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(A New Vision of Women's Liberation)
a celebration of women and the female spirit
celebrating the female spirit
Foundations of a New Humanity
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Title Page Copyright Notice Preface
Osho International Meditation Resort About Osho For More Information Also by Osho Copyright
How can you, as a man, talk about the feminine psyche?
I am not talking as a man, I am not talking as a woman. I am not talking as amind at all. The mind is used, but I am talking as consciousness, as awareness.And awareness is neither he nor she, awareness is neither man nor woman. Yourbody has that division and your mind too, because your mind is your inner partof the body and your body is the outer part of your mind. Your body and mindare not separate; they are one entity. In fact, to say body and mind is not right;“and” should not be used. You are bodymind—not even a hyphen between thetwo.
Hence with the body, with the mind, these words masculine and feminine arerelevant, meaningful. But there is something beyond them both; there issomething transcendental. That is your real core, your being. That being consistsonly of awareness, of witnessing, of watchfulness. It is pure consciousness.
I am not talking here as a man; otherwise it is impossible to talk about thewoman. I am talking as awareness. I have lived in the feminine body many times
and I have lived in the masculine body many times, and I have witnessed all. Ihave seen all the houses, I have seen all the garments. What I am saying to youis the conclusion of many, many lives; it has not to do with only this life. Thislife is only a culmination of a long, long pilgrimage.
So don’t listen to me as a man or a woman; otherwise you will not belistening to me. Listen to me as awareness.
It seems to me that you are the first man this planet has ever known who reallyunderstands women and accepts them. Please comment.
I have told you that a woman is to be loved, not understood. That is the firstunderstanding.
Life is so mysterious that our hands cannot reach to its heights, our eyescannot look into its deepest mystery. Understanding any expression of existence—men or women or trees or animals or birds—is the function of science, not ofa mystic. I am not a scientist. To me, science itself is a mystery, and nowscientists have started to recognize it. They are dropping their old, stubborn,superstitious attitude that one day they will know all that is to be known.
With Albert Einstein the whole history of science has taken a very differentroute because the more he went into the deepest core of matter, the more hebecame puzzled. All logic was left behind, all rationality was left behind. Youcannot dictate to existence, because it does not follow your logic. Logic is man-made. There was a point in Albert Einstein’s life when he remembers that he
was wavering about whether to insist on being rational ... but that would befoolish. It would be human, but not intelligent. Even if you insist on logic, onrationality, existence is not going to change according to your logic; your logichas to change according to existence. And the deeper you go, existence becomesmore and more mysterious. A point comes when you have to leave logic andrationality and just listen to nature. I call it the ultimate understanding—but notin the ordinary sense of understanding. You know it, you feel it, but there is noway to say it.
Man is a mystery, woman is a mystery, everything that exists is a mystery—and all our efforts to figure it out are going to fail.
I am reminded of a man who was purchasing in a toy shop a present for hisson for Christmas. He was a well-known mathematician, so naturally theshopkeeper brought out a jigsaw puzzle. The mathematician tried ... it was abeautiful puzzle. He tried and tried and tried and started perspiring. It wasbecoming awkward. The customers and the salesmen and the shopkeeper wereall watching, and he was not able to bring the puzzle to a solution. Finally hedropped the idea and he shouted at the shopkeeper: “I am a mathematician and ifI cannot solve this jigsaw puzzle, how do you think my small boy will be ableto?”
The shopkeeper said, “You don’t understand. It is made in such a way thatnobody can solve it—mathematician or no mathematician.”
The mathematician asked, “But why is it made in this way?”
The shopkeeper said, “It is made in this way so that the boy from the verybeginning starts learning that life cannot be solved, cannot be understood.”
You can live it, you can rejoice in it, you can become one with the mystery,but the idea of understanding as an observer is not at all possible.
I don’t understand myself. The greatest mystery to me is myself. But a fewclues I can give to you:
A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions thatyour wife asks you for nothing.
The key to happiness: You may speak of love and tenderness and passion,but real ecstasy is discovering you haven’t lost your keys after all.
Women begin by resisting a man’s advances and end by blocking hisretreat.
If you want to change a woman’s mind, agree with her.
If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her—don’tlisten to her.
The lady walked up to the policeman and said, “Officer, that man on thecorner is annoying me.”
“T have been watching the whole time,” said the cop, “and that manwasn’t even looking at you.”
“Well,” said the woman, “isn’t that annoying?”
The romantic young man turned to the beautiful young girl in his bed andasked, “Am I the first man you ever made love to?”
She thought for a moment and then said, “You could be—I have aterrible memory for faces.”
Everything is mysterious: It is better to enjoy it rather than trying tounderstand it. Ultimately the man who goes on trying to understand life provesto be a fool, and the man who enjoys life becomes wise and goes on enjoyinglife, because he becomes more and more aware of the mysterious that surroundsus.
The greatest understanding is to know that nothing can be understood, that allis mysterious and miraculous. To me this is the beginning of religiousness inyour life.
Would you please explain what the real differences between men and womenare?
Most of the differences between men and women are because of thousands ofyears of conditioning; they are not fundamental to nature. But there are a fewdifferences which give them unique beauty, individuality. Those differences can be counted very easily.
One is that the woman is capable of producing life; man is not. In that way heis inferior, and that inferiority has played a great role in the domination ofwomen by men. The inferiority complex works in this way: It pretends to besuperior—to deceive oneself and to deceive the whole world. So man down theages has been trying to destroy the woman’s genius, talents, capacities, so that hecan prove himself superior—to himself and to the world.
Because the woman gives birth, for nine months or more she remainsabsolutely vulnerable, dependent on man. Men have exploited this in a very uglyway. And that is a physiological difference; it makes no difference at all. Thepsychology of the woman is corrupted by man telling her things which are nottrue, making her a slave to man, reducing her to a secondary citizen of the world.And the reason for that was that he is muscularly more powerful. But themuscular power is part of animality. If that is going to decide the superiority,then many animals are more muscular than a man.
But the real differences are certainly there, and we have to search for thembehind the pile of invented differences. One difference I see is that a woman ismore capable of love than a man is. A man’s love is more or less a physicalnecessity; a woman’s love is not. It is something greater and higher, it is aspiritual experience. That’s why the woman is monogamous and man ispolygamous. The man would like to have all the world’s women, and still hewould not be satisfied. His discontent is infinite.
The woman can be satisfied with one love, utterly fulfilled, because she doesnot look at the body of the man, she looks at his innermost qualities. She doesnot fall in love with a man who has a beautiful muscular body, she falls in lovewith a man who has charisma—something indefinable, but immensely attractive—who has a mystery to be explored. She wants her man not to be just a man, butan adventure in discovering consciousness.
The man is very weak as far as sexuality is concerned; he can have only oneorgasm. The woman is infinitely superior; she can have multiple orgasms. Andthis has been one of the most troublesome matters. The man’s orgasm is local,confined to his genitals. The woman’s orgasm is total, not confined to thegenitals. Her whole body is sexual, and she can have a beautiful orgasmicexperience a thousandfold bigger, deeper, more enriching, more nourishing thana man can have.
But her whole body has to be aroused, and the tragedy is that man is notinterested in it. He has never been interested in it. He has used the woman as asex machine just to relieve his own sexual tensions. Within seconds he isfinished, and by the time he is finished the woman has not even begun. Themoment a man is finished making love he turns and goes to sleep. The sexual acthelps him to have a good sleep—more relaxed, with all the tensions released inthe sexual activity. And every woman has cried and wept when she has seen this.She had not even started, she had not moved. She has been used, and that is theugliest thing in life: When you are used as a thing, as a mechanism, as an object.She cannot forgive the man for using her.
To make the woman also an orgasmic partner the man has to learn foreplay,to be in no hurry to go to bed. He has to make love something of an art. They canhave a place—a love temple—where incense is burning, no glaring lights, justcandles. And he should approach the woman when he is in a beautiful mood,joyous, so he can share. What happens ordinarily is that men and women fightbefore they make love. That poisons love. Love is a kind of treaty, a sign that thefight is finished—at least for tonight. It is a bribe, it is cheating.
A man should make love the way a painter paints—when he feels the urgefilling his heart—or the way the poet composes poetry, or a musician playsmusic. The woman’s body should be taken as a musical instrument; it is. Whenthe man is feeling joy, then sex is not just a release, a relaxation, a sleepingmethod. Then there is foreplay. He dances with the woman, he sings with thewoman—with beautiful music vibrating the love temple, with the incense thatthey love. It should be something of the sacred, because there is nothing sacredin ordinary life unless you make love sacred. And that will be the beginning ofopening the door to the whole phenomenon of superconsciousness.
Love never should be forced, love never should be an attempt. It should notbe in the mind at all—you are playing, dancing, singing, enjoying ... part of thislong joy. If it happens, then it is beautiful. When love happens, it has beauty.When it is made to happen, it is ugly.
And while you are making love with the man on top of the woman ... it isknown as the missionary posture. The East became aware of this ugliness thatthe man was heavier, taller, and more muscular; he was crushing a delicatebeing. In the East, the way has always been just the opposite: the woman on top.Crushed under the weight of the man, the woman has no mobility. Only the manmoves, so he comes to orgasm within seconds and the woman is simply in tears.She has been a partner, but she was not involved in it. She has been used.
When the woman is on top she has more mobility, the man has less mobility,and that will bring their orgasms closer to each other. And when both go intoorgasmic experience, it is something of the other world. It is the first glimpse ofsamadhi; it is the first glimpse that one is not the body. One forgets the body,one forgets the world. Both the man and the woman move into a new dimensionthey have never explored.
The woman has the capacity for multiple orgasms, so the man has to be asslow as possible. But the reality is, he is in such a hurry in everything that hedestroys the whole relationship. He should be very relaxed so that the womancan have multiple orgasms. His orgasm should come at the end, when thewoman’s orgasm has reached to the peak. It is a simple question ofunderstanding.
These are natural differences—they have nothing to do with conditioning.There are other differences. For example, a woman is more centered than a man.She is more serene, more silent, more patient, is capable of waiting. Perhapsbecause of these qualities she has more resistance to diseases and she liveslonger than a man. Because of her serenity, her delicateness, she can fulfill aman’s life immensely. She can surround man’s life in a very soothing, cozyatmosphere. But the man is afraid—he does not want to be surrounded by thewoman, he does not want to let her create a cozy warmth around him. He isafraid because that way he will become dependent. So for centuries he has beenkeeping her at a distance. And he is afraid because he knows deep down that thewoman is more than he is. She can give birth to life. Nature has chosen her toreproduce, not man.
Man’s function in reproduction is almost nil. This inferiority has created thegreatest problem—man started cutting the woman’s wings. He started in everyway reducing her, condemning her, so that he could at least believe that he issuperior. He has treated women as cattle—even worse. In China, for thousandsof years, the woman was not thought to have a soul, so the husband could killher and the law would not interfere—she was his possession. If he wanted todestroy his furniture, it was not illegal. If he wanted to destroy his woman, it wasnot illegal. This is the ultimate insult—that the woman has no soul.
Man has deprived woman of education, of financial independence. He hasdeprived her of social mobility because he is afraid. He knows she is superior, heknows she is beautiful, he knows that giving her independence will createdanger. So down the centuries there has been no independence for women. TheMohammedan woman even has to keep her face covered so that except herhusband, nobody can see the beauty of her face, the depth of her eyes.
In Hinduism, the woman had to die when the husband died. What a greatjealousy! You have possessed her your whole life, and even after death you wantto possess her. You are afraid. She is beautiful, and when you are gone, whoknows? She may find another partner, perhaps better than you. So the system ofsati prevailed for thousands of years—the most ugly phenomenon you canimagine.
Man is very egoistic. That’s why I call him male chauvinistic. Man hascreated this society, and in this society there is no place for the woman. And shehas tremendous qualities of her own! For example, if man has the possibility ofintelligence, the woman has the possibility of love. It does not mean she cannothave intelligence; she can have intelligence, she just has to be given the chanceto develop it. But love she is born with—she has more compassion, morekindness, more understanding. Man and woman are two strings of one harp, butboth are in suffering separate from each other. And because they are sufferingand do not know the reason, they start taking revenge on each other.
The woman can be of immense help in creating an organic society. She isdifferent from man, but not unequal. She is as equal to a man as any other man.She has talents of her own which are absolutely needed. It is not enough to earnmoney, it is not enough to become a success in the world; more necessary is abeautiful home, and the woman has the capacity to change any house into ahome. She can fill it with love; she has that sensitivity. She can rejuvenate man,help him relax.
In the Upanishads there is a very strange blessing for new couples. A newcouple comes to the seer of the Upanishads and he gives his blessing. He says tothe girl specifically, “I hope you will become a mother of ten children, andfinally, your husband will be your eleventh child. And unless you become amother to your husband, you have not succeeded in being a true wife.” It is verystrange but has immense psychological insight in it, because this is what themodern psychology finds, that every man is looking for his mother in the womanand every woman is looking for her father in the man.
That’s why every marriage is a failure: You cannot find your mother. Thewoman you have married has not come to your house to be your mother, shewants to be your wife, a lover. But the Upanishadic blessing, almost fivethousand or six thousand years old, gives an insight to modern psychology. Awoman, whatsoever she is, is basically a mother. A father is an inventedinstitution, it is not natural. But the mother will remain indispensable. They havetried experiments: They have given children all the facilities, medication, all thefood ... every perfection from different branches of science, but strangely thechildren go on shrinking and will die within months. Then they discovered thatthe mother’s body and her warmth is an absolute necessity for life to grow. Thatwarmth in this vast, cold universe is absolutely necessary in the beginning;otherwise the child will feel abandoned. He will shrink and die.
There is no need for man to feel inferior to woman. The whole idea arisesbecause you take man and woman as two species. They belong to one humanity,and they have complementary qualities. They both need each other, and onlywhen they are together are they whole. Life should be taken with ease.Differences are not contradictions. They can help each other and immenselyenhance each other. The woman who loves you can enhance your creativity, caninspire you to heights you have never dreamed of. And she asks nothing. Shesimply wants your love, which is her basic right.
Most of the things that make men and women different are conditional.Differences should be maintained because they make men and women attractiveto each other, but they should not be used as condemnation. I would like both tobecome an organic whole, remaining at the same time absolutely free, becauselove never creates bondage, it gives freedom. Then we can create a better world.
Half of the world has been denied its contribution and that half, the women, hadan immense capacity to contribute to the world. It would have made it abeautiful paradise.
The woman should search into her own soul for her own potential anddevelop it, and she will have a beautiful future. Man and woman are neitherequal nor unequal, they are unique. And the meeting of two unique beings bringssomething miraculous into existence.
In The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, a woman asks Almustafa to speak aboutpain. Would you comment on this excerpt?
And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
And Almustafa said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell thatencloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break,that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And couldyou keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, yourpain would not seem less wondrous than your joy. And you wouldaccept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted theseasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenitythrough the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which thephysician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician,and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, thoughheavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, and thecup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the claywhich the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
It seems that it is very difficult, even for a man of Khalil Gibran’s caliber, toforget a deep-rooted, male chauvinistic attitude. I am saying this because thestatements that Almustafa is going to make are right in a way—but still theymiss something very essential.
Almustafa forgets that the question is raised by a woman, and his answer isvery general, applicable to both man and woman. But the truth is that the painand suffering that women of the world have gone through is a thousandfold morethan man has ever known. That’s why I say Almustafa is answering the question,but not the questioner. And unless the questioner is answered, the answerremains superficial—howsoever profound it may sound. The answer seems to beacademic, philosophical.
It does not have the insight into what man has done to the woman—and it isnot a question of one day, but of thousands of years. He does not even mentionit. On the contrary, he goes on doing the same that the priests and the politicianshave been doing always—giving consolations. Behind beautiful words there isnothing but consolation. And consolation cannot be a substitute for truth.
And a woman spoke ...
Is it not strange that out of that whole crowd no man asked about pain? Is itjust accidental? No, absolutely no. It is very relevant that a woman asked thequestion, “Tell us of pain,” because only the woman knows how many woundsshe has been carrying, how much slavery—physical, mental and spiritual—shehas suffered and is still suffering. A woman is hurting in the deepest core of herbeing. No man knows the depth pain can go to in you and destroy your dignity,your pride, your very humanity.
Almustafa said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses yourunderstanding.
A very poor statement—so superficial that I feel ashamed of Khalil Gibransometimes. Any idiot can say it. It is not worthy of Khalil Gibran: Your pain isthe breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is a very simpleand general statement.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in thesun, so must you know pain.—lI hate this statement. He is supporting the ideathat you must experience pain. It is a truism, but not a truth. It is very factual—aseed has to go through great suffering, because unless the seed dies in hissuffering the tree will never be born, and the great foliage and the beauty of theflowers will never come into existence. But who remembers the seed and itscourage to die for the unknown to be born?
The same is true, if ... the shell that encloses your understanding ... goesthrough suffering, breaks down, allows freedom to your understanding, there isgoing to be a certain pain. But what is the shell? That’s how poets have escapedfrom crucifixions; he should have explained what the shell is: All theknowledge, all your conditionings, the whole process of your upbringing, youreducation, your society and civilization—they constitute the shell which keepsyou and your understanding imprisoned. But he is not mentioning a single wordof what he means by “shell.”
* * *
Gautam Buddha is a man; his great disciples—Mahakashyap, Sariputta,Moggalayan—all are men. Was there not a single woman who could have beenraised to the same consciousness? But Gautam Buddha himself was denyinginitiation to women, as if they are a species not of humanity but of somesubhuman state. Why bother with them?—let them first attain manhood.
The statement of Gautam Buddha is that man is the crossroads from whereyou can go anywhere—to enlightenment, to ultimate freedom. But the woman isnot mentioned at all. She is not a crossroads, but just a dark street where nomunicipal corporation has even put lights; it goes nowhere. Man is asuperhighway. So first let the woman come on the superhighway, let her becomea man, be born in the body of a man—then there is some possibility of herbecoming enlightened.
Says Almustafa ... so must you know pain—but for what? If the womancannot become enlightened, why should she go through pain? She is not gold, inthat going through fire she will become purer.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,
your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.... It is true, butsometimes truth can be very dangerous, a double-edged sword. On one hand itprotects, on another hand it destroys. It is true that if you keep the wonder inyour eyes you will be surprised to know that even pain has its own sweetness, itsown miracle, its own joy. It is not less wondrous than joy itself. But the strangefact is that the woman is always more like a child, more full of wonder than man.Man is always after knowledge—and what is knowledge? Knowledge is just ameans to get rid of wonder. The whole of science is trying to demystifyexistence, and the word science means knowledge. And it is a very simple factthat the more you know, the less you wonder.
As you grow older you lose the sensitivity for wonder, you become more andmore dull. But the reason for it is that now you know everything. You knownothing, but your mind is now full of borrowed knowledge, and you have notever thought that underneath it is nothing but darkness and ignorance.
Almustafa does not mention the fact that women always remain more like thechild than men. That is one part of their beauty—their innocence; they don’tknow. Man has never allowed them to know anything. They know small things—about keeping the house and the kitchen and taking care of the children andthe husband—but these are not the things that can prevent ... This is not greatknowledge; this can be put aside very easily.
That’s why, whenever a woman has come to listen to me, she has heard memore deeply, more intimately, more lovingly. But when a man first comes tohear me, he is very resistant, alert, afraid that he may be influenced, hurt if hisknowledge is not supported. Or, if he is very cunning, he goes on interpretingwhatever is said according to his own knowledge, and he will say, “I know it all—there was nothing new.” This is a measure to protect his ego, to protect thehard shell. And unless that shell breaks and you find yourself wondering like achild, there is no possibility of your ever being in a space which we have alwaysknown as the soul—your very being.
This has been my experience all over the world—that the woman listens, andyou can see the glitter of wonder in her eyes. It is not superficial, its roots aredeep into her heart. But Khalil Gibran does not mention the fact, although thequestion is asked by a woman. In fact, man is even so cowardly that he is afraidto ask questions, because your question proves your ignorance.
All the best questions in The Prophet are asked by women—about love,about marriage, about children, about pain—authentic, real. Not about God, notabout any philosophical system, but about life itself. They may not look likegreat questions, but they are really the greatest questions, and the person whocan solve them has entered into a new world. But Almustafa answers as if thequestion has been asked by anybody, any XYZ—he is not answering thequestioner. And my approach is always that the real question is the questioner.
Why has the question arisen in a woman and not in a man? Because thewoman has suffered slavery, the woman has suffered humiliation, the womanhas suffered economic dependence, and above all she has suffered a constantstate of pregnancy. For centuries she has lived in pain and pain and pain. Thegrowing child in her does not allow her to eat; she is always feeling likethrowing up, vomiting. When the child has grown to nine months, the birth ofthe child is almost the death of the woman. And when she is not even free of onepregnancy the husband is ready to make her pregnant again. It seems that thewoman’s only function is to be a factory to produce crowds.
And what is man’s function? He does not participate in her pain. Ninemonths she suffers, the birth of the child she suffers—and what does the mando? As far as the man is concerned, he simply uses the woman as an object tofulfill his lust and sexuality. He is not concerned at all about what theconsequence will be for the woman. And still he goes on saying, “I love you.” Ifhe had really loved her, the world would not have been overpopulated. His word“love” is absolutely empty. He has treated her almost like cattle.
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have alwaysaccepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
True, and yet not absolutely true. True if you forget about the questioner, butnot true if you remember the questioner. Just as a philosophical statement it istrue.
And you would accept the seasons of your heart.... Sometimes there ispleasure, and sometimes there is pain, and sometimes there is just indifference—no pain, no pleasure. He is saying, “If you accept the seasons of your heart, evenas you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields....”
Superficially it is true. Acceptance of anything gives you a certain peace, acertain calmness. You are not too worried; you know this too will pass. But asfar as the woman is concerned there is a difference. She is constantly living inone season—pain and pain. The seasons don’t change from summer to winter, orto rain. The woman’s life is really hard.
It is not so hard today, but only in the advanced countries. Eighty percent ofIndia’s population lives in villages, where you can see the real hardship that thewoman goes through. She has been going through that hardship for centuries,and the season does not change. If you look into this fact then this statementbecomes antirevolutionary, this statement becomes a consolation: “Accept theslavery of man, accept the torture of the man.”
The woman has lived in such pain ... and yet Almustafa completely forgetswho is asking the question. It is possible to accept the change of seasons, but notten thousand years of slavery. The season does not change.
The woman needs revolt, not acceptance.
Man is the most lustful animal on the earth. Every animal has a season whenthe male becomes interested in the female. Sometimes the season is only for afew weeks, sometimes a month or two months, and then for the whole year theyforget all about sex, they forget all about reproduction. That’s why they are notin a situation of overpopulation. It is only man who is sexual all the year round,and if he is American then he is sexual in the night, he is sexual in the morning.And you are asking the woman to accept the pain?
I cannot ask you to accept such pain—pain that is imposed by others on you.You need a revolution.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Why? When we can change it, why should we watch? Watch only that whichcannot be changed. Watch only that which is natural—be a witness to it. But thisis poetic cunningness. Beautiful words: and watch with serenity .... Watchanything that is natural with serenity, and revolt against all suffering that isimposed by anybody. Whether it is a man or woman, whether it is your father ormother, whether it is the priest or the professor, whether it is the government orthe society—trevolt!
Unless you have a rebellious spirit you are not alive in the true sense of theword.
Much of your pain is self-chosen. This is true. All your misery, all yourpain ... much of it is not imposed by others. Against that which is imposed byothers, revolt, but that which you have chosen yourself—drop it. There is noneed to watch. Just the understanding that “I have imposed it upon myself,” isenough—throw it away. Let others watch you throw it! Seeing you throwing itaway, perhaps they will also understand, “Why unnecessarily suffer?—theneighbors are throwing away their grief.”
Your jealousies, your anger, your greed—they all bring pain. Yourambitions, they all bring pain. And they are self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Again he comes back to console you. He is not making a clear-cutdistinction. There are pains which are imposed by others—revolt against them.And there are pains which are natural—witness them, and witness them withserenity, because it is the bitter medicine that nature, the physician within you,uses to heal your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence andtranquillity.
But remember it is about the physician—not about your husband, not aboutthe government. They impose pain on you not to heal you but to destroy you, tocrush you. Because the more you are destroyed, the more easily you can bedominated. Then there is no fear of rebellion from your side. So remember whothe physician is. Nature heals, time heals—you simply wait, witness. But be veryclear what is natural and what is artificial.
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of theunseen. The cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of theclay which the potter has moistened with his own sacred tears.
Whatever is natural, against which no rebellion is possible ... then don’t bemiserable; then accept it with gratitude. It is the invisible hand of the divinewhich wants to heal you, which wants to bring you to a higher state ofconsciousness. But whatever is unnatural ... to yield to any kind of slavery is todestroy your own soul. It is better to die than to live as a slave.
I have felt inside me a deeply buried, revengeful, cold rage against all menwho have ever forced, raped, killed, or hurt women. This feels like something Ihave been carrying within for lives. Please help me uncover and befriend thisold witch.
The first thing to be clear about is that it was Christianity that condemned theword witch; otherwise, it was one of the most respected words, as respected asmystic—a wise man. It simply meant a wise woman, the parallel to a wise man.
But in the Middle Ages, Christianity came to face a danger. There werethousands of women who were far wiser than the bishops and the cardinals andthe pope. They knew the art of transforming people’s lives.
Their whole philosophy was based on love and transformation of sexualenergy—and a woman can do that more easily than a man. After all, she is amother and she is always a mother. Even a small baby girl has the quality ofmotherliness.
The quality of motherliness is not something connected with age, it is part ofwomanhood. And the transformation needs a very loving atmosphere, a verymotherly transfer of energies. To Christianity, it was a competitor. Christianityhas nothing to offer in comparison to it—but Christianity was in power.
It was a man’s world up to then, and they decided to destroy all witches. Buthow to destroy them? It was not a question of killing one woman but thousandsof women. So a special court was created for inquiry, to find out who was awitch.
