Just a Hotch-potch

 

Just a Hotch-Potch

Question 1

THE REAL SYNTHESIS will be the disappearance of East and West. It will not be a meeting.

In the real synthesis the East will not be there and the West will not be there. That's what yesterday I called the transcendental.

East and West are polarities. If you try to synthesise them - take something of the East and something of the West and make a hotchpotch out of it - it will be a compromise and not a synthesis. It will be mechanical, not organic. You can put things together - that is a mechanical unity - but you cannot put a tree together, you cannot put a human being together. The unity of a tree grows, it comes from its own innermost core and it spreads towards its circumference. It arises in the centre. A mechanical unity can be put together from the outside: you can put a car or a clock together; but the clock has no centre to it, the car has no centre to it - the car has no soul. That is the meaning when we say the clock has no soul...it means it has no centre of its own. It is a unity put together from the outside. It works; it is utilitarian.

But a tree, a bird, a human baby - you cannot put them together. They grow. Their unity comes from their innermost core. They have a centre. A compromise is a mechanical unity' a synthesis is an organic growth. So whatsoever is happening right now in the name of EST, TM, Arica, is a sort of mechanical unity.

And mechanical unity has its own dangers. The greatest danger is this: the East has developed a great insight into religion and the West has developed a great insight into science. When a Western person starts searching in the East, his attitude is scientific. He can understand only that which is scientific in the East - try to understand this. And the East has not developed any scientific attitude; Eastern science is very primitive and rudimentary. When a religious person goes to the West from the East he looks into Western religion which is very rudimentary, very primitive. And he can understand only the religious language.

So when somebody from the East approaches the West, he approaches the West from the weak point in Western growth. And when somebody comes from the West to the East he approaches the East from the weakest link in its growth.

Now what is happening? East and West are meeting in Arica, EST, TM, and other so-called spiritual movements - and just the opposite to what was expected is happening. It is not Eastern religion meeting Western science, it is Eastern science meeting Western religion. It is an ugly affair.

You must have heard.

A French actress told George Bernard Shaw that she would like to get married to him.

Bernard Shaw inquired why.

She said, 'The logic is simple. I have a tremendously beautiful body. Look at my face, my eyes, my form - it is perfect. And you have a beautiful intellect, the greatest intelligence ever. Our child will be a beauty: your brain and my body.'

George Bernard Shaw said, 'I am afraid things can go wrong. Our child may have my body and your intellect.'

This is what is happening!

He declined the offer to marry. He said, 'It is dangerous. There is no certainty about it.'

Of course, George Bernard Shaw had a very ugly body - and actresses have never been known to have any intellect. Intelligence is a strange phenomenon to actresses, otherwise why would they be actresses in the first place?

EST, Arica and TM are just by-products of the marriage between George Bernard Shaw and the actress. Things have gone wrong. This is not a synthesis, this is a compromise, a hotch-potch. And it is very dangerous.

A great synthesis is needed. That synthesis will not come through movements, it will come only through a few people who attain to that synthesis in their souls. It is not a question of reading the Bible and reading the Bhagavad Gita and finding out the similarities and making a synthesis out of it - that would be a mechanical unity. But many people have done that.

Dr. Bhagwandas has written a very scholarly book: 'The Essential Unity of all Religions.'

The whole thing is silly. Read the Koran, read the Veda, read the Bible, read the Dhammapada, find the similarities - it is very easy to find similarities - but in fact the Koran is beautiful only because of those things which are not in the Gita.The beauty is in its uniqueness. When you find something...as Mahatma Gandhi has done, he read the Koran and found things which were similar to the Gita. He was looking for the Gita in the Koran. It was unjust to the Koran; it was not good manners either because he was imposing some alien element on the Koran. And whatsoever was not similar to the Gita, in tune with the Gita, he would forget about. He would forget that it existed in the Koran. And that which was dropped is the uniqueness of the Koran.

