Real is for Always__

The sixth question:

Question 5:

But you are caught, you are trapped! Now it will be very difficult to escape. It is always difficult to choose the new, but only those live who choose the new. To choose the old is to choose death, not life. To choose the familiar is to remain in the prison of the familiar, to choose the known is to avoid really the unknown that is knocking on the door. To choose the known is to reject God, because God is always unknown - not only unknown, but unknowable.

God is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. God is always utterly new, unfamiliar, unmapped, unscheduled, uncalculated. God comes only as the unknown. And if you become afraid, if you shrink back, then you have to live in your so-called dark hole.

What is your past that you cling to? What is there to cling to, except that it is familiar? It is all misery, it is all tragedy. But people even cling to miseries if they are familiar, if they look friendly. Even if health is knocking on your door, you don't listen to the knock, you cling to your tuberculosis, to your cancer, because it is familiar; you have lived with it so long. It looks almost like a betrayal to leave it and become healthy.

That is why people are clinging to miseries. Even when opportunities arise when miseries can be dropped and the celebration can start, they continue to cling to the misery. They persist in it, they insist on it. Even if it drops they catch hold of it again and again. If one misery disappears, they create a similar misery immediately. They don't even give a little interval for joy to enter in their being.

But remember, only those live who choose the new. Life means readiness to go into the uncalculated, unscheduled. Life means to be ready always to listen to the challenge that comes from the unknown source. It is dangerous, but to live is dangerous. The most secure and safe place in the world is the grave - there, nothing ever happens.

In a small village where Mulla Nasrudin lives, the Municipal Committee was thinking of creating a wall around the graveyard. Mulla Nasrudin was also a member of the Committee. He stood up, and he said, 'There is no need.'

The whole Committee looked puzzled, because everybody was in favour of making a wall around the graveyard. People don't want to see graves and people don't want to see death. People don't want to become aware that death is. That's why graveyards are made outside the town, far away.

When you have to go there, only then do you go there; otherwise it is better to avoid.

The village had grown bigger and the graveyard that used to be outside the town was no longer outside the town - the town had grown and spread. So the whole Committee was agreeing. But Mulla said, 'There is no need.'

And the president asked, 'Why do you say that there is no need?'

He said, 'For two reasons. One: those who are outside - they don't want to go in so they don't need any wall to prevent them. And, two: those who are inside - they cannot come out. So what is the point of making a wall? The wall is needed only to prevent either those who are in from coming out or to prevent those who are out from coming in. Those who are out, they don't want to go in; they go only in utter helplessness. When they have to go, when they have to be carried by four persons, then they go. And once they are in they cannot come out - nobody has ever heard of anybody coming out. It is pointless!'

The grave is the most safe and secure place in the world, because nothing new will ever happen there. Remember it: don't become a grave.

Sannyas is new for you, and you did not come here to become a sannyasin... Do you think all those who are sannyasins here came to become sannyasins? They have been caught unawares!

Before they could escape I caught hold of their hearts. You are also caught now. If you escape, you escape at your own risk. You will repent forever and you will feel sorry forever, because there was an opportunity of being transformed, an opportunity to learn the ways of let-go, an opportunity of falling into your own being, resting into your own being, an opportunity to bloom. But you became afraid. 

Meditate on these lines of Robert Frost.

Life grows only by choosing challenges. Life grows only by going into the storms. Life grows only by risking, gambling.

Sannyas needs courage. The old sannyas was not so dangerous. People think my sannyas is easier than the old, ancient idea of sannyas. They are utterly wrong. The old sannyas was very simple because it expected - not only expected but demanded - that you renounce the world. It was simple. You went into a monastery; you lived there, undisturbed, undistracted by the world.

Meditation became your whole life with no distractions. It was a monotonous life.

The word 'monastery' and 'monotony' come from the same root. So does the word 'monk'. Life was settled, monotonous, repetitive, the same, and the world was left far behind. It was easy.