Any woman said by Christians to have had an influence on people and whopeople respected was caught and tortured—so much so, that she had to confess.They wouldn’t stop torturing her until she confessed that she was a witch. Andaccording to the Christian mind, to Christian theology, the meaning of witch waschanged: A witch is one who is having a sexual relationship with the devil.
You don’t hear any more of any devil having a relationship with any woman.Either the devil has become a Christian monk, a celibate, or ... what hashappened to the devil? Who was it that was having sexual relationships withthousands of women? And these women were mostly old women. It doesn’tseem to be rational. When young and beautiful women were available, whyshould the devil go to the old, the very old women?
But to become a witch, it was a long training, a long discipline, a longexperience. So by the time a woman was a witch—a wise woman—she was old;she had sacrificed everything to attain that wisdom, that alchemy.
They forced these poor old women into saying that they were having sexualintercourse with the devil. Many of them tried hard ... but the torture was toomuch. They tortured these women in many ugly ways, just for one thing: Theyshould confess. The women continued to try to say that they had nothing to dowith the devil, that there was nothing to confess. But nobody listened to them;they went on torturing them.
You can make anybody confess anything if you go on torturing him. A pointcomes when he feels it is better to confess rather than to unnecessarily suffer thesame torture every day. And it would have continued for his whole life. Once awoman confessed that she was a witch and was having a sexual relationship withthe devil, her torture was stopped and then she was presented before a court—aspecial court made by the pope—and before the court she was to now confess.And once she confessed before the court, the court was able to punish her—because it is the greatest crime in the eyes of Christianity.
In fact, even if the woman was having a sexual relationship with the devil, itis none of the business of anybody else—and it is not a crime, because she is notharming anybody. And the devil has never complained to any police station,“That woman is dangerous.” On what authority was Christianity burning thesewomen?
The only punishment was to be burned alive so that no other woman dared tobe a witch again. They destroyed thousands of women and completely removeda very significant part of humanity. And the wisdom that those women contained—their books, their methods, their techniques of transforming man, transformingman’s energy.
Don’t think that “witch” is a bad word. It is more respectable than “pope”—because I don’t think a pope is a man who can be called wise; they are justparrots and nothing else. It is possible that it may be connected with your pastlife, and the wound has been so deep that still some remembrance in yourunconscious goes on reminding you. And that creates the hate for men, becausewhat was done to you was done by men.
So it is a simple association, but that association has to be dropped. It was notdone by men, it was done by Christians. And the Christians have done so manycrimes, and they go on doing them. It is unbelievable! And they go on talkingabout truth, talking about God ... and speaking lies. And these are religiouspeople trying in every way to deceive the world, to deceive the human mind, topollute with ugly lies.
So don’t be against men as such; just being against Christian atrocities isenough.
For two thousand years Christianity has been killing people in the name ofreligion, in the name of God, in the name of Christ, in the name of the nation—so it is perfectly right to condemn them. But not every man is a Christian.
But it will be good to go through a hypnotic process to find out more clearly.Perhaps you may remember what were the techniques of the witches—how theyfunctioned, how they managed to change people—because unless they were adanger to Christianity, Christianity would not have killed them.
It was a real danger, because Christianity has nothing to offer in comparison.
What do you see as the greatest need of contemporary woman?
Because the woman has been dominated, tortured, and reduced to a nonentity,she has become ugly. Whenever your nature is not allowed to go according to itsinner needs, it turns sour, it becomes poisoned; it becomes crippled, paralyzed—it becomes perverted. The woman that you find in the world is not a true womaneither, because she has been corrupted for centuries. And when the woman iscorrupted, man cannot remain natural either, because after all, the woman givesbirth to the man. If she is not natural, her children will not be natural. If she isnot natural—she is going to mother the child, male or female—those childrennaturally will be affected by the mother.
Women certainly need a great liberation, but what is happening in the nameof liberation is stupid. It is imitation, it is not liberation.
Here with me there are many women who have been in the Liberationmovement, and when for the first time they come here they are very aggressive. Ican understand their aggression: Centuries and centuries of domination havemade them violent. It is a simple revenge. They have become insane, andnobody is responsible except man. But slowly, slowly, they soften, they becomegraceful; their aggressiveness disappears. They become, for the first time,feminine.
Real liberation will make the woman authentically a woman, not an imitationof man. Right now that’s what is happening: Women are trying to be just likemen. If men smoke cigarettes then the woman has to smoke cigarettes. If theywear pants then the woman has to wear pants. If they do a certain thing then thewoman has to do that. She is just becoming a second-rate man.
This is not liberation, this is a far deeper slavery—far deeper because the firstslavery was imposed by men. This second slavery is deeper because it is createdby the women themselves. And when somebody else imposes a slavery on you,you can rebel against it, but if you impose a slavery on yourself in the name ofliberation, there is no possibility of rebellion ever.
I would like the woman to become really a woman, because much dependson her. She is far more important than man because she carries in her womb boththe woman and the man. She mothers both, the boy and the girl; she nourishesboth. If she is poisoned, then her milk is poisoned, then her ways of bringing upchildren are poisoned.
If the woman is not free to be really a woman, man will never be free to bereally a man either. The freedom of woman is a must for the freedom of man; itis more fundamental than man’s freedom. And if the woman is a slave—as shehas been for centuries—she will make a slave of man too, in very subtle ways;her ways are subtle. She will not fight with you directly; her fight will beindirect, it will be feminine. She will cry and weep. She will not hit you, she willhit herself, and through hitting herself, through crying and weeping even thestrongest man becomes henpecked. A very thin, weak woman can dominate avery strong man.
The woman needs total freedom so that she can give freedom to man too.This is one of the fundamentals to be remembered: If you make somebody aslave you will be reduced to slavery ultimately, finally; you can’t remain free. Ifyou want to remain free, give freedom to others; that’s the only way to be free.
Are you against the Women’s Liberation movement?
The Liberation movement is something ugly—and I know the responsibility ison the male chauvinists. They have been doing so much harm to women downthe ages that now the women want to take revenge. But whenever you starttaking revenge you become destructive. It is of no use to go on looking at pastwounds. It is of no use to take revenge because of the past. One should learn toforgive and forget. Yes it was wrong—accepted. Whatsoever has been done towomen down the ages was absolutely wrong. Man has reduced women to slaves;even more than that he has reduced them to things, to possessions. But what isthe point of taking revenge? Then you become the pursuer and man becomes thepursued. Then another kind of chauvinism begins to take form and shape. Thenthe female chauvinist is born—and this is not going to put things right. Then thewomen will start doing harm to men, and sooner or later they will take revenge.Where is this going to stop? It is a vicious circle.
And my feeling is that instead of men stopping it, it is far easier for womento stop it, to come out of the vicious circle—because they are more loving, morecompassionate. Man is more aggressive, more violent. I don’t have much hopefor men, I hope much from women. Hence I am not in favor of the aggressiveattitude and approach of the Women’s Liberation movement.
Life’s problems can be solved by love, they cannot be solved by any violentapproach.
Man and women are different worlds; hence it is difficult to understand eachother. And the past has been full of misunderstandings, but that is not necessarilyto be so in the future. We can learn a lesson from the past, and the only lesson isthat men and women have to become more understanding of each other andmore accepting of each other’s differences. Those differences are valuable, theyneed not create any conflict; in fact they are the causes of attraction betweenthem.
If all the differences between men and women disappear, if they have thesame kind of psychology, love will also disappear because the polarity will notbe there. Men and women are like negative and positive poles of electricity:They are pulled toward each other magnetically. They are opposite poles; henceconflict is natural. But through understanding, through compassion, throughlove, through looking into the other’s world and trying to be sympathetic to it, allthe problems can be solved. There is no need to create more conflict—enough isenough.
Man needs as much liberation as woman. Both need liberation, liberationfrom the mind. They should cooperate with each other and help each other to beliberated from the mind. That will be a true Liberation movement.
Do you think women alone are responsible for the Liberation movement?
The Liberation movement that is going on in the world is a man-createdphenomenon, a male-created phenomenon. You will be surprised about it, that itis again a male conspiracy. Now man wants to get rid of women. He wants tohave no responsibility. He wants to enjoy women, but only as fun. He does notwant to take all the other responsibilities that come with it.
Now, this is a subtle conspiracy: The man is trying to persuade women allover the world that the woman has to become independent. It is a subtle trick.And the male mind is cunning and the male mind is succeeding. And now manywomen have become poisoned by this idea.
Do you know? The first persons who started talking about equality betweenmen and women were men, not women. The first persons who started talkingabout it, that they should have equal freedom, were men, not women. The seedcomes from the male mind. And it has always been so. Whenever a man feelswhat is in his favor, he manages it. His cunningness is very subtle. Andsometimes he manages it in such a way that the woman thinks she is doing it onher own.
In the past also it has been so. Man has persuaded women in the past thatthey are pure beings, angels. Man is dirty, boys are boys—but the woman? Sheis divine. Man has put woman on a high pedestal; that was his trick to controlwoman. Man has worshipped, and through worship he has controlled. Andnaturally, when the woman was on the pedestal she thought that she wassomething divine—she could not do those things that men are doing, she couldnot, because that was going against her ego. That high pedestal was very ego-satisfying. She was the mother, she was divine; she had more divine qualitiesthan man. Man is ugly, immoral, and all that. Man has to be forgiven.
So man, down the ages, remained in his ways. And the woman was high. Butthis was a trick; the ego was persuaded. And once your ego is persuaded, you arecaught. Then you cannot move from your posture. To ask for equality will be akind of fall—you will have to come down to become equal. It was a strategy,and the woman followed it. She remained pure, she remained a virgin up to themarriage.
In the West, man has persuaded women, “Now you have to be free, you haveto be equal.” Because now things have changed, times have changed—a manwould like to enjoy more women than just his wife. Now he wants absolutefreedom. And the only way to have absolute freedom is to give absolute freedomto the woman. And he has persuaded her again. And now the women protestersand women’s liberationists, they are shouting with their whole heart for libertyand equality. And they don’t know they are again in the same grip: Again man ispersuading them. Now man wants to use them and throw them aside with noresponsibility attached to it.
If you look deeply into the whole matter of it, you will be surprised. Themale mind is a cunning mind. The woman is more innocent; she cannot be sostrategic, so political. She has always believed the man. And you will besurprised: These Lib women are again believing in the man! Nothing haschanged. Now this is in favor of the man—that you should be free and youshould not ask for any commitment. He does not want to commit himself, hewants to have all the freedom. He does not want to take the responsibility ofyour children. He does not want to live with you forever, he wants to change hiswoman every day.
But now again he is creating beautiful words: One should live in nocommitment. One should live without involvement. One should not bepossessive, one should not be jealous. Now again he is creating beautifulphilosophy. He has done it before too—and then too women were deceived, andagain they are going to be deceived. Women trust. Trust is easy for them; lovecomes easier to them than logic. And they are very much concerned with theimmediate. The man always thinks of strategies, tactics, what will happen, howit will happen—he thinks of the future, he plans for the future.
The atmosphere is such that a woman has to be equal with man. She has notto be interested in the home, family, children, motherhood. She has to becomeinterested in poetry, in literature, in painting, in science, in technology, this andthat. Now women’s groups gather together around the world to raise theirconsciousness. And all their consciousness-raising sessions consist of only onething: That they have to destroy something deep in their womanhood. Only thencan they compete with men.
They are soft, naturally soft. They cannot compete with men. If they want tocompete with men they will have to become hard. So whenever you come acrossa Lib woman you can see the face loses softness. It is very difficult to say to aLib woman, “Baby”—very difficult. And she will be angry too, she will not likeit. Why “Baby”?—she is equal to you. Hardness arises.
All kinds of struggle give hardness. And you may be trying not to beinterested in the home, because if you become interested in the home then youcannot compete in the world. If you become interested in children you cannotcompete in the world; then that becomes a distraction. And if you have tocompete in the world and prove that you are as strong as men, you have tosomehow become more like men.
And this will be a loss. This is a loss—because the only hope for humanity isthe softness of woman, not the hardness of man. We have suffered enough fromthe hardness of man. What is needed is that man should become more likewoman, rather than woman becoming more like man.
Women are pulling against themselves, trying hard to manage. But that is notnatural. The natural is the womb in the woman—that womb hankers for a child,that womb hankers for a home. The home is the visible womb outside thewoman, it is a projection of the inner womb.
Once a woman is no longer interested in the home, she is no longer interestedin her womb. And that womb is there. And men and women are not equal,because man is missing that womb. How can they be equal? I am not saying theyare unequal, but I am certainly saying they are not equal. They are so different—how can they be equal? They are polar opposites. They are so different, theycannot be compared in terms of equality or inequality. A woman is a woman, aman is a man. And they should remain man and woman. A woman shouldremain interested in the home, because once she stops being interested in thehome she will stop being interested in the womb, in the child. And then naturallyshe turns into a lesbian.
My own understanding is that man has to become a little more feminine. Hehas gone too far away in becoming a man, he has lost track of all humanity.Don’t follow him, don’t compete with him—otherwise you will be going on inthe same rut, in the same routine. You will become warlike. And the Libbersscreaming and shouting and protesting on the streets are just ugly. They areshowing the worst traits of the male mind.
I simply cannot understand your generalizations about male and female type.Sometimes you acknowledge male and female principles regardless of gender.But most of the time you talk of woman being the “primitive” one, finding the“wolf” in the man. What of the woman who finds herself naturally theinitiator or sees the cat, not the wolf, in her man? Some men are really longingto be passive. Some women may need to assert themselves to grow. How can itbe simply a matter of Women’s Lib making women “sophisticated” and over-rational?
My statement that women are more primitive than men is not to condemn them,it is to condemn men. By primitive I mean more natural, more in tune withexistence. Civilization is a falsification, civilization is going astray from nature.The more man becomes civilized, the more he is hung up in the head. He losescontact with his heart. The heart is still primitive. And it is good that theuniversities have not yet found a way to teach the heart and make it civilized.That is the only hope for humanity to survive.
Drop these ideas of being men and women! We are all human beings. To be aman or a woman is just a very superficial thing. Don’t make much fuss about it,it is not anything very important; don’t make it a big deal.
And what I say sometimes may look like generalizations, because each time I
cannot put in all the conditions; otherwise my talking to you would become verymuch burdened with footnotes. And I hate books with footnotes! I simply don’tread them. The moment I see footnotes I throw the book away—it has beenwritten by some pundit, some scholar, some foolish person.
You say: “I simply cannot understand your generalizations about male andfemale type....”
I am always talking about types; the gender is not included. Whenever I say“man” I mean the man-type, and whenever I say “woman” I mean the woman-type. But I cannot each time say “man-type,” “woman-type.” And you are rightthat there are women who are not women, who are wolves; and there are menwho are not wolves, who are cats. But then whatsoever I say about the man-typewill be applicable to women who are wolves, and whatsoever I say about womenwill be applicable to men who are cats.
I am not talking about the biological distinction between man and woman, Iam talking about the psychological one. Yes, there are men who are far morefeminine than any woman, and there are women who are far more masculinethan any man. But this is not a beautiful state; this is ugly, because this iscreating a duality in you. If you have the body of a man and the mind of awoman, there will be a conflict, a social struggle in you, a civil war in you. Youwill be continuously in a tug of war, fighting, tense.
If you are a woman physiologically, and you have the mind of a man, yourlife will dissipate much energy in unnecessary conflict. It is far better to be intune. If a man in the body, then a man in the mind; if a woman in the body, thena woman in the mind.
And the Women’s Lib movement is creating unnecessary trouble. It isturning women into wolves, it is teaching them how to fight. Man is the enemy;how can you love the enemy? How can you be in an intimate relationship withthe enemy? The man is not the enemy.
The woman, to be really a woman, has to be more and more feminine, has totouch the heights of softness and vulnerability. And the man, to be really a man,has to move into his masculinity as deeply as possible. When a real man comesin contact with a real woman, they are polar opposites, extremes. But onlyextremes can fall in love, and only extremes can enjoy intimacy. Only extremesattract each other.
What is happening now is a kind of unisex: Men becoming more and morefeminine, women becoming more and more masculine. Sooner or later, alldistinctions will be lost. It will be a very colorless society, it will be boring.
I would like the woman to become as feminine as possible, only then can sheflower. And the man needs to be as masculine as possible, only then can heflower. When they are polar opposites, a great attraction, a great magnetism,arises between them. And when they come close, when they meet in intimacy,they bring two different worlds, two different dimensions, two differentrichnesses, and the meeting is a tremendous blessing, a benediction.
What do you see as being the next step women need to take?
I want to say to the women of the whole world that your Liberation movementhas not done anything, because it is in the hands of very stupid women. They arereactionaries, not revolutionaries. Otherwise, the simple and the most importantthing, the first priority, is that the women should demand a separate vote, so thatwomen can only vote for women, and men can only vote for men. Just a simpleand single step, and all the parliaments of the world will be half-filled withwomen. And the women will be naturally in power because man by nature has atendency to fight. He will create parties, political parties, religious ideologies—on small, minor, trivial things.
So if the women in a parliament are one single whole, the other half, of men,will be divided into at least eight or ten parties. The whole world can move intothe hands of women. And women are not interested in wars, women are notinterested in nuclear weapons, women are not interested in communism orcapitalism.
All these “isms” are from the head. Women are interested in being joyful, insmall things of life: a beautiful house, a garden, a swimming pool.
Life can be a paradise, but it is going to remain a hell unless man is removedfrom power altogether. And he can be remedied so easily.
I feel so imprisoned by the fear of being intimate and totally losing controlwith a man. This outrageous woman is locked up inside. When she comes outonce in a while, men usually freak out, so she goes back into hibernation,plays safe, and is totally frustrated. Could you please talk about this fear ofintimacy?
Mankind, especially womankind, suffers from many sicknesses. Up to now allthe so-called civilizations and cultures have been psychologically sick. Theyhave never dared even to recognize their sickness; and the first step of treatmentis to recognize that you are sick. The relationship between man and woman hasbeen especially unnatural.
A few facts have to be remembered. Firstly, man has the capacity for onlyone orgasm; woman has the capacity for multiple orgasms. This has created atremendous problem. There would not have been any problem if marriage andmonogamy had not been imposed on them; it seems it was not the intention ofnature. The man becomes afraid of the woman for the simple reason that if hetriggers one orgasm in her, then she is ready for at least half a dozen moreorgasms—and he is incapable of satisfying her.
The way that man has found is: Don’t give the woman even one orgasm.Even take away from her the conception that she can have an orgasm.
Secondly, man’s sex is local, genital. The same is not the case with woman.Her sexuality, her sensuality is spread all over her body. It takes a longer timefor her to warm up, and before she even gets warmed up, the man is finished. Heturns his back toward her and starts snoring. For thousands of years, millions ofwomen around the world have lived and died without knowing the greatestnatural gift—of orgasmic joy. It was a protection for man’s ego. The womanneeds a long foreplay so that her whole body starts tingling with sensuality, butthen there is the danger—what to do with her capacity for multiple orgasm?
Looked at scientifically, either sex should not be taken so seriously andfriends should be invited to give the woman her whole range of orgasms, orsome scientific vibrator should be used. But with both there are problems. If youuse scientific vibrators, they can give as many orgasms as the woman is capableof; but once a woman has known ... then the man’s organ looks so poor that shemay choose a Scientific instrument, a vibrator, rather than a boyfriend. If youallow a few friends to join you, then it becomes a social scandal—that you areindulging in orgies.
So the simplest way man has found is that the woman should not even movewhile he is making love to her; she should remain almost like a corpse. Andman’s ejaculation is quick—two minutes, three minutes at the most; by that timethe woman is not at all aware of what she has missed.
As far as biological reproduction is concerned, orgasm is not a necessity. Butas far as spiritual growth is concerned, orgasm is a necessity.
According to me, it is the orgasmic experience of bliss that has givenhumanity in the early days the idea of meditation, of looking for somethingbetter, more intense, more vital. Orgasm is nature’s indication that you containwithin yourself a tremendous amount of blissfulness. It simply gives you a tasteof it—then you can go on the search.
The orgasmic state, even the recognition of it, is a very recent thing. Just inthis century, psychologists became aware of what problems women are facing.
Through psychoanalysis and other psychological schools the conclusion was thesame, that she is being prevented from spiritual growth; she remains just adomestic servant.
As far as reproducing children is concerned, man’s ejaculation is enough—sobiology has no problem; but psychology has. Women are more irritable,nagging, bitchy, and the reason is that they have been deprived of something thatis their birthright; and they don’t even know what it is. Only in Western societieshas the younger generation become aware of the orgasm. And it is notcoincidental that the younger generation has gone into the search for truth, forecstasy—because orgasm is momentary, but it gives you a glimpse of thebeyond.
Two things happen in orgasm: One is, mind stops the constant yakkety yak—it becomes for a moment no-mind; and second, time stops. That single momentof orgasmic joy is so immense and so fulfilling that it is equal to eternity.
In the very early days man became aware that these are the two things whichgive you the greatest pleasure possible, as far as nature is concerned. And it wasa simple and logical conclusion that if you can stop your chattering mind andbecome so silent that everything stops—time included—then you are free fromsexuality. You need not depend on the other person, man or woman; you arecapable of attaining this state of meditation alone. And orgasm cannot be morethan momentary, but meditation can be spread over the whole twenty-four hours.
A man like Gautam Buddha is living every moment of his life in orgasmicjoy—it has nothing to do with sex.
I have been asked again and again why very few women became enlightened.Amongst other reasons, the most important reason is: They never had any tasteof orgasm. The window to the vast sky never opened. They lived, they producedchildren, and they died. They were used by biology and man, just like factories,producing children.
In the East, even now, it is very difficult to find a woman who knows whatorgasm is. I have asked very intelligent, educated, cultured women—they don’thave any idea of it. In fact, in the Eastern languages there is no word which canbe used as a translation for “orgasm.” It was not needed; it was simply nevertouched.
And man has taught woman that it is only prostitutes who enjoy sex. Theymoan and they groan and they scream, and they go almost crazy; to be arespectable lady you should not do such things. So the woman remains tense,and feels humiliated deep down—that she has been used. And many womenhave reported to me that after making love, when their husband goes on snoring,they have wept.
A woman is almost like a musical instrument; her whole body has immensesensitivity, and that sensitivity should be aroused. So there is a need for foreplay.And after making love, the man should not go to sleep; that is ugly, uncivilized,uncultured. A woman who has given you such joy needs some afterplay too—just out of gratitude.
Your question is very important—and is going to become more and moreimportant in the future. This problem has to be solved; but marriage is a barrier,religion is a barrier, your rotten old ideas are barriers. They are preventing halfof humanity from being joyous, and their whole energy—that should haveblossomed in flowers of joy—turns sour, poisonous, in nagging, in being bitchy.Otherwise all this nagging and this bitchiness would disappear.
Men and women should not be in a contract, like marriage. They should be inlove—but they should retain their freedom. They don’t owe anything to eachother.
And life should be more mobile. A woman coming into contact with manyfriends, a man coming into contact with many women, should be simply the rule.But it is possible only if sex is taken as playfulness, as fun. It is not sin, it is fun.And since the introduction of the pill, now there is no fear about having children.
The pill, in my opinion, is the greatest revolution that has happened inhistory. All its implications have not yet been made available to man. In the pastit was difficult, because making love meant more and more children. That wasdestroying the woman, she was always pregnant. And to remain pregnant andgive birth to twelve or twenty children is a torturous experience. Women wereused like cattle.
But the future can be totally different—and the difference will come not fromman. Just as Marx said about the proletariat, “Proletariats of the world unite, youhave nothing to lose,” and everything to gain. He had seen society divided intotwo classes, the rich and the poor.
I see society divided into two classes, man and woman.
Man has remained the master for centuries, and woman the slave. She hasbeen auctioned, she has been sold, she has been burnt alive. Everything inhumanthat can be done has been done to women—and they constitute half of humanity.
You are asking, “I feel so imprisoned by the fear of being intimate andtotally losing control.” Every woman is afraid, because if she loses control witha man, the man freaks out. He cannot handle it; his sexuality is very small.Because he is a donor, he loses energy while making love. The woman does notlose energy while making love—on the contrary, she feels nourished.
Now these are facts which have to be taken into account. Man has forcenturies forced the woman to control herself and has kept her at a distance,never allowing her to be too intimate. All his talk about love is bullshit.
“This outrageous woman is locked up inside. When she comes out once ina while, men usually freak out, so she goes back into hibernation, plays safe,and is totally frustrated.” This is not only your story; it is the story of allwomen. They are all living in deep frustration. Finding no way out, knowingnothing about what has been taken away from them, they have only one opening:They will be found in churches, in temples, in synagogues, praying to God. Butthat God is also a male chauvinist. In the Christian Trinity there is no place for awoman. All are men: the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. It is a boys’ club.
And the greatest harm that has been done to her is marriage, because neitherman nor woman is monogamous; psychologically they are polygamous. So theirwhole psychology has been forced against its own nature. And because womanwas dependent on man she had to suffer all kinds of insults—because man wasthe master, he was the owner, he had all the money.
To satisfy his polygamous nature, man created prostitutes. Prostitutes are aby-product of marriage. And this ugly institution of prostitution will notdisappear from the world unless marriage disappears. It is its shadow—becauseman does not want to be tied to a monogamous relationship, and he has thefreedom of movement, he has the money, he has the education, he has all thepower. He invented prostitutes; and to destroy a woman by making her aprostitute is the ugliest murder you can do.
The strange fact is, all religions are against prostitution—and they are thecause of it! They are all for marriage, and they cannot see a simple fact thatprostitution came into existence with marriage. Now the Women’s Liberationmovement is trying to imitate all the stupidities that men have done to women.In London, in New York, in San Francisco, you can find male prostitutes. That isanew phenomenon. This is not a revolutionary step, this is a reactionary step.
The problem is that unless you lose control while making love, you will nothave an orgasmic experience. So at least my people should be moreunderstanding, that the woman will moan and groan and scream. It is becauseher whole body is involved—total involvement.
You need not be afraid of that. It is tremendously healing: She will not bebitchy toward you, and she will not nag you, because all the energy that becomesbitchiness has been transformed into an immense joy. And don’t be afraid aboutthe neighbors. It is their problem if they are worried about your groaning andmoaning, it is not your problem. You are not preventing them.