The same can be done by a Christian. He can look into the Gita and find something which satisfies his Christian mind - then he is looking for the Bible in the Gita, but the Gita is beautiful only where it is not at all similar to the Bible. There is its uniqueness. Beauty is in uniqueness; similarities become cliches, similarities become meaningless, similarities are monotonous. The Himalayas are beautiful because they have something unique that is not in the Alps. And the Ganges is beautiful because it has something that is not in the Amazon. Of course, both are rivers, and there are a thousand and one things similar, but if you go on looking for similarities you will live in a very boring world. I am not in favour of it.

I will not tell you to look into Eastern scriptures and into Western scriptures and to find some sort of compromise, no. I would like you to go into your innermost being. If you go beyond the object, you have gone beyond the West; if you go beyond the subject, you have gone beyond the East. Then the transcendental arises and there is the synthesis.

And when it has happened within you you can spread it without also. The synthesis has to happen within human beings, not in books, not in dissertations, not in Ph.D. theses. An organic unity is possible only in an organic way.

This is what I am doing here. I am hammering you to make you to go beyond the objective and beyond the subjective. I am not telling you to make subjective and objective meet inside you, because that meeting will not be able to bring the higher into existence. You have to go beyond. The humanity of the future has to go beyond East and West; both have been only half, both have been lop-sided. I am neither for East nor for West, I am for a total world, a world that is whole.

But it is natural in a way - Arica, EST, TM - it is natural in a way. Because the common humanity, the ordinary human mind, always tries to find cheap methods, short-cuts.

People are not really interested in the ultimate truth, they are interested at the most in a convenient, comfortable life. They are not really interested in being alive and being an adventurer, they are really afraid of all adventures. They want to put things together in such a way that things become comfortable and one can live comfortably and one can die comfortably. Comfort seems to be the goal, not truth.

And everybody has his own prejudice. The Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, they all have their prejudices. They are very deep-rooted. You can talk about love but that is always superficial.

Let me tell you an anecdote.

The distraught young man was perched on the fortieth-floor ledge of a mid-town hotel, threatening to jump. The closest the police could get was the roof of an adjacent building a few feet below. However, all pleas to the man to return to safety were of no avail.

A priest from the nearest parish was summoned and he hastened to the scene. 'Think, my son,' he intoned to the would-be suicide in a very loving way. 'Think, my son, think of your mother and father who love you.'

'Oh, they don't love me,' the man replied. 'I am jumping.'

'No, my son, stop!' cried the priest with great love in his voice. 'Think of the woman who loves you.' 'Nobody loves me. I am jumping,' came the response. 'But think, still think, my boy,' the priest implored. 'Think of Jesus and Mary and Joseph who love you.'

'Jesus, Mary and Joseph?' the man queried. 'Who are they?'

At which the point the cleric yelled back, 'Jump, you Jew bastard, jump!'

All love disappears immediately. All talk of love is just superficial; all talk of tolerance is intolerant deep down. People say, 'Tolerate each other.' What do you mean when you say, 'Tolerate each other'?

It is already intolerant. The very word 'tolerance' is ugly. When you tolerate somebody, do you love him? When Hindus tolerate Mohammedans, do they love them? When Mohammedans tolerate Hindus, do they love them? Can tolerance ever become love? Tolerance may be political but it is not religious.

One who wants to know the truth - the truth that is beyond all polarities: man/woman, East/West, good/bad, heaven/hell, summer/winter - one who is interested in knowing, in enquiring into the truth which is beyond all dualities, has to drop all his prejudices. If he still carries his prejudice, that prejudice will colour his mind. To know truth you need not be a Hindu, you need not be a Mohammedan, you need not be a Christian, you need not be a Jew - to know truth you have to drop all this rubbish, you have to be just yourself.

You need not be Indian, you need not be American, you need not be English, you need not be Japanese, Chinese. To know truth you have just to be immense, huge, vital, alive, loving, enquiring, meditative...but with no prejudice, with no scripture, with no concepts, with no philosophy. When you become completely nude of all that has been taught to you, when all the conditionings have dropped, then suddenly there is the highest truth - and that highest truth is a synthesis unto itself, you need not synthesise. It is an organic unity. And from that altitude you can laugh at all the nonsense that goes on in the name of religion, in the name of tolerance, in the name of love, in the name of churches and temples and mosques.

