So one day he came; he had attained it. It was a long effort. To dissolve the ego is a long effort. It was a long journey - difficult, sometimes virtually impossible - but he had attained. So he came, laughing, dancing, happy in ecstasy. He fell down ar his Master's feet and said, "I have attained. Now the void is there."

The Master looked at him very unsympathetically and said, "Now you go and throw this void also. Do not bring it here. Throw this void also. Throw this nothingness, because if you have nothingness it becomes something again."

Even a void is something. If you can feel it, it is something; if you can know it, it is something; if you can observe it, it is something. Even nothing becomes something if it is in your hands.

The Master said, "Throw this void out. Only come to me when even nothingness is not there."

Rinzai wept. Why couldn't he see it himself? A void is an attainment, it is something. If you have achieved nothingness, nothingness becomes a thing. When you go deep in the void - without any thinking, without any vibration in the mind - if you remain in this, suddenly the void just disappears and then the Self is known. Then you are centered. Then you have come to the real center.

There is the false center, the absence of the false center, and then the real center. By "centering" I mean the ground, the very ground of Being. It is not your center, because you are the false center. So it is not your center. It is the center - just the center of Being. The very Existence is centered in it.

You are the false center; you will disappear. But even in your disappearance, if you begin to feel fulfilled with void, the ego has returned in a very subtle way. In a very subtle way, it has come back. It will say, "I have attained this void," so it is still there.

Do not allow it to come back. Remain in the void. Do not do anything with the void: do not even think about it, do not even feel anything about it. The void is there: be at ease; let it be there. It will disappear. It is just a negative part. The real thing has disappeared. It is just shadow. Do not catch the shadow, do not cling to the shadow, because the shadow can remain only if the real thing is nearby. Only then can the shadow remain. Ultimately the void disappears, and then there is centering. Then for the first time you are not and YOU ARE - not as you, but as pure Being; rather, as the All. And this point must be noted carefully - that it is not your center; it is the center of All.

Forget your false center. Go in and dig for it: then it dissolves. It is never found. It is not, so you cannot find it. Then a more arduous thing befalls you - you encounter the void. It is very silent. Compared to the ego world, it is very silent. You are in a deep peace. But do not be satisfied with it. It is false, because it is part of the ego. And if you feel satisfied, the ego will re-enter; it will come back. A part of it was still there. That part will bring it back again, whole. Remain with the void without any thinking.

That is just deathlike. One is dying before one's own eyes - everything dissolving in a great abyss. And soon you will disappear and only the abyss will be there - not even the knower of the abyss, not even the observer of the abyss, but just the abyss. Then you are centered - centered in the Cosmic Center: it is not your center. For the first time, you are.

Now language will have a different meaning. You are not and you are. Here, 'yes' and 'no' lose their traditional difference, their customary meaning. You are not there as you. Now you are there as the Divine - as the Cosmos itself. This is the existential centering - the centering in the Existence.

Question #1:

Evolution is unconscious. No volition is needed, no conscious effort: it is just natural. But once consciousness evolves, then it is a totally different matter. Once consciousness is there, evolution stops. Evolution is only up to consciousness; the work of evolution is to create consciousness. Once consciousness is there, evolution stops. Then the whole responsibility falls upon consciousness itself. So this has to be understood in many ways.

Man is not evolving now. Since long, man has not been evolving. Evolution has stopped as far as man is concerned. The body has come to its peak, the human body has not evolved since long. The most ancient bones and the most ancient human bodies that have been found are not basically different from our bodies; there is no basic difference. If a human body which is one hundred thousand years old can be revived and trained, it will be just like yours; there will be no difference at all.

The human body has stopped evolving. When did it stop? When consciousness comes in, evolution's work is over. Now it is up to you to evolve. So man remains static, not evolving, unless he himself endeavours. Now, beyond man, everything will be conscious. Below man everything is unconscious. With man a new factor has entered - the factor of awareness, the factor of consciousness. With this factor, evolution's work is over. Evolution is to create a situation in which consciousness evolves. Once consciousness enters in, then the whole responsibility is on consciousness. So now man will not evolve naturally. There will be no evolution.

Consciousness is the peak of evolution - the last step. But it is not the last step of life. Consciousness is the last step of evolution - of all animal heritage. It is the last step - the c1imax, the peak - but for further growth, it has to be the first step. And when I say that evolution has stopped, I mean that now an inner effort is needed. Now, unless you do something, you will not evolve. Nature has brought you to a point which is the last for unconscious growth. Now you are aware; now you know. When you know, you are responsible.

A child is not responsible for his acts, but an adult is. A madman is not responsible for his acts, but a sane man is. If you are under an alcoholic intoxicant and you are not behaving consciously, you are not responsible. With consciousness, with the faculty of knowing, you become responsible for yourself.

With consciousness, one becomes
responsible for everything.

Sartre has said somewhere that responsibility is the only human burden. No animal is responsible. Evolution is responsible for all that the animal is. The animal is not responsible for anything: man is responsible. So whatsoever you do will now be your responsibility. If you want to create a hell and go down, it is up to you. If you want to evolve, if you want to grow and create a blissful state, it is up to you.

Existentialists have made a very fine distinction - a beautiful one - which is meaningful also. They say that for animals essence is first and existence is a later growth. This is difficult to understand, but try: they say for animals, for trees, essence is first and existence follows. There is a seed: the seed, in essence, is the tree. The essence is there and the existence will follow. The essential thing is there; it surely has to be manifested, expressed. The tree will follow! The tree is not going to be a new thing. In a way, it was already there. So, really, the seed has no freedom: the tree exists in it. And the tree is also without freedom: it is predestined by the seed. This is what is meant by essence being first, below man, and then existence follows.

With man, the whole thing is just the opposite: existence comes first and then essence follows. You are not born with any fixed future: you will have to create it. You are born, so you have an existence - a simple existence with no essence. Now you will create the essence. So man creates himself. A tree is created by nature, but man creates himself.

Man is simply born as an existence with no essence. Then whatsoever you do will make your essence. Your acts will create you, and the freedom is multi-dimensional. A man can become anything or he may not become anything. He may remain just an existence without any essence; he may just remain a body without any soul. The soul is, in a way, to be created.

Gurdjieff used to say that you have no soul; you are without a soul. Unless you create it, how can you have it? It looks contradictory to all the teachings of religion, but it is not. When religion says that everyone has a soul, it only means that everyone can have a soul. That is a possibility. You can grow to be a soul. If you already have a soul, then there is no distinction between a seed and you. And if you are growing like a seed into a tree, if you are growing just like a seed into a man, then there is no difference between man and all that exists below man.

Man is a freedom - a freedom to be. He can be many things; he can be anything. But it may be that he will remain just a possibility without being anything. That creates a dizziness and that creates fear.

Kierkegaard has given the concept of "dread". He says that man Lives in dread. What is this dread, this fear? This is the fear: that you are simply a possibility and nothing else. You have only existence, no essence. You can create it, but you may miss it. The responsibility is yours. This is a very dreadful state. Nothing is certain; man is insecure. Every moment many directions open, and you have to move in some way, somewhere, without knowing where you are moving, without knowing what the result will be, without knowing what you will be tomorrow.

Your tomorrow will not come out automatically from your today, but the tomorrow of a seed will come out automatically from its today. The death of an animal will be the automatic result of his life, but not so with you: that is the difference. Your death will be your achievement; you will be responsible for it. And that is why every man dies in a specific way. No man's death is similar to anyone else's; it cannot be.

Dog A, Dog B, Dog C, they all die in one way. This death is just part of their life. They are not responsible for their life, they are not responsible for their death. When someone says that he will die a dog's death, it means that he will die without being evolved, without being an essence. He will be just a possibility. Two dogs die similarly; never two men. They cannot die similarly - and if they die similarly, that means they have missed the opportunity to evolve.