Make your love a really festive affair, don’t make it a hit-and-run affair.Dance, sing, play music—and don’t let sex be cerebral. Cerebral sex is notauthentic; sex should be spontaneous. Create the situation. Your bedroom shouldbe a place as holy as a temple. In your bedroom don’t do anything else; sing anddance and play, and if love happens on its own, as a spontaneous thing, you willbe immensely surprised that biology has given you a glimpse of meditation.
And don’t be worried about the woman who is going crazy. She has to gocrazy—her whole body is in a totally different space. She cannot remain incontrol; if she controls it she will remain like a corpse.
Millions of people are making love to corpses.
I have heard a story about Cleopatra, the most beautiful woman. When shedied, according to the old Egyptian rituals her body was not buried for threedays. She was raped in those three days—a dead body. When I first came toknow about it, I was surprised—what kind of man would have raped her? Butthen I felt, perhaps it is not so strange a fact. All men have reduced women tocorpses, at least while they are making love.
The most ancient treatise on love and sex is Vatsyayana’s Kama Sutras,aphorisms about sex. It describes eighty-four postures for making love. Andwhen the Christian missionaries came to the East, they were surprised to realizethat they knew only one posture: man on top—because then man has moremobility, and the woman is lying like a corpse underneath him.
Vatsyayana’s suggestion is very accurate, that the woman should be on top.The man on top is very uncultured; the woman is more fragile. But why menhave chosen to be on the top is so that they can keep the woman under control.Crushed under the beast, beauty is bound to be under control. The woman is noteven to open her eyes, because that is like a prostitute. She has to behave like alady. This posture, man on top, is known in the East as the missionary posture.
A great revolution is ahead in the relationship between man and woman.There are institutes evolving around the world, in the advanced countries, wherethey teach you how to love. It is unfortunate that even animals know how tolove, and man has to be taught. And in their teaching, the basic thing is foreplayand afterplay. Then love becomes such a sacred experience.
You should drop the fear of being intimate and totally losing control with aman. Let the idiot be afraid; if he wants to be afraid, that is his business. Youshould be authentic and true to yourself. You are lying to yourself, you aredeceiving yourself, you are destroying yourself.
What is the harm if the man freaks out and runs out of the room naked? Closethe door! Let the whole neighborhood know that this man is mad. But you neednot control your possibility of having an orgasmic experience. The orgasmicexperience is the experience of merging and melting, egolessness, mindlessness,timelessness.
This may trigger your search for finding a way that, without any man,without any partner, you can drop the mind, you can drop time, and you canenter into orgasmic joy on your own. I call this authentic meditation.
Don’t be worried, enjoy the whole game—be playful about it. If one manfreaks out, there are millions of men. One day you will find some mad guy whodoes not freak out.
I have heard you say that ninety-eight percent of the women of the East havenot known orgasm. Why is it they look so graceful and not frustrated like thewomen in the West?
It is a strange logic of life, but in a way very simple. In the East ninety-eightpercent of the women have not known what orgasm is. Your question is, “Whyis it they look so graceful and not frustrated like the women in the West?”That’s why!
You have to be in a position of experiencing something and then having itdenied to you; only then frustration sets in. If you don’t know at all that anythinglike orgasm exists, then there is no question of frustration. In the West also,before this century, the woman was not frustrated because the situation was thesame there. It was because of psychoanalysis and the deeper research into humanenergies that it was discovered that for a millennium we have lived under afallacy. The fallacy was that the woman has a vaginal orgasm, which has notbeen found to be true; she does not have a vaginal orgasm at all.
In fact, the woman’s vagina is absolutely insensitive, it feels nothing. Herorgasm is clitoral—and that is a totally separate part. She can reproduce childrenwithout knowing any orgasm, she can make love without knowing any orgasm.Hence for centuries, in the East and West both, the woman was satisfied tobecome a mother. In a way she was against sex, because it was not giving herany joy—it was giving only trouble: pregnancy. For centuries women have livedjust like factories, reproducing children. Man has used them as factories, not ashuman beings—because nine children out of ten used to die; so if you want twoor three children, the woman has to produce two or three dozen children. Thatmeans that for her whole sexual life, while she is capable of giving birth to life,she becomes pregnant again and again; and pregnancy is a suffering.
She has never been in favor of sex. She has suffered it, she has tolerated it.She has gone into it because it was her duty; and deep down she has hated herhusband because he is just like an animal. Why do you think women havealways worshipped celibate saints? The innermost reason is that their celibacyproved them to be holier beings. She cannot respect her own husband in thesame way.
Once you have a sexual relationship with a woman, she cannot have respectfor you. That has been the cost—because she knows you have used her.
In every language the expression makes it clear: It is the man who makeslove to the woman, not vice versa. It is strange ... they are making love witheach other, but in every language it is always the man who makes love; thewoman is only an object. The woman only tolerates and goes into it because shehas been conditioned in her mind that it is her duty; the husband is the god andshe has to make his life as pleasant as possible.
But sex has not given anything to her. And she has been kept unaware ...because man must have become aware very early, when there was no marriageand when men and women were as free as birds, man must have become aware—and the ancient-most women also—that she has a capacity for multipleorgasm.
It is a very dangerous signal to the husband to trigger her orgasmic energies.The husband cannot satisfy her—no husband can satisfy a woman. It seems to bea disparity, a fault of nature that she can have multiple orgasms and man canhave only one orgasm. So man has tried to avoid even the knowledge that thewoman can have an orgasm. That’s why in the East it is still the case,particularly in the interior parts of the country. Leave aside the modern cities,where a few women may have found out through their education, may haveheard the names of Masters and Johnson, who have discovered women’scapacity for multiple orgasm.
But in the West it became a problem, because the discovery of multipleorgasm and the centuries-old deception by man of woman was a simultaneousgrowth. At the same time the Women’s Liberation movement was coming up,and women were trying to find out all the wrongs that had been done to them bymen. They suddenly got hold of this new phenomenon, this research, and themost fanatic Women’s Liberation women have become lesbians; because only awoman can help another woman to have multiple orgasm—because it is notconcerned with the vagina at all.
Men’s and women’s bodies are very similar, except that the man has onlymarks of the breasts and the woman has actual breasts; but the man has themarks on his physiology. The clitoris is just a mark of the man’s penis; it is just asmall growth, but it is outside the vagina. Children are born out of the vagina,and man need not touch the clitoris—and without playing with the clitoris thewoman cannot have an orgasm; so it was very simple to avoid it.
The Eastern woman looks more contented because she is not aware of whatshe is missing. She is more graceful because she has not even started thinking ofany liberation. The East, as a whole, has lived under the conditioning ofcontentment—man and woman both—in poverty, in slavery, in sickness, indeath.
The idea of revolution was impossible in the Eastern mind because theconditioning was so strong, and so many centuries old, that whatever you are isthe by-product of your own actions in past lives.
The question of why women look so graceful, and not as frustrated as in theWest, is very simple to understand: They have accepted their fate. The Westernwoman, for the first time in history, is revolting against all these fictitious ideasabout fate, the law of karma, past lives....
Western woman has had to pass through a very revolutionary period, whichdestroyed her contentment, the grace that had always been hers. And it has ledher to the extreme; she has started behaving in an ugly and nasty way. It is not arebelliousness with understanding, it is just a reactionary attitude.
Of the causes that marked the change between the Western woman and theEastern, the first is Karl Marx. He proposed, and convinced the intelligentsia ofthe whole world, that poverty has nothing to do with any past life, or with fate,or with destiny; that it is not decided by God who should be poor and whoshould be rich. It is the social structure, the economic structure which decideswho is going to be poor. And this structure can be changed, because it is notGod-made—there is no God, as such—it is man-made.
So the first hammering came from Karl Marx. The second hammering camefrom Sigmund Freud. He declared that men and women are equal, belong to thesame species, and any theories or philosophies which condemn women aresimply inhuman and male chauvinistic. And then the third and the lasthammering came from Masters and Johnson’s research, which brought to lightthat the woman has been deprived of orgasm for centuries. It proved that manhas been really inhuman in his behavior. As far as his own sexual needs wereconcerned he used the woman, but he did not allow the woman to enjoy sex.
These three things have changed the whole atmosphere in the West; but thesethree things have not yet penetrated into the Eastern, traditional mind. As aresult, the Western woman is on the warpath. But it is a reactionaryphenomenon; hence I am not in favor of what goes on in the name of Women’sLiberation.
I want women to be liberated, but not to go to the other extreme. TheWomen’s Liberation movement is going to the other extreme—it is trying to berevengeful, it is trying to do to man exactly what man has done to her. This issheer stupidity. Past is past, it is no longer there and what man has done has beendone unconsciously. It was not a conscious act against women. Neither he wasaware nor the woman was aware.
The Women’s Liberation movement declares that they don’t want to haveany relationship with men—cut off all relationships with men. And as a reaction,women should do everything to man that he has done to her: misbehave,mistreat, use dirty words as man has always done, smoke cigarettes as man hasalways done. Naturally, they are losing their grace, their beauty ... dress just asman has always dressed. But it is a strange phenomenon that the way you dresschanges so much. The Eastern woman’s dress has a grace, and it gives a grace toher whole body. The Western woman is trying to compete with cowboys—bluejeans, stupid-looking clothes, ugly hairdos. They think perhaps they are takingrevenge—they are destroying themselves. But revenge always destroys you,reaction always destroys you. I would love to see them as rebels.
Why is it so difficult for men and women to be friends? It seems so ordinary,and turns out to be almost impossible. Either there is an ugly compromise—like man and wife—or else passion that eventually turns into hate. Why isthere always ugliness between men and women?
It is very simple to understand. Marriage is the ugliest institution invented byman. It is not natural; it has been invented so that you can monopolize a woman.You have been treating women as if they were a piece of land, or some currencynotes. You have reduced the woman to a thing.
Remember that if you reduce any human being to a thing—unaware,unconscious—you are also being reduced to the same status; otherwise, you willnot be able to communicate. If you can talk with a chair, you must be a chair.
Marriage is against nature.
You can be certain only of this moment that is in your hands. All promisesfor tomorrow are lies—and marriage is a promise for your whole life, that youwill remain together, that you will love each other, that you will respect eachother till your last breath.
And these priests, who are the inventors of many ugly things, say to you thatmarriages are made in heaven. Nothing is made in heaven; there is no heaven.
If you listen to nature, your problems, your questions will simply evaporate.The problem is: Biologically man is attracted to woman, women are attracted tomen, but that attraction cannot remain the same forever. You are attracted tosomething which is a challenge to get. You see a beautiful man, a beautifulwoman; you are attracted. Nothing is wrong in it. You feel your heart beatingfaster. You would like to be with this woman or man, and the attraction is sotremendous that in that moment you think you would like to live with thiswoman forever.
Lovers don’t deceive each other, they are saying the truth—but that truthbelongs to the moment. When lovers say to each other, “I cannot live withoutyou,” it is not that he is deceiving or she is deceiving, they mean it. But theydon’t know the nature of life. Tomorrow this same woman will not look sobeautiful. As days pass, the man and the woman both will feel that they areimprisoned.
They have known each other’s geography completely. First it was anunknown territory to be discovered, now there is nothing to be discovered. Andto go on repeating the same words and the same acts looks mechanical, ugly.That’s why passion turns into hate. The woman hates you, because you are goingto do the same thing again. To prevent you, the moment the husband enters thehouse she goes to bed, she has a headache. She wants somehow not to get intothe same rut. And the man is flirting with his secretary in the office; now she isan unknown territory.
To me, it is all nature. What is unnatural is binding people in the name ofreligion, in the name of God, for their whole life.
In a better, more intelligent world, people will love, but will not make anycontracts. It is not a business! They will understand each other, and they willunderstand the changing flux of life. They will be true to each other. Themoment the man feels that now his beloved holds no joy for him, he will say thatthe time has come to part. There is no need for marriage, there is no need fordivorce. Then friendship will be possible.
You ask me why friendship is not possible between men and women ...Friendship is not possible between the jailer and the imprisoned. Friendship ispossible between equal human beings, totally free from all bondage of society,culture, civilization, only living true to their authentic nature.
It is not an insult to the woman to say, “Honey, the honeymoon is over.” It isnot an insult to the man if the woman says, “Now things cannot be beautiful. Thewind that has blown is no longer there. The season has changed, it is no longerspring between us; no flowers blossom, no fragrance arises. It is time to part.”And because there is no legal bondage of marriage, there is no question of anydivorce.
It is ugly that the court and the law and the state interfere in your private life—you have to ask their permission. Who are they? It is a question between twoindividuals, their private affair.
There will be only friends—no husbands, no wives. Of course, if there isonly friendship, passion will never turn into hate. The moment you feel passiondisappearing, you will say good-bye, and it will be understood. Even if it hurts,nothing can be done about it—it is the way of life.
But man has created societies, cultures, civilizations, rules, regulations, andmade the whole humanity unnatural. That’s why men and women cannot befriends. And men and women either become husbands and wives—which issomething absolutely ugly; they start owning each other.
People are not things, you cannot have ownership. If I feel your wife isbeautiful, and approach her, you are angry, you are ready to fight because I amapproaching your property. No wife is anybody’s property, no husband isanybody’s property. What kind of world have you created? People are reducedto properties; then there is jealousy, hatred.
You yourself know that you are attracted to the neighbor’s wife. Naturally,you can guess about your wife too. Your wife knows perfectly well she isattracted to somebody else, but she cannot approach that person because of thehusband. He is standing there with a gun! Love is bound to turn into hate, andfor the whole life the hate goes on accumulating. And out of this hatred do youthink beautiful children are going to be born? They are not born out of love, butout of duty. It is the wife’s duty to allow you to use her.
To tell the truth, there is no difference between wives and prostitutes. Thedifference is just like the difference between having your own car or going inataxi.
A prostitute is purchased only for a few hours; wives are a long-term affair, itis economical. Royal families are not allowed to marry outside royal blood:status, Money, power ... Nobody can love anybody in such circumstances, wherethe relationship is financial.
The woman is dependent on you because you earn. And for centuries menhave not allowed women to be educated, to be in business, to have jobs, for thesimple reason that if the woman has her own financial status, her own bankaccount, you cannot reduce her to a thing. She has to be dependent on you. Anddo you think anybody who has to be dependent on you will love you?
Every woman wants to kill the husband. It is another matter that she does notkill him—because if she kills him, what will she do? She is not educated, she hasno experience of the society, she has no way of earning. The husband—everyhusband, I don’t make any exceptions—wants to get rid of the woman. But hecannot get rid of her. There are children, and he himself has promised thewoman thousands of times that he loves her. When he goes to his job he kissesthe woman. There is no love in it, just skeletons touching each other. Nobody ispresent.
Man has created a society in which friendship between man and woman isimpossible.
Remember that friendship is so valuable that whatsoever the consequence,remain friends even with your wife, even with your husband, and allow absoluteand total freedom to each other.
I don’t see any problem. If I love a woman, and one day she says that she hasfallen in love with somebody else and feels very happy, I will be happy. I loveher, and I would like her to be happy—where is the problem? I will help her inevery way so that she can be more happy. If she can be more happy withsomebody else, what hurts me?
It is your ego that hurts: She has found somebody else who is better than you.It is not a question of better, it may be just your chauffeur—it is just a questionof a little change. And if you give full freedom to each other, perhaps you canremain together for your whole life, or for the whole eternity, because there is noneed to get rid of each other.
Marriage creates the need to get rid of each other, because it means freedomis taken away—and freedom is the highest value in human life. Make all thecouples free, and you will be surprised, this very world becomes paradise.
There are other problems. You have children—what to do with children? Myanswer is that children should not belong to their parents, they should belong tothe commune. Then there is no problem. The parents can meet the children, theycan invite the children, they can be friends with their children; and yet thechildren are not dependent on them, they belong to the commune. And it willdestroy many psychological problems.
If a boy knows only his mother, the mother’s personality becomes an imprinton him. Now, his whole life he will be trying to find a woman who is like hismother—and he will never find such a woman. A girl will never find anotherman who is exactly a copy of her father. Then you cannot be satisfied with anywoman, any man.
But if the children belong to the commune, they will come in contact with somany uncles and so many aunts—they will not carry a single picture in theirminds. They will have a vague idea of womanhood or manhood, and to that idea,many people of the commune will have contributed; it will be multidimensional.There is a possibility of finding somebody, because you only have a vague idea.You can find somebody, and that person will make your vague idea solid, areality. Right now you have a solid idea within you, and you meet a vagueperson. Sooner or later there is disappointment.
And children belonging to the commune will learn much, will be morefriendly, will be more available to all kinds of influences. They will be richer. Achild being brought up by a couple is very poor. He does not know that there aremillions of people with different minds, different kinds of beauty. If a childmoves in the commune, naturally he will be far richer. And he will have knownso much before he decides to be with someone that there is a possibility of a longfriendship.
What happens now? You see a girl on the beach and you fall in love. Youknow nothing about the girl, you know only her makeup. Tomorrow morningwhen you get up and the makeup is gone, you will say, “My God! What have Idone? This is not the woman I married, this is someone else!” But you cannot goagainst your word either. And if you do, then the government is there, the courtsare there to put you back into your right place. This is a very ugly situation, sick.
People should be given freedom to know each other, to know as many peopleas possible, because each person is so unique, there is no question ofcomparison. Let the child drink from many sources, and he will have someinsight into who is going to be the right person to live with.
Nobody will fall in love; everybody will decide consciously that “This is theone.” He has known so many people, he understands that this is the one who hasthose characteristics, those qualities that he has loved. And then too it is onlygoing to be a friendship. There is no fear. If tomorrow things change there is noharm.
The society should not live in a routine way, in a fixed way—static, dormant—it should be a moving flux. One woman can give you a certain kind of joy,another woman can give you another kind of joy. A third woman will be asurprise. So why remain poor?—just because Jesus has said, “Blessed are thepoor’?
Be richer in every dimension, and keep yourself open and available. Andwhoever you are with, let the other person understand clearly that “It is freedombetween us, not a marriage license. Out of freedom we meet, with no promisesfor the future—because who knows the future?”
When I was a student in the university in my final master’s course, one girlwas very much interested in me. She was a beautiful girl, but my interest was notin women at that time. I was crazy in search of God! After the examinations,when she was leaving the university ... She had waited—I knew it—she hadwaited and waited for me to approach her. That is the usual way, that the manapproaches the woman; it is graceful for the woman not to approach the man.Strange idea ... I don’t understand. Whoever approaches, it is graceful. In fact,whoever initiates is courageous.
When we were leaving the university she said, “Now there is no chance.”She took me aside and said, “For two years continuously I have been waiting.Can’t we be together for our whole lives? I love you.”
I said, “If you love me, then please leave me alone. I also love you, that’swhy I am leaving you alone—because I know what has been happening in thename of love. People are becoming imprisoned, chained; they lose all their joy,life becomes a drag. So this is my parting advice to you,” I said. “Never try tocling to a person for your whole life.”
If two persons are willingly together today, it is more than enough. Iftomorrow again they feel like being together, good. If they don’t, it is theirpersonal affair; nobody has to interfere.
Up to now, the problem of the children has always been raised. My answer isthat children should belong to the commune. They can go to their parents,whether their parents are together or separate. And they should learn from theirparents that love is not slavery, it is freedom. And they should move in thecommune, tasting, enjoying different qualities of different people.
So by the time they decide, their decision will be not just a foolish type of“falling in love”; it will be a very considered, contemplated, meditatedphenomenon. There is a possibility they may remain together for their wholelives. In fact, if there is freedom, there is more possibility; more people willremain together.
If marriage disappears, divorce disappears automatically. This is a by-product of marriage. Nobody takes note of the simple fact: Why for centurieshave there been prostitutes? Who created them? Who is responsible for thesepoor women? It is the institution of marriage.
You are bored with your wife; just for a change you go to a woman who isnot going to be a bondage—because one is enough, two will be too much. It isjust a temporary, few hours’ meeting. You can keep yourself lovely for a fewhours, loving for a few hours. She can keep herself lovely and loving for a fewhours. And moreover, she has been paid for it.
Around the world millions of women are reduced to selling their bodies.Who has done it? Your political leaders, your religious leaders. I consider thesepeople criminals. And not ordinary criminals, because for centuries the wholehumanity has been suffering because of these few idiots.
But you have to start with yourself, there is no other way. If you lovesomebody, then freedom should be the connecting link between you. And if yousee your woman hugging somebody else tomorrow, there is no need to bejealous. She is being enriched, she is tasting a little newness—just the way yougo sometimes to a Chinese restaurant! It is good. You will come back to yourown food, but the Chinese restaurant has helped you; you may relish your ownfood more.
But after a few days, again—that’s how the mind is—you are moving towardan Italian restaurant ... spaghetti!
Life is so simple and so beautiful, just one thing is missing: freedom. If yourwife is being with some other people, soon she will come back to you enriched,with new insight. And she will find something in you she had never foundbefore. And meanwhile, you need not just sit down in your chair and beat yourhead. You also gain experience, so that by the time your woman is back you arealso new. You have also been to the Chinese restaurant.
Life should be a joy, a rejoicing. And then only can there be friendshipbetween men and women; otherwise, they are going to remain intimate enemies.
If love becomes destroyed in marriage, how are we to live if we wish to sharelove and thoughts on a day-to-day basis, and also raise children with both amother and a father?
I have never said that love is destroyed by marriage. How can marriage destroylove? Yes, it is destroyed in marriage, but it is destroyed by you, not bymarriage. It is destroyed by the partners. How can marriage destroy love? It isyou who destroy it, because you don’t know what love is. You simply pretend toknow, you simply hope that you know, you dream that you know, but you don’tknow what love is. Love has to be learned; it is the greatest art there is.
If people are dancing and somebody asks you, “Come and dance,” you say,“T don’t know.” You don’t just jump up and start dancing and have everybodythink that you are a great dancer. You will just prove yourself to be a buffoon.You will not prove yourself to be a dancer. It has to be learned—the grace of it,the movement of it. You have to train the body for it.
You don’t just go and start painting just because the canvas is available andthe brush is there and the color is there. You don’t start painting. You don’t say,“All requirements are here, so I can paint.” You can paint—but you will not be apainter that way.
You meet a woman, the canvas is there. You immediately become a lover—you start painting, and she starts painting on you. Of course you both prove to befoolish—painted fools—and sooner or later you understand what is happening.But you never thought that love is an art. You are not born with the art, it isnothing to do with your birth. You have to learn it. It is the most subtle art.
You are born only with a capacity. Of course, you are born with a body; youcan be a dancer because you have the body. You can move your body and youcan be a dancer—but dancing has to be learned. Much effort is needed to learndancing. And dancing is not so difficult because you alone are involved in it.
Love is much more difficult. It is dancing with somebody else. The other isalso needed to know what dancing is. To fit with somebody, it is a great art. Tocreate a harmony between two persons ... two persons mean two differentworlds. When two worlds come close, clash is bound to be there if you don’tknow how to harmonize. Love is harmony. And happiness, health, harmony, allhappen out of love. Learn to love. Don’t be in a hurry for marriage, learn to love.First become a great lover.
And what is the requirement? The requirement is that a great lover is alwaysready to give love and is not bothered whether it is returned or not. It is alwaysreturned, it is in the very nature of things. It is just as if you go to the mountainsand you sing a song, and the valleys respond. Have you seen an echo point in themountains, in the hills? You shout and the valleys shout, or you sing and thevalleys sing. Each heart is a valley. If you pour love into it, it will respond.
The first lesson of love is not to ask for love, but just to give. Become agiver. And people are doing just the opposite. Even when they give, they giveonly with the idea that love should come back. It is a bargain. They don’t share,they don’t share freely. They share with a condition. They go on watching out ofthe corner of their eye whether it is coming back or not. Very poor people ...they don’t know the natural functioning of love. You simply pour, it will come.
And if it is not coming, nothing to be worried about—because a lover knowsthat to love is to be happy. If it comes, good; then the happiness is multiplied.
But even if it never comes back, in the very act of loving you become so happy,so ecstatic, who bothers whether it comes or not?
Love has its own intrinsic happiness. It happens when you love. There is noneed to wait for the result. Just start loving. By and by you will see much morelove is coming back to you. One loves and comes to know what love is, only byloving. As one learns swimming by swimming, by loving one loves.
And people are very miserly. They are waiting for some great beloved tohappen, then they will love. They remain closed, they remain withdrawn. Theyjust wait. From somewhere some Cleopatra will come and then they will opentheir heart, but by that time they have completely forgotten how to open it.
Don’t miss any opportunity of love. Even passing in a street, you can beloving. Even to the beggar you can be loving. There is no need that you have togive him something; you can smile at least. It costs nothing—but your verysmile opens your heart, makes your heart more alive. Hold somebody’s hand—afriend or a stranger. Don’t think that you will only love when the right personhappens. Then the right person will never happen. Go on loving. The more youlove, the more is the possibility for the right person to happen, because yourheart starts flowering. And a flowering heart attracts many bees, many lovers.
You have been trained in a very wrong way. First, everybody lives under awrong impression that everybody is already a lover. Just being born, you thinkyou are a lover. It’s not so easy. Yes, there is a potentiality, but the potentialityhas to be trained, disciplined. A seed exists, but it has to come to flower.
You can go on carrying your seed; no bee will be coming. Have you everseen bees coming to the seeds? Don’t they know that seeds can become flowers?But they come when they become flowers. Become a flower, don’t remain aseed.
Two people, separately unhappy, create more unhappiness for each otherwhen they come together. That’s mathematical. You were unhappy, your wifewas unhappy and you both are hoping that being together you both will becomehappy? This is such ordinary arithmetic—like two plus two makes four. It is thatsimple. It is not part of any higher mathematics; it is very ordinary, you cancount it on your fingers. You both will become unhappy.
“You don’t love me anymore?” asked Mulla Nasruddin’s wife. “Younever say anything nice to me anymore like you used to when we werecourting.” She wiped a tear from her eye with the corner of her apron.
“T love you, I love you,” retorted Mulla Nasruddin. “Now will youplease shut up and let me drink my beer in peace?”
