Born with Joy__

Pune, India 1977

The fourth question:

It is nothing new. It has always been so. It has not only to do with Christians, this is so with Hindus, this is so with Buddhists, and this has always been so. They were thinking in the same way about Christ, too. These are the same people. They were thinking in the same way about Buddha, too, and these are the same people. Man is a very strange animal. The most strange thing about man is that he never learns; he goes on doing the same thing again and again.

Why did they crucify Jesus? What was wrong with this man? They thought him wicked, they thought him a representative of evil, a personification of the devil. They were angry. And, of course, the people who were interested in Jesus were younger people, because only young people can be interested in the new. The older generation has too much of an investment with the established, is too involved with the status quo. Do you think Jesus' followers were old people? He himself was young, and the people that surrounded him were young people. Parents were angry, very angry.

Rabbis were angry, priests were angry, because he was bringing a revolution. If Jesus is right, then the whole established religion is wrong. If Jesus is right, then what about the priests? Jesus and the priests can't both be right - either Jesus or the priests. The priests became organized against this man. They had to kill him. And the older generation was with them, naturally. The mind always feels comfortable with the old because it is familiar, one is accustomed to it. The new always feels dangerous, one feels suspicious of it. And religion is always new. True religion is always new, true religion is always rebellious. Whenever there is a man like Jesus or Buddha, there is bound to be great trouble.

But Jesus is crucified, and then slowly slowly,Jesus' life becomes the foundation of a new, established religion. Once Christianity becomes an established religion supported by the state and supported by the elders and Christianity itself has its own priesthood, then there is no problem. Then if a man like me comes, problems arise.

You say,

In a way they are true. What they call religion is not religion, and I am certainly in favour of destroying it. What I call religion they cannot understand; it is impossible for them to conceive. They have become too stereotyped in their thinking, their minds are too conditioned, fixed. They are no longer fluid, flexible, they are rigid. The older a person becomes the more rigid he becomes.

Let me tell you a few things that were said about Christians in the early days of Christianity, and then you will understand what your parents are saying about me.

Tacitus says, 'There is a group, hated for their abominations, called Christians.'

And Suetonius says, 'The Christians are a class of men given to a new and wicked superstition.'

And Celcius says, 'They worship to an extravagant degree this man who appeared recently. They are like frogs holding a symposium round a swamp, debating which of them is the most sinful.'

And Lucian says, 'The poor wretches have convinced themselves that they are going to be immortal and live for all time by worshipping that crucified sophist and living under his laws... They receive their doctrines by tradition, without any definite evidence.'

And Pliny the Younger says, 'It is their habit, on a fixed day, to assemble before daylight and recite by turns a form of words to Christ as a god. The contagion of this perverse and extravagant superstition has penetrated not only the cities but the villages and the country too. Yet it seems possible to stop it and set it right.'

These things were not said about me, these things were said about Christ. And similar things have been said about Buddha. Hindus have created a beautiful story about Buddha. They say that he was an incarnation of God. They had to say it. Hindus are more polite and, of course, more cunning, more sophisticated, and they know how to play with words. Buddha was an incarnation of God, they say, but not a good incarnation.

But how can an incarnation of God be bad? They have a beautiful story to illustrate it.

They say,

When God created the world he created hell and heaven and earth, the three worlds. Then millions of years passed and nobody went to hell; it remained empty. And the devil and all his disciples were very angry, and they were waiting and waiting and nobody would come. And every arrangement was ready: the fire was burning, and nobody was coming. Finally they had to go to God, and the devil said, 'This is nonsense. Why did you create hell if nobody is going to come there? And what are we doing there? - just waiting and waiting! And how long do we have to wait? Not even a single soul has entered. The whole thing is pointless. Either send a few people so we become occupied...

And we have rehearsed and we have trained ourselves and made ourselves so skillful that we are hankering... we have to do something! You are driving us mad! Either send a few people there, or drop the whole project!'

God said, 'You wait. Then I will have to come to the earth. I will be born as Gautam the Buddha, and I will mislead people and misguide people. Then they will start falling into hell automatically.'

Then God came as Gautam the Buddha, and he misguided people because hell needs people. And since Buddha misguided people, hell has been overcrowded.