With consciousness entering, you are responsible for everything, no matter what. This is a great burden and a deep anguish. It creates fear. You are just over an abyss. This is what I mean when I say that man now needs a conscious effort. To be a man means entering a field of conscious evolution. Millions and millions of years have created you, but now nature will not help. This is the peak for natural growth. Now nature cannot do anything for you. It has done att it can already. Because of this, there is bound to be a deep inner tension every moment.

Man is in a tension. It is natural and it is good. Do not try to forget it: use it! You can try to forget it; then you miss the opportunity. So any effort to forget your tense state of mind is erroneous, dangerous. You are falling back. Use this inner tension to grow, to move further. Now you cannot move further in the body. The body has come to a dead end, a cul-de-sac. There is no further movement.

The body moves in a horizontal way. It is just like this: an aeroplane running on the earth, on the ground, along a strip, in order to take off. There is a moment when the horizontal running will stop. It will have to run for a mile or two or three just to gather momentum. Then a moment comes when no horizontal running is of any use. And if an aeroplane goes on running on the ground, it is not an aeroplane; it is behaving like a car. When the momentum comes, the aeroplane leaves the ground and a vertical upward movement takes place.

This is what has happened with man. Up to man, evolution has been running on the ground, so to speak. Now man is the momentum. Now with man, an upward vertical movement is the only movement. If you look at this point and think: "We must continue running on the ground because we were doing so for so many millions of years," you miss the whole thing - because this whole running was just for this moment when you could take off.

Animals are running toward man, trees are running toward animals, matter is running toward trees - everything on this earth is running toward man. So for what can man run? Man is the central focus. Everything is growing toward man. Horizontally, for man there is no movement. And if you continue horizontally, then your life will not really be a human life. Your life will consist of many layers which are not human.

Sometimes you will behave like an animal. If you go on horizontally, sometimes you may be just like a vegetable and sometimes you may be just dead matter, but never a man. So look deep down inside your life. It has not taken the vertical turn. Then what are you doing? If you think about each and every act. then you can know that one act belongs to the animal world, another act belongs to the vegetable kingdom, etc. Consider your activity, your life, and then you will know that something is just like dead matter, something is just like a vegetable growing and something is just like an animal.

Where is the man?

Question #1 (continued)

With the upward thrust, man comes into existence - and that is up to you. Conscious evolution is now going to be the only evolution. That is why religion will become more and more significant every day. Every day, every moment, religion will become more and more significant, because now scientists feel that there seems to be no movement. Of course, horizontally there is no movement. You cannot progress further; everything has stopped. So science goes on just adding to your senses.

Your eyes have stopped, so now you can use instruments to see. Your brain has stopped, so now you can use computers. Your legs have stopped, so now you can use cars. Whatsoever science is giving is just additional instruments for a growth that has stopped.

Man is not growing; only new instruments are growing. And, of course, every instrument increases your power, but you do not grow through it. Rather, the contrary is the case. Cars have added much in speed, but they have destroyed your legs. This is unfortunate, but this is going to happen: if computers replace man's mind - and they will replace it because man's mind is not so efficient as a computer can be - they will do much, but ultimately they will destroy man's mind because whatsoever is not used is destroyed, i.e., Use it or Lose it.

So science now feels that whatsoever is being done is just giving a false notion of evolution. If we go back to the past, then the highest speed was horse-speed - 25 miles per hour. Now we have come to 25,000 miles per hour in speed. Speed has evolved from 25 miles per hour to 25,000 miles per hour. Not man, but speed has evolved - not man! Man remains the same. Rather, on the contrary, man has regressed because a man riding a horse is a stronger man than a man flying in an aeroplane. Speed has progressed, evolved, but man has regressed.

A certain group of scientists thinks that man is a regression, not an evolvement. It may be so because in life you can never be static. If you are not evolving, you will regress. There is no static moment in life; you cannot remain at one point. You cannot say, "I am not growing, so I will remain whatsoever I am; I will maintain the status quo." You cannot maintain it! Either you go further or you fall down - back. A certain group of scientists thinks that man is regressing day by day, that there is an "infantilization". Man is behaving more like a child than like an adult - man everywhere on the earth.

If we look, many things become clear and obvious. One thing: in the past, it was always the old man, the evolved man, who was most predominant in society, but our society is the only society in the world's history where children have become predominant. They dominate everything - every trend, every fashion, everything. They are the models. Whatsoever they do becomes religion, whatsoever they do becomes politics, whatsoever they do sets a trend all over the world.

If we go back, a thirty-year-old person was behaving in a mature way. Now that is not the case. Even a thirty-year-old person is behaving in infantile ways, juvenile way - with the same tantrums, the same childish attitudes. What are these childish attitudes? A child thinks that he is the center of the world and that his every wish is to be fulfilled immediately. It is fulfilled. When he is hungry, milk is given. When he weeps, everyone pays attention. The whole family is centered around him.

Children become dictators. They know how to dictate the whole family. A very small child dictates the whole family. The father persuades him, the mother bribes him. Even when guests come into the home, he will dictate everything! A child thinks that he is the center of the world. He is to be supported, helped by everyone, without any cost. He is not to give love: he is only to demand. Of course, we cannot expect from a child that he should love. He demands and demands everything, and if the demand is not fulfilled he gets violent, angry. Then he is against the whole world; he will smash things.

Now this has happened with everyone. This was always so with children, but now this is with everyone. Our so-called revolutions are nothing else but childish efforts. Our so-called rebellions are nothing else but everyone thinking himself to be at the center. His every desire should be fulfilled immediately; and if it is not fulfilled, then he is going to destroy the whole world.

Students revolt in universities all over the world. They just show immature, juvenile minds. What does it mean, students throwing stones at university windows, setting fire to buildings, destroying? What does it mean? They have no sense of maturity at all. And if you begin to think about it, it is not only students and children, boys and girls: if you look at our modern man - even at a father or a mother - you will see that they are behaving childishly. If you look at our politicians, they are just behaving childishly with no maturity at all.

What has happened? Really, man's growth has stopped: evolutionary growth has stopped. And now we have just a substitute for this growth - scientific accumulation. Man has stopped; things grow. Your house goes on becoming bigger and bigger, and you remain the same.

Your wealth grows, and because of this growth you feel that you are growing. Your knowledge grows, your information grows, and because of this you think that you are growing.

Of course, obviously, a Buddha knows less than you, but that doesn't mean that you are more grown-up. A Jesus knows less than you. He knows less than any Catholic priest because he was never trained, never educated. He was just a carpenter's son - uneducated, with no information of the world; but still, you are not more evolved than him. A Mohammed is just illiterate, a Kabir is just a nobody - but they are more evolved. But then that evolution is something else: an evolution of consciousness, not just of things.

You can substitute having for being. Being is a different dimension of growth - a vertical one; having is horizontal. Things go on and on, and you have so many things - so much information, so much knowledge, so much wealth, so many degrees, so many honours. But this is accumulation: it is horizontal. There is no upward thrust. You remain the same. And you cannot really remain the same, because if you are not growing you begin to behave childishly: you regress. This is one of the greatest problems humanity is encountering today.

Science can only give you things. It can give you moons and planets, and it can give you the whole universe. Religion can give you only one thing: upward movement, a vertical growth, a conscious methodology to grow into being. It is not important what you have. It is totally irrelevant for your growth. The only significant thing is what you are, and this growth toward being is a responsibility because it is a freedom. Now you are not forced by evolutionary forces to grow: you are in freedom.

Evolution is not goading you. It is goading animals, it is goading trees, it is goading everything except man. Evolution is pushing hard so that everything may grow. But with man the thing is finished. Now you have become conscious, so you can do whatsoever you want to do.

Sartre says man is condemned to be free - "condemned" to be free! The whole nature is at ease because there is no freedom. Freedom is a great burden; that is why we do not like freedom. Howsoever we may talk about it, nobody likes freedom; everyone fears freedom. Freedom is a dangerous thing. In nature there is no freedom; that is why there is so much silence. You can never say to a dog, "You are an imperfect dog." Every dog is perfect. You can say to a man, "You are not a perfect man": it is meaningful. But to say to a dog, "You are not a perfect dog," is absurd. Every dog is perfect because a dog is not free to be. He is goaded by evolution. He is made; he is not self-created.