Courting is one thing. Don’t depend on courting. In fact, before you getmarried, get rid of courting. My suggestion is that marriage should happen afterthe honeymoon, never before it. Only if everything goes right, only thenmarriage should happen.
Honeymoon after marriage is very dangerous. As far as I know, ninety-ninepercent of marriages are finished by the time the honeymoon is finished. Butthen you are caught, then you have no way to escape. Then the whole society,the law, the court—everybody is against you if you leave the wife, or the wifeleaves you. Then the whole morality, the religion, the priest, everybody isagainst you. In fact, society should create all barriers possible for marriage andno barrier for divorce.
Society should not allow people to marry so easily. The court should createbarriers—live with the woman for two years at least, then the court can allowyou to get married. Right now they are doing just the reverse. If you want to getmarried, nobody asks whether you are ready or whether it is just a whim, justbecause you like the nose of the woman. What foolishness! One cannot live byjust a long nose. After two days the nose will be forgotten. Who looks at one’sown wife’s nose?
I have heard:
A certain ward was staffed completely by nurses who looked as thoughthey were finalists in the Miss World Contest, but every time one of thepatients saw them, he stared intently and said, “Rubbish!”
The man in the next bed could not understand it at all. “Gorgeousnurses like these to look after you and all you can say is ‘Rubbish.’Why?”
“I was not thinking of the nurses,” said the other sadly, “I wasthinking of my wife.”
The wife never looks beautiful, the husband never looks beautiful. Once youare acquainted, beauty disappears.
Two persons should be allowed to live together long enough to becomeacquainted, familiar with each other. And even if they want to get married, theyshould not be allowed. Then divorces will disappear from the world. Thedivorces exist because marriages are wrong and forced. The divorces existbecause marriages are done in a romantic mood. A romantic mood is good if youare a poet—and poets are not known to be good husbands or good wives. In factpoets are almost always single. They fool around but they never get caught, andhence their romance remains alive. They go on writing poetry, beautiful poetry.
One should not get married to a woman or to a man in a poetic mood. Let theprose mood come, then settle. Because the day-to-day life is more like prosethan like poetry. One should become mature enough.
Maturity means that one is no longer a romantic fool. One understands life,one understands the responsibility of life, one understands the problems of beingtogether with a person. One accepts all those difficulties and yet decides to livewith the person. One is not hoping that there is only going to be heaven, allroses. One is not hoping nonsense; one knows reality is tough. It is rough. Thereare roses, but far and few in between; there are many thorns.
When you have become alert to all of these problems and still you decide thatit is worthwhile to risk and be with a person rather than to be alone, then getmarried. Then marriages will never kill love, because this love is realistic.Marriage can kill only romantic love. And romantic love is what people call“puppy love.” One should not depend on it. One should not think about it asnourishment. It may be just like ice cream. You can eat it sometimes, but don’tdepend on it. Life has to be more realistic, more prose.
And marriage itself never destroys anything. Marriage simply brings outwhatsoever is hidden in you—it brings it out. If love is hidden behind you, insideyou, marriage brings it out. If love was just a pretension, just a bait, then sooneror later it has to disappear. And then your reality, your ugly personality comesup. Marriage simply is an opportunity, so whatsoever you had to bring out willcome out.
I am not saying that love is destroyed by marriage. Love is destroyed bypeople who don’t know how to love. Love is destroyed because in the first placelove is not. You have been living in a dream. Reality destroys that dream.Otherwise love is something eternal, part of eternity. If you grow, if you knowthe art, and you accept the realities of love-life, then it goes on growing everyday. Marriage becomes a tremendous opportunity to grow into love.
Nothing can destroy love. If it is there, it goes on growing. But my feeling is,it is not there in the first place. You misunderstood yourself; something else wasthere. Maybe sex was there, sex appeal was there. Then it is going to bedestroyed, because once you have loved a woman, then the sex appealdisappears—because the sex appeal is only with the unknown. Once you havetasted the body of the woman or the man, then the sex appeal disappears. If yourlove was only sex appeal then it is bound to disappear.
So never misunderstand love for something else. If love is really love ...What do I mean when I say “really love”? I mean that just being in the presenceof the other you feel suddenly happy, just being together you feel ecstatic, justthe very presence of the other fulfills something deep in your heart ... somethingstarts singing in your heart, you fall into harmony. Just the very presence of theother helps you to be together. You become more individual, more centered,more grounded. Then it is love.
Love is not a passion, love is not an emotion. Love is a very deepunderstanding that somebody somehow completes you. Somebody makes you afull circle. The presence of the other enhances your presence. Love givesfreedom to be yourself; it is not possessiveness.
So, watch. Never think of sex as love, otherwise you will be deceived. Bealert, and when you start feeling with someone that just the presence, the purepresence—nothing else, nothing else is needed; you don’t ask anything—just thepresence, just that the other is, is enough to make you happy ... something startsflowering within you, a thousand and one lotuses bloom ... then you are in love,and then you can pass through all the difficulties that reality creates. Manyanguishes, many anxieties—you will be able to pass all of them, and your lovewill be flowering more and more, because all those situations will becomechallenges. And your love, by overcoming them, will become more and morestrong.
Love is eternity. If it is there, then it goes on growing and growing. Loveknows the beginning but does not know the end.
Is it all right to get married and have children?Just meditate over a few of Murphy’s sutras.
First: It is good to be married occasionally.
Second: A clever man tells a woman he understands her, a stupid mantries to prove it.
Third: Marriage is a three-ringed circus: engagement ring, wedding ring,and suffer-ring.
Fourth: Marriage may make the world go round, but so does a punch inthe nose.
Fifth: Saving a marriage from divorce: The only way is not to show upfor the wedding.
Sixth: A woman is God’s second mistake—man is the first, obviously—and two wrongs together don’t make a right.
And the last: A woman is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of man.
So beware! If you want to get married, who am I to object? I can only makeyou a little more aware. Think before you jump!
What is love?
It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy,from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There aremany layers, many planes of love. It all depends on you. If you are existing onthe lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the personwho is existing on the highest rung.
Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and theywill be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.
At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love iscontaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politicsor not is not the question, it is political. And millions of people never knowanything about love except this politics—the politics that exists betweenhusbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing ispolitical, you want to dominate the other.
You enjoy domination, and love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitterpill sugar-coated. You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other.And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously—you arenot that conscious yet. You cannot do it deliberately; it is an unconsciousmechanism.
Hence so much possessiveness and so much jealousy become a part, anintrinsic part, of your love. That’s why love creates more misery than joy.Ninety-nine percent of it is bitter; there is only that one percent of sugar that youhave coated on top of it. And sooner or later that sugar disappears.
When you are in the beginning of a love affair, those honeymoon days, youtaste something sweet. Soon that sugar wears off, and the realities start appearingin stark nakedness and the whole thing becomes ugly.
Millions of people have decided not to love human beings anymore. It isbetter to love a dog, a cat, a parrot; it is better to love a car—because you candominate them well, and the other never tries to dominate you. It is simple; it isnot as complex as it is going to be with human beings.
At a cocktail party the hostess couldn’t help overhearing the conversationof a suave gentleman.
“Oh, I adore her. I worship her,” declared the gentleman.
“T would too if she were mine,” agreed his friend.
“The way she walks and swishes. Her beautiful big brown eyes, herhead so proud and erect...”
“You’re very fortunate,” commented his friend.
“And do you know what really thrills me? The way she nibbles myear.”
“Sir,” the hostess interjected. “I couldn’t help listening to thoseaffectionate words. In this day of numerous divorces I admire a man whoso passionately loves his wife.”
“My wife?” said the gentleman, surprised. “No—my championracehorse!”
People are falling in love with horses, dogs, animals, machines, things. Why?Because to be in love with human beings has become an utter hell, a continuousconflict—nagging, always at each other’s throats.
This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as astepping-stone, if you can use it as a meditation. If you can watch it, if you try tounderstand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you willstart moving upward.
Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship anymore, when lovebecomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume isreleased—but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love is just a politicalrelationship. At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness.
I love you too, Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing inreturn. Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a bargain. Hencethe radiant beauty of it, hence the transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all thejoys that you have known.
When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed:You don’t love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Ratherthan saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. Sowhosoever is capable of partaking, can partake. Whosoever is capable ofdrinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available—you areavailable unconditionally.
That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative.
“Medicine” and “meditation” come from the same root. Love as you know itis a kind of disease: It needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes throughmeditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.
Nancy was having coffee with Helen. Nancy asked, “How do you knowyour husband loves you?”
“He takes out the garbage every morning.” —“That’s not love. That’sgood housekeeping.”
“My husband gives me all the spending money I need.”——“That’s notlove. That’s generosity.”
“My husband never looks at other women.”—“That’s not love. That’spoor vision.”
“John always opens the door for me.”—‘“That’s not love. That’s goodmanners.”“John kisses me even when I’ve eaten garlic and I have curlers in myhair.” “Now, that’s love!”
Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the statewhere all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no longer an idea butsimply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Thenlove is the ultimate truth.
Let your love move through the process of meditation. Watch it: Watch thecunning ways of your mind, watch your power politics. And nothing else exceptcontinuous watching and observing is going to help. When you say something toyour man or your woman, look at it: What is the unconscious motive? Why areyou saying it? Is there some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of thatmotive, bring it to consciousness—because this is one of the secret keys fortransforming your life: Anything that becomes conscious disappears.
Your motives remain unconscious, that’s why you remain in their grip. Makethem conscious, bring them to light, and they will disappear. It is as if you pullup a tree and bring the roots to the sunlight: They will die, they can exist only inthe darkness of the soil. Your motives also exist only in the darkness of yourunconsciousness. So the only way to transform your love is to bring all themotivations from the unconscious into the conscious. Slowly, slowly, thosemotives will die.
And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing that can everhappen to anybody. Then love is something of the ultimate, of the beyond.
That is the meaning when Jesus says, “God is love.” I say to you: Love isGod. God can be forgotten, but don’t forget love—because it is the purificationof love that will bring you to God. If you forget about God completely, nothingis lost. But don’t forget love, because love is the bridge. Love is the process ofalchemical change in your consciousness.
Can we truly love another while we have an ego?
Love needs great courage for the simple reason that the basic requirement oflove is to drop the ego. And man is very afraid of dropping the ego. It seemsalmost like committing suicide. It only seems so because we don’t knowanything other than the ego.
Ego has become our only identity, and to drop it certainly means you aredropping your individuality. It is not true—in fact just the opposite is the truth:Unless you drop the ego you cannot know your real individuality. The ego is apretender—something false, pseudo, invented. The moment it is dropped, onlythen you can see the real. Otherwise the unreal hides the real. The unreal hidesthe real like clouds hiding the sun.
Love requires a dropping of the ego. Hence love can become the door to thedivine. You may start loving a person but you will end up loving the impersonal.The person becomes just like a window—open toward the infinite sky. But onehas to be absolutely clear that the ego will have to be sacrificed.
People hanker for love, but at the same time they cling to their ego. Hencelove never becomes a reality. They come and go without tasting the nectar oflove. And unless you experience love you have not experienced life at all. Youmiss the point.
During my whole life, I always thought that I loved somebody. Now, beinghere for the first time with you, I ask myself: Have I ever really been in love?Am I even able to love? Am I able to love you?
The basic fallacy that you are carrying within you is that you always lovedsomebody.
This is one of the most significant things about all human beings: Their loveis always for somebody, it is addressed—and the moment you address your love,you destroy it. It is as if you are saying, “I will breathe only for you—and whenyou are not there, then how can I breathe?”
Love should be like breathing. It should be just a quality in you—whereveryou are, with whomsoever you are, or even if you are alone, love goes onoverflowing from you. It is not a question of being in love with someone—it is aquestion of being love.
People are frustrated in their love experiences, not because something iswrong with love. They narrow down love to such a point that the ocean of lovecannot remain there. You cannot contain the ocean—it is not a small stream.Love is your whole being, love is your godliness.
One should think in terms of whether one is loving or not. The question ofthe object of love does not arise. With your wife, you love your wife; with yourchildren, you love your children; with your servants, you love your servants;with your friends, you love your friends; with the trees, you love the trees; withthe ocean, you love the ocean.
You are love.
Love is not dependent on the object, but is a radiation of your subjectivity—aradiation of your soul. And the vaster the radiation, the greater is your soul. Thewider spread are the wings of your love, the bigger is the sky of your being.
You have lived under a common fallacy of all human beings. Now you areasking: “Am I able to love you?”—again, the same fallacy. Just ask: “Am I ableto become love?”
When you are in my presence, you need not think of loving me; otherwise,you have not come out of your ordinary fallacies. Here you have to learn justbeing loving. Of course, your love will reach me too; it will reach others too. Itwill be a vibe surrounding you, spreading all over. And if so many people aresimply broadcasting their love, their song, their ecstasy, the whole placebecomes a temple. There is no other way of making a temple. Then the wholearea is filled with a new kind of energy, and nobody is at a loss—because thelove of so many people is showering on you: On each single person, so manypeople’s love is showering.
Drop that fallacy. Life is nothing but an opportunity for love to blossom. Ifyou are alive, the opportunity is there—even to the last breath. You may havemissed your whole life: Just the last breath, the last moment on the earth, if youcan be love, you have not missed anything—because a single moment of love isequal to the whole eternity of love.
You said the other day that we are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone.Yet it seems as if from the day we are born, whatever we are doing, whoever weare, we seek to relate to others; in addition, we are usually attracted to beingintimate with one person in particular. Would you please comment?
The question that you have asked is the question of every human being. We areborn alone, we live alone, and we die alone. Aloneness is our very nature, but weare not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it, we remain strangers toourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss,silence and peace, at-easeness with existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness.
Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand youraloneness as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty andgrandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal.
Everybody is running away from loneliness. It is like a wound; it hurts. Toescape from it, the only way is to be in a crowd, to become part of a society, tohave friends, to create a family, to have husbands and wives, to have children. Inthis crowd, the basic effort is that you will be able to forget your loneliness.
But nobody has ever succeeded in forgetting it. That which is natural to you,you can try to ignore—but you cannot forget it; it will assert again and again.And the problem becomes more complex because you have never seen it as it is;you have taken it for granted that you are born lonely.
The dictionary meaning is the same; that shows the mind of the people whocreate dictionaries. They don’t understand at all the vast difference betweenloneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is a gap. Something is missing, somethingis needed to fill it, and nothing can ever fill it because it is a misunderstanding inthe first place. As you grow older, the gap also grows bigger. People are soafraid to be by themselves that they do any kind of stupid thing. I have seenpeople playing cards alone; the other party is not there. They have inventedgames in which the same person plays cards from both sides.
Somehow one wants to remain engaged. That engagement may be withpeople, may be with work ... There are workaholics; they are afraid when theweekend comes close—what are they going to do? And if they don’t doanything, they are left to themselves, and that is the most painful experience.
You will be surprised to know that it is on the weekends that most of theaccidents in the world happen. People are rushing in their cars to resort places, tosea beaches, to hill stations, bumper to bumper. It may take eight hours, tenhours to reach, and there is nothing for them to do because the whole crowd hascome with them. Now their house, their neighborhood, their city is morepeaceful than this sea resort. Everybody has come. But some engagement ...
People are playing cards, chess; people are watching television for hours.The average American watches television five hours a day; people are listeningto the radio ... just to avoid themselves. For all these activities, the only reasonis—not to be left alone; it is very fearful. And this idea is taken from others.Who has told you that to be alone is a fearful state?
Those who have known aloneness say something absolutely different. Theysay there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, more joyful than being alone.
But you listen to the crowd. The people who live in misunderstanding are insuch a majority, that who bothers about a Zarathustra, or a Gautam Buddha?These single individuals can be wrong, can be hallucinating, can be deceivingthemselves or deceiving you, but millions of people cannot be wrong. Andmillions of people agree that to be left to oneself is the worst experience in life;it is hell.
But any relationship that is created because of the fear, because of the innerhell of being left alone, cannot be satisfying. Its very root is poisoned. You don’tlove your woman, you are simply using her not to be lonely; neither does shelove you. She is also in the same paranoia; she is using you not to be left alone.
Naturally, in the name of love anything may happen—except love. Fightsmay happen, arguments may happen, but even they are preferred to being lonely:At least somebody is there and you are engaged, you can forget your loneliness.But love is not possible, because there is no basic foundation for love.
Love never grows out of fear.
You are asking: “You said the other day that we are born alone, we livealone, and we die alone. Yet it seems as if from the day we are born, whateverwe are doing, whoever we are, we seek to relate to others.”
This seeking to relate to others is nothing but escapism. Even the smallestbaby tries to find something to do; if nothing else, then he will suck his own bigtoes on his feet. It is an absolutely futile activity, nothing can come out of it, butit is engagement. He is doing something. You will see in the stations, in theairports, small boys and girls carrying their teddy bears; they cannot sleepwithout them. Darkness makes their loneliness even more dangerous. The teddybear is a great protection; somebody is with them. And your God is nothing but ateddy bear for grown-ups.
You cannot live as you are. Your relationships are not relationships. They areugly. You are using the other person, and you know perfectly well the otherperson is using you. And to use anybody is to reduce him into a thing, into acommodity. You don’t have any respect for the person.
“In addition,” you are asking, “we are usually attracted to being intimatewith one person in particular.”
It has a psychological reason. You are brought up by a mother, by a father. Ifyou are a boy, you start loving your mother and you start being jealous of yourfather because he is a competitor. If you are a girl, you start loving your fatherand you hate your mother because she is a competitor. These are now establishedfacts, not hypotheses, and the result of it turns your whole life into a misery. Theboy carries the image of his mother as the model of a woman. He becomesconditioned continuously. He knows only one woman so closely, so intimately.Her face, her hair, her warmth—everything becomes an imprint. That’s exactlythe scientific word used: It becomes an imprint in his psychology. And the samehappens to the girl about the father.
When you grow up, you fall in love with some woman or with some man andyou think, “Perhaps we are made for each other.” Nobody is made for anyone.But why do you feel attracted toward one certain person? It is because of yourimprint. He must resemble your father in some way; she must resemble yourmother in some way.
Of course no other woman can be exactly a replica of your mother, andanyway you are not in search of a mother, you are in search of a wife. But theimprint inside you decides who is the right woman for you. The moment you seethat woman, there is no question of reasoning. You immediately feel attraction;your imprint immediately starts functioning—this is the woman for you, or thisis the man for you.
It is good as far as meeting once in a while on the sea beach, in the moviehall, in the garden, because you don’t come to know each other totally. But youare both hankering to live together; you want to be married, and that is one of themost dangerous steps that lovers can take.
The moment you are married, you start becoming aware of the totality of theother person, and you are surprised on every single aspect—“Something wentwrong; this is not the woman, this is not the man”—because they don’t fit withthe ideal that you are carrying within you. And the trouble is multiplied becausethe woman is carrying an ideal of her father—you don’t fit with it. You arecarrying the ideal of your mother—she does not fit with it. That’s why allmarriages are failures.
Only very rare marriages are not failures—and I hope God should save youfrom those marriages which are not failures, because they are psychologicallysick. There are people who are sadists, who enjoy torturing others, and there arepeople who are masochists, who enjoy torturing themselves. If a husband andwife belong to these two categories, that marriage will be a successful marriage.One is a masochist and one is a sadist—it is a perfect marriage, because oneenjoys being tortured and one enjoys torturing.
But ordinarily it is very difficult to find out in the first place whether you area masochist or a sadist, and then to look for your other polarity ... If you arewise enough you should go to the psychologist and inquire who you are, amasochist or a sadist? and ask if he can give you some references which can fitwith you.
Sometimes, just by accident, it happens that a sadist and masochist becomemarried. They are the happiest people in the world; they are fulfilling eachother’s needs. But what kind of need is this? They are both psychopaths, andthey are living a life of torture. But otherwise, every marriage is going to fail, forone simple reason: The imprint is the problem.
Even in marriage, the basic reason for which you wanted to have therelationship is not fulfilled. You are more alone when you are with your wifethan when you are alone. To leave a husband and wife in a room by themselvesis to make them both utterly miserable.
This whole effort—whether of relationships or remaining busy in a thousandand one things—is just to escape from the idea that you are lonely. And I want itto be emphatically clear to you that this is where the meditator and the ordinaryman part.
The ordinary man goes on trying to forget his loneliness, and the meditatorstarts getting more and more acquainted with his aloneness. In former times heleft the world; he went to the caves, to the mountains, to the forest, just for thesake of being alone. He wants to know who he is. In the crowd, it is difficult;there are so many disturbances. And those who have known their aloneness haveknown the greatest blissfulness possible to human beings—because your verybeing is blissful.
After being in tune with your aloneness, you can relate; then yourrelationship will bring great joys to you, because it is not out of fear. Findingyour aloneness you can create, you can be involved in as many things as youwant, because this involvement will not be running away from yourselfanymore. Now it will be your expression; now it will be the manifestation of allthat is your potential.
Only such a man—whether he lives alone or lives in the society, whether hemarries or lives unmarried makes no difference—is always blissful, peaceful,silent. His life is a dance, is a song, is a flowering, is a fragrance. Whatever hedoes, he brings his fragrance to it.
But the first basic thing is to know your aloneness absolutely.
This escape from yourself you have learned from the crowd. Becauseeverybody is escaping, you start escaping. Every child is born in a crowd andstarts imitating people; what others are doing, he starts doing. He falls into thesame miserable situations as others are in, and he starts thinking that this is whatlife is all about. And he has missed life completely.
So I remind you, don’t misunderstand aloneness as loneliness. Loneliness iscertainly sick; aloneness is perfect health.
Ginsberg visits Doctor Goldberg. “Ja, you are sick.” “Not good enough.I want another opinion.”“Okay,” said Doctor Goldberg, “you are ugly too.”
We are all committing the same kinds of misunderstandings continually.
I would like you to know that your first and most primary step toward findingthe meaning and significance of life is to enter into your aloneness. It is yourtemple; it is where your God lives, and you cannot find this temple anywhereelse. You can go on to the moon, to Mars ...
Once you have entered your innermost core of being, you cannot believeyour own eyes: You were carrying so much joy, so many blessings, so muchlove ... and you were escaping from your own treasures.
Knowing these treasures and their inexhaustibility, you can move now intorelationships, into creativity. You will help people by sharing your love, not byusing them. You will give dignity to people by your love; you will not destroytheir respect. And you will, without any effort, become a source for them to findtheir own treasures too. Whatever you make, whatever you do, you will spreadyour silence, your peace, your blessings into everything possible.
But this basic thing is not taught by any family, by any society, by anyuniversity. People go on living in misery, and it is taken for granted. Everybodyis miserable, so it is nothing much if you are miserable; you cannot be anexception.
But I say unto you: You can be an exception. You just have not made theright effort.
The Christian dictum is: Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. But how can I loveothers if I don’t love myself?
The first and foremost thing is to be loving toward yourself. Don’t be hard; besoft. Care about yourself. Learn how to forgive yourself—again and again andagain—seven times, seventy-seven times, seven hundred and seventy-seventimes.
Learn how to forgive yourself. Don’t be hard; don’t be antagonistic towardyourself. Then you will flower. And in that flowering you will attract some otherflower. It is natural. Stones attract stones; flowers attract flowers. And then thereis a relationship which has grace, which has beauty, which has a benediction init. And if you can find such a relationship, your relationship will grow intoprayer, your love will become an ecstasy, and through love you will know whatGod is.
Why is it so difficult to relate?
Because you are not yet. There is an inner emptiness and the fear that if yourelate with somebody, sooner or later you will be exposed as empty. Hence itseems Safer to keep a distance with people; at least you can pretend you are.
You are not. You are not yet born, you are only an opportunity. You are notyet a fulfillment—and only two fulfilled persons can relate. To relate is one ofthe greatest things of life: To relate means to love, to relate means to share. Butbefore you can share, you must have. And before you can love you must be fullof love, overflowing with love.
Two seeds cannot relate, they are closed. Two flowers can relate; they areopen, they can send their fragrances to each other, they can dance in the samesun and in the same wind, they can have a dialogue, they can whisper. But that isnot possible for two seeds. Seeds are utterly closed, windowless—how to relate?
And that is the situation. Man is born as a seed; he can become a flower, hemay not. It all depends on you, what you do with yourself; it all depends on youwhether you grow or you don’t. It is your choice—and each moment the choicehas to be faced; each moment you are on the crossroads.
Millions of people decide not to grow. They remain seeds; they remainpotentialities, they never become actualities. They don’t know what self-realization is, they don’t know what self-actualization is, they don’t knowanything of being. Utterly empty they live, utterly empty they die. How can theyrelate?
It will be exposing yourself—your nudity, your ugliness, your emptiness. Itseems safer to keep a distance. Even lovers keep distance; they come only so far,and they remain alert to when to turn back. They have boundaries; they nevercross the boundaries, they remain confined to their boundaries. Yes, there is akind of relationship, but it is not that of relating, it is that of possession.
The husband possesses the wife, the wife possesses the husband, the parentspossess the children, and so on and so forth. But to possess is not to relate. Infact to possess is to destroy all possibilities of relating.
If you relate, you respect; you cannot possess. If you relate, there is greatreverence. If you relate, you come very close—very, very close, in deepintimacy, overlapping. Still the other’s freedom is not interfered with, still theother remains an independent individual. The relationship is that of I-thou, notthat of I-it—overlapping, interpenetrating, yet in a sense independent.
Khalil Gibran says: “Be like two pillars that support the same roof, but don’tstart possessing the other, leave the other independent. Support the same roof—that roof is love.”
Two lovers support something invisible and something immensely valuable:some poetry of being, some music heard in the deepest recesses of theirexistence. They both support it, they support some harmony, but still theyremain independent. They can expose themselves to the other, because there isno fear. They know they are. They know their inner beauty, they know theirinner perfume; there is no fear.
But ordinarily the fear exists, because you don’t have any perfume. If youexpose yourself you will simply stink. You will stink of jealousy, hatred, anger,lust. You will not have the perfume of love, prayer, compassion.