Now, see the beauty of the story and the cunningness of it. Buddha is accepted as an incarnation of God, but it is just to send people to hell. So beware of Buddha, don't follow him; otherwise you will go to hell. Buddha was here to help the devil, to give him some occupation. Since then hell has been overcrowded, there is no space: people have to wait for years outside the gate.

This has always been so, and this is going to remain being so. Religion, whenever it comes fresh from the beyond, is very shattering to tradition. And the traditional people become afraid. Not that they are worried about religion being destroyed - they are not religious at all, otherwise they would not be afraid of it - their religion is only a social formality. They talk about God because it is convenient to talk about God. They go to the church, too, because it makes things easier. The church functions as a lubricant. It is a Sunday religion. It is good, it keeps you in good company, and everybody knows that you are religious. That helps in many ways.

The church is no more than a Rotary Club or a Lions' Club. If you are a Rotarian, it helps you. People know that you must be good if you belong to the Rotary Club. And in the Rotary Club you become acquainted with all the topmost people of the town. Friendship arises: it helps in your business, in your day-to-day life. The church is nothing but a kind of religious club: it is convenient. Nobody is sincerely there, people are just showing respect to Christ, paying service - but that service is lip service. They don't bother a bit about Christ, Christianity, and all his teachings.

Who bothers about Christ's teachings? Who follows them? If you had followed Christ the world would have been totally different: there would not have been any wars. And half of the world is Christian. If Christians really follow Jesus... Jesus says, 'Love your enemies,' and Christians go on bombing the enemy. It is Christians who bombed Japan, who used the first atomic bomb. Now think of Jesus watching from his place - what will be happening to him? Christians dropping atom bombs? And he has said to these people, 'Love your enemy as yourself.'

Who has followed Jesus? There is no question of following. People just go to the church. It is a good feeling to go to the church, to remain religious.

I have heard...

The airplane was going through some especially turbulent weather, but the pilot knew he had everything under control. He tried to calm the passengers with soothing words spoken over the loudspeaker system. He also asked the stewardesses to reassure the people that everything would be all right.

One very religious little old lady, however, would not be comforted. The stewardess told her how capable the pilot was and how reliable the plane's technology was, but the woman was still sure she'd never see the ground again.

At a loss, the stewardess finally called on the highest court of appeal, 'Just trust in providence,' she said soothingly.

The little old lady's eyes opened even wider, 'Is it as bad as that?' she asked.

A religious old lady... But to really think of God means that death is certain. 'Is it as bad as that?'

People have double faces. Their original face is not even known to themselves. People have split personalities. Your parents will be thinking they are Christian and religious. They are neither Christian nor religious. If they are really religious, they will understand me because whatsoever I am saying is the same - exactly the same, precisely the same. My language may be different from Jesus' - it has to be, twenty centuries have passed - but what I am doing is exactly the same work, the continuity of the same work.

But I can understand their problem, too. They are losing their hold on you, and they are afraid.

Just the other night I was reading an article. In Germany, parents have formed a certain society to prevent young people from going into new religions, particularly Eastern mystic experiences. In America they are creating a lot of trouble for the young people, too.

You will be surprised that parents are hiring kidnappers. Young people are being kidnapped by their own parents and then they are being given to psychologists. Certain psychologists are trying to deprogramme them, they are called deprogrammers. They think the young people have been conditioned.

For example, if you really become too involved with me, and your parents become very afraid, and you don't want to go back to your country, you can be kidnapped. Your own parents can do it. 'For your own sake, because you have fallen in the trap of a devil, of some evil force.' And it looks to them...'What are you doing with orange clothes and a beard and long hair and the mala? And who is this man... very evil-looking? And what is wrong with wearing a cross? having a picture of Jesus?

What are you doing there?' And if they come and see the Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini, they will go crazy. They will become very concerned.

Yes, you can be kidnapped, and then you can be forced into what they call deprogramming to uncondition you. They think you have been hypnotized, so you have to be dehypnotized. So they will teach you Christianity and the Christian catechism again. And they will force you day in, day out, for months, so that you can again become a Christian, and you can again say, 'Yes I believe in God and the Son and the Holy Ghost,' and then they are at ease. When you believe in the Holy Ghost, then all is okay. And when you start reading the Bible again, all is okay. 'Now you have come back, you have become religious.' When you start making atom bombs again, you are really Christian, Catholic. When you go to the army and they cut your long hair and make you a soldier, then you are a perfect Christian, a Catholic. When you start a cut-throat competition in the world for money, for power, for prestige, when you start destroying others so that you can reach higher and higher for worldly possessions, you are perfect, you are a religious person.