A rose is a rose. However beautiful, it is not free; it is just a slave. Look at a rose: it is beautiful, but just a slave - goaded. There is no freedom to flower or not to flower. There is no problem, there is no choice: a flower is to flower. The flower cannot say, "I do not like flowering," or "I refuse." It has no say, no freedom. That is why nature is so silent: it is a slave. It cannot err, it cannot go wrong. And if you cannot go wrong, if you are always right,, and if your "right" is not in your hands, then you are just goaded by external forces.

Nature is a deep slavery. With man, for the first time, freedom enters. Man has a freedom to be or not to be. Then there is anguish, fear whether he will be capable, whether he may or may not be, fear over what is going to happen. There is a deep trembling. Every moment is a suspended moment. Nothing is fixed or certain, nothing is predictable with man: everything is unpredictable.

We talk about freedom, but no one likes freedom. So we go on talking about freedom, but creating slavery. We talk about freedom and then create a new slavery. Our every freedom is just a change of slaveries. We go on changing from one slavery to another, from one bondage to another. No one likes freedom because freedom creates fear. Then you have to decide and choose. We ask someone or something else to tell us what to do - the society, the guru, the scriptures, the tradition, the parents. Someone else should tell us what to do; someone should show the path, then we can follow - but we cannot move by ourselves. There is freedom and there is fear.

That is why there are so many religions. They are not because of Jesus and Buddha and Krishna. They are because of a deep-rooted fear of freedom. You cannot be just a man. You have to be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian. Just by being a Christian, you lose your freedom; by being a Hindu you are no more a man - because now you say, "I will follow a tradition. I will not move in the uncharted, in the unknown. I will move on a well-trodden path. I will move behind someone; I will not move alone. I am a Hindu, so I will move in a crowd: I will not move as an individual. If I move as an individual, alone, there is freedom. Then every moment I have to decide, every moment I have to give birth to myself, every moment I am creating my soul. And no one else will be responsible: only I will be responsible ultimately."

Nietzsche has said: "Now God is dead and man is totally free." If God is really dead then man is totally free. And man is not so afraid of God's death: he is much more afraid of his freedom. If there is a God, then everything is okay with you. If there is no God, then you are left totally free - condemned to be free. Now do whatsoever you like and suffer the consequences, and no one else will be responsible.

Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm has written a book called "The Fear of Freedom". You fall in love and you begin to think of marriage. Love is a freedom; marriage is a slavery. But it is difficult to find a person who falls in love and who will not think of marriage - immediately. Because love is a freedom, there is fear. Marriage is a fixed thing; there is no fear. Marriage is an institution - dead; love is an event - alive. It moves; it may change. Marriage never moves, it never changes. Because of this marriage has a certainty, a security.

Love has no certainty, no security. Love is insecure. Any moment it may disappear into the blue as it has appeared from the blue. Any moment it may disappear! It is very unearthly; it has no roots in the earth. It is unpredictable. So: "Better get into marriage. Then roots are there. Now this marriage cannot evaporate into the blue. It is an institution!" Everywhere - just as in love - everywhere, when we find freedom, we transform it into a slavery. The sooner the better! Then we are at ease. So every love story ends with marriage: "They were married, and after that they lived happily ever after."

No one is happy, but it is good to end the story there because then begins the hell. So every story ends with the most beautiful moment. And what is that moment? Freedom turning into slavery! And that is not only with love: it is with everything. So marriage is an ugly thing; it is bound to be. Every institution is going to be ugly because it is just a dead corpse of something which was alive. But with anything alive, uncertainty is bound to be there.

"Alive" means it can move, it can change, it can be different. I love you; the next moment I may not love. But if I am your husband or I am your wife, you can be certain that the next moment also I will be your husband or your wife. It is an institution. Dead things are very permanent; alive things are momentary, changing, in a flux.

Man is afraid of freedom, and freedom is the only thing which makes you a man. So we are suicidal - destroying our freedom. And with that destruction we are destroying our whole possibility of being. Then having is good because having means accumulating dead things. You can go on accumulating; there is no end to it. And the more you accumulate, the more secure you are. When I say, "Now man has to move consciously," I mean this, that you have to be aware of your freedom and also aware of your fear of freedom.

How to use this freedom? Religion is nothing but an effort toward conscious evolution, an effort how to use this freedom. Your volitional efforts are now significant. Whatsoever you are doing non- voluntarily is just part of the past. Your future depends on your volitional acts. A very simple act done with awareness, with volition, gives you a certain growth - even an ordinary act.

You go on a fast, but not because you have no food. You have food; you can eat it. You have hunger; you can eat. You go on a fast: it is a volitional act - a conscious act. No animal can perform this. An animal will go on a fast sometimes when there is no hunger. An animal will have to fast when there is no food. But only man can fast when there is hunger and food both. This is a volitional act. You use your freedom. The hunger cannot goad you. The hunger cannot push you and the food cannot pull you.

If there is no food, it is not a fast. If there is no hunger, it is naturopathy; it is not a fast. Hunger is there, food is there, and you are on a fast. This fasting is a volitional act, a conscious act. This will give you much awareness. You will feel a subtle freedom: freedom from food, freedom from hunger - really, deep down, freedom from the body, and still more deep down, freedom from nature. And your freedom grows and your consciousness grows. As your consciousness grows, your freedom grows. They are interrelated. Be more free and you will be more conscious; be more conscious and you will be more free: they are interdependent.

But we can deceive ourselves. A son, a daughter, can say, "I will rebel against my father so that I may be more free." Hippies are doing that. But rebellion is not freedom because it is just natural. At a particular age, to rebel against parents is not freedom: it is just natural! A child who is just coming out of the womb of his mother cannot say, "I am leaving the womb." It is natural.

When someone is sexually mature, it is a second birth. Now he must fight his parents, because only if he fights with his parents will he move further away from them. And unless he moves further away from them he cannot create a new family nucleus. So every child will go against his parents: this is natural. And if a child is not going against, it is a growth - because then he is fighting nature.

For example, you get married. Your mother and your wife are coming into conflict, which is natural - natural, I say, because for the mother it is a great shock. You have moved to another woman. Up to now you were wholly and solely your mother's. And it makes no difference that she is your mother: deep down no one is a mother and no one is a wife. Deep down every female is a woman. Suddenly you have moved to another woman, and the woman in your mother will suffer, will become jealous.

Fight and conflict are natural. But if your mother can still love you it is a growth. If your mother can love you more than she ever loved you now that you have moved to a new woman, it is a growth, it is a conscious growth. She is going above natural instincts.

When you are a child you love your parents. That is natural - just a bargain. You are helpless, and they are doing everything for you. You love them and you give them respect. When your parents have become old and they cannot do anything for you, if you still respect and love them, it is a growth. Any time natural instinct is transcended, you grow. You have made a volitional decision, so your being will grow and you will acquire an essence.

The old Indian culture tried in every way to make life such that everything becomes a growth. It is natural for a small child to respect his father, but it is unnatural to respect him when the father has become old, dying, unable to do anything for the child and is just a burden to him. Then it is unnatural! No animal can do that; the natural bond has broken. Only man can do that, and if it is done you grow. It is volitional. You grow with any volitional act, simple or complex.

Question #1 (continued)

The old Indian culture tried in every way to make life such that everything becomes a growth. It is natural for a small child to respect his father, but it is unnatural to respect him when the father has become old, dying, unable to do anything for the child and is just a burden to him. Then it is unnatural! No animal can do that; the natural bond has broken. Only man can do that, and if it is done you grow. It is volitional. You grow with any volitional act, simple or complex.

I will tell you a story...

In the "Mahabharat", Bhishma's father fell in love with a girl. He was very old. But even when you are old, to fall in love is natural. Even on the deathbed you can fall in love.

The girl was ready, but the girl's father made a condition. He said, "You have your son Bhishma."