Millions of people have decided to remain seeds. Why? When they canbecome flowers and they can also have a dance in the wind and the sun and themoon, why have they decided to remain seeds? There is something in theirdecision: The seed is more secure than the flower. The flower is fragile. Theseed is not fragile, the seed looks stronger. The flower can be destroyed veryeasily; just a strong wind and the petals will blow away. The seed cannot bedestroyed so easily by the wind, the seed is very protected, secure. The flower isexposed—such a delicate thing, and exposed to so many hazards: A strong windmay come, it may rain cats and dogs, the sun may be too hot, some foolish manmay pluck the flower. Anything can happen to the flower, everything can happento the flower, the flower is constantly in danger. But the seed is safe; hencemillions of people decide to remain seeds. But to remain a seed is to remaindead, to remain a seed is not to live at all. It is secure, certainly, but it has no life.Death is secure, life is insecurity. One who really wants to live has to live indanger, in constant danger. One who wants to reach to the peaks has to take therisk of getting lost. One who wants to climb the highest peaks has to take the riskof falling from somewhere, slipping down.
The greater the longing to grow, the more danger has to be accepted. The realman accepts danger as his very style of life, as his very climate of growth.
You ask me: “Why is it so difficult to relate?” It is difficult because you arenot yet. First be. Everything else is possible only afterward: First be.
Jesus says it in his own way: “First seek ye the kingdom of God, then all elseshall be added unto you.” This is just an old expression for the same thing that Iam saying: First be, then all else shall be added unto you.
But being is the basic requirement. If you are, courage comes as aconsequence. If you are, great desire for adventure, desire to explore, arises—and when you are ready to explore, you can relate. Relating is exploring—exploring the other’s consciousness, exploring the other’s territory. But whenyou explore the other’s territory, you have to allow and welcome the other toexplore you; it cannot be one-way traffic. And you can allow the other to exploreyou only when you have something, some treasure, within you. Then there is nofear. In fact, you invite the guest, you embrace the guest, you call him in, youwant him in. You want him to see what you have discovered in yourself, youwant to share it.
First be, then you can relate—and remember, to relate is beautiful.Relationship is a totally different phenomenon; relationship is something dead,fixed. A full point has arrived. You get married to a woman; a full point hasarrived. Now things will only decline; you have reached the limit, nothing isgrowing anymore. The river has stopped and it is becoming a reservoir.Relationship is already a thing, complete.
Relating is a process. Avoid relationships, and go deeper and deeper intorelating.
My emphasis is on verbs, not on nouns; avoid nouns as much as possible. Inlanguage you cannot avoid, that I know; but in life, avoid—because life is averb. Life is not a noun, it is really living, not life. It is not love, it is loving. It isnot relationship, it is relating. It is not a song, it is singing. It is not a dance, it isdancing.
See the difference, savor the difference. A dance is something complete; thelast touches have been made, now there is nothing else to do. Somethingcomplete is something dead. Life knows no full point; commas are okay, but nofull points. Resting places are okay, but no destination.
Instead of thinking how to relate, fulfill the first requirement: Meditate, be,and then relating will arise out of it on its own accord. One who becomes silent,blissful, one who starts having overflowing energies, becomes a flower, has torelate. It is not something that he has to learn how to do, it starts happening. Herelates with people, he relates with animals, he relates with trees, he relates evenwith rocks.
In fact, twenty-four hours a day he relates. If he is walking on the earth, he isrelating with the earth ... his feet touching the earth, he is relating. If he isswimming in the river he is relating with the river, and if he is looking at thestars he is relating with the stars.
It is not a question of a relationship with somebody in particular. The basicfact is, if you are, your whole life becomes a relating. It is a constant song, aconstant dance, it is a continuum, a riverlike flow.
Meditate, find out your own center first. Before you can relate withsomebody else, relate with yourself. That is the basic requirement to be fulfilled.Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.
Would you talk to us about our living partners—our wives, husbands, andlovers. When should we persevere with a partner, and when should weabandon a relationship as hopeless—or even destructive?
Relationship is one of the mysteries. And because it exists between two persons,it depends on both.
Whenever two persons meet, a new world is created. Just by their meeting, anew phenomenon comes into existence—which was not before, which neverexisted before. And through that new phenomenon, both persons are changedand transformed.
Unrelated, you are one thing; related, immediately you become somethingelse. A new thing has happened. A woman when she becomes a lover is nolonger the same woman. A man when he becomes a lover is no longer the sameman. A child is born, but we miss one point completely: The moment the child isborn, the mother is also born. This never existed before. The woman existed, butthe mother never. And a mother is something absolutely new.
Relationship is created by you, but then, in its turn, relationship creates you.Two persons meet, that means two worlds meet. It is not a simple thing, but verycomplex, the most complex. Each person is a world unto himself or herself, acomplex mystery with a long past and an eternal future.
In the beginning only peripheries meet. But if the relationship growsintimate, becomes closer, becomes deeper, then by and by centers start meeting.When centers meet, it is called love.
When peripheries meet, it is acquaintance. You touch the person from thewithout, just from the boundary, then it is acquaintance. Many times you startcalling your acquaintance your love. Then you are in a fallacy. Acquaintance isnot love.
Love is very rare. To meet a person at his center is to pass through arevolution yourself, because if you want to meet a person at his center, you willhave to allow that person to reach to your center also. You will have to becomevulnerable, absolutely vulnerable, open.
It is risky. To allow somebody to reach your center is risky, dangerous,because you never know what that person will do to you. And once all yoursecrets are known, once your hiddenness has become unhidden, once you areexposed completely, what that other person will do, you never know. The fear isthere. That’s why we never open.
Just acquaintance, and we think that love has happened. Peripheries meet,and we think we have met. You are not your periphery. Really, the periphery isthe boundary where you end, just the fencing around you. It is not you! Theperiphery is the place where you end and the world begins.
Even husbands and wives who may have lived together for many years maybe just acquaintances. They may not have known each other. And the more youlive with someone, the more you forget completely that the centers haveremained unknown.
So the first thing to be understood is: Don’t take acquaintance as love. Youmay be making love, you may be sexually related, but sex is also peripheral.Unless centers meet, sex is just a meeting of two bodies. And a meeting of twobodies is not your meeting. Sex also remains acquaintance—physical, bodily,but still acquaintance.
You can allow somebody to enter to your center only when you are notafraid, when you are not fearful.
So I say to you that there are two types of living. One is fear-oriented, one islove-oriented. Fear-oriented living can never lead you into deep relationship.You remain afraid, and the other cannot be allowed, cannot be allowed topenetrate you to your very core. To an extent you allow the other, and then thewall comes and everything stops.
The love-oriented person is the religious person. The love-oriented personmeans one who is not afraid of the future, one who is not afraid of the result andthe consequence, who lives here and now.
Don’t be bothered about the result. That is the fear-oriented mind. Don’tthink about what will happen out of it. Just be here, and act, totally. Don’tcalculate. A fear-oriented man is always calculating, planning, arranging,safeguarding. His whole life is lost in this way.
I have heard about an old Zen monk. He was on his deathbed. The last dayhad come, and he declared that that evening he would be no more. So followers,disciples, friends started coming. He had many lovers. They all started coming.
From far and wide people gathered.
One of his old disciples, when he heard that the master was going to die, ranto the market. Somebody asked, “The master is dying in his hut, why are yougoing to the market?” The old disciple said, “I know that my master loves aparticular type of cake, so I am going to purchase the cake.”
It was difficult to find the cake, because now it had gone out of fashion, butby the evening somehow he managed. He came running with the cake.
And everybody was worried—it was as if the master was waiting forsomeone. He would open his eyes and look, and close his eyes again. And whenthis disciple came, he said, “Okay, so you have come. Where is the cake?” Thedisciple produced the cake—and he was very happy that the master asked aboutthe cake.
Dying, the master took the cake in his hand, but his hand was not trembling.He was very old, but his hand was not trembling. So somebody asked, “You areso old and just on the verge of dying. The last breath is soon to leave you, butyour hand is not trembling.”
The master said, “I never tremble, because there is no fear. My body hasbecome old, but I am still young, and I will remain young even when the body isgone.”
Then he took a bite, started munching the cake. And then somebody asked,“What is your last message, Master? You will be leaving us soon. What do youwant us to remember?”
The master smiled and said, “Ah, this cake is delicious!”
This is a man who lives in the here and now: “This cake is delicious!” Evendeath is irrelevant. The next moment is meaningless. This moment this cake isdelicious. If you can be in this moment, this present moment, this presentness,the plenitude, then only can you love.
Love is a rare flowering. It happens only sometimes. Millions and millions ofpeople live in the false attitude that they are lovers. They believe that they love,but that is their belief only. Love is a rare flowering. Sometimes it happens. It israre because it can happen only when there is no fear, never before. That meanslove can happen only to a very deeply spiritual, religious person. Sex is possiblefor all, acquaintance is possible for all, not love.
When you are not afraid, then there is nothing to hide, then you can be open,then you can withdraw all boundaries. And then you can invite the other topenetrate you to the very core. And remember, if you allow somebody topenetrate you deeply, the other will allow you to penetrate into himself orherself, because when you allow somebody to penetrate you, trust is created.When you are not afraid, the other becomes fearless.
In your love, fear is always there. The husband is afraid of the wife, the wifeis afraid of the husband. Lovers are always afraid. Then it is not love. Then it isjust an arrangement of two fearful persons depending on each other, fighting,exploiting, manipulating, controlling, dominating, possessing—but it is not love.
If you can allow love to happen, there is no need for prayer, there is no needfor meditation, there is no need for any church, any temple. You can completelyforget God if you can love—because through love, everything will havehappened to you: meditation, prayer, God. Everything will have happened toyou. That’s what Jesus means when he says: “Love is God.”
But love is difficult. Fear has to be dropped. And this is the strange thing,that you are so afraid and you have nothing to lose.
Kabir has said somewhere: “I look into people. They are so much afraid, butI can’t see why—because they have nothing to lose.” Says Kabir: “They are likea person who is naked, but never goes to take a bath in the river because he isafraid—where will he dry his clothes?” This is the situation you are in—naked,with no clothes, but always afraid about the clothes.
What have you got to lose? Nothing. This body will be taken by death.Before it is taken by death, give it to love. Whatsoever you have will be takenaway. Before it is taken away, why not share it? That is the only way ofpossessing it. If you can share and give, you are the master. It is going to betaken away. There is nothing which you can retain forever. Death will destroyeverything.
So, if you follow me rightly, the struggle is between death and love. If youcan give, there will be no death. Before anything can be taken away from you,you will have already given it, you will have made it a gift. There can be nodeath.
For a lover there is no death. For a non-lover, every moment is a death,
because every moment something is being snatched away from him. The body isdisappearing, he is losing every moment. And then there will be death, andeverything will be annihilated.
What is the fear? Why are you so afraid? Even if everything is known aboutyou and you are an open book, why fear? How can it harm you? Just falseconceptions, just conditionings given by the society, that you have to hide, thatyou have to protect yourself, that you have to be constantly in a fighting mood,that everybody is an enemy, that everybody is against you.
Nobody is against you! Even if you feel somebody is against you, he too isnot against you—because everybody is concerned with himself, not with you.There is nothing to fear. This has to be realized before a real relationship canhappen. There is nothing to fear.
Meditate on it. And then allow the other to enter you, invite the other to enteryou. Don’t create any barrier anywhere, become a passage always open, nolocks, no doors on you, no closed doors on you. Then love is possible.
When two centers meet, there is love. And love is an alchemical phenomenon—yjust like hydrogen and oxygen meet and a new thing, water, is created. Youcan have hydrogen, you can have oxygen, but if you are thirsty, they will beuseless. You can have as much oxygen as you want, as much hydrogen as youlike, but the thirst will not go.
When two centers meet, a new thing is created. That new thing is love. And itis just like water, the thirst of many, many lives is satisfied. Suddenly youbecome content. That is the visible sign of love. You become content, as if youhave achieved everything. There is nothing to achieve now. You have reachedthe goal. There is no further goal, destiny is fulfilled. The seed has become aflower, has come to its total flowering.
Deep contentment is the visible sign of love. Whenever a person is in love,he is in deep contentment. Love cannot be seen, but contentment, the deepsatisfaction around him ... his every breath, his every movement, his very being—content.
You may be surprised when I say to you that love makes you desireless, butdesire is with discontent. You desire because you don’t have. You desire becauseyou think if you have something it will give you contentment. Desire is out ofdiscontent.
When there is love and two centers have met and dissolved and merged, anda new alchemical quality is born, contentment is there. It is as if the wholeexistence has stopped—no movement. Then the present moment is the onlymoment. And then you can say, “Ah, this cake is delicious!” Even death doesn’tmean anything to a man who is in love.
So I say to you, love will make you desireless. Be fearless, drop fears, beopen. Allow some center to meet the center within you. You will be rebornthrough it; a new quality of being will be created. This quality of being says,“This is God. God is not an argument, it is a fulfillment, a feeling of fulfillment.
You may have observed that whenever you are discontent, you want to denyGod. Whenever you are dissatisfied, your whole being wants to say, “There is noGod.” Atheism is not out of logic, it is out of discontent. You may rationalize it—that’s another thing. You may not say you are an atheist because you arediscontent. You may say, “There is no God and I have got proofs.” But that isnot the true thing.
If you are satisfied, suddenly your whole being says, “There is God.”Suddenly you feel it! The whole existence becomes divine. If love is there, youwill be really for the first time in the feeling that existence is divine andeverything is a blessing. But much has to be done before this can happen. Muchhas to be destroyed before this can happen. You have to destroy all that createsbarriers in you.
Make love a sadhana, an inner discipline. Don’t allow it just to be afrivolous thing. Don’t allow it just to be an occupation of the mind. Don’t allowit just to be a bodily satisfaction. Make it an inner search, and take the other as ahelp, as a friend.
If you have heard anything about Tantra, you will know that Tantra says: Ifyou can find a consort, a friend, a woman or a man, who is ready to move withyou toward the inner center, who is ready to move with you to the highest peakof relationship, then this relationship will become meditative. Then through thisrelationship you will achieve the ultimate relationship. Then the other becomesjust a door.
Let me explain it: If you love a person, by and by first the periphery of theperson disappears, the form of the person disappears. You come more and morein contact with the formless, the inner. The form becomes, by and by, vague anddisappears. And if you go deeper, then even this formless individual startsdisappearing and melting. Then the beyond opens. Then that particularindividual was just a door, an opening. And through your lover, you find thedivine.
Because we cannot love, we need so many religious rituals. They aresubstitutes, and very poor substitutes ...
But the first glimpse will always come through an individual. It is difficult tobe in contact with the universal. It is so big, so vast, so beginningless, endless.From where to start? From where to move into it? The individual is the door.Fall in love.
And don’t make it a struggle. Make it a deep allowance for the other, just aninvitation. And allow the other to penetrate you without any conditions. Andsuddenly the other disappears, and God is there. If your lover or beloved cannotbecome divine, then nothing in this world can become divine. Then all yourreligious talk is just nonsense.
This can happen with a child. This can happen with an animal, your dog. Ifyou can be in deep relationship with a dog, it can happen—the dog becomesdivine! So it is not a question of man and woman only. That is one of the deepestsources of the divine, and it reaches you naturally, but it can happen fromanywhere. The basic key is that you should allow the other to penetrate you toyour very deepest core, to the very ground of your being.
But we go on deceiving ourselves. We think we love. And if you think thatyou love, then there is no possibility for love to happen—because if this is love,then everything is closed. Make fresh efforts. Try to find in the other the realbeing that is hidden. Don’t take anybody for granted. Every individual is such amystery that if you go on and on into him it is endless.
But we get bored with the other—because just the periphery, and always theperiphery.
I was reading a story: A man was very ill and he tried all types of “pathies,”but nothing would help. Then he went to a hypnotist and the hypnotist gave hima mantra, to repeat continuously: “I am not ill.” For at least fifteen minutes in themorning and fifteen minutes at night: “‘I am not ill, I am healthy.’ —And thewhole day, whenever you remember, repeat it.” Within a few days he startedgetting better. And within weeks he was absolutely okay.
Then he told his wife, “This has been a miracle! Should I go to this hypnotistfor another miracle also? Because lately I am feeling no sexual appetite and thesexual relationship has almost stopped. There is no desire.”
The wife was happy. She said, “You go”—because she was feeling veryfrustrated.
The man went to the hypnotist. He came back, his wife asked, “What mantra,what suggestion has he given now?” The man wouldn’t tell her. But withinweeks his sexual appetite started returning. He started feeling desire again. Sothe wife was very much puzzled. She continuously persisted in asking, but theman would laugh and would not say anything. So one day she tried, when hewas in the bathroom in the morning doing his meditation, that fifteen-minutemantra, she tried to hear what he was saying. And he was saying, “She is not mywife. She is not my wife. She is not my wife.”
We take persons for granted. Somebody is your wife—relationship isfinished; somebody is your husband—relationship is finished. Now there is noadventure, the other has become a thing, a commodity. Now the other is not amystery to be searched; the other is no longer new.
Remember, everything goes dead with age. The periphery is always old, andthe center is always new. The periphery cannot remain new, because everymoment it is getting old, stale. The center is always fresh and young. Your soulis neither a child, nor a young man, nor an old man.
Your soul is simply eternally fresh. It has no age. You can experiment with it—you may be young, you may be old: Just close your eyes and find out. Try tofeel how your center is—old? young? You will feel that the center is neither. It isalways new, it never gets old. Why? Because the center doesn’t belong to time.
In the process of time, everything becomes old. A man is born—the body hasstarted becoming old already! When we say that a child is one week old, itmeans one week of oldness has penetrated into the child. The child has alreadypassed seven days toward death, he has completed seven days of dying. He ismoving toward death—sooner or later he will be dead.
Whatsoever comes in time becomes old. The moment it enters time, it isalready becoming old. Your body is old, your periphery is old. You cannot beeternally in love with it. But your center is always fresh, it is eternally young.Once you are in contact with it, love is an every-moment discovery. And thenthe honeymoon never ends. If it ends, it was not a honeymoon at all—it was justan acquaintance.
And the last thing to remember is: In the relationship of love you alwaysblame the other if something goes wrong. If something is not happening as itshould, the other is responsible. This will destroy the whole possibility of futuregrowth.
Remember: You are always responsible, and change yourself. Drop thosequalities which create trouble. Make love a self-transformation.
As they say in salesmen’s courses: The customer is always right. I would liketo say to you: In the world of relationship and love, you are always in the wrong,the other is always right.
And this is how lovers always feel. If there is love, they always feel,“Something is wrong with me,” if things are not happening as they should. Andboth feel the same way! Then things grow, then centers open, then boundariesmerge.
But if you think that the other is wrong, you are closing yourself and theother. And the other also thinks that you are wrong. Thoughts are infectious. Ifyou think the other is wrong, even if you have not said it, even if you are smilingand showing that you don’t think the other is wrong ... the other has got thepoint—through your eyes, through your gestures, through your face. Even if youare an actor, a great actor, and you can just arrange your face, your gestures asyou like, then too the unconscious is continuously sending signals: “You arewrong.” And when you say that the other is wrong, the other starts feeling thatyou are wrong.
Relationship is destroyed on this rock, and then people become closed. If yousay somebody is wrong, somebody starts protecting, safeguarding. Then closurehappens.
Remember always: In love you are always wrong. And then the possibilitywill open, and the other will also feel the same. We create the feeling in theother. When lovers are close, immediately thoughts go jumping from one to theother. Even if they are not saying anything, they are silent, they communicate.
Language is for non-lovers, those who are not in love. For lovers, silence isenough language. Without saying anything, they go on speaking.
If you take love as sadhana, then don’t say the other is wrong. Just try to findout: Somewhere, something must be wrong in you, and drop that wrongness.
It is going to be difficult because it is going to be against the ego. It is goingto be difficult because it will hurt your pride. It is going to be difficult becausethis will not be dominating, possessing. You will not be more powerful throughpossessing the other. This will destroy your ego—that’s why it is going to bedifficult.
But destruction of the ego is the point, the goal. From wherever you like toapproach the inner world—from love, from meditation, from yoga, from prayer—whatsoever the path you choose, the goal is the same: the destruction of theego, throwing the ego away.
Through love it can be done very easily. And it is so natural! Love is thenatural religion.
In my relationship I often lose myself and start feeling closed in. What can Ido?
This is one of the fundamental problems of love. Every lover has to learn it;nobody knows it by birth. It only comes slowly, slowly and through much pain,but the sooner it comes, the better—that each person needs his or her own space,that we should not interfere in that space. To interfere is very natural for lovers,because they start taking the other for granted. They start thinking that they areno longer separate. They don’t think of “I” and “thou”; they start thinking of“we.” You are that too, but only once in a while.
“We” is a rare phenomenon. Once, for a few moments, lovers come to thatpoint where the word is meaningful, where you can say “we,” when “I” and“thou” disappear into each other, where boundaries overlap. But these are raremoments; they should not be taken for granted. You cannot remain “we” twenty-
four hours a day, but that’s what every lover demands—and that createsunnecessary misery.
When you come close once in a while, you become one, but those are raremoments, precious, to be cherished, and you cannot make them a twenty-four-hour thing. If you try, you will destroy them; then the whole beauty will be lost.When that moment is gone, it is gone; you are again “I” and “thou.”
You have your space, your lover has his space. And one has to be respectfulnow, that the other’s space should not be in any way interfered with; it shouldnot be trespassed. If you trespass it, you hurt the other; you start destroying theother’s individuality. And because the other loves you, he or she will go ontolerating it. But toleration is one thing; it is not something very beautiful. If theother is only tolerating it, then sooner or later the other will take revenge. Theother cannot forgive you, and it goes on accumulating—one day, another day,another day ... You have interfered with a thousand and one things, then they allpile up, and then one day they explode.
That’s why lovers go on fighting. That fight is because of this constantinterference. And when you interfere in his being, he tries to interfere in yourbeing, and nobody feels good about it.
For example, he is feeling happy and you will feel left alone because you arenot feeling happy. You will feel as if you have been cheated. “Why is he feelinghappy?” You should both feel happy—that is your idea. That happens once in awhile. But sometimes it happens that he is happy, you are not happy or you arehappy and he is not happy. We have to understand it, that the other has everyright to be happy without one ... even though it hurts. You would like toparticipate but you are not in the mood. If you insist, all that you can do isdestroy his happiness ... and you are both losers in that way, because if youdestroy his happiness, when you are happy alone he will destroy your happiness.Slowly, slowly, rather than becoming friends, we turn into enemies.
The basic requirement is that the other has to be given absolute freedom to behimself.
If he is happy, feel good—he is happy. If you can be happy and participate inhis happiness, good. If you cannot, leave him alone. If he is sad, if you canparticipate in his sadness, good. If you cannot participate and you want to sing asong and you are feeling happy, leave him alone. Don’t drag him according toyou; leave him to himself. Then slowly, slowly a great respect arises for eachother. That respect becomes the foundation of the temple of love.
Could you talk about the responsibility of being a parent, for a woman?
To become a mother is one of the greatest responsibilities in the world. So manypeople are on the psychiatrists’ couches and so many mad people are inmadhouses and so many are out of the madhouses. If you go deep into theneurosis of humanity you will always find the mother, because so many womenwant to be mothers but they don’t know how to be. Once the relationshipbetween the mother and the child goes wrong the child’s whole life goes wrong,because that is his first contact with the world, his first relationship. Everythingelse will be in continuity with it. And if the first step goes wrong, the whole lifegoes Wrong....
One should knowingly become a mother. You are taking on one of thegreatest responsibilities that a human being can.
Men are a little freer in that way because they cannot take the responsibilityof becoming a mother. Women have more responsibility. So become a mother,but don’t take it for granted that just by being a woman one is necessarily amother—that is a fallacy.
Motherhood is a great art; you have to learn it. So start learning about it! Afew things I would like to say to you:
First, never treat the child as yours, never possess the child. It comes throughyou, but it is not yours. God has only used you as a vehicle, a medium, but thechild is not your possession. Love, but never possess the child. If the motherstarts possessing the child then the life is destroyed. The child starts becoming aprisoner. You are destroying his personality and you are reducing him to a thing.Only a thing can be possessed: A house can be possessed, a car can be possessed—never a person. So this is the first lesson—get ready for it. Before the childcomes you should be able to greet him as an independent being, as a person inhis own right, not just your child.
And the second thing: Treat the child as you would treat a grown-up person.Never treat a child like a child. Treat the child with deep respect. God haschosen you to be a host. God has entered into your being as a guest. The child isvery fragile, helpless. It is very difficult to respect the child. It is very easy tohumiliate the child. Humiliation comes very easy because the child is helplessand cannot do anything, cannot retaliate, cannot react.
Treat the child as a grown-up, and with great respect. Once you respect thechild, you don’t try to impose your ideas on him. You don’t try to imposeanything on the child. You simply give him freedom—freedom to explore theworld. You help him to become more and more powerful in exploring the world,but you never give him directions. You give him energy, you give himprotection, you give him security, all that he needs, but you help him to gofarther away from you to explore the world.
And of course in freedom the wrong is also included. It is very difficult for amother to learn that when you give freedom to a child it is not freedom only todo good. It is also necessarily the freedom to do bad, to do wrong. So make thechild alert, intelligent, but never give him any commandments—nobody keepsthem, and people become hypocrites. So if you really love the child, the onething has to be remembered: Never, never help him in any way, force him in anyway, to become a hypocrite.
And the third thing: Don’t listen to morality, don’t listen to religion, don’tlisten to culture—listen to nature. Whatsoever is natural is good—even ifsometimes it is very difficult for you, very uncomfortable for you. Because youhave not been brought up according to nature. Your parents were not bringingyou up with real art, love. It was just an accidental thing. Don’t repeat the samemistakes. Many times you will feel very uneasy ...
For example, a small child starts playing with his sexual organs. The naturaltendency of the mother is to stop the child because she has been taught that thisis wrong. Even if she feels that nothing is wrong, if somebody is there she feels alittle embarrassed. Feel embarrassed! That is your problem; that has nothing todo with the child. Feel embarrassed. Even if you lose respectability in society—lose it, but never interfere with the child. Let nature take its own course. You arethere to facilitate whatsoever nature is unfolding. You are not to direct nature.You are just to be there as a help.