Even politicians are thought to be religious persons because they go to the church, they listen to the sermon of the priest. Politicians are 'religious', and my sannyasins are 'not religious'!

You will have to understand it. You will have to be very very patient with your parents. You will have to be very kind, too. They need compassion. They are encaged in a certain ideology and they cannot look outside it. They are incapable of feeling anything new, of being anything new. They are incapable of understanding, they have become too rigid. Their whole ideology has become a settled phenomenon, and they are afraid. If they see you happy, they can only think you have gone mad, because they have lived an unhappy life and a very religious life.

And they know religious people are unhappy people - sad, with long faces. They cannot believe that you can be religious and dancing, and you can be religious and laughing, and you can be religious and yet happy. Then what about all their saints? Were they fools? They lived with long faces the whole of their lives. They carried their life as a burden, as if a mountain were being carried on their head, and you are so lightfooted, so weightless, with no burden, with no seriousness around you.

You are such a laughter, how can they believe you are religious? The only thing possible is that you have been hypnotized. How can you be so happy in such an unhappy world? It is not possible. You must be living in a kind of illusion. Hence they say, 'This man is an evil force, he has hypnotized you. The laughter that you are going through is false, the joy that you are experiencing is false. Our misery is right and true, and your joy is false.'

When they will be able to make you miserable again they will be at ease. Their son has come back home, or their daughter has come back home.

You will have to be understanding. They cannot understand me, they cannot understand you, but they are your parents and you owe something to them. Be loving to them. Don't be antagonistic.

Don't resent them. Don't start arguing and fighting with them because that will make them more convinced that they are right and you are wrong. Be more loving. Nobody has loved them; they have lived in a false world where all is pretension. Nobody has loved them. If you love them, it will be more convincing than logic.

Listen to them. Don't start arguing. Listen patiently. Nobody has ever listened to them. That's why psychoanalysis has become so important in the world. Psychoanalysis is nothing but just finding a patient listener, the psychoanalyst, to whom you can talk to your heart's content, and say whatsoever you want - sense, nonsense, whatsoever you want.

People are feeling suffocated, boiling, within. They want to say something but nobody is there to hear. The world has turned deaf. The man cannot talk to his woman, because the moment you talk conflict starts. You say something, she understands something else. The woman cannot talk to the man because talking is always risky. It is better to keep quiet and to remain silent. At least it gives you a feeling of peace, that all is quiet. Say a single word, and the argument starts. Sooner or later people learn that it is better to remain silent, not to say anything.

Nobody has listened to them. Just see the misery of the fact that they have to go and find a person to listen... But they have to pay for it, and the costs are really very high. Psychoanalysis is one of the highly paying professions. It is a Jewish concern and Jews know how to do business. Freud founded the greatest empire, and his followers are just looting, just enjoying. And what are they doing? They simply listen. No other help is needed. If you listen to the person for months together, years together, he loses steam. And once he has thrown his steam out he feels calm and quiet. And he thinks this is because of psychoanalysis.

In older societies, more primitive societies, this is not needed because people are very willing to listen. Go to an Indian village - people are very willing to listen. They have enough time to listen, nobody is in a hurry. People are sitting and talking and listening to each other. You cannot convince Indian villagers that there is any need for psychoanalysis, they are psychoanalyzing each other already; they need not pay for it.

But in a highly sophisticated, cultured, civilized society, people are in such a hurry that nobody is available to talk to anybody else. Parents never see their children, or even if they see them, then just polite words: 'Hello, how are you?' and they are gone. Or a pat on the head which is almost mechanical, or a hug which is false, or even a kiss which is just an empty gesture. But nobody talks, nobody faces the other.

There is no friendship, no love. Parents live in one world, the children live in another. Parents are so suffocated by their own misery, helplessness, turmoil, that they have to drown themselves in alcohol. Children are getting drowned in drugs. And the strange thing is that the people who drown themselves in alcohol are very much against drugs. And they are doing the same thing; it is not different, it is the same thing. Somehow to drown oneself, to forget all about oneself and the world and the problems... Even children have so many problems because we teach them competition, ambition. We send them to the school and the competition starts: 'You have to be first. You have to bring an A grade.' Now you have made them anxious. They are continuously in turmoil, anxiety:

whether they will be able to make it or not.