Bhishma was young, just to be married. The girl's father said, "Bhishma will inherit your kingdom, so make it a condition to me that if any son is born from my daughter to you, he will inherit the kingdom, not Bhishma."

It was so unnatural for the father to tell Bhishma this. He was an old man; he could have died any day. But he was worried and he became sad, so Bhishma asked him, "What is the matter? Something is on your mind. What can I do, tell me?"

So he fabricated a story. Old men are very efficient. He said, "Because you are the only son, only one to me, and because no one can trust in nature, if you die or something happens, then who will inherit my kingdom? So I have talked with wise men and they say that it is better that I marry again so that I can get another son."

So Bhishma said, "What is wrong in it? You marry."

Then the father said, "There is a difficulty. I want to marry this girl, but it is the condition of her father that 'Your son Bhishma should not inherit the kingdom. Only my daughter's son should.' "

So Bhishma said, "It is okay with me. I give you my promise."

Bhishma went to the man whose daughter was going to marry his father. He said, "I promise you, I will not inherit the kingdom."

But that man was just a fisherman, very ordinary. He said. "I know. But how can you promise me? Your sons may create trouble. And we are just fishermen, very ordinary people. If your sons create trouble, we will not be able to do anything."

So Bhishma said, "I promise you: I will never marry. Okay?" Then the whole thing was finished.

This was very unnatural. He was a young man, and he never married, he never looked at a woman with any carnal desire. This became a growth. This created a subtle being, an integration, a crystallization. Then there was no need for any other SADHANA (spiritual practice). Only this fact was enough. He was crystallized. This promise was enough! He became a different man; he began to grow vertically. The natural horizontal line stopped. With this promise, everything stopped. There was no biological possibility now. Everything natural became meaningless.

But Bhishma is rare. With no spiritual practice, with no spiritual effort other than this, he attained the highest peak possible. So with any act, simple or complex, which is a conscious decision on your part without any instructive goading behind it, without any natural force forcing you to decide - if it is your decision, through that decision you are created. Every decision is decisive for your birth: you grow in a different dimension. So use any act, even very ordinary acts.

You are sitting: decide that "Now I will not move my body for ten minutes." You will be surprised that though the body was not moving before, now the body forces you to move. You begin to feel many subtle movements in the body of which you were not even aware. Now the body will revolt. The whole past is behind it, and the body will say, "I will move." The body will begin to tremble, there will be subtle movements, and you will feel many temptations to move. Your legs will fall asleep. They will go dead, and you will feel to scratch somewhere. Many things will be there. You were sitting without any movements previously, but now you cannot sit. But if you can sit even for ten minutes without moving, you will not need any other meditation.

Sitting in Za-zen

In Japan they call "just sitting" the only meditation. Their word for it is "Za-zen". "Za-zen" means just sitting. But then sit and do not do anything else. When a seeker comes to a Zen Master, the Master will say, "Just sit: sit for hours together." In a zen monastery you will see many, many seekers sitting for hours together - just sitting, not doing anything. No meditation is given, no contemplation, no prayer. Just sitting is the meditation.

A seeker will sit for six hours without any movement, and when every movement falls down, withers away, when there is no movement - not only no movement, but no inner desire to move - you are centered, you are crystallized! You have used the very ordinary act of sitting for your volition, for your will, for your awareness.

It is very difficult. If I say to you, "Just close your eyes and do not open them," many temptations will be there. And then you will feel very uneasy at not opening them, and you will open them. And you can deceive yourself that "I am not opening them. Suddenly they opened themselves; the eyes opened themselves. I was not aware." Or, you can just deceive another way: you can have a small glimpse, a little glimpse, and then close your eyes.

If you can keep your eyes shut just as a volitional act, that will help. Anything can become a medium to grow, so contemplate on your habits. And whatsoever you do, do it volitionally. Anything, any habit can be used, any mechanical action can be used. Begin to do otherwise: change it, and then once you decide on something, do it - otherwise it may prove fatal.

It does prove so! If you decide something and do not do it, it is better not to decide, because that will give your will a very deep shock. And we are doing that. We go on deciding and not doing. Ultimately, we lose every possibility for will, and we begin to feel a deep will-lessness, a deep impotency, a deep weakness. And you decide about very ordinary things. Someone decides, "Now I am not going to smoke," and the next day he is smoking. You may think, "What is wrong with it? It was my decision - and I am the master of my decisions, so I have changed it."

You are not! You have changed because you are not the master. Smoking proves the master, not you. Smoking is more powerful than you. Then it is better not to decide - to go on smoking. But if you decide, then let this decision be final. Then never move from it. That will give you a growth.

Of course, every habit will fight with you, and your mind will say, "What are you doing? That is wrong!" Your mind will rationalize in many, many ways. I do not say smoking is wrong. I say deciding not to smoke and then to smoke is wrong. Even do the vice versa: if you decide to smoke, then smoke. Then do not stop. Then whatsoever happens - cancer or whatsoever - let it happen. If the whole world goes against it, let it: if you have decided to smoke, then smoke. Even at the cost of life, go on smoking. That will give you a growth.

So it is not a question of a cigarette or no cigarette, smoking or not smoking. Deep down it is a question of following a decision, of will, of a voluntary act. Whatsoever the object is, it is irrelevant, but decide and with small decisions you can create a great will - with very small decisions.

Just say, "I will not look out of the window for one hour." It is a very, very small decision with no meaning - meaningless. Who will bother to see whether you look out of the window or not? And nothing is happening out of the window. But the moment you decide not to look out of the window, your whole being will revolt and would like to see, and the window will become the focus of the whole world. It is as if you are missing everything - something is going to happen there!

One day Mulla Nasrudin decided not to go to the market. It was just in the early morning at five o'clock. There was no question of the market. He just decided not to go! Then he began to think about the market. And he decided just because he remembered that every week, once a week, was market-day in the village. He thought, "Every week I go to the market uselessly with nothing to sell and nothing to buy."

He was a poor man: "nothing to sell and nothing to buy!" He thought. "Why do I go to the market unnecessarily? Because everyone goes, and it is a market-day, a festivity in the village? Why should I go? Today I am not going although it is a market day."

He decided early at five o'clock. Then he began to think about it: "What if something happens there? I should go in case something happens there." So he worked it out, and he was fidgeting inside. And then, by six o'clock, he was in the market. There were still four or five hours for the market to open, for people to gather, but he was in the market sitting under a tree, just in the center of the market.

Someone asked Mulla Nasrudin, "Why are you sitting here so early?"

Nasrudin said, "It is a market-day, and I thought that if something happens and a large crowd is there, I may not get to the right point. So I am just sitting here in the center. If something happens, then I will be the first. And who knows? In this world, everything is possible."

The market-place became very significant, the center of the world, and it became tempting just by the decision that "I am not going to the market, because every week I go uselessly with nothing to sell and nothing to purchase."

The moment you decide, you will be tempted, and to transcend temptation is a growth. Remember, it is not suppression. It is not suppression! It is transcendence. The temptation is there: you do not fight it - you acknowledge it. You say, "Okay, you are there, but I have decided." Try it for your meditation.

Uninvited Guests

You are sitting, and when you sit for meditation many thoughts will come - uninvited guests. They never come ordinarily. When you meditate, only then do they become interested in you. They will come, they will crowd, they will encircle you. Do not fight with them. Just say, "I have decided not to be disturbed by you," and remain still. A thought comes to you; just say to the thought, "Go away." Do not fight! By fighting you acknowledge; by fighting you accept; by fighting you will prove weaker. Just say, "Go away!" and remain still. You will be surprised. Just by saying to a thought, "Go away!" it goes away.

But say it with a will. Your mind must not be divided. It must not be something like a feminine no. It must not be like that, because with a feminine no, the more forcefully it is said the more forcefully it means yes. It must not be a feminine no. If you say, "Go away," then do not mean inside, "Come nearer." Then let it be "Go away!" Mean it, and the thought will disappear. If you are angry and you have decided not to be angry, do not suppress it. Just say to the anger, "I am not going to be angry," and the anger will disappear.