So these three things ... and start meditating. Before the child is born youshould go as deeply as possible in meditation.
When the child is within your womb, whatsoever you are doing continuouslygoes as a vibration to the child. If you are angry, your stomach has a tension ofanger. The child immediately feels it. When you are sad, your stomach has anatmosphere of sadness. Immediately the child feels dull, depressed.
The child totally depends on you. Whatsoever is your mood is the mood ofthe child. The child has no independence right now. Your climate is his climate.So no more fighting, no more anger. That’s why I say that to be a mother is agreat responsibility. You will have to sacrifice much.
Now during these coming seven months you have to be very, very alert. Thechild is more important than anything else. If somebody insults you, accept it,but don’t get angry. Say, “I am pregnant, and the child is more important thangetting angry at you. This episode will pass and after a few days I will notremember who has insulted me and what I have done. But the child is going tobe there at least seventy, eighty years in the world. It is a big project.” If youwant, you can even note it down in the diary. When the child is born, then youcan be angry, but not right now. Just say, “I am a pregnant mother. I cannot beangry—that is not allowed.” This is what I call sensitive understanding.
No more sadness, no more anger, no more hatred, no more fighting with yourpartner. Both have to look to the child. When a child is there you are bothsecondary; the child has every preference. Because a new life is going to beborn ... and it is going to be your fruit.
If from the very beginning anger, hatred, conflict enters into the child’s mind,then you are causing hell for him. He will suffer. Then it is better not to bring achild into the world. Why bring a child into suffering? The world is intremendous suffering.
In the first place, bringing a child into this world is a very risky affair. Buteven if you want that, at least bring a child who will be totally different in thisworld—who will not be miserable, who will at least help the world to be a littlemore celebrating. He will bring a little more festivity into the world ... a littlemore laughter, love, life.
So for these days, be celebrating. Dance, sing, listen to music, meditate, love.Be very soft. Don’t do anything hectic, in a hurry. Don’t do anything in atension. Just go slowly. Slow down absolutely. A great guest is to come—youhave to receive him.
How can I best fulfill my duty as a mother?
Don’t think of it as a duty. One tends to think of it as a duty sooner or later, andthe day you think of it as a duty, something dies, something of immense valuedisappears. The relationship is broken. Think of it as a celebration. The child is agift from God. Be respectful to the child—not just loving, but respectful also. Ifthere is no respect, then love becomes possessive. If there is respect, how canyou possess?
You cannot possess somebody you respect. The very idea is ugly,disrespectful. To possess a person means to reduce the person to a thing. Andonce the child is your possession, you are burdened. Then it is a duty to befulfilled, and then mothers talk for their whole lives about how much they havedone.
A real mother will never say a single word about doing, and not only that shewill never feel that she has done it. She has enjoyed it; she is obliged to thechild. It is not only the birth of the child: Simultaneously you are born in a newway, the mother is born. One aspect is the birth of the child; another aspect isthat your motherhood is born. The child has tremendously transformed you. Hehas given something to you. You are no longer the same person. There is a greatdifference between a woman and a mother.
So just be loving, be respectful, and help him to grow in such a way that youdon’t hinder him. From this very moment, from the very beginning, one has tobe alert about it. And remember not to repeat the same pattern that you havelearned from your mother. That is very natural because that’s what you knowabout how a mother should be, and you will repeat your mother’s behavior withhim, and that will be wrong. Be utterly new. Forget all that you have learnedfrom your mother; don’t follow that. Be utterly new, respond in a new way.Listen to his needs and respond with a few absolutely certain visions.
One is: Give love, but never give a structure. Give love, but never give acharacter. Give love, but freedom has to remain intact. Love should not be aninterference with his freedom. Nobody thinks of the freedom of a small child,but when will you think of it? Tomorrow he will still be small, the day aftertomorrow...? In fact, the mother never thinks of her child as a grown-up personwho is able to be free. Never. Because the distance between you and the childwill always remain the same. If it is twenty years’ distance, it is going to remaintwenty years’ distance. So from this very moment, from the very beginning, berespectful and give him freedom.
And if sometimes he cries, there is no need to be too worried about it. Lethim cry a little bit on his own. There is no need to always rush and to always beon your toes to serve him. That looks like love, but in fact you are interferingwith his freedom. He may not need milk; sometimes the child simply cries. Thechild simply enjoys crying—that is the only way to express himself. He has nolanguage—that is his language; he howls, he cries. Let him cry—nothing iswrong in it. He is trying to relate with the world. Don’t try to console him, don’timmediately give the breast to him. If he is not hungry, then giving him thebreast is like a drug.
Mothers use their breasts as a drug. Mm? The child starts drinking, forgetscrying and falls asleep. It is comfortable, but you have started trespassing. If hedoes not want to have the milk, if he is not eager, leave him. Then he will neverneed any primal therapy. The people who are screaming in primal therapy arethe people who have been interfered with in their childhood and were neverallowed to scream.
Allow him everything and let him feel that he is himself. More and more lethim feel that he is himself; come less and less in his way. Be a help, nourish him,but let him grow on his own. Even sometimes when you feel that he is goingwrong, you are nobody to judge. If he is going wrong, according to you, that isonly according to you. That is your opinion. He may not be going wrong.
He is not here in this world to follow your opinion. And it is very easy toimpose your opinions on him because he is helpless. His survival depends onyou; he has to listen to you. If you say, “Don’t do this,” even if he feels likedoing it and feels very good doing it, he will have to stop because it is risky togo against you.
The real mother will allow the child so much freedom that even if he wantsto go against her opinion, he is allowed. Just make it plain to him: “This is myopinion that this is not right, but you are free to do it.” Let him learn through hisown experience. That’s how one really becomes mature; otherwise peopleremain childish. They grow in age, but they don’t grow in their consciousness.So their physical age may be fifty and their mind is maybe just eleven, ten,twelve, somewhere there. Thirteen is the average mind-age of people. Thatmeans they stop at that time—and that is the average. In that average AlbertEinsteins and Buddhas and Christs are included. If you think of actual persons,the mind-age is very low. It comes to around seven or eight; somewhere aroundseven the child stops. Then he never grows, he simply follows.
Give your love, share your experience, but never impose anything on him.And then he will grow into a beautiful person.
When I gave birth to my first child, I felt I was also born in a way. Can youtalk about the birth of a mother?
Whenever a child is born, not only is the child born—that is one part of it—themother is also born. Before that she was an ordinary woman; through the birthshe becomes a mother. On one side the child is born, on the other side themother is born. And a mother is totally different from woman. A gap exists, herwhole existence becomes qualitatively different. Before that she may have beena wife, a beloved, but suddenly that is no longer important. A child is born, anew lifestyle has entered: She becomes a mother.
That’s why husbands are always afraid of children. Basically they never likechildren because a third party enters into the relationship—not only enters, butthe third party becomes the center. And after that the woman is never the samewife, she is different. After that, if a husband really wants love he has to becomejust like a son, because this woman who has become a mother can never be anordinary wife again. She has become a mother, you cannot do anything about itnow. The only thing left is that you become a son to her. That is the only wayyou can get her love again, otherwise the love will be moving toward her son.
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When a woman becomes a mother, something tremendously meaningful hashappened to her. For a woman it is almost a new birth. It is something which isvery difficult for a man to understand unless he is creative. If he has given birthto a painting or poetry or something, then just a little glimpse can happen to him.When a poet has given birth to a poem, he feels tremendously happy. Nobodycan understand what has happened just by composing a poem. But it is not just apoem. Much was in turmoil within him, and the poem has settled many things.
But it is nothing compared to a woman when she becomes a mother—nothing. A poem is a poem: The moment it is born it is already dead. When it isinside the poet it has life; the moment it is expressed it is a dead piece offurniture. You can hang it on the wall. You can throw it on the rubbish heap, orwhatsoever you want, but it is no longer alive.
When a woman gives birth to a child, it is life. When she looks into the eyesof the child, she looks into her own being. When the child starts growing, shegrows with the child.
This crazy, sweet, totally demanding and physically exhausting, delightfulmarathon called motherhood ... Since this fireball came to us—almost twoyears now—not one uninterrupted night’s sleep, not one day of rest. Andfeeling nothing so important as simply being present for him—and so veryoften inadequate and tense and tired in that. Where is laughter in this? Help!
Just to give birth to a child is one thing—to be a mother is totally different. Anywoman can give birth to a child; that’s a very simple phenomenon. But to be amother needs great art, needs great understanding.
You are creating a human being—that is the greatest creation!
The woman passes through those nine months of agony and ecstasy. Andthen the work is not finished! In fact, then the work, the real work, starts—whenthe child is born. And the child brings again a fresh quality to life. Every child isprimitive, a barbarian; now the mother has to civilize. Every child is a barbarian,remember; he is animal, wild. And the mother has to give him culture, has toteach him the ways of life, the ways of man. It is a great work.
You have to remember that—that your work has not finished, it has started.Take it joyously! You are creating something immensely valuable—you arecarving a life, you are protecting a life. The work is such that no sacrifice is greatenough for it—any sacrifice can and should be made. One thing.
Second thing: Don’t take it too seriously, otherwise you will destroy thechild. Your seriousness will become destructive. Take it playfully. Theresponsibility is there! But it has to be taken very playfully. Play upon the childas one plays upon a musical instrument. Let the child be your instrument now.Play carefully, but play playfully. If you become serious, then the child will startfeeling your seriousness and it will be crushed and crippled. Don’t burden thechild; don’t start feeling that you are doing something great to the child. When Isay you are doing something great, you are doing something great to yourself.By helping this child to grow into a beautiful human being, into a buddha, youwill be becoming the mother of a buddha. You will not be obliging the child:You will be simply enjoying your own life; your own life will become afragrance through the child.
This is an opportunity, a God-given opportunity.
And these are the two pitfalls: Either you neglect the child, you are tired of it;or you become too serious about the child, and you start burdening him, obliginghim. Both are wrong. Help the child—but for the sheer joy of it. And never feelthat he owes any debt to you. On the contrary, feel thankful that he has chosenyou to be his mother. Let your motherhood bloom through him.
If you can bloom into your motherhood, you will feel thankful to the childforever.
And, naturally, there will be sacrifices, but they have to be made ... joyously.Only then is it a sacrifice! If you do it without joy, it is not sacrifice. Sacrificecomes from the word “sacred.” When you do it joyfully, it is sacred. When youdon’t do it joyfully, then you are just fulfilling a duty—and all duties are ugly,they are not sacred.
This is a great opportunity. Meditate over it, go into it deeply. You will neverfind such a deep involvement—in fact, there is none as it is between a child andthe mother. Not even between the husband and the wife, the lover and thebeloved—the involvement is not so deep as it is between the mother and thechild. It cannot be so deep with anybody ever—because the child has lived inyou for nine months as you; nobody else can live in you for nine months as you.
And the child will become a separate individual sooner or later, butsomewhere deep down in the unconscious the mother and the child remainlinked.
If your child can become a buddha, you will be benefited by it; if your childgrows and becomes a beautiful human being, you will be benefited by it—because the child will always remain connected with you. Only the physicalconnection has been disconnected; the spiritual connection is neverdisconnected.
Thank God! Motherhood is a blessing.
Can you speak about the motherly qualities of a woman?
Buddha says: “To be a mother is sweet.” Why? Just giving birth to a child is notto be a mother, remember. Otherwise there are millions of mothers on the earth
—and there seems to be no sweetness. In fact, if you ask the psychologists theywill say just the opposite. They will say the only problem to be solved is themother.
The only pathology that millions of people are suffering from is the mother.And what they are saying they are saying after fifty, sixty years of constantanalysis of thousands of people. Everybody’s illness basically comes to onepoint: That it has been given to you, transmitted to you by your mother.
There are people who are afraid of women, and if you are afraid of womenyou can’t love them. How can love arise out of fear? And why are you afraid ofwomen?—because your childhood was lived in fear of your mother. She wasconstantly after you, she was constantly hammering you. She was constantlytelling you to do this and not to do that—of course, for your own good. She hascrippled you, she has destroyed many things in you. She has made you phonybecause she has told you what is right to do. Whether you like it or not, whetherit is spontaneously arising in you or not, you have to follow the order. And youwere so helpless ... your survival depended on the mother so you had to listen toher. She conditioned you. And it is because of the fear of your mother that youare afraid of women.
Millions of husbands are henpecked for the simple reason that their motherswere too strong. It has nothing to do with the wife; they are simply projecting themother on the wife. The wife is only a new edition of the mother. They areexpecting everything from the wife that they expected from the mother. On theone hand it cripples them; on the other hand they start expecting things whichare not possible from the wife’s side—because she is not your mother. So youfeel frustrated. And how can you make love to your wife?
A boy who has really been dominated by the mother, who has been reducedinto absolute obedience, will not be able to make love to a woman, because as hewill come close to the woman psychologically he will go impotent. How can youmake love to your mother? It is impossible.
Hence many people become impotent with their wives, but only with theirwives. With the prostitutes they are not impotent. It is strange: Why are they notimpotent with the prostitute?—for the simple reason that they can’t think of theirmother as a prostitute; that is impossible. Their mother, and a prostitute? Theprostitute is a world apart. But they can think of their wife as a mother, they canproject the mother. The wife becomes simply a screen. They want the wife totake care of them like a small child, and if she is not taking care they feeloffended.
Thousands of neurotic people and psychotic people are there in the worldbecause of the mother.
And Buddha says: “To be a mother is sweet.” He must mean something else.He can’t mean a Jewish mother! He means not just giving birth to a child; thatdoes not make one a mother. To be motherly is a totally different phenomenon.It is something absolutely human; it transcends animality. It has nothing to dowith biology. It is love, pure love, unconditional love.
When a mother loves unconditionally—and only a mother can loveunconditionally—the child learns the joy of unconditional love. The childbecomes capable of loving unconditionally. And to be able to loveunconditionally is to be religious.
And it is the easiest thing for a woman to do. It is easy for her becausenaturally she is ready for it. She is just on the verge of transcending biologythrough being a mother. You can be motherly without giving birth to a child.You can be motherly to anybody. You can be motherly to an animal, to a tree.You can be motherly to anything. It is something inside you.
Being motherly means being capable of unconditional love, loving the personfor the sheer joy of loving, helping the person to grow for the sheer joy of seeingsomebody grow.
A real therapist is a mother. If he is not, he is not a real therapist. He is only aprofessional exploiting people, exploiting them because of their misery. But areal therapist is a mother. He becomes a womb for the patient. He gives thepatient a new birth. He starts the life of the patient again from ABC. He giveshim a clean sheet to write his life again.
That’s what I mean when I talk about the “psychology of the buddhas”; thatis real therapy. A master is a real therapist; his very presence is therapeutic. Hesurrounds you like a mother. He is a cloud who surrounds you from everywhere,from all the sides, in all the dimensions, like a mother.
The family has been the basic social unit for thousands of years, yet you doubtits validity in your new world. What do you suggest can replace it?
Man has outgrown the family. The utility of the family is finished; it has livedtoo long. It is one of the most ancient institutions so only very perceptive peoplecan see that it is dead already. It will take time for others to recognize the factthat the family is dead.
It has done its work. It is no longer relevant in the new context of things; it isno longer relevant for the new humanity that is just being born.
The family has been good and bad. It has been a help—man has survivedthrough it—and it has been very harmful because it has corrupted human mind.But there was no alternative in the past, there was no way to choose anythingelse. It was a necessary evil. That need not be so in the future. The future canhave alternative styles.
My idea is that the future is not going to be one fixed pattern; it will havemany, many alternative styles. If a few people still choose to have a family, theyshould have the freedom to have it. It will be a very small percentage.
There are families on the earth—very rare, not more than one percent—which are really beautiful, which are really beneficial, in which growth happens;in which there is no authority, no power trip, no possessiveness; in whichchildren are not destroyed; in which the wife is not trying to destroy the husbandand the husband is not trying to destroy the wife; where love is and freedom is;where people have gathered together just out of joy—not for other motives;where there is no politics. Yes, these kinds of families have existed on earth;they are still there. For these people there is no need to change. In the future theycan continue to live in families.
But for the greater majority, the family is an ugly thing. You can ask thepsychoanalysts and they will say, “All kinds of mental diseases arise out of thefamily. All kinds of psychoses, neuroses, arise out of the family. The familycreates a very, very ill human being.”
* * *
The family is the root cause of all our neuroses. We have to understand thepsychological structure of the family, what it does to human consciousness.
The first thing is: It conditions the child to a certain religious ideology,political dogma, some philosophy, some theology. And the child is so innocentand so accepting, so vulnerable that he can be exploited. He cannot yet say no,he has no idea of saying no, and even if he could say no he would not say itbecause he is utterly dependent on the family, absolutely dependent. He is sohelpless that he has to agree with the family, with whatever nonsense the familywants him to agree.
The family does not help the child to inquire; it gives beliefs, and beliefs arepoisons. Once the child becomes burdened with beliefs his inquiry is crippled,paralyzed, his wings are cut. By the time he is able to inquire he will be soconditioned that he will move into every investigation with a certain prejudice—and with a prejudice your inquiry is not authentic. You are already carrying an apriori conclusion; you are simply looking for proofs to support your unconsciousconclusion. You become incapable of discovering the truth.
That’s why there are so few buddhas in the world: The root cause is thefamily. Otherwise every child is born a buddha, comes with the potential toreach the ultimate consciousness, to discover the truth, to live a life of bliss. Butthe family destroys all these dimensions; it makes him utterly flat.
Each child comes with a tremendous intelligence but the family makes himmediocre, because to live with an intelligent child is troublesome. He doubts, heis skeptical, he inquires, he is disobedient, he is rebellious. And the family wantssomebody who is obedient, ready to follow, imitate. Hence from the verybeginning the seed of intelligence has to be destroyed, almost completely burnt,so there is no possibility of any sprouts coming out of it.
It is a miracle that a few people like Zarathustra, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha,escaped from the social structure, from the family conditioning. They seem to begreat peaks of consciousness, but in fact every child is born with the samequality, with the same potential.
Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people can become buddhas—just thefamily has to disappear. Otherwise there will be Christians and Mohammedansand Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists, but not Buddhas, not Mahaviras, notMohammeds; that will not be possible. Mohammed rebelled against hisbackground, Buddha rebelled against his background, Jesus rebelled against hisbackground. These are all rebels—and the family is absolutely against therebellious spirit.
Humanity is passing through a very critical phase. It has to be decidedwhether we want to live according to the past or we want to live a new style oflife. It is enough! We have tried the past and its patterns and they have all failed.It is time, ripe time, to get out of the grip of the past and to create a new style oflife on the earth.
* * *
For me, one alternative style is the commune—t is the best.
A commune means people living in a liquid family. Children belong to thecommune, they belong to all. There is no personal property, no personal ego. Aman lives with a woman because they feel like living together, because theycherish it, they enjoy it. The moment they feel that love is no longer happening,they don’t go on clinging to each other. They say good-bye with all gratitude,
with all friendship. They start moving with other people. The only problem inthe past was what to do with the children.
In a commune, children can belong to the commune, and that will be farbetter. They will have more opportunities to grow with many more kinds ofpeople. Otherwise a child grows up with the mother. For years the mother andthe father are the only two images of human beings for him. Naturally he startsimitating them.
Children turn out to be imitators of their fathers, and they perpetuate thesame kind of illness in the world as their parents did. They become ditto copies.It is very destructive. And there is no way for the children to do something else;they don’t have any other source of information.
If a hundred people live together in a commune there will be many malemembers, many female members; the child need not get fixed and obsessed withone pattern of life. He can learn from his father, he can learn from his uncles, hecan learn from all the men in the community. He will have a bigger soul.
Families crush people and give them very little souls. In the community thechild will have a bigger soul; he will have more possibilities, he will be far moreenriched in his being. He will see many women; he will not have one idea of awoman. It is very destructive to have only one single idea of a woman—becausethroughout your whole life you will be searching and searching for your mother.Whenever you fall in love with a woman, watch! There is every possibility thatyou have found someone that is similar to your mother, and that may be thething that you should have avoided.
Each child is angry with his mother. The mother has to prohibit many things,the mother has to say no—it cannot be avoided. Even a good mother sometimeshas to say no, and restrict and deny. The child feels rage, anger. He hates themother and loves the mother also because she is his survival, his source of lifeand energy. So he hates the mother and loves the mother together.
And that becomes the pattern. You will love the woman and you will hate thesame woman. And you don’t have any other kind of choice. You will always goon searching, unconsciously, for your mother. And that happens to women also,they go on searching for their father. Their whole life is a search to find dad as ahusband.
Now your dad is not the only person in the world; the world is far richer. Andin fact, if you can find the dad, you will not be happy. You can be happy with abeloved, with a lover, not with your daddy. If you can find your mother, you willnot be happy with her. You know her already, there is nothing else to explore.That is familiar already, and familiarity breeds contempt. You should search forsomething new, but you don’t have any image.
In a commune a child will have a richer soul. He will know many women, hewill know many men; he will not be addicted to one or two persons.
The family creates an obsession in you, and the obsession is againsthumanity. If your father is fighting with somebody and you see he is wrong, thatdoesn’t matter—you have to be with the father and on his side. Just as peoplesay, “Wrong or right, my country is my country!” so they say, “My father is myfather, wrong or right. My mother is my mother, I have to be with her.”Otherwise it will be a betrayal.
It teaches you to be unjust. You can see your mother is wrong and she isfighting with the neighbor and the neighbor is right—but you have to be with themother. This is the learning of an unjust life.
In a commune you will not be attached too much to one family—there willbe no family to be attached to. You will be more free, less obsessed. You will bemore just. And you will have love from many sources. You will feel that life isloving.
The family teaches you a kind of conflict with society, with other families.The family demands monopoly. It asks you to be for it and against all. You haveto be in the service of the family. You have to go on fighting for the name andthe fame of the family. The family teaches you ambition, conflict, aggression. Ina commune you will be less aggressive, you will be more at ease with the worldbecause you have known so many people.
That’s what I am going to create here—a commune, where all will be friends.Even husbands and wives should not be more than friends. Their marriageshould be just an agreement between the two—that they have decided to betogether because they are happy together. The moment even one of them decidesthat unhappiness is settling, then they separate. There is no need for any divorce.Because there is no marriage, there is no divorce. One lives spontaneously.
When you live miserably, by and by you become habituated to misery. Neverfor a single moment should one tolerate any misery. It may have been good tolive with a man in the past, and joyful, but if it is no longer joyful then you haveto get out of it. And there is no need to get angry and destructive, and there is noneed to carry a grudge—because nothing can be done about love.
Love is like a breeze. You see ... it just comes. If it is there it is there. Then itis gone. And when it is gone it is gone.
Love is a mystery, you cannot manipulate it. Love should not bemanipulated, love should not be legalized, love should not be forced—for noreason at all.
In a commune, people will be living together just out of the sheer joy ofbeing together, for no other reason. And when the joy has disappeared, they part.Maybe it feels sad, but they have to part. Maybe the nostalgia of the past stilllingers in the mind, but they have to part. They owe it to each other that theyshould not live in misery, otherwise misery becomes a habit. They part withheavy hearts, but with no grudge. They will seek other partners.
In the future there will be no marriage as it has been in the past, and nodivorce as it has been in the past. Life will be more liquid, more trusting. Therewill be more trust in the mysteries of life than in the clarities of the law, moretrust in life itself than in anything—the court, the police, the priest, the church.
And the children should belong to all—they should not carry the badges oftheir family. They will belong to the commune; the commune will take care ofthem.
This will be the most revolutionary step in human history—for people to startliving in communes and to start being truthful, honest, trusting, and to go ondropping the law more and more.
In a family, love disappears sooner or later. In the first place it may not havebeen there at all from the very beginning. It may have been an arranged marriage—for other motives, for money, power, prestige. There may not have been anylove from the very beginning. Then children are born out of a wedlock which ismore like a deadlock—children are born out of no love. From the very beginningthey become deserts. And this no-love state in the house makes them dull,unloving. They learn their first lesson of life from their parents, and the parentsare unloving and there is constant jealousy and fighting and anger. And thechildren go on seeing the ugly faces of their parents.
Their very hope is destroyed. They can’t believe that love is going to happenin their life if it has not happened in their parents’ life. And they see otherparents also, other families also. Children are very perceptive; they go onlooking all around and observing. When they see that there is no possibility oflove, they start feeling that love is only in poetry, it exists only for poets,visionaries—it has no actuality in life. And once you have learned the idea thatlove is just poetry, then it will never happen, because you have become closed toit.
To see it happen is the only way to let it happen later on in your own life. Ifyou see your father and mother in deep love, in great love, caring for each other,with compassion for each other, with respect for each other—then you have seenlove happening. Hope arises. A seed falls into your heart and starts growing.You know it is going to happen to you too.
If you have not seen it, how can you believe it is going to happen to you too?If it didn’t happen to your parents, how can it happen to you? In fact, you will doeverything to prevent it happening to you—otherwise it will look like a betrayalto your parents.
This is my observation of people: Women go on saying deep in theunconscious, “Look, Mom, I am suffering as much as you suffered.” Boys go onsaying to themselves later on, “Dad, don’t be worried, my life is as miserable asyours. I have not gone beyond you, I have not betrayed you. I remain the samemiserable person as you were. I carry the chain, the tradition. I am yourrepresentative, Dad, I have not betrayed you. Look, I am doing the same thing asyou used to do to my mother—I am doing it to the mother of my children. Andwhat you used to do to me, I am doing to my children. I am bringing them up inthe same way you brought me up.”
Now the very idea of bringing up children is nonsense. You can help at themost, you cannot bring them up. The very idea of building up children isnonsense—not only nonsense, very harmful, immensely harmful. You cannotbuild ... A child is not a thing, not like a building.
A child is like a tree. Yes, you can help. You can prepare the soil, you canput in fertilizers, you can water, you can watch whether sun reaches the plant ornot—that’s all. But it is not that you are building up the plant, it is coming up onits own. You can help, but you cannot bring it up and you cannot build it up.
Children are immense mysteries. The moment you start building them up, themoment you start creating patterns and characters around them, you areimprisoning them. They will never be able to forgive you. And this is the onlyway they will learn. And they will do the same thing to their children, and so on,so forth.