Small children have ulcers. Young people are having heart attacks. Young people are going mad, committing suicide - this has not happened ever before - or if you don't want to commit suicide, you don't want to go mad, you don't want to have ulcers, cancer, heart attacks, then drown yourself in drugs. But then the state is against you, then the society is against you, and you feel guilty. You are doing something illegal, you are a criminal; they will throw you into gaol.

The only possibility of getting out of this whole nonsense is to find a new space in your being through prayer, through meditation; to find your original source of life and energy. And that's what you are doing here with me. If you really go into meditation you will not need alcohol, you will not need drugs.

If you really go into meditation, your life will be a life of love, of sharing, of joy - non-competitive, non-ambitious. You will not become a politician, you will live as a nobody. You will not suffer from an inferiority complex because you will not compare yourself with anybody else. And you will live in great gratitude because your life will have joy. You will not be attached to misery because you will not have any investment in misery. If you don't have any ego, you need not have any investment in misery. Then you can feast and your life can be a festival. That's what I am teaching And to me this is religion: to make life a feast, a festival; to transform energy in such a way that you become a celebration.

But your parents will find it difficult. Help them to understand. Be loving. Listen patiently to their arguments, and don't argue, rather, love. Just show by your being, by your integrity, by your patience, by your caring about them that you are moving on the right path. It is up to you: if you can prove by your love that you are moving on the right path, only then will they think that the man you are with is not evil. If you argue and fight and become antagonistic - which seems to be very natural, because they will be antagonistic and in a fighting mood, and the natural reaction is to be the same: tit for tat - if you do that, then you will be proving that your Master is evil and you will be proving that you have moved on a wrong path.

What I am going to be proved to be in the world depends on sanyasins like you.

The last question:

Question 5:

Then what is the need to transcend it?

The need of transcendence arises only because you are in it. You are born in it, you are born out of it. You are a sexual phenomenon.

Except for Jesus, nobody has been born of a virgin. And Christians insist too much on the theory that Mary was a virgin so that they can condemn sex. If Jesus is also born of sex, then it will be difficult to condemn sex. In fact, Jesus was born out of sex as much as anybody else.

The body has to be constituted from male and female energy, otherwise the body cannot be constituted. To say that Mary was virgin is to say that you have electricity in your house with only one pole: positive or negative. That will be just as nonsensical. Electricity needs to have both poles, positive and negative. Without those two poles electricity cannot exist, cannot come into existence - not even in Jesus' house; the electricity will need two poles. The electricity does not care who you are - even in my house it needs two poles.

You can ask Haridas. He tries, the whole day he tries, continuously working to make electricity virgin. But up to now he has not succeeded. But later on you can write stories about me that in Osho's house the electricity had only one pole. These stories are always created later on, because you have to prove that your Master was exceptional.

Jainas say that Mahavir never perspired. Now, what kind of foolishness...? He missed the joy of perspiring in the sun. And he lived naked and moved naked. In fact, he must have perspired more than anybody else. If you say I don't perspire it may be right because I live in an air-conditioned room, but Mahavir, moving naked, never perspired? Something seems to be suspicious, fishy. He must have been stinking. To hide the fact you have to cover it and say that he never perspired, so the whole root is cut.

He never defecated, never urinated. How can you think of Mahavir pissing? That does not look right at all.

These stories are created. These stories simply prove that the followers are stupid. They don't say anything about Mahavir or Christ or Mohammed, they simply prove that the followers that came in their wake are neurotic.

Jesus was born out of two sexes just as everybody else is.

You come out of sex, each cell of your body is a sexual cell. Each cell of your body has two poles: the feminine and the masculine, yin and yang.

You ask me,

The only possibility is not to be born. Once you are born you are already a sexual being. Whether you make love to a woman or man doesn't matter. You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality. Sexuality has already penetrated. The moment you were in the womb of your mother you became a sexual being. There is no way to avoid it. So all that you can do is repress it. You will become unnatural, and your whole life will be a perverted life. Repression is possible, but transcendence is not possible in the way you are asking about.