There is a mechanism. Your will is needed because anger needs energy. If you say no with full energy, there is no energy left for the anger. A thought moves because deep down a hidden yes is there. That is why a thought moves in your mind. If you say no, that yes is cut from the very root. The thought becomes uprooted. It cannot be in you. But then with the no or yes you must mean what you say. Then the no must mean no and the yes must mean yes. But we go on saying yes, meaning no; telling no, meaning yes. Then the whole life becomes confused. And your mind, your body, they do not know what you mean, what you are saying.

This conscious effort to decide, to act, to be, is now going to be the evolution for man. A Buddha is different from you because of this effort and nothing else. Potentially there is no difference. Only this conscious effort makes the difference. Between man and man, the real difference is only of conscious effort. All else is just superficial. Only your clothes are different, so to speak. But when you have something conscious in you, a growth, an inward growth which is not natural, but which goes beyond, then you have a distinct individuality.

Buddha was passing a village where many people had come to insult him. He said, "You have come late. You should have come ten years before because now I have become conscious. Now I cannot react. If you abuse me, if you insult me, it is okay with me. I am not going to react. You cannot force me to react."

When someone abuses you he is forcing you to be angry, and when you become angry you are just a slave to anger. "He" has made you angry, and you go on saying, without understanding what you are saying, "That man made me angry." What do you mean? He said something and he made you angry, so he is your master. He can say something, he can manipulate, he can push a button, and you are angry. You become mad. Your button can be pushed by anyone, and you can be made mad.

Buddha said, "You have come late, friends. Now I have become the master of my own self. You cannot force me to do anything. If I want, I do. If I do not want, I do not do. You will have to go back. I am not going to reply to you." They were puzzled because this man was behaving very unpredictably. When you abuse someone, he is insulted, he feels angry, he "must" react in some way or the other. But this man simply refused to react. Buddha told them. "I am in a hurry to reach the other village. If you are finished, then allow me to move. If you have something more to say, when I will be coming back be ready to tell me."

This is transcendence. Something natural has been transcended. Reaction is natural, action is growth. We all react. We have no actions - only reactions. Someone appreciates you and you feel good, and someone abuses you and you feel bad, and someone will do this and this or that will happen. You are predictable.

A husband returning to his house knows what his wife is going to ask. He prepares the answer. Though he has not yet reached home, he prepares the answer. He knows that his wife is not going to believe it, and the wife knows what she is going to ask and what her husband is going to answer. Everything is predictable, and every day this will happen. And this will continue for the whole life. The same questions, the same answers, the same suspicions, the same doubts, the same tricks, the same games - and people go on playing. These are just reactions.

Someone asked for some money, and Mulla Nasrudin said, "This is the first time you have asked, so I will give it to you." He gave the money. It was a small sum. Then Mulla thought, "This much money is not going to be given back." But the man returned it. After seven days the man returned it. Mulla was surprised.

A week later, the man again came to ask for some money. The Mulla said, "Now you cannot deceive me again. You deceived me last time."

The man said, "What are you saying! I returned your money."

But Mulla said, "But you deceived me because I was all set for you not to give it back. It was decidedly so. Then you deceived me by giving it back. Now you cannot deceive me again. I am not going to give you the money."

If someone behaves unpredictably, it surprises us. You are so predictable, everyone knows what you are going to do. You do this, and this will follow. It is a mechanical response. Go beyond mechanical responses; transcend natural forces; create a will. That is the path beyond human evolution. Below the human there is a natural growth, but that is no longer for man now.

And the second part of the question is:

The Buddhas play a role because human consciousness is not only individual, it is also collective. It is in you, but it is also outside of you. In a way, consciousness is in you and you are in a greater consciousness, just like a fish in the sea. The fish is in the sea and the sea is also in the fish.

We exist in a great ocean of consciousness. And whenever a Buddha is born, whenever someone attains Buddhahood, becomes Enlightened through his efforts, through his conscious evolution, a wave in the ocean rises. With that wave everything in the ocean is affected. It is bound to be so because a wave in the ocean is part of a great pattern.

When Buddha rises to a height, the whole ocean is affected in multi-multi ways. Now this height will be echoed all over. You throw a stone into a lake: a small circle is created. Then it goes on expanding, and the whole lake will be affected ultimately. A Buddha is a stone in the lake of human consciousness. Now humanity can never be the same again as it was before a Buddha.

Christians have made it a very significant point. They divide history into "before Christ" and "after Christ". This is really very significant. Really, history is different and is not divided, but the division is made because after Christ there is a change. Because a Christ is born, humanity can never go back again to the same premature state of mind. Everything is affected. We rise with Buddhas, we fall with Hitlers, but this rise and fall is a natural thing for you. A Buddha is born: everyone rises with him. But this is not a conscious effort on your part.

You can use this opportunity. A Buddha is there: a possibility has flowered into its essence, one consciousness has become a peak. Now this is a very good moment for your conscious effort. You will take less time, you will need less effort. It is as if the whole history is flowing toward its height. Now you can swim easily. But if you do not use the opportunity you will go to a height and you will come down. With a Buddha you will go high, with a Hitler you will come down. You will go on moving up and down. This moving up and down will be a natural force for you. For a Buddha it is a conscious effort; for you it will be a natural force.

You can use it! Man can use it in two ways. When a Buddha is there, to rise is easy. The whole consciousness is open toward the peak. The peak is there. Deep down in you there are echoes of it. The music is heard deep down; you can follow it. If you make a small effort, you can attain Buddhahood very easily.

There is a very meaningful story.

Buddha attained the Ultimate; then he remained silent for seven days. He had no feeling to say what he had attained. The silence seemed total - unbreakable. Then Brahma became afraid: "He may not speak, and it happens rarely that someone attains Buddhahood." So the story says that Brahma came to Buddha, bowed down at his feet and said, "You must speak! Do not remain silent. You have to speak!"

Buddha said, "It seems useless because those who can hear me and understand me will understand even without me. But those who will not hear me, even if they hear they will not be able to understand me. So there seems no need."

Brahma said, "There are a few more you are leaving out: there are a few more who are just on the verge. If you speak, they will hear and take the jump. If you do not speak, they may even fall back. They are just on the border. They will hear you and will take a jump."

A Buddha is there. This is a possibility to take a jump. But you are affected whether you take the jump or not. You will be affected! But this affect, without your conscious will, will be a natural force.

And when a Hitler comes up you will go down. Just as you go higher with Buddha, you can go down with anyone else - because the going up is not your achievement. With a rising wave you go up, then with a falling wave you go down. But you can use the opportunity. When you are rising high, then with a very small effort on the part of your will, you can attain more. So with a Buddha, thousands can become Buddhas.

I do not know whether you know it or not, but within five hundred years everything great as far as religion is concerned happened. Within five hundred years! Buddha - Gautam the Buddha - Mahavir, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Jesus, they all happened within five hundred years, in a particular period when everything was rising high. Every great religion was born within those five hundred years.

Something mysterious was at the root - something very mysterious. Just in Bihar, in a very small place, in a very small province, at the time when Buddha was there, there were eight persons of Buddha's height. Just in the small area of Bihar there were eight great Enlightened persons. Mahavir was there, Buddha was there. Ajit Keshkambal was there, Belathiputta was there - eight such persons! And these are the known persons.

Someone asked Buddha, "You have 10,000 bhikkhus with you. How many of them have attained Buddhahood?"

Buddha said, "So many, I cannot count."

The questioner asked, "Why are they silent? Why do we not feel them? Why are they not famous?"

Buddha said, "When I am speaking, there is no need for them to speak. And moreover, when for the first time I attained Buddhahood, I myself tried in every way to be silent. It was Brahma who asked me and persuaded me to speak. So they have become silent. No one will know about them; even their names will not be known."