Each generation goes on giving its neuroses to the new people that come tothe earth. And the society persists with all its madness, misery.
No, a different kind of thing is needed now. Man has come of age and thefamily is a thing of the past; it really has no future. The commune will be thething that can replace the family, and it will be far more beneficial.
But in a commune only meditative people can be together. Only when youknow how to celebrate life can you be together; only when you know that spaceI call meditation can you be together, can you be loving.
Man cannot be happy without freedom, and your old family structuredestroyed freedom. And because it destroyed freedom it destroyed happiness, itdestroyed love. It has been a kind of survival measure. Yes, it has somehowprotected the body, but it has destroyed the soul. Now there is no need for it. Wehave to protect the soul too. That is far more essential and far more important.
There is no future for the family, not in the sense that it has been understoodup to now. There is a future for love and love relationships. “Husband” and“wife” are going to become ugly and dirty words.
And whenever you monopolize the woman or the man, naturally youmonopolize the children also. I agree totally with Thomas Gordon. He says, “Ithink all parents are potential child abusers, because the basic way of raisingchildren is through power and authority. I think it is destructive when manyparents have the idea: ‘It is my kid, I can do what I want to do with my kid.’ It isviolent, it is destructive, to have the idea: ‘It is my kid and I can do whatsoever Iwant with it.’” A kid is not a thing, it is not a chair, is not a car. You cannot dowhatsoever you want to do with him. He comes through you, but he does notbelong to you. He belongs to God, to existence. You are at the most a caretaker;
don’t become possessive.
But the whole family idea is one of possession—possess property, possessthe woman, possess the man, possess children—and possessiveness is poison.
Hence, I am against the family. But I am not saying that those who are reallyhappy in their families—flowing, alive, loving—have to destroy it. No, there isnot need. Their family is already a commune, a small commune.
And of course a bigger commune will be far better, with more possibilities,more people. Different people bring different songs, different people bringdifferent lifestyles, different people bring different breathings, different breezes,different people bring different rays of light—and children should be showeredwith as many different lifestyles as possible, so they can choose, so they canhave the freedom to choose.
And they should be enriched by knowing so many women that they are notobsessed by the mother’s face or the mother’s style. Then they will be able tolove many more women, many more men. Life will be more of an adventure.
I have heard:
A mother visiting a department store took her son to the toy department.Spying a gigantic rocking horse, he climbed upon it and rocked back andforth for almost an hour.
“Come on, son,” the mother pleaded, “I have to go home to getFather’s dinner.” The little lad refused to budge and all her efforts wereunavailing. The department manager also tried to coax the little fellow,without meeting with any success. Eventually, in desperation, they calledfor the store psychiatrist.
Gently he walked over and whispered a few words in the boy’s ear,and immediately the lad jumped off and ran to his mother’s side.
“How did you do it?” the mother asked incredulously. “What did yousay to him?”
The psychiatrist hesitated for a moment, then said, “All I said was, ‘Ifyou don’t jump off that rocking horse at once, son, I will knock thestuffing out of you!’”
People learn sooner or later that fear works, that authority works, that powerworks. And children are so helpless and they are so dependent on the parentsthat you can make them afraid. It becomes your technique to exploit them andoppress them, and they have nowhere to go.
In a commune they will have many places to go. They will have many unclesand many aunts and many people—they will not be so helpless. They will not bein your hands as much as they are right now. They will have more independence,less helplessness. You will not be able to coerce them so easily.
And all that they see in the home is misery. Sometimes, yes I know,sometimes the husband and wife are loving, but whenever they are loving it isalways in private. Children don’t know about it. Children see only the uglyfaces, the ugly side. When the mother and the father are loving, they are lovingbehind closed doors. They keep quiet, they never allow the children to see whatlove is. The children see only their conflict—nagging, fighting, hitting eachother, in gross and subtle ways, insulting each other, humiliating each other.Children go on seeing what is happening.
A man is sitting in his living room reading the newspaper when his wifecomes over and slaps him.
“What was that for?” asked the indignant husband.
“That is for being a lousy lover.”
A little while later the husband goes over to where the wife is sittingwatching TV and he gives her a resounding smack.
“What was that for?” she yelled at him.
To which he answered, “For knowing the difference.”
This goes on and on, and the children go on watching what is happening. Isthis life? Is this what life is meant for? Is this all there is? They start losing hope.Before they enter into life they are already failures, they have accepted failure. Iftheir parents who are so wise and powerful cannot succeed, what hope is therefor them? It is impossible.
And they have learned the tricks—tricks of being miserable, tricks of beingaggressive. Children never see love happening. In a commune there will be morepossibilities. Love should come out into the open a little more. People shouldknow that love happens. Small children should know what love is. They shouldsee people caring for each other.
In a better world, with more understanding, love will be there all over.Children will see what caring is. Children will see what joy it brings when youcare for somebody. If they watch, they learn. If they know it happens, their doorsopen.
Love should be accepted more, violence should be rejected more. Loveshould be available more. Two persons making love should not be worried thatno one should know. They should laugh, they should sing, they should scream injoy, so that the whole neighborhood knows that somebody is being loving tosomebody—somebody is making love.
Love should be such a gift. Love should be so divine. It is sacred.
Life can become a paradise here and now. The barriers have to be removed.The family is one of the greatest barriers.
Why are all religions against contraception?
The pope is against contraception. He is bound to be because all religions areagainst contraceptive methods—for the simple reason that their numbers will bereduced. It is a political game: Who has got more numbers—Catholics orProtestants, Hindus or Jainas or Mohammedans?
The whole politic is of numbers, particularly because of democracy. Eachsingle person brings a vote: The more children you have, the more votes youhave. And whosoever has more votes will rule the country, will rule the world.So all religious heads, all religious institutions, all religious propagandists areagainst contraception.
But, in fact, contraception is one of the greatest blessings that has happenedto humanity in the whole of human history. It is the greatest revolution. Norevolution is so great compared to the invention of contraceptives, because it isthrough contraceptives that women can become equal to men. It is only throughcontraceptives that the woman can have all the rights that man has alwaysclaimed for himself. Otherwise she was almost always pregnant.
She could not work in the factory, she could not work in the office, she couldnot be a doctor, she could not be a professor. At the most she could only be ahousewife, and that simply means a house-servant. And her whole life waswasted in giving birth to children. She could not do anything else—she could notpaint, she could not compose poetry, she could not play music, she could notdance. How can you dance if you are continuously pregnant? It is so sickening,so nauseating.
But her whole work in the past was just like that of a factory—to go ongiving birth to children. It started near about the age of fourteen and it continuedas long as the man was potent enough to go on procreating. Two dozen childrenwas not an exception, one dozen was a very normal thing. Now a woman givingone dozen children to the world or two dozen children to the world will not havetime for anything else.
That was the root cause of woman’s slavery. And when she was continuouslypregnant and ill and sick because of pregnancy, she had to depend on man—economically dependent on man. And if you depend on man economically youcannot be free. Economics is one of the most fundamental factors. If the moneycomes from the man, then the money comes with conditions.
If we need a humanity where man and woman are equal, then contraceptivesshould be used as widely as possible; they should become normal.
Contraceptives have transformed the very quality of sex: Sex becomes fun.Sex is no longer such a serious thing as it used to be. It becomes just aplayfulness—two bodies playing with each other, that’s all. There is nothingwrong in it. You play football—what is wrong in that? You play volleyball—what is wrong in that? Two body energies are involved.
Sex is also a game, but it was not a game before. Before contraceptives it wasa serious thing. Contraceptives have eradicated that whole seriousness about it.Now the religions are bound to be afraid, because their whole edifice cancollapse because of contraceptives. What the atheists could not do in centuries,contraceptives can do within decades. They have already done it: Contraceptiveshave made man free of the priest.
Contraceptives are a blessing, but the pope cannot be in favor of thembecause his power is at stake—and not only the pope but all other religiousheads, the shankaracharyas and the ayatollahs and the imams, they will all beagainst contraceptives. Their whole business is at risk.
And I am all for contraceptives. They should be widely used. Children shouldbe taught by parents, by the schools, how to use contraceptives so sex becomesjust fun, it loses all seriousness. And then only can women be liberated.
Without contraceptives the woman is bound to remain a slave, half ofhumanity living in slavery is not a good scene to look at.
And the pope is also against abortion. Why should these people be againstabortion? On the one hand they go on talking about the immortality of the soul.Then why be afraid of abortion?
The soul is immortal—so there is no sin in it. All that you have done byabortion is you have prevented the soul getting into this body. The soul will findanother body, if not on this earth, then on some other earth, because scientistssay there are at least fifty thousand planets—at least. That is the minimum whichhave life on them. There may be more but fifty thousand is almost a certainty. Soif not on this planet, then on some other planet ... And it is good to shift people—what is wrong in it? If this planet is getting too crowded, just shifting a fewpeople to some other planets ... That’s what abortion is. The soul says, “May Icome in, madam?” and you say, “No, the place is too crowded. Knock at someother door.”
And there are other possibilities, so you are not destroying anything. Thesesame people on the one hand say life is immortal, the soul is immortal, and onthe other hand they make you afraid that you are killing a soul, that you arekilling a life, they make you feel guilty.
There are only two possibilities: Either the soul is immortal, then nothing iskilled; or the soul is mortal, then too nothing is killed. And these are the onlytwo possibilities. Either you believe in the immortality of the soul, then nothingis killed because nothing can be killed—or you believe in the mortality of thesoul, then there is nothing to kill; there is no soul really, there is only body.
And we have to decide how many people can joyously live on this planet.But there is also a hidden strategy behind it: The religious priests, the popes andothers, would not like man to live joyously for the simple reason that if peoplestarted living joyfully, cheerfully, blissfully, who will bother about their paradiseand their heaven? People have to live in utter misery, only then can they teach:“Look, this life is miserable. Search for the other life, the life beyond. This life ishell, so don’t waste your time in living it. Use your time in finding some otherlife, life divine.”
It is to their advantage if the world remains in misery. And psychologicallythey have managed to keep you in misery, physiologically they are trying tokeep you in misery, biologically—in every possible way they are making you somiserable that you have to go for their advice, that you have to look up to themas your Saviors.
My whole vision is different.
I support the idea that this life, here now, has the capacity of becomingheavenly. There is no need to hanker for any other heaven, for any otherparadise. We can transform this life into such a beautiful phenomenon.
What is your view on abortion?
Abortion is not a sin; in this overpopulated world abortion is a virtue. And ifabortion is a sin then the pope and Mother Teresa and company are responsiblefor it because they are against contraceptives, they are against birth controlmethods, they are against the pill. These are the people who are the cause of allthe abortions, they are responsible. To me they are great criminals!
In this overpopulated world where people are hungry and starving, to beagainst the pill is just unforgivable!
The pill is one of the most significant contributions of modern science tohumanity—it can make the earth a paradise.
But certainly in that paradise there will be no orphans, and then what willhappen to Mother Teresa and the missionaries of charity? And in that paradisewho will listen to the Polack pope? People will be so happy, who will botherabout these people? And who will think about a paradise after death? If paradiseis here now, then there is no need to invent, project, dream, fantasize a paradisebeyond.
The paradise beyond has been fantasized about because we have lived in hellon the earth.
And this hell is very helpful to the priests, to the so-called religious, to thesaints, to the popes, to all kinds of ayatollahs and shankaracharyas—all kindsof hocus-pocus people. They are all against the pill. If they have somethingagainst the pill, then make it a powder! If just the pill is the problem, then grindit! Find some other way. These are the people who are the reason for orphans,abortions—and then they serve them. It is really a beautiful job they are doing!
I have heard about two brothers; they used to do a business. Their businesswas: One brother would enter a village in the night and put coal tar on people’swindows, doors, and in the morning he would leave.
In the morning the other brother would come, shouting in the streets of thevillage, “I clean coal tar! If somebody wants their windows to be cleaned, I amhere!” And of course he had great work—the whole town needed him! By thetime he had finished, the other brother would have destroyed another village’swindows, doors, then this other brother would arrive. They were doing a lot ofwork and earning enough money!
This is what these people are doing. Be against the pill, be againstcontraceptives, be against sterilization, be against all birth control techniques,and then naturally there will be abortions, then there will be orphans andbeggars. Then serve them and earn great virtue, because without service you willnever reach heaven.
These poor people are needed as stepping-stones for you to go to heaven.
I would like to destroy poverty, I don’t want to serve poor people. Enough isenough! For ten thousand years fools have been serving poor people; it has notchanged anything. But now we have enough technology to destroy povertycompletely.
So if anybody has to be forgiven it is these people. It is the pope, MotherTeresa, etcetera, who have to be forgiven. They are criminals, but their crime issuch that you will need great intelligence to understand it.
I was very shocked at hearing you support the production of test-tube babies,
saying they could be geniuses, more beautiful and healthier than humanbeings. Surely the beauty of our inner being is all that matters? Or were youjoking?
No. Very rarely I am serious, and at the time I made that statement I was veryserious. I mean it—because the man that has been created by blind nature, blindbiology, has not proved a real growth for humanity. You can see it.
Charles Darwin says that monkeys became man. But, since that time—thatmust have happened a million years ago—for these one million years man hasnot created anything better. Monkeys were far more intelligent; at least theygave birth to humanity. Human beings seem to be absolutely impotent. They goon creating carbon copies of themselves. This has to be stopped.
I have heard: It happened in an office. The orders from above came that theoffice is too cluttered with old files—thirty years, fifty years old—they shouldbe destroyed. But make sure that every file’s carbon copy is kept! But then whatis the point? Why destroy the originals?
Up to now, man has been meeting with woman accidentally. Hence, you feelshocked—anybody will feel shocked, I can understand—to think that a babyshould not have the mother’s womb, the warmth of the mother, the care of themother, the love of the mother ... But, you know, there are many other thingsalso in the mother: her nagging, her hatred, her jealousy, her stupidity. He willget all those things too.
And we can see, the specimens are available all over the world. This is whathas come out of your relationships: Adolf Hitler was born out of a humanrelationship; he was in a mother’s womb. Joseph Stalin is born in the same way.And all these criminals—Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mussolini,Mao Zedong, Nadir Shah, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan—history is full of thesemonsters. They have also come out of loving women.
I don’t trust anymore in blind biology. I trust more in a conscious humanbeing. It is better to give the birth of the child to a test tube, where we canchoose the best semen, the best egg from the woman. And there is no need to beworried because they are anonymous; in fact, every hospital should have a bank.They have banks for blood; they should have banks for semen and eggs, andthey should look that the best semen cell and the best egg meet in a very clinicalway—in a test tube.
They will not have the heritage of your ugly past. They will be fresh beings,and we can program those eggs and the semen cells so that more health, morelife, more intelligence becomes possible.
In each love affair the man releases millions of living cells. Only one of themwill reach the female egg. They all rush—it is really a great rush ... Millions ofliving beings, although they are very small and you cannot see them with youreyes—and it is a big race, bigger than any race that happens on the earth.
Thinking of their size, the track between the semen and the woman’s eggproportionately is two miles long. If they were your size, the track would be twomiles long. A two-mile track ... and they are fighting hard to survive, becausethere is not much time. They are always close to the third world war. They canlive only two hours, not more than that. And only one cell reaches the egg andthe egg closes. It rarely happens that two cells reach simultaneously, that’s whytwins are born.
Rabindranath Tagore, one of the great poets of India, was the thirteenth childof his father. The other twelve proved just idiots, nobody knows their nameseven. Now, it is a long blind passage. If Rabindranath’s father had stopped afterthe twelfth child—which seems to be a good point to stop; one dozen is enough,more than enough—then you would have missed one of the most beautifulbeings on the earth: a great poet, a great painter, and a great human being ... inevery way beautiful.
But in a test tube it is so easy. Those twelve should have been discarded. Wehave chosen Rabindranath to be the first child—and who knows how much morepotential would have been in him if he had gotten the best female egg. Nobodyknows.
We don’t know the potentiality of humanity. Give it a chance. What I amsaying is, give it a chance. It looks inhuman in the beginning. Everything newlooks inhuman in the beginning.
Do you know, when the first railway train moved from London to a nearbystation, just eight miles’ journey, nobody was ready to sit in it ... even for free.Lunch was served, free, but nobody was ready to enter the train because thepriest in the early morning said in church that God never created any railwaytrain: “This is unnatural, this is dangerous, this is inhuman! Don’t sit in it!”
What do you think would have happened if people had stopped? There wouldhave been no trains, no cars, no airplanes, no rockets to reach to the moon.
And we have to reach to the stars! We need stronger bodies, we need moreintelligent people, and we need people who are clean of all this old crap. That ispossible only if we make a clinical, medical arrangement for the birth of man.
I am absolutely in support of it.
My fear around your vision of the birth of the new man through test tubes andgenetic engineering comes not from the technology itself, but from fear of whomight control the technology. How can we guarantee that this knowledge willbe used by conscious human beings, rather than the idiotic politicians whowould turn our brave new world into Orwell’s 1984?
Who controls the technology today? Who controls all your nuclear weapons?Who controls all your scientific discoveries? Have you raised your voice againstit? Have you even thought that the whole life on the earth is now in the hands ofidiotic politicians?
And it has always been so. Anything discovered is immediately captured bythe governments, so why is the question only about genetic engineering? Areyou not afraid that the politicians have nuclear weapons which can destroy youseven hundred times? Although destroyed once, you will not need to bedestroyed again—because you are not the only begotten son of God, you will notresurrect; and messiahs are not around who will bring you back to life.
But you are afraid—and I can understand—that if genetic engineering is inthe hands of the politicians, certainly they are not going to produce the man ofbeauty, love, silence, intelligence, grace. They are going to create steel robots, tomake all of them soldiers to fight, to kill. I know it. That’s why I have proposedthere should not be nations, the world should have only one functionalgovernment. All boundaries have to be removed, all passports and green cardshave to be burned. That you are a human being is enough to enter any country.
Hence, whenever I say anything, remember the whole context of it; otherwiseyou will misunderstand me. I want one world, so that there is no war and noneed of soldiers. I want one world government. I want the president of the worldgovernment only to be president for six months, so that he cannot do any harm.And I want one person to be chosen only once. These are all precautions.
Genetic engineering, to give birth to children in scientific labs, will be in thehands of the scientists.
We have tried religion and it failed. We have tried politics and it has failed.Now we have to try science. Give it a chance, because in three hundred years ithas made more progress than man has made in his whole history of millions ofyears.
And I have proposed to you that the world should have one academy ofsciences, so there is no Russian scientist, no American scientist, no Hinduscientist, no Christian scientist—all that is past. That academy will have all thegeniuses of the world. And all other efforts have failed—science should be givena second chance. There is no harm. At the most it can fail, the worst possibilityis that science can fail, but I don’t think it can fail.
We have to prepare a new kind of man. Out of that new kind of man—meditative, silent, loving—will be coming scientists.
I have the whole vision of the new man: no religions, no nationals, nogovernments—only one functional government, and a powerful world academyof scientists. And science should be the decisive factor.
Don’t be afraid. Scientists are not monsters, scientists are very humane. Andif meditation goes on flowering and sannyasins go on growing, scientists will bethe first people to be interested in the inner journey. They need it; otherwise theirlives are unbalanced. They are only going out, out, out. They need certainmethods so they can go inward and keep a certain balance. And a meditativescientist cannot conceive of creating monsters, murderers.
Science has been a blessing to man. It can be a greater blessing if there isonly one world.
Could you speak of the creative female? I am a woman, and the creative spiritburns strongly in me. I know women can offer a vision, an insight, a softnessto the world of art that has never before been seen. I feel it has a different baseto start from. Perhaps it is because art can be born out of love and no longerneeds to be conquered.
Creativity is not concerned with whether you are man or woman. If you feelcreative, then act upon that feeling. But don’t think that you are going to givecreativity something higher, something that man has failed to do.
Why always go on putting dividing lines between man and woman? The truthis that every man carries a woman within him, and every woman carries a manwithin her. And it is bound to be so, because whether you are man or woman,you are created by one man, one woman. They have contributed to you half andhalf. Your father and your mother both are alive in you. It is only a question ofwhich side of the coin is facing up and which side is underneath.
Certainly, it will be a better art if both men and women are creating fromtheir different angles. But the way you say it, you don’t understand creativity atall. You say creativity can be out of love; painting, sculpture, and dancing neednot be conquered. But the possibility is ninety-nine percent that love is sofulfilling you will not bother to paint. You will not bother to waste your time inmaking a statue.
Love is so fulfilling that who cares about writing poetry? Poetry is written bypeople who have missed the train. Now they are somehow consoling themselvesby writing poetry about love—love they do not know.
It is very difficult to be creative out of love. Yes, a different kind of creativitywill be there. If you love a man, perhaps your kitchen will become the field ofyour creativity. You would like your man to have the best food. You would likethe man to have the best clothes. Just look at my clothes! This is creativity out oflove.
Rarely is it possible for a woman who loves, to be bothered about painting,poetry, dancing, etcetera. It is really man’s inferiority complex—that he cannotlove so deeply, that he cannot give birth to a child—that makes him have to findsome substitutes to compete with the woman. He creates painting, he createssculpture, he creates architecture, he creates the landscape for a garden. Hewants to feel that he can also create. It is basically coming out of his inferiority.He can see the woman and her immense power of creating life. He creates a deadstatue—howsoever beautiful it is, it is dead.
Whoever has asked the question seems to be against men, and any womanwho is against men is herself becoming something unnatural. Being against men,she is becoming a man herself. Psychologically she is now feeling inferiorbecause the man can paint and create music and dance. Naturally, she will haveto stop giving birth to children so her own creativity can be directed toward thesethings: painting, poetry, music.
But I would like you to know that you will be a loser. You are competingwith man, and you need not compete; you are already superior. You need notwrite poetry, you are poetry. Your love is your music. Your heart throbbing withyour lover is your dance!
But if you want to create poetry, music, and dance, you will have to depriveyourself of love. You will have to be in the same space where man is: feelinginferior and then finding substitutes for creativity. That is ugly. I cannot give mysupport to it. The woman is the superior sex; she need not prove it.
But if you feel that you have no desire for children, and you want to paintand you want to compose music, it is perfectly good.
In fact, many women should do that, because the earth is so overpopulated.You will be a great help if you divert your creativity from children to paintings,because paintings don’t need food. Dancing is perfectly good. Dance as much asyou want, it creates no Ethiopia. Write poetry. Because of your poetry, perhaps afew people will have to suffer listening to it, getting bored with it, but that is notmuch of a problem. They can manage to avoid you.
But if there is no desire to give birth to children, it is absolutely right.Certainly you will have to create something else. Do it, but don’t think that yourcreativity will be higher than that of man. It cannot be, for the simple reason thatyou are the superior sex, you don’t have that inferiority in you which is theincentive for man to put all his life into his painting.
He is competing with your baby! And even if he is a Picasso, he dies indespair. His whole life he tried to paint something, but no painting can be alive,no poetry can be alive. So remember that a woman can create, but most probablyher creativity will be just third-rate. But it is good for the world. We don’t wantany more population, we want to cut the population to one-fourth of what it istoday. So you will be helping a great project. You will be a blessing not givingbirth to a child.
But drop the idea that you will be creating something superior out of love. Ifyou really want to create something, don’t think of love either, because love is sosatisfying, so fulfilling. It is such a miracle, who wants to write poetry?
I have never come across a single lover, man or woman, who has createdpoetry, who has created paintings, who has created sculptures, for the simplereason that they are so contented. All these creative things need a discontent, awound which you have to cover up.
I am perfectly happy with your idea. Just do whatever creative endeavor youwant to; but remember, you don’t have the inferiority complex of man, so youcannot compete with man in any way. You are already in a better position. Manis poor; just have compassion for the poor guy.
The other day you said that women create children, and men create arts andother material things. Is it unnatural or neurotic for a woman not to desire achild, and to prefer to be an artist? I never wanted to have a child. Dance,music, poetry, theater, and painting were my passion and expression. Couldyou comment?
There is nothing unnatural in it. If you don’t want to have a child, you have theright not to have one. If you want to put your creativity into painting, into art,into music, it is perfectly good—far better than creating a child who is bound tobe a burden on the earth. And who knows what kind of child will come out ofyou?
A painting is harmless. Music is beautiful, dancing will do. No, there isnothing unnatural in it. It has been said by men again and again that it iswomen’s natural duty to give birth to children. That’s how they have been ableto keep the woman in slavery, because if a woman goes on giving birth tochildren, where is the time for her to paint? Where is the time for her to createmusic, poetry, drama?
So on the one hand they have been forcing the woman to remain continuallypregnant. Just a hundred years ago, every woman around the world wascontinually pregnant. One child takes nine months of her life, then she has toraise the child. And when the child is not even six months old, she is againpregnant. It is like chain-smoking. And even a single child is such a nuisance ...
I agree with you. I have been asked many times, “Wouldn’t you like to havea child?” I said, “Me? Either I would kill the child or I would kill myself; wecould not coexist! A child in my room? Impossible!” Just to be alert, I havenever married, because who knows?—the woman I marry may want a child.Then trouble will arise.
There is no problem, unless you feel there is. Don’t listen to anybody, whatthey say—that it is unnatural. It may be unnatural to them, so they can give birthto as many children as they want. If you feel good in painting, in writing poetry,in composing music, you are giving better children to the world—children whoare harmless, who will make many rejoice.
Is it true that you regard sex for reproduction as sinful? I have also read yourwords saying that the greatest creative act of a woman is in producing a child,and that there is a vast difference between a mother and a woman. If this is so,then is there sin in participating in sex and in love in the hope of creating achild and experiencing the joy of creation and the renewing energy of theuniverse?
Yes, up to now the greatest creative act of the woman has been giving birth to achild, but it is not going to be so anymore. The earth was not so populated in thepast; it was a need, a great need, and the woman fulfilled it. But now she has togrow new dimensions of creativity, and only then will she be able to be equal toman. Otherwise, she has been in the past only a factory and man has used heronly to create more children. Having more children was economically beneficial,it was business, because they help you in every possible way; they were not aburden in the past.