My sannyas is far more complex. You have to live in the market-place and yet live as if you were living in a monastery. You have to accept all the distractions of life and yet remain undistracted. You have to be in the world and not be of it.

I have thrown a great challenge to you. The old concept of sannyas was not challenging enough. It was very appealing to the cowards, to the escapists - those who were weary of life, those who were tired of life, those who were incapable of life, those who were feeling somehow incompetent, inferior.

It became very attractive to the inferior, the untalented, the unintelligent.

If you go to the Himalayas or into a monastery and look at the monks, you will be surprised: one thing you are bound to find is that their faces show no signs of intelligence, their eyes don't shine with any light from the beyond. They look dull, insipid, stupid, unintelligent, incompetent. They have escaped from life.

It is life that gives you sharpness, otherwise your sword will never be sharp. It is the struggle in life that provokes all the springs of your talents to come to the surface. You have to be intelligent to survive. In the monastery you are protected by the monastery, by the sect, by the church. You need not make any effort to survive. Food is given, clothes are given, and you just have to do some prayer, some chanting, and you have to repeat, parrot-like, the words of others. Naturally, if one becomes unintelligent there is no wonder in it. It will be a wonder if somebody becomes intelligent there, because all the opportunities for intelligence have been prevented - because they are the same opportunities which are opportunities for distraction too.

Distraction is an opportunity. You can be distracted - that is for you to decide - or you can remain undistracted, then it will give you centring, crystallization.

My sannyas is the most complicated phenomenon that has ever happened on the earth because I don't say to you leave the world, I say live in it, indulge in it, love it, enjoy it, go as deeply as possible so your intelligence is sharpened, your life provoked, your dormant sources of energies become dynamic, flowing. And yet, keep yourself centred in your being - a watcher on the hills. Remain an actor and let the life be just a drama where you are fulfilling a certain role. But don't get identified with the role. Remember continuously that this is a role - that you are a carpenter or a doctor or an engineer or a teacher, husband, wife, mother, father, son - that these are all roles, and the earth is a great stage and a great drama is on. God is the author of it and the director of it, and you are just actors, participating. When the curtain falls your roles will disappear. You will again be just a pure being. You will not be the role that you had played.

The world has to be transformed into an opportunity to remember yourself, for self-remembering.

Hence sannyas is arduous. And I know that everybody hesitates before they take the jump, but if the desire has arisen, if the longing is there, don't kill it, because that will be suicidal. Experiment with it, explore this new dimension. You have lived one way - what is the point of going on repeating it again and again? Live this new style too. Who knows? - you may come across God on this way.

Who knows? - fulfilment may await you on this path.

The last question:

Question 6:

Tushara, you don't know yet what love is. You don't know yet that many other things masquerade as love, play tricks on you - many things. Yes, sometimes even hate can have the mask of love; sometimes sheer sexuality pretends to be love. And this must be so.

You say, 'Why do I love, then hate and then show indifference to the same person?'

You have not loved yet; it is just a sexual appetite in you. And I call it appetite knowingly. When you are hungry you are interested in food. The aroma coming from Vrindavan attracts you; everything else becomes unimportant. You find yourself moving towards Vrindavan. Once you have eaten, all interest in food disappears; and if you have eaten too much, you even become repelled by food. If you have eaten too much, more than was needed, you feel nauseous - a sickness arising in you.

And when you are satiated with food, you can pass by Vrindavan; you don't smell the aromas. You can go on thinking a thousand and one thoughts and you can remain indifferent to food.

Your love is nothing but sexual appetite. That's why first you feel attracted, in 'great love'. That attraction you call love. Just as people say they love ice cream, that's the way you love people. But how long can you love ice cream? You can eat, but how much?

Once I stayed with a family in Bombay. The people are beautiful people, but they have a strange idea of how to serve a guest. Because I was staying there, they invited many people; they gave a feast.

And then the four brothers started forcing each guest to eat more and more. They actually started physically forcing food into people's mouths, and people were saying, 'No!' looking very aghast and puzzled, 'What is happening?' And there were four persons on each guest!