One day Buddha came to his assembly of monks with a flower in his hand. He was to speak, but he would not speak. He just sat, and this continued for a long time. Everyone became puzzled and disturbed and began to whisper into one another's ears, "What is the matter? Why is he not speaking today?" He was just sitting there with a flower in his hand - a lotus flower - looking at it, totally absorbed in it. Then someone asked, "Are you not going to speak?"

Buddha said, "I am speaking. Listen!" And he remained silent.

Then someone else asked, "We cannot understand what you are doing, sir. You are just looking at the flower and we have come to listen to something from you."

Buddha said, "I have said many things to you which could be said. Now I am saying something which cannot be said, and if someone understands let him laugh."

Only one person laughed - Mahakashyap. He was not known before; no one knew about him. This is the only incident that is known. Mahakashyap was his name.

A young Mahākāśyapa, wood,
eighteenth century, Korea.

Ananda was a very known disciple, Sariputta was a very known disciple, Modgalayan was a very known disciple, but Mahakashyap was an absolutely unknown disciple. Neither Sariputta nor Ananda nor Modgalayan could laugh - just a very unknown man, no one knew about him, but he laughed. Buddha called him, "Mahakashyap, come to me!" And Buddha gave the flower to Mahakashyap and said, "Whatsoever I could say I have said to others, and what I cannot say I say to you. Take this flower." This is the only incident known about Mahakashyap, the only mention of his name.

But when Bodhidharma reached China seven hundred years after Buddha, he said, "I am a disciple of Mahakashyap. Buddha was the first teacher, Mahakashyap was the second teacher, and in that line I am the twenty-eighth." So the Zen tradition in Japan says that Mahakashyap is their originator - the man who laughed and the man to whom Buddha gave the flower.

In the night when everyone dispersed, when everyone had gone, Ananda asked, "Who is this Mahakashyap? We never knew about him. He is just a very unknown and strange man."

Buddha said, "How can you know about him? He has remained silent for years. And only he could laugh because he remained so silent. Only he could understand. It was a transmission without words, a communication without words. Only he was capable."

When a Buddha is there, with a very small effort of your will you can achieve much. When a Buddha is not there, you are fighting against a current. When a Hitler or a Genghis Khan is there, much effort is needed. Even then, success is very difficult.

Buddha is reported to have said, "Choose the right moment to be born. Choose a moment when a Buddha is there."

If you are a driver, you go on talking, you go on thinking, you go on singing, or you can put on your radio, and drive. You are not driving. The robot part of you, the mechanical part, is driving. You will be needed only when something new happens, when some accident happens suddenly; then you will be required. Otherwise you are not required at all. You can be at ease somewhere else: you need not be in your car at all.

When you are driving mechanically, you are not there. You may have already reached the destination, and the robot part, the mechanical part, is still driving. Your soul can fly to the stars or to the clouds, anywhere, but the robot part does everything. This gives you a feeling of convenience. So with everything routinized, you feel a convenience. With anything more, you have to be conscious, aware. When you are learning to drive, then there is a problem. You feel some discomfort in learning because then you have to be conscious.

Unconsciousness is such a drug; consciousness is such an effort. When you learn something, you have to be conscious every moment. That consciousness is felt as a strain. It is not, but because we are always behaving in a mechanical way, it seems to be. The person who is thinking in terms of spirituality must think in terms of awareness – more and more awareness. Awareness comes only when you go on facing new factors.

Biologists say that animals live in a world where awareness is not needed, in a routine circle. They perform acts that are exactly alike. One animal’s birth is not different from another animal’s birth in any way. Death is not different, sex is not different. Everything is similar because everything is done by instinct.

A bird makes a nest, an animal makes a den, still another animal makes something else. They make them through instinct. No learning is needed; they are never taught. This is done by their robot part. It is inherent in their cells. They must go on doing the same things. Even if a bird is hatched without its parents there, and no other birds are allowed to meet him, when the time is ripe he will begin to make a nest. And the nest will be the same, exactly the same, as his ancestors have been making for centuries and centuries. No one has taught them, no awareness is needed. It is just in their cells. It is instinctive, a mechanical thing, so they do it.

With man, there is difficulty. Man has to be taught everything – EVERYTHING! Now biologists say that soon, after this century, we will have to teach sex. You will have to be trained, because now even sex is not as instinctive as it was. You may feel that there has been an eruption, an explosion of sex books all over the world. Just as there are books on how to learn driving, they now have them on how to love – books on how to love, how to achieve perfect sex.

No animal needs anything to know about sex, so why man? With man everything has to be learned. Why? Because the robot part in man is secondary, and consciousness, which is primary, has come in. It is the central force. You have to learn everything; then choice comes in. You have to choose what to learn, what not to learn.

Spirituality will be your greatest choice. It is up to you. You may choose to look at the world in a spiritual way, you may choose to look at the world in a materialistic way. No one will tell you not to choose it and no one can force you. If you choose the materialistic outlook you will have one kind of life, and if you choose the spiritual outlook, you will have a totally different life. This is freedom.

Biologists say that this consciousness came to human life because long before, at least two million years before, some apes, the forefathers of man, came down from the trees and began to walk on two legs instead of on four. Instead of four, they began to walk on two legs.

The two hands were released. With these two hands released many things happened, and the greatest was that the factor of awareness came in. When the apes were on trees, they were not in any danger. They were secured in their trees. No lion could kill them, no tiger could attack them. They were secured in their trees. They were moving in their trees from one tree to another, and that was a mechanical thing – inherent, hereditary.

But it is yet an unknown factor – an X – why certain apes came down to earth. It seems many reasons are possible. It seems that either there was a sudden population explosion: they were so many that they had to find somewhere new to live – trees were less and they became more; or, suddenly there were no rains for many years, and trees died and became dry, and they had to come down. But whatsoever may have happened, these are all guesses.

Someone has suggested recently, a great scientist, that it seems that humanity was born out of illness. Some apes became very ill because of an attack of a certain virus, a certain illness. Apes became so ill that they could not live by hanging on the trees. They became so weak that they had to come to the earth. It is possible, but whatsoever may have been the basic cause, this man is certain that when apes came down to the earth they had to be more alert. Then their mechanical habits alone couldn’t do, their inherited instincts weren’t sufficient. They had to walk on an unknown territory. The very walking, the stature, the posture, was so new, and their bodies were not accustomed to it. With two-legged walking, they became biped from quadruped. In their cells there was no knowledge about it. That is why when a man is born, when a child is born, he still has to learn to walk. Still it is not instinctive.

A horse is born: he can run. A calf is born: he can run. No need to learn to walk. But man has to learn to walk. And if you put a small child somewhere where no one walks and he cannot imitate, then he will not walk for his whole life.

In certain wolves’ caves, some children have been found who had grown up with wolves. They could not walk. Just four or five years back, in a forest of U.P. (India), a boy of fourteen was found in a community of wolves. They must have taken him from the village, and then he was brought up by them. Fourteen years, and he couldn’t walk! He was not a biped: he was still a quadruped. He would walk on all fours, and he would walk like a wolf, not like a man.

Walking is still an effort, so when a child walks parents are so happy. The reason is because this is something valuable, an achievement. We have in our language many things which show this attitude. We say that someone is ”standing on his own legs; he is standing on his own two feet”. This is something valuable, something worthwhile, something to be appreciated. We condemn someone by saying, ”You are still not standing on your own two feet.”

Because man came into a new situation from the trees to the earth – in which everything was new, in which the robot would not work, in which instinct would not help – that is why intelligence developed. He had to be aware, and he had to be aware every moment because there were so many dangers all around. He was surrounded by enemies, and he was weak because no instinct would help now. This dangerous situation was the first school for alertness.

Man had to become alert!

Death of Devadatta, sinking into the Earth

Now, in this present time, man has created a very, very secure state of affairs, so he can be just like a robot. There is no need to be alert. That is why the sharpness, the alertness, the awareness, has to be chosen again, and you have to put yourself into new dangers. If you move into a jungle or you begin to live with a wild animal, that is not real danger. You can accustom yourself to it; it can become part of your inner robot mechanism. The only danger for man now is to live from moment to moment without the help of the past, to live from moment to moment in the present – alert, aware, conscious. That is going to be your choice, without any cause.