The revolution has to happen within you; it has not to be introduced into the world.

Because only you are alive - society is dead, society is just a name. Only you have something of the soul. The synthesis has to happen there. The synthesis has not to happen in Poona or in New York or in Timbuktu or in Constantinople, the synthesis is going to happen within you, within me. And each individual has to become a great experiment towards that synthesis. But remember, when that synthesis arises, you will not be able to say whether it is a synthesis between East and West, between Mohammedan and Christian, between Hindu and Jaina. No, you will immediately be able to see it is a transcendence.

Synthesis, real synthesis, organic synthesis, is a transcendence - your altitude has changed, you are standing on the highest peak. From there you look. Whatsoever we look at, whatsoever we see, is not very important. The important thing is where you stand. If you are clinging to the East, whatsoever you see in the West will be a misinterpretation.

Just the other day I was reading a newspaper. Someone had written an article against me. The article asked how Americans can understand religion. They cannot, so my whole effort is a wastage. This is the Indian chauvinist mind. The Indian thinks that nobody can understand religion except the Indian. And this is not only so with the Indian, this is so with everybody. Everybody deep down carries this nonsense - that we are the chosen few. This idea is very destructive. It is not a question of being American or Indian; truth has nothing to do with all these labels. Truth is available to anybody who is ready to drop all these labels. Truth is understood only when you are neither - American nor Indian nor Hindu nor Christian. Truth is understood by a consciousness that is no longer clouded by any conditionings, which is no longer clouded by the past. Otherwise we go on seeing in things only that which we can understand.

I was reading a very beautiful anecdote....

The family managed to bring the patriarchal grandfather from Hungary and he came to his daughter and her family.

The old man was fascinated by New York and all it had to offer.

One day his grandson, Yunkel, took him to the zoo in Central Park. Most of the animals were familiar to the old man. However, they came to the cage where the laughing hyena was confined and the old man became curious. 'Yunkel, in the old country I never heard of an animal that laughed.'

Yunkel noticed the keeper standing nearby and approached him. 'My grandfather recently came from Europe. He says they don't have any laughing hyenas there. Could you tell me something about it so that I can in turn tell him?'

The keeper said, 'Well, he eats once a day.'

Yunkel turned to his grandfather and said in Yiddish, 'He eats once a day.'

The keeper continued, 'He takes a bath once a week.' 'He bathes once a week.'

The old man listened intently.

The keeper added, 'He mates once a year.' 'He mates once a year.'

The old man shook his head thoughtfully. 'All right. He eats once a day, he bathes once a week, but if he mates only once a year, why is he laughing?'

Now this old man is not so old. His mind is still clinging somewhere - to his youthful days. His mind is still sexual. He cannot understand why the hyena is laughing if he mates only once a year.

There are people who cannot understand that happiness is possible in any way other than sex. There are people who cannot understand that there is any bliss beyond sex. There are people who cannot understand that there is any happiness except in food. There are people who cannot understand that there is any happiness except in big houses, big cars, much money, power and prestige. It is impossible to understand beyond your own standpoint - people remain confined within their own standpoints. That is the real prison.

If you want a synthesis you have to drop all the imprisonments, you have to drop out of your cages. They are very subtle cages and you have decorated them for a long time; you may have even started loving them. You may have forgotten completely that they are prisons; you may have started thinking that they are your home. A Hindu thinks Hinduism is his home, he never thinks that it is a barrier. All '-isms' are barriers. The Christian thinks that Christianity is the bridge; he never thinks that it is Christianity that is not allowing him to reach to Christ. The church is not the door, it is the wall, the barrier, the China Wall.

But if you have lived with this wall for too long, for centuries, if the mind has become accustomed to it, you think of it as a protection, as a shelter, as security. And then you look at other people; from your cell in the prison you look outside. Your presence in the cell corrupts your vision.