I asked, 'What is the matter? What are you doing? If they don't want to eat, leave them to themselves!'

They said, 'But this is our tradition. In our family, unless the guest starts fighting, we have to... otherwise we have not been real hosts.'

And this was their idea of being a real host! Unless the guest starts fighting... And that actually happened. When the guest... how long can you suffer? There is a limit! The body is not infinite and the stomach has a limit. And the guests started shouting. And they were very happy because they had been good hosts.

First, you THINK you are in love, Tushara. But that is not love - just a physical appetite, a bodily phenomenon, a chemical phenomenon - nothing to do with love.

Love is a very different thing. It has not necessarily anything to do with sex. Sex may be a part of it, may not be a part of it. You can be in love with a person without any sexual relationship. That's what we call friendship. It has disappeared from the world. Now friendship has almost disappeared from the world because we know only one kind of love, which is sexual. A non-sexual love has become non-existent. In fact, that IS love. Friendship is a deeper love than sexual relationship because friendship gives and asks nothing in return.

Sexual relationship is mutual exploitation: you are exploiting the other's body and he or she is exploiting your body. Both are using each other. But just to say it is pure sex looks ugly so we call it love. It will be very good if you call it simple sex; it will be true, sincere and there will be no problem arising, because then you will know it is appetite. You are fulfilled one moment and then, if the other goes on demanding and you go on playing the game, there will be hate, because you will be repulsed. And sooner or later you will become indifferent, because you have explored the other's body and he has explored your body. Now there is no more to it; the territories are known. Now there is no more intrigue, no more mystery to go into. You are finished. Indifference arises.

Tushara, what you call love is just sex. Call it sex, don't call it love. And it will be good to call it sex because then you know it is sex. There is no need to pretend. If you don't pretend, it will not turn into hate. If you pretend that it is love and it is not, sooner or later you will see it is turning into hate. If you don't pretend, if you call it simply sex, you will be grateful to the other, you will not hate the other. And it will never become indifference; you will always feel thankful.

But calling it by a big name, 'love', creates the whole trouble. Then the problem arises - why does it turn into hate? Love never turns into hate. Love goes on becoming more and more love. Love ultimately becomes prayer and God.

But this is not love. The first thing - my suggestion - is: call it simple, pure sex. And there is nothing wrong in pure, simple sex; it is natural. There is no need to hide it behind the beautiful word 'love'.  There is no need to create a cloud of romance around it. Be simple, be true, sincere. If this is done, half the work is done. Then one day you will be able to see the difference. One day you will fall in love and you will see it is not just physiological, chemical attraction, but something higher, something superior - two vibes falling in tune, two spirits feeling close, two beings feeling harmonious.

My own words are: if two bodies are feeling attracted to each other, it is sex; if two minds are feeling attracted to each other, it is love; if two souls are feeling attracted to each other, it is prayer. And prayer is the highest form. Sex is the lowest form. Don't think of the lower as the higher; otherwise you remain misguided.

A man and woman had been going together for some time and finally she agreed to go to bed with him. While going to his apartment, they passed some swank shops. The woman admired some expensive Italian shoes. 'Don't worry, baby, I'll get them for you,' he said.

Then she saw a real Parisian dress.  'Don't worry, baby, I'll get that for you, too.'

Finally, a mink coat caught her eye. 'Don't worry, baby, I'll get that coat for you.'

They finally got to the apartment, made love, and in leaving, again passed the shops. 'There is the coat you are going to buy me,' she said. 'Come on away from there,' he snapped.

'Oh, and there is the dress.' 

'Come on away from there,' was again the reply.

Finally she saw the shoes and pointed them out. Again he responded, 'Come on away from there.' She began to cry and sobbed, 'I don't understand. Before we made love, you promised me all those things. Now, just two hours later, you are breaking your promises.'

'Baby, it's like this. When I am hard, I am soft, but when I am soft, I am hard.'

Enough for today.

 

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