Look at it in another way: science is causal. That means it is past-oriented. If something is to be found, science will go to the past. If you are ill, science will go to your past history, your case history, to see why this illness happened. Science cannot move to the future; it always moves to the past. If you are blind, science will go to your past, to your parents’ past. It moves to the past; it goes to find out the cause. Then the effects can be explained.

Religion is future-oriented, not past-oriented, so ”why” cannot be answered in scientific terms. It is future-oriented; you can understand it. It is not that something is causing you to be spiritual. Rather, something is calling you to be spiritual – not causing you, but calling you.

Always certain spiritual persons have said, ”A certain call has come to me.” The call comes from the future, not from the past. It is end-oriented, not origin-oriented. Freedom is there to choose. You can choose whatsoever is going to be your destiny; you can choose whatsoever you are going to achieve and to be. If you feel hungry, you seek food: this is caused. If you feel inner tensions and then choose meditation, this is caused. Then your meditation is a scientific effort.

But it is uncaused if you say. "I do not know why, but there is a certain calling – a call toward you. I have to move in this direction. I feel an unknown scent. It is not coming from my past, but it is something from the future inviting me, something unknown inviting me. I will move. It is dangerous because I do not know what is going to happen; I cannot be sure what the consequence will be. But I will move.” Then it is a jump. And, remember, this is not so only in this age. This has always been so and this always will be so.

I am also asked: 'whether I feel the present generation is capable of creating Enlightened Ones like Krishna, Lao Tzu and Christ.' 

Spirituality is not concerned with time at all – time or age. A Lao Tzu is born not because of a particular time; a Buddha is born not because of a particular age. There were so many in Buddha’s age, but only one became the Buddha. The age was the same to all, time was the same to all.

Time is irrelevant for spirituality because spirituality exists in eternity, not in time. Any moment is as good as any other. You can be a Buddha this very moment. Time is absolutely irrelevant. Time neither helps nor hinders. It will not say what you are, what you are going to do, or that Enlightenment cannot happen, or that because this is the twentieth century it cannot happen in this century. Time has no determining capacity for spirituality.

For other things it has. For example, you could not fly in the sky in an aeroplane in Buddha’s age. You had to move in a bullock cart because only after a certain period of evolution was the aeroplane possible. Now you can move in an aeroplane, but you cannot yet go to other solar families. Whatsoever you do, you cannot go just now. We have moved only as far as the moon. It will take at least twenty centuries more to go to another solar system. To go beyond the family of this sun it will take at least twenty more centuries. It is a gradual process.

Many things will have to be developed. A bullock cart will become an aeroplane, but many steps will have to be taken. So you could not do certain things in Buddha’s age as far as the outside world was concerned. But as far as the inside world is concerned, any moment, any time, is as good as any other, because when you move inside time disappears. This has to be understood.

A Buddha is meditating: he has gone deep inside. There is no time. Time ceases; he is not even aware of time. Time stops. If you move inside, time will stop. Buddha meditating twenty-five centuries before will drop out of time; meditating just today, you will also drop out of time. And there will be no difference between you and Buddha because all differences are time differences.

You wear certain clothes which Buddha cannot wear; you know many things which Buddha cannot know. You belong to a different world, a different education, a different culture, and Buddha belongs to a different world. But when you move in, you move outside – outside of culture, outside of society, outside of education. When you go in – you go into a different world uncreated by the society, and then you can move. But it is a human tendency to think that our own age is bad, evil, that our own time is bad. This is a human tendency!

And this is not only the case today. It has always been so. The most ancient record has been found in Babylon. It is at least 7,000 years old, but if you publish it in any of tomorrow’s morning newspapers as an editorial, it will do. You need not change anything in it. It says, ”This is the age of darkness; this is the age of corruption; this is the age of immorality and sin. Everything good has disappeared, everything wise has disappeared. Youth has gone rebellious; the wife will not listen to her husband; the son will not listen to his father; the teachers are no more respected by their students.” This is a 7,000-year-old document!

Every age thinks that it is the worst one. Why? Because we are only aware of our own age and everything around us, and we begin to compare our neighbour with Buddha. We do not know what neighbours were like then. Buddha was not your neighbour. Buddha is only one. So we compare the best one of the past with the worst one of the present. That is the problem; that is why every age appears to be the age of sin.

Devadatta tried many times to murder Buddha.

We think of Jesus: we do not think of Judas. We think of Ram: we do not think of Ravan. We think of Buddha: we do not think of Devadatta. He was Buddha’s cousin and he tried many times to murder Buddha. He was jealous, simply jealous of why this man should be honoured and respected so much. He was just a cousin to him and nothing more. When he felt that this would not do, he renounced the world. He renounced it because it seemed to him that people honour only that one who renounced the world. So for this reason he renounced the world, and he went into deep austerity. He practised meditation, yoga, everything, just to become higher than Gautam.

That also did not do because you cannot force yourself to be a Buddha, you cannot imitate. But Devadatta is forgotten and Buddha remains. The whole age is forgotten; only Buddha remains. Everything has disappeared; only Buddha remains. And then we compare Buddha with our own age. Because of that, this problem arises over whether a Buddha or a Jesus can be born today. It looks impossible. How is it possible in "this age of darkness, corruption, immorality”? How is this possible!

Another factor also enters: whenever a person is dead for twenty centuries, we forget how we behaved with him when he was alive. Jesus was crucified not because he was a great Teacher or a great Enlightened One, but only because he was "immoral, undisciplined – against the code and against the tradition”. This behaviour was not that of a respectable man. And when he was killed, it was a unanimous resolution.

Few, very few, were with him, and the whole country was against him. He had only twelve disciples, and they too left when the moment came for him to be crucified. They left! They also were doubtful inside. When everyone is against him, something must be wrong! Jesus was crucified as a hippie, as a vagabond.

You may be surprised that there is no record of his crucifixion. Jews have not even recorded the incident. It was such a minor incident, no Jew has recorded it in the Jewish history. Romans have not recorded it. If you go to find any historical record to indicate whether Jesus existed, you cannot find one. There is nothing. The Bible recorded by his disciples is the only record.

So there have been certain persons who have doubted the very existence of Jesus. They say he never existed. They say, rather, this Jesus Christ was a drama which was played in every village – that this was only a drama, not a real historical fact, and later on, by and by, people forgot that this was a drama and it became a history. If the Bible is lost, there is no record that Jesus ever existed. If he was a very significant, prominent person, if the age was influenced by him, then it is impossible to conceive why there is no record.

It is as if he was not. He was unknown; nobody knew about him. Later on only, when disciples gathered and created an organization, by and by he became known. Otherwise he was an unknown carpenter’s son. If Jesus meets you, you will not recognize him. If Buddha meets you somewhere suddenly and no one introduces you to him, you will not recognize him – because this inner flowering is such a subtle, hidden force, that unless you are a fellow traveller, unless you are also moving in the same dimension, you cannot recognize him.

So when you ask whether it is possible now, in this age, for a Buddha to be or a Christ to be, you again ask a meaningless question.

Anywhere, in any time, Christ is possible, Buddha is possible, because the possibility belongs to the innermost realm of your being, not to the procession of events which we call history. It doesn’t belong to history, it doesn’t belong to time. It belongs to the innermost realm of Being which is in eternity, not time. You can be a Buddha. Take the jump and you will be! And time will not hinder you so that you cannot take the jump. This factor about time is irrelevant.

It must be understood deeply and pondered over because we are very cunning and very self-deceiving. If someone says that in this age to become a Buddha is not possible, then you begin to feel, ”It is not my responsibility to transform.” And there are religions which say that in this age becoming a Buddha is not possible, and in a way every religion says it. Any organized religion will say that a Jesus is born only once: "He is the only begotten son of God, and now no one can be a Jesus again. You can only be a Christian, not a Christ.”