I have heard...

Ellen and Dolph had been married thirty years and never missed a night of connubial bliss. One day Ellen visited her doctor and was told that she must have complete rest and quiet for six months or she would not live.

Ellen and Dolph decided they should stay completely apart during this period. She moved into an upstairs bedroom and he remained downstairs.

After three months of complete abstinence and solitude, his will-power collapsed, and Dolph started for her bedroom. As he started to climb the stairs, he saw her coming down.

'Dear,' she said, 'I was just coming down to die.'

'I'm glad, honey,' he said, 'because I was just going up to kill you.'

Don't be mad, let things be simple. There is no need to kill or die. Repression will make things very complicated in your life; you will become split, schizophrenic - just celibate on the surface, and deep down just the opposite of it.

Transcendence means the disappearance of the need for the other, the disappearance of the desire to get lost into a woman or into a man. And this is possible only if you have understood. And understanding comes only through experience. So I don't say drop out of your relationships, rather, become more meditative in your relationships.

Making love, let it be a meditation too. And you will be surprised: if while making love you also move in a meditative state you will have great insights into what is happening, and the whole urge called sex will become conscious. And once it has become conscious it can disappear.

And it disappears on its own; you need not cultivate, you need not practise anything for it. When it goes on its own it is beautiful. Yes, sex disappears - one transcends it - but not by fighting it, not by avoiding it.

This is true, and because of this truth much misunderstanding has happened in the world. Sex disappeared in Buddha's life, sex disappeared in Christ's life. People have seen sex disappearing, and people have seen that when sex disappears there is great splendour. Something of the sky dances on the earth. The beyond reaches to the earth. The mundane becomes suffused with the sacred. And because people have seen these things, great desire has arisen in them too to transcend sex. But then the whole thing goes wrong: they start fighting with it, fighting with their own nature.

It is a secret science, and if you don't move rightly, everything will go wrong.

A man is told by a friend that he should pick a wife who is 'an economist in the kitchen, a lady in the parlour, and a prostitute in bed'.

They meet sometime after the wedding and the friend asks if he is satisfied with his choice.

'Well,' says the newly-wed, 'I did what you said, but I guess I made a mistake somewhere. The woman I married turned out to be a prostitute in the parlour, a lady in the kitchen, and an economist in bed!'

Just a little mismanagement, just a thing here and a thing there misplaced, and everything goes wrong.

Transcendence is never through repression, transcendence is through understanding, transcendence is through awareness.

Just the other night I was giving sannyas to a psychoanalyst - a beautiful man. I have given him the name: Anand Veetkam. It means bliss beyond sex. And to him I said that if you become meditative while making love you will come to know a few immensely significant things.

The first and the most significant thing is that when you are going into a deep org@sm, when the clim@x is happening, there is great joy because in that moment sex disappears. Sex brings you to the org@smic state, and once its purpose is fulfilled, sex disappears. In the org@smic state there is no sexuality left in you. You are simply throbbing and there is no desire. You are utterly herenow, there is no future, no fantasy, no imagination, nothing. And when the org@sm happens, the man is alone - the woman may be there but he is not aware of the woman. And the woman is alone - the man is there but she is not aware of the mall.

0rgasm is individual: it is happening inside the man, it is happening inside the woman. The other has triggered it, but then the function of the other is finished; you are no more interested in the other. In deep org@sm you are simply inside yourself. There is no sex in it, hence the bliss. And after a good org@sm, for hours you will feel very very blissful. And for hours you will not think of sex again.

The desire has left you. What has happened?

If you are feeling blissful, the desire cannot be there. If the desire is there, bliss cannot be there. Desire and bliss are never together.

And if you meditate deeply while making love, you will become aware that time disappears. At the peak there is no time, suddenly you are herenow. Only then do you know the meaning of here and now, otherwise you are in the past or in the future. And when time disappears, mind disappears, because mind is another aspect of time, another name for time. Mind is past plus future. When there is no time there is no mind. Just think: no mind, no time, no sexual desire - and there is great bliss.

But people miss it because they are not alert about it. People go into love-making unconsciously, mechanically. Go consciously, mindfully, remembering what is happening, watching, remaining a witness, and that will release understanding in you. That will release awareness in you. And awareness is transcendence. Awareness is freedom.

 

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