Come out under the sky and under the stars - and synthesis will take care of itself. You need not synthesise East and West, you are simply to go beyond these standpoints. Move to the transcendental and there is synthesis.

Question 2

The flower is open. I suspect your nose is closed.

Your nose has to be opened and you have to reclaim the capacity to smell. You may have lost the sensitivity to smell. You have lived so long in lies that when you come across truth you cannot recognise it. Even truth has to come to you - if truth wants to be recognised in the garb of a lie. You cannot see it directly. You have learned how to look sideways - you never look directly, your look is never immediate. You are always wavering this way or that and you are always losing the fact.

I am here. This is the flower I am talking about. I am your future. That which is going to happen to you has happened to me. If you cannot smell then don't blame the flower - blow your nose.

But that is difficult for the ego; the ego is always ready to deny, it is never ready to transform itself. The ego can say there is no God; it cannot say, 'Maybe it is because I have got so many blocks that I cannot feel God.' The ego can deny that there is a flower but it cannot recognise the fact that it has lost the capacity to smell.

Hence there are so many people who deny God. It is easy to deny God, it is comfortable in fact - because if there is no God you need not bother about your nose, you need not work upon your being. If there is no God then there is no work, then there is no growth, then there is no search. You can be lazy you can drown yourself in lethargy. If there is no God then there is no guilt.

I am against guilt - the guilt that has been created by the priests - but there is a different type of guilt which is not created by the priest.And that guilt is very meaningful. That guilt arises if you feel there is something more in life and you are not working hard to get to it. Then you feel a guilt. Then you feel that somehow you are creating barriers to your own growth - that you are lazy, lethargic, unconscious, asleep; that you don't have any integration; that you cannot move towards your destiny. Then a guilt arises. When you feel that you have the possibility and you are not turning it into actuality then a guilt arises. That guilt is totally different.

I am not talking about the guilt that priests have created in humanity: don't eat this otherwise you will feel guilty; don't do that otherwise you will feel guilty.... They have condemned millions of things, so if you eat, if you drink, if you do this and that, you are surrounded by guilty feelings. I am not talking about that guilt - that guilt has to be dropped. In fact, that guilt helps you to remain where you are. Those guilty feelings don't allow you to know the real guilt inside. They create so much fuss about small things: you eat in the night and the Jains create much fuss - you are guilty, you are a sinner. Why have you eaten in the night? Or, you have divorced your wife or your husband and the Catholics create a guilty feeling in you - you have done something wrong. It was not wrong to live with the woman and continuously fight, it was not wrong to destroy the woman and destroy yourself, it was not wrong to destroy the children - just between the two of you they were being crushed, their whole life was conditioned in a wrong way....

No, that was not bad, but if you get out of that marriage, if you get out of that hell, you feel guilty.

These guilt feelings don't allow you to see the real spiritual guilt which has nothing to do with any politics, with any priesthood, with any religion or church. That guilt feeling is very natural. When you see that you can do something and you are not doing it, when you see how potential you are but you are not changing that potentiality into actuality, when you see that you are carrying tremendous treasures as seeds which could bloom, and you are not doing anything about it and you are just remaining in misery - then you feel a great responsibility towards yourself. And if you are not fulfilling that responsibility, you feel guilty. This guilt is of tremendous import.

I am here; the flower is here. In Zen they say that the flower does not talk but I would like to contradict that. I would like to say to you the flower talks too, but one thing is needed: you need the capacity to hear, you need the capacity to smell. The flower has its own language. He may not talk in the language that you understand, but your language is a very local language. The flower speaks the universal language.

I am here; look into me, feel me, try to imbibe my spirit in you, let my flame come closer to you. Any moment there can be a jump - my flame can jump and Light your unlit candle. Just come close, come close...and when I say come close I mean be more and more in love. Love is the only closeness there is; love is the only intimacy there is. It is not a question of physical closeness, it is a question of inner intimacy. Be open to me, as I am open to you; be available to me, as I am available to you. Don't be afraid, you have nothing to lose...except your chains.

 

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