Jains say you cannot be a teerthanker, you cannot be a Mahavir. The quota is finished. Only twenty-four persons can be teerthankers. There can be no twenty-fifth. Mohammedans will not allow you to be a prophet – a paigamber – because Mohammed is the last paigamber and he has brought the complete and the final message from God. No alteration is possible now, and there is no need, they say. Every organized religion will say to you that now you need not bother to be a Mohammed or a Mahavir, so just follow. You can only be a follower.

Why? Why do they say this? For two reasons: deep down you like it very much, and the responsibility is not upon you to transform yourself. The time is bad, so you are not a Jesus. It is not your responsibility. Religions will say, "In this kaliyuga, in this age of sin, no one can be a Christ, so, therefore, you are not one.” Then it is not your responsibility. "It is the very times which hinder you; otherwise you could flower like a Jesus at any moment. You are ready, but the time is not helpful.”

Everyone likes this deep down, appreciates it. Then you can be whatsoever you are. There is no burden on you to flower into a Buddha. Because of this deep satisfaction and deep, cunning deception, we are happy. We think that we can only be criminals, we can only be weak human beings. "That is all that the age allows!”

And, secondly, every religion thinks that if a Buddha is going to be born again and again, then you cannot have an organized church for Buddha because every other Buddha will disturb the whole thing. Christians cannot allow anyone to be a Christ again. Another Christ will disturb the whole Christian kingdom, because such persons are bound to be non-traditional, such persons are bound to be non-sectarian, such persons are bound to be absolutely free, independent. They will destroy any organization if they are born.

So no religion would like or appreciate a Jesus to be again in any form. The Pope is the representative and he is enough; Jesus is no more needed. So every religion goes on insisting that nothing can be done at this moment. All that you can do is to follow, worship and follow: "Just be a follower in the crowd; do not try to be an individual.”

Buddha was an individual: he was not a Buddhist. He was born a Hindu, and then the organization could not contain him. No organization could. Jesus was born a Jew, he died a Jew. He was not a Christian. But because the Jews could not contain such a seed, because he could not be contained, they threw him out. And because he was thrown, the seed sprouted into Christianity.

Buddha was a Hindu. He lived as a Hindu and he died as a Hindu: he was not a Buddhist. But Hindus could not absorb him, because if you want to absorb a Buddha you will have to transform the whole society. He could not be absorbed so he was thrown out.

If a Buddha is born now into a Buddhist society he will also be thrown out. If Jesus is born now into a Christian society, he will be thrown out. It is not that Jews or Hindus are against Buddhas and Christs: any organization will be against them – even their own organizations – because organizations live in tradition. They exist because of tradition, and these persons are absolutely anti-tradition; rather, they are ”traditionless”. They move every moment in freedom; you cannot say what they will do.

That is why it is very difficult to create a sect with a living Enlightened person. It is very difficult! You are never at ease with what he is going to do, what he is going to say. When the Teacher is dead, a sect can be created. Now you know what the Teacher wants, how he behaves. Now you can categorize everything. Now you can separate, divide, analyze; now you can make a doctrine and principle out of it. Now a creed is possible.

Only a dead Teacher will allow a creed to be there. With a living Teacher, the seed is every day growing, changing, transforming, moving into the unknown. You are never certain with him. So only with a dead Teacher are creeds born. And when creeds are born, you begin to think in high terms about Jesus and Buddha. They were not thought of so highly in their own day.

So remember these two things: one, religion is a continuous process; it never stops in any age. And, secondly, spirituality is an individual phenomenon. If you choose it, it will happen to you. But no one can buy it. It needs a total decision.

Buddhas and Christs are not bound to any age. At this very moment there are persons who are Enlightened – but you cannot recognize them. It will take hundreds of years for society to recognize them. When they are long dead then the society will come to feel that they were rare, that something unique had happened in the past.

I will tell you a story.

Nietzsche has written one of the most wonderful books in the world – "Thus Spake Zarathustra.” In this book he has given a parable. A madman comes to the market and asks everyone, stares in their eyes and asks everyone, "Have you seen God? Where is God? I am
searching; I am seeking. Where is God?”

Everyone laughs. Of course, they are all believers, but, as believers are, it is a formality with them. They think that this man has gone mad. Someone says, ”Of course, there is God and He created the world. Now He is finished with us and we are finished with Him. Why are you seeking? For what purpose? Are you insane? These things are good to talk and write about – that God is, so seek Him – but are you really seeking Him?”

And that man stares in everyone’s eyes and he says, ”Have you heard anything about God? Where is He?”

Then the whole crowd gathers around him and they tell him, "We have not heard about Him since long. You go somewhere else. Do not disturb the market.”

The man says, "I have come to deliver some news to you. I am not seeking Him. I have come only to know whether you have heard anything lately about Him. Do you know that He is dead?” Now they feel that certainly he is mad. He was mad when he was seeking, but he is still more mad if hem says God is dead.

We believe in a dead, yet alive God – dead so that he may not touch us and alive so that we can worship him on Sundays. But this man is mad. Either he thinks that He is still alive and He can be found or he thinks that He is dead. So they ask, ”Who has told you?”

He says, "I have seen it for myself. And a still more mysterious thing is this – that you have killed Him. But it seems that the news has not yet reached you. It will take time. You yourselves have killed Him! He is dead! But it seems that the time is not yet ripe, and I have come early. The news has not reached to the market-place, but you have killed Him. I must take this news back. The time is not ripe; I have come early. The news will take time to reach you.”

Even sunrays take time. Even star-rays take time to reach you. There is thunder and there is lightning in the cloud, but it takes time to reach you – even when you have seen it – because there is a gap. Light travels faster than sound. And when there is thunder and lightning in the clouds you have seen the lightning, but you will hear the thunder later on. So the madman says, ”He is dead, and you have killed Him. But it seems the news has not reached you yet. It will take time.”

It takes time to recognize that a Buddha is a Buddha. It takes time! And it takes so much time that when Buddha is no more you recognize him, when Jesus is no more you recognize him. And when he is, you not only do not recognize him, but if someone says that he is, you will deny it. It takes time! This is one of the most unfortunate tendencies of the human mind. Because of this we miss
much.

There are stories.

People have come to ask Buddha, "Someone said you are an Enlightened One. Are you really? Have you attained the unattainable?” If Buddha says, "Yes, I have attained,” then they will go and say that he is an egoist. If he says, "I have not attained,” they will say, "We knew it already.” If he remains silent, they will say that he knows nothing.

There are hundreds and hundreds of stories.

Pilate asked Jesus, "Really, you think that you are the Son of God? Really, you think so?” If Jesus says, "Yes, I am the Son of God,” he is a madman. If he remains silent, he is afraid. If he denies, then they think, "We knew already that you were not.” So what can a Buddha say? What can a Jesus say? But if he has been dead for twenty or twenty-five centuries you cannot go to him and ask, ”Are you an Enlightened One? Really, you do not think that you are deceived by yourself? Are you not in a self-deception?”

You cannot ask it. During this long death, you cannot reach him. You begin to recognize it, but then it is useless. That recognition will not help. And if Buddha comes, you will again raise the same questions.

Why is this so? When a Buddha is present amongst you, he looks just like you. He lives like you, he eats like you, he falls ill like you, he dies like you, so how can you think: "A person just like me is Enlightened and I am not?” It is humiliating. It is deep down a hurt to the ego. Because it hurts the ego, because you feel humiliation, you deny. When you deny, you feel good.

So I will say to you that whenever you are in contact with someone who may be an Enlightened One, if you feel the tendency of the mind to deny, remember this: because of this tendency you have missed many Buddhas, and because of this tendency you will never be able to recognize one. And unless you recognize this something which has happened in someone, it is not going to happen to you. When you go on denying, and thinking that no one is a Buddha, ultimately you will come to believe that you cannot become one yourself. When no one can become one, how can you become one?

When you recognize Buddhahood in someone else, deep down you have recognized your own Buddhahood in the future. To recognize a Buddha in the present is to recognize your own future, your own future possibility, your own destiny.