In poor countries still the old idea continues that the more children you havethe better off you will be economically. In the past it was true—it is absolutelyfalse today. Mohammed married nine women and he allowed Mohammedans tomarry four women, simply to create more Mohammedans, because there wasconstant war between the Mohammedans and the non-Mohammedans and it wasa question of power—the politics of numbers. So it was economically, politicallysignificant that men should marry more women, and people were stealingwomen from each other’s tribes. It was more significant to steal a woman than aman because man is not so reproductive; one man is enough to serve manywomen and one man can produce many children.
But now the whole thing has changed—the world is overpopulated. Now theneed of the day is to divert women’s creativity into new dimensions: into poetry,into literature, into painting, into music, into architecture, into sculpture, intodancing. She should be allowed now the whole spectrum of creativity.
To create a child now is dangerous. To overpopulate the earth now issuicidal; already we are more than are needed.
Now giving birth to children is not creative, it is destructive! The wholecontext has changed and we have to learn new ways to live in a new context.
And the woman could not create great poetry, great music, great art, greatliterature; she could not be a scientist, a mystic—she could not do anything,because she was constantly pregnant in the past. She was undernourished,tortured by so many children, dozens of children, always pregnant, sick. She hadnot yet lived totally—she had not time enough to live.
For the first time it is possible through contraceptives and birth controlmethods and sterilization that the woman can free herself from getting pregnantunnecessarily, carrying the long, long burden of giving birth to children, thenraising them up.
Her energies can be freed. Now she can also become a Buddha, aZarathustra, a Jesus, a Krishna. Now she can also create like Mozart, Wagner,Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Kalidas, Rabindranath, Tolstoy,Chekhov, Gorky, Dostoevsky.
And my feeling is: Once the energies of the women are freed totally fromgiving birth to children she may be able to create greater buddhas. Why?—because she is a far more creative force than man.
But her creativity has remained confined to giving birth to children, and thatis not much of a creativity—it is just biological. Animals are doing it perfectlywell, so what is great about it? Giving birth to a child is not anything conscious,deliberate, meditative. You are just being used by nature, by biology as a meansto propagate the race, the species.
That’s why there is a certain undercurrent of guilt in everybody, even withoutthe priest. The priest has used it, exploited it, but he has not really created it.There is an underlying guilt about sex; priests have magnified it very muchbecause it became a source of great exploitation for them. They could dominateman more powerfully by making him feel guilty.
But there must be a cause within man himself, otherwise without anybackground inside him no guilt can be imposed upon him. Man feels it deepdown: In a subtle way, in an unconscious way he knows that sex is notsomething conscious, it is unconscious; that it is mechanical; that you are beingused as a means; that you are not the master. That it is a biological force, that itis not really you who are wanting a woman or a man—it is just the hormones.
And when you know that you are being used and you find yourself incapableof getting rid of this slavery, a guilt arises that you are not being man enough,that you are not really a master, you are a slave. Sex is an animal act.
That’s what I mean when I say that sex for reproduction is sinful. The word“sin” is not used in any moralistic sense. I am simply saying it is sinful becauseit is unconscious, unmeditative. You are not doing it, you are forced to do it bysome unconscious forces. That’s what I meant when I said sex for reproductionis sinful.
Now the earth needs no more people. If we are bent upon making a hell outof this earth then it is okhay—then go on reproducing. Then listen to the pope andMother Teresa ... Then listen to all these stupid guys who are telling you toavoid contraceptives, avoid birth control, avoid sterilization, because they areirreligious acts; avoid abortion because that is very immoral.
But if you avoid abortion, avoid contraceptives, avoid sterilization, you willbe responsible for global suicide and that will be real violence—and we areapproaching closer to it every day. That is the first reason I say that sex forreproduction’s sake is sinful.
But the pope, Mahatma Gandhi, and the so-called other saints, they say sex ismoral only if you are indulging in it for reproductive reasons. In fact, they aretelling you sex is good only if it is animal—because animals enter into sex onlyfor reproductive reasons.
To me, going into sex for reproductive reasons is sinful because it is animal,it is unconscious, it is biological.
Going into sex for the sheer joy of sharing energy with anyone you areintimate with ... it is a way of communing energy to energy, heart to heart. It ismelting and merging into each other ... for no other purpose.
If a purpose is there—that you want to create a child—then it is business. Ifthere is no purpose, if it is purposeless fun, then only does it have beauty, andthen it does not create any bondage. And you are getting free of biology, you arerising higher than biology, you are going above the animals, you are reaching thepeaks of humanity.
So to me sex is beautiful only when it is non-purposive, when it is justplayfulness, when you are not in it for any other ends, when to be in communionwith a woman or a man just for the sheer joy of it is enough.
Then you have transcended the lower animal life and you have entered into ahigher dimension. And remember: Reproduction is not creation.
Once the woman is freed from the unnecessary burden of reproduction shewill be able to create more powerfully than any man, because if she can givebirth to a child why can’t she give birth to beautiful music? But it has not beenpossible up to now, and man has been trying to rationalize it.
Once the woman’s energies are released she will be able to be creative. But Ithink man is afraid of her creativity. She can certainly surpass man’s creativity;naturally she is more endowed with creativity.
I am all for creativity but remember, reproduction is not creativity; they arenot synonymous. Creativity is something conscious, reproduction isunconscious. Creativity is meditative, reproduction has nothing to do withmeditation at all.
But man has just been using the woman almost like cattle. He has been usingthe woman to raise his children; he has been using the woman just as a farm.That’s exactly the meaning of the word “husband”: Husband means “thefarmer.” Agriculture means husbandry: The wife is the field and the husband isthe farmer, and the wife’s only function is to give a good crop every year.
The woman can never be liberated unless this is understood: That she has tostop this past pattern. And man has been telling her, “You are great because yougive birth to children!” This is a rationalization, this is a consolation. Beware ofsuch tricks. Man has exploited woman in every possible way and it is time tofinish this exploitation.
What will be the impact on women freed from their biology?
It is a great opportunity that is becoming available to women, now that they arefreed from biological bondage. Of course, man has always praised them for theirgreat creativity in having children. But what kind of children have youproduced? Just look around the world: These are your children—what creativity!All the animals are doing it, perhaps better than you.
Yes, man has been giving woman much juice about it: “You are a greatcreator because you give birth to a child.” It was really very tricky of man; itmeant that the woman should continue to create children. And in poor countriesit is still happening—to have a dozen children is not rare. Some women havemore than a dozen.
But all the religions of the world are against birth control methods, the pill.They are against abortion. It means the woman remains biologically in bondage,and her energies continue to create only mediocre people, crowds to serve in thearmies, navies, air forces, to be killed or to kill—at the most to be clerks, nurses,porters. What do you mean by creativity? You have created a porter. Do you feelproud? How much pride can it give to you? Every parent should feel ashamed.You are creating like animals.
Science has given you a chance today to get out of the bondage of biology—a great freedom so that sex becomes, for the first time, not a biologicalreproductive method; it becomes sheer play, joy.
You are asking me, if women’s energies are not poured into creatingchildren, then what will happen to those energies? There are thousands of waysto make this world more beautiful. Anything that makes the world morebeautiful is creative. Landscape the garden around your house. Crossbreedplants; create new flowers that have never existed before. And of course, theywill give new fragrances which the earth has never experienced.
Compete with men in every field. Prove to him that you are equal—not bythe Women’s Liberation movement. Prove by your actions that you are equal,perhaps superior.... This Women’s Liberation movement has created hatetoward men, but this is not going to give you equality. Equality has to be earned,it has to be deserved.
So since the pill has released you from the bondage of biology, now you arefree to use your energy. And a woman has a more delicate body, a more flexiblebody. She can become a better dancer than any man can ever manage. The man,howsoever trained, is stiff. It is not his fault, his physiology is stiff. Women canbecome the best dancers in the world.
A woman has a great imagination, but her imagination has remained confinedto the home. The reason was children—children kept her in the home, and formillions of years, so it became almost second nature. Otherwise, I don’t see thatthere is any natural necessity for woman to confine her imagination within thewalls of her home.
The stars belong to her as much as to any man. The sunrise and sunset—theyare also her possessions. She has to spread her wings, her consciousness. She hasto widen her vision, imagination, dreaming, beyond children. Right now, thewoman goes on thinking about the child, “He should become a doctor, he shouldbecome an engineer, he should become this and that.”
Now the woman has to become what she used to project through the child.Become a doctor, become an engineer, become a pilot. What you imaginedthrough the child ... Why not directly encounter reality, and be yourself whatyou wanted your child to be? I don’t see that there is any problem.
Women are in many ways superior to men, and their superiority can be usedfor new dimensions of creativity.
What man has created is nothing if the woman comes into the field with hercenteredness, with her roundedness, with her contentment, with her love. Somove in any direction that feels fulfilling to you.
The day women start creating all kinds of things that men have been creatingup to now ... I say to you, there is no need to ask for equality, because womenare the superior sex—naturally, because nature has made the woman to createchildren.
And now because biology no longer has power over women, don’t wasteyour energy in being a lesbian. This is the time for you to be creative in everyfield, and you will be able to have your Picassos, your Mozarts, your van Goghs,your Shakespeares. There is no reason why not. Perhaps a little better, a littlesofter, and your sculpture is certainly going to be more alive.
There is only one thing in which you will not find yourself equal to men—and please remember, don’t try to be equal in that area—that is muscles. Let menbe superior as far as muscles are concerned, because if women start going togymnasiums and creating muscular bodies, that will be the worst day in thehistory of humanity.
Just closing my eyes ... if I see thousands of muscular women sitting here Iam not going to come again!
* * *
If women are leaders in politics, leaders in science, leaders in poetry, painting,they will bring a totally new perspective to everything. Women should beprofessors, educationists, they should be everywhere.
They are half of the world—they own half the world. And my experience isthat they are tremendously capable, reliable. You can trust them more becausethey connect with you not from the head, but from the heart.
* * *
Perhaps this is one of the causes that women have never been creative: Theycould not afford to live alone in this society which is absolutely man-made. Awoman living alone is continually in danger. Only recently a few women startedtheir careers—as a novelist, as a poet, as a painter. This is because for the firsttime, just in these last few years—and that too only in very few advanced,progressive, avant-garde places—that a woman has been able to liveindependently, just like a man. Then they start painting, they start composingpoetry, music ...
Women have all the talents but for millions of years their sex was their onlycreativity, and when the whole sexual energy was involved in producingchildren ... You cannot imagine a woman having a dozen children andcomposing music—or can you imagine it? Those twelve musical instruments allaround doing everything that is not right ... and the woman can compose musicor poetry or can paint? Do you think those twelve painters will sit silently?—they will be painting before she paints!
It seems to me women have hidden their gifts to protect the male’s pride. Isthis so?
This has been one of the greatest calamities in human history: Because womenhave never been appreciated for their talents, they have by and by retarded theirtalents. Because a retarded woman was appreciated more, a foolish woman wasappreciated more. She just had to have a beautiful, proportionate body and nomind, nothing more. She should be a cow—with no intelligence, with nopenetrating awareness. That was expected, otherwise the man would feelembarrassed, hurt.
So women have learned a trick down the ages—that the rule of the game isthat the woman should not show her talents. If she is intelligent she shouldpretend she is stupid. If she is creative she should not do anything. She shouldconfine her creativity to small household things—the drawing room and thekitchen and things like that. She should not do anything that can hurt the ego ofthe man: She should not write poetry, she should not be a painter, she should notsculpt—otherwise the man feels inferior.
This male ego does not allow a woman to have any say ... and she has a fewqualities which the man does not have and cannot have in that proportion. Allthat is intuitive is more available to women than to men; all that is intellectual ismore available to men than to women. Man appreciates intellect, naturally. Hehas intellect so he appreciates it, and he condemns intuition—he calls it blindfaith, nonsense, stupidity, superstition. He condemns it because he has not got it.
In the Middle Ages the women who were called witches and were burnt werereally very perceptive women. The male could not tolerate it, the priest could nottolerate. The whole church has remained male-dominated, the whole Christiancommunity is male. Not a single woman is involved in the Trinity; the wholehierarchy is male.
It was not really against witchcraft, it was against woman. One day or other,when history is written rightly, it will be shown that the movement was notagainst witchcraft. Witchcraft has nothing to do with it; it was man againstwoman. It was intelligence against intuition; it was reason against somethingwhich is irrational, but very powerful.
Those witches were burnt, killed, murdered, tortured, and out of fear thewoman shrank from the world into her own self. She became afraid! If sheshowed any kind of talent she was thought to be a witch. If the man showed thesame kind of talent, he became a saint. He was worshipped as a miracle man,and the woman would become a witch. She was in the hands of the devil and theman was a specially sanctioned person from God himself ... and it was the samequality!
How to find well-being?
The first thing is the body. The body is your base, it is your ground, it is whereyou are grounded. To make you antagonistic toward the body is to destroy you,is to make you schizophrenic, is to make you miserable, is to create hell. You arethe body. Of course, you are more than the body, but that “more” will followlater on. First you are the body.
The body is your basic truth, so never be against the body. Whenever you areagainst the body, you are going against God. Whenever you are disrespectful toyour body, you are losing contact with reality, because your body is yourcontact. Your body is your bridge. Your body is your temple.
Tantra teaches reverence for the body, love and respect for the body,gratitude for the body. The body is marvelous. It is the greatest of mysteries.
But you have been taught to be against the body. So sometimes you are over-mystified by the tree, by the green tree—sometimes mystified by the moon andthe sun, sometimes mystified by a flower, but never mystified by your ownbody. And your body is the most complex phenomenon in existence. No flower,no tree has such a beautiful body as you have. No moon, no sun, no star has suchan evolved mechanism as you have.
But you have been taught to appreciate the flower, which is a simple thing.You have been taught to appreciate a tree, which is a simple thing. You haveeven been taught to appreciate stones, rocks, mountains, rivers, but you havenever been taught to respect your own body, never to be mystified by it. Yes, itis very close, so it is very easy to forget about it. It is very obvious, so it is easyto neglect it. But this is the most beautiful phenomenon.
If you look at a flower, people will say, “How aesthetic!” And if you look ata woman’s beautiful face or a man’s beautiful face, people will say, “This islust.” If you go to the tree, and stand there, and look in a dazed state at theflower—your eyes wide open, your senses wide open to allow the beauty of theflower to enter you—people will think you are a poet, or a painter, or a mystic.But if you go to a woman or a man and just stand there with great reverence andrespect, and look at the woman with your eyes wide open and your sensesdrinking the beauty of the woman, the police will catch hold of you. Nobody willsay that you are a mystic, a poet, nobody will appreciate what you are doing.Something has gone wrong.
If you go to a stranger on the street and you say, “What beautiful eyes youhave!” you will feel embarrassed, he will feel embarrassed. He will not be ableto say, “Thank you” to you. In fact, he will feel offended. He will feel offended,because who are you to interfere in his private life? Who are you to dare? If yougo and touch the tree, the tree feels happy. But if you go and touch a man, hewill feel offended. What has gone wrong? Something has been damagedtremendously and very deeply.
Tantra teaches you to reclaim respect for the body, love for the body. Tantrateaches you to look at the body as the greatest creation of God. Tantra is thereligion of the body. Of course it goes higher, but it never leaves the body; it isgrounded there. It is the only religion which is really grounded in the earth; it hasroots. Other religions are uprooted trees—dead, dull, dying; the juice does notflow in them. Tantra is really juicy, very alive.
Tantra trusts in your body. Tantra trusts in your senses. Tantra trusts in yourenergy. Tantra trusts in you—in toto. Tantra does not deny anything, buttransforms everything.
How to attain to this Tantra vision? This is the map to turn you on, and toturn you in, and to turn you beyond.
The first thing is to learn respect for the body, to unlearn all the nonsense thathas been taught to you about the body. Otherwise you will never turn on, andyou will never turn in, and you will never turn beyond. Start from the beginning.The body is your beginning.
The body has to be purified of many repressions. A great catharsis is neededfor the body. The body has become poisoned because you have been against it;you have repressed it in many ways. Your body is existing at the minimum,that’s why you are miserable. Tantra says: Bliss is possible only when you existat the optimum—never before it. Bliss is possible only when you live intensely.How can you live intensely if you are against the body?
You are always lukewarm. The fire has cooled down. Down the centuries thefire has been destroyed. The fire has to be rekindled. Tantra says: First purify thebody—purify it of all repressions. Allow the body energy to flow, remove theblocks.
It is very difficult to come across a person who has no blocks, it is verydifficult to come across a person whose body is not tight. Loosen this tightness—this tension is blocking your energy. The flow cannot be possible with thistension.
Why is everybody so uptight? Why can’t you relax? Have you seen a catsleeping, dozing in the afternoon? How simply and how beautifully the catrelaxes. Can’t you relax the same way? You toss and turn in your bed, you can’trelax. And the beauty of the cat’s relaxation is that it relaxes utterly and yet isperfectly alert. A slight movement in the room, and it will open its eyes, it willjump and be ready. It is not that it is just asleep. The cat’s sleep is something tobe learned—man has forgotten.
Tantra says: Learn from the cats—how they sleep, how they relax, how theylive in a non-tense way. And the whole animal world lives in that non-tense way.Man has to learn this, because man has been conditioned wrongly. Man has beenprogrammed wrongly.
From the very childhood you have been programmed to be tight. You don’tbreathe—out of fear. Out of fear of sexuality people don’t breathe, because whenyou breathe deeply, your breath goes exactly to the sex center and hits it,massages it from the inside, excites it. Because you have been taught that sex isdangerous, each child starts breathing in a shallow way—hung up just in thechest. He never goes beyond that, because if he goes beyond it, suddenly, thereis excitement: Sexuality is aroused and fear arises. The moment you breathedeeply, sex energy is released.
Sex energy has to be released. It has to flow all over your being. Then yourbody will become orgasmic. But afraid to breathe, so afraid that almost half thelungs are full of carbon dioxide ... There are six thousand holes in the lungs andordinarily three thousand holes are never cleaned; they always remain full ofcarbon dioxide. That’s why you are dull, that’s why you don’t look alert, that’swhy awareness is difficult. It is not accidental that Yoga and Tantra both teachdeep breathing, pranayama, to unload your lungs from the carbon dioxide. Thecarbon dioxide is not for you—it has to be thrown out continuously. You have tobreathe in new, fresh air, you have to breathe more oxygen. Oxygen will createyour inner fire, oxygen will make you aflame. But oxygen will also inflame yoursexuality. So only Tantra can allow you real deep breathing—even Yoga cannotallow you real deep breathing....
Only Tantra allows you total being and total flow. Tantra gives youunconditional freedom, whatsoever you are and whatsoever you can be. Tantraputs no boundaries on you; it does not define you, it simply gives you totalfreedom. The understanding is that when you are totally free, then much ispossible.
This has been my observation: That people who are sexually repressedbecome unintelligent. Only very, very sexually alive people are intelligentpeople. Now, the idea that sex is sin must have damaged intelligence—musthave damaged it very badly. When you are really flowing, and your sexualityhas no fight and conflict with you, when you cooperate with it, your mind willfunction at its optimum. You will be intelligent, alert, alive.
The body has to be befriended, says Tantra.
Do you ever touch your own body sometimes? Do you ever feel your ownbody, or do you remain as if you were encased in a dead thing? That’s what ishappening. People are almost frozen; they are carrying the body like a casket. Itis heavy, it obstructs, it does not help you to communicate with reality. If youallow the electricity of the body flow to move from the toe to the head, if youallow total freedom for its energy—the bioenergy—you will become a river, andyou will not feel the body at all. You will feel almost bodiless. Not fighting withthe body, you become bodiless. Fighting with the body, the body becomes aburden. And carrying your body as a burden you can never arrive to God.
The body has to become weightless, so that you almost start walking abovethe earth—that is the Tantra way to walk. You are so weightless that there is nogravitation, you can simply fly. But that comes out of great acceptance.
It is going to be difficult to accept your body. You condemn it, you alwaysfind faults with it. You never appreciate, you never love it, and then you want amiracle: That somebody will come and love your body. If you yourself cannotlove it, then how are you going to find somebody else to love your body? If youyourself cannot love it, nobody is going to love your body, because your vibewill keep people repelled.
You fall in love with a person who loves himself, never otherwise. The firstlove has to be toward oneself—only from that center can other kinds of lovearise. You don’t love your body. You hide it in a thousand and one ways. Youhide your body’s smell, you hide your body in clothes, you hide your body inornamentation. You try to create some beauty that you continuously feel you aremissing, and in that very effort you become artificial.
Now think of a woman with lipstick on her lips ... it is sheer ugliness. Lipsshould be red out of aliveness, they should not be painted. They should be aliveout of love, they should be alive because you are alive. Now, just painting thelips ... and you think that you are beautifying yourself. Only people who arevery conscious of their ugliness go to beauty parlors, otherwise there is no need.Do you ever come across a bird that is ugly? Do you ever come across a deerthat is ugly? It never happens. They don’t go to any beauty parlor, and they don’tconsult an expert. They simply accept themselves and they are beautiful in theiracceptance. In that very acceptance they shower beauty upon themselves.
The moment you accept yourself you become beautiful. When you aredelighted with your own body, you will delight others also. Many people willfall in love with you, because you yourself are in love with yourself. Now youare angry with yourself. You know that you are ugly, you know that you arerepulsive, horrible. This idea will repel people, this idea will not help them tofall in love with you; it will keep them away. Even if they were coming closer toyou, the moment they will feel your vibration, they will move away.
There is no need to chase anybody. The chasing arises only because we havenot been in love with ourselves. Otherwise people come. It becomes almostimpossible for them not to fall in love with you if you are in love with yourself.
Why did so many people come to Buddha, and why did so many peoplecome to Jesus? These people were in love with themselves. They were in suchgreat love and they were so delighted with their being that it was natural forwhosoever would pass to be pulled by them. Like a magnet they would pull.They were so enchanted with their own being, how could you avoid thatenchantment? Just being there was such a great bliss.
Tantra teaches the first thing: Be loving toward your body, befriend yourbody, revere your body, respect your body, take care of your body—it is God’sgift. Treat it well, and it will reveal great mysteries to you. All growth dependson how you are related to your body.
And then the second thing Tantra speaks about is the senses. Again thereligions are against the senses. They try to dull the senses and sensitivity. Andthe senses are your doors of perception, the senses are the windows into reality.What is your eye? What are your ears? What is your nose? Windows into reality,windows into God. If you see rightly, you will see God everywhere. So eyeshave not to be closed, eyes have to be opened rightly. Eyes have not to bedestroyed. Ears have not to be destroyed because all these sounds are divine.
These birds are chanting mantras. These trees are giving sermons in silence.All sounds are His, and all forms are His. So if you don’t have sensitivity in you,how will you know God? And you have to go to a church, to a temple to findHim ... and He is all over the place. In a man-made temple, in a man-madechurch you go to find God? Man seems to be so stupid. God is everywhere, aliveand kicking everywhere. But for that you need clean senses, purified senses.
So Tantra teaches that the senses are the doors of perception. They have beendulled. You have to drop that dullness, your senses have to be cleansed. Yoursenses are like a mirror which has become dull because so much dust hasgathered upon it. The dust has to be cleansed.
Look at the Tantra approach about everything. Others say: Dull your senses,kill your taste! And Tantra says: Taste God in every taste. Others say: Kill yourcapacity to touch. And Tantra says: Flow totally into your touch, becausewhatsoever you touch is divine. It is a total reversal of the so-called religions. Itis a radical revolution—from the very roots.
Touch, smell, taste, see, hear as totally as possible. You will have to learn thelanguage because the society has befooled you; it has made you forget.
Each child is born with beautiful senses. Watch a child. When he looks atsomething, he is completely absorbed. When he is playing with his toys, he isutterly absorbed. When he looks, he becomes just the eyes. Look at the eyes of achild. When he hears, he becomes just the ears. When he eats something, he isjust there on the tongue. He becomes just the taste. See a child eating an apple.With what gusto! With what great energy! With what delight! See a childrunning after a butterfly in the garden ... so absorbed that even if God wereavailable, He would not run that way. Such a tremendous, meditative state—andwithout any effort. See a child collecting seashells on the beach as if he werecollecting diamonds. Everything is precious when the senses are alive.Everything is clear when the senses are alive.
Later on in life, the same child will look at reality as if hidden behind adarkened glass. Much smoke and dust have gathered on the glass, and you arehidden behind it and you are looking. Because of this, everything looks dull anddead. You look at the tree, and the tree looks dull because your eyes are dull.You hear a song, but there is no appeal in it because your ears are dull. You canhear a Buddha, and you will not be able to appreciate him, because yourintelligence is dull.
Reclaim your forgotten language. Whenever you have time, be more in yoursenses. Eating—don’t just eat. Try to learn the forgotten language of taste again.Touch the bread, feel the texture of it. Feel with open eyes, feel with closed eyes.While chewing, chew it—you are chewing God. Remember it! It will bedisrespectful not to chew well, not to taste well. Let it be a prayer, and you willstart the rising of a new consciousness in you. You will learn the way of Tantraalchemy.
Touch people more. We have become very touchy about touch. If somebodyis talking to you and comes too close, you start moving backward. We protectour territory. We don’t touch and we don’t allow others to touch. We don’t holdhands, we don’t hug. We don’t enjoy each other’s being.
Go to the tree, touch the tree. Touch the rock. Go to the river, let the riverflow through your hands. Feel it! Swim, and feel the water again as the fish feelsit. Don’t miss any opportunity to revive your senses. And there are a thousandand one opportunities the whole day. There is no need to have some separatetime for it. The whole day is a training in sensitivity. Use all the opportunities.Standing under your shower, use the opportunity—feel the touch of the waterfalling on you. Lie down on the ground, naked, feel the earth. Lie down on thebeach, feel the sand. Listen to the sounds of the sand, listen to the sounds of thesea. Use every opportunity—only then will you be able to learn the language ofthe senses again. And Tantra can be understood only when your body is aliveand your senses feel.
Free your senses from habits. Habits are one of the root causes of dullness.Find out new ways of doing things. Invent new ways of loving. People are verymuch afraid. People have fixed habits. Even while making love they alwaysmake it in the same position—the “missionary posture.” Find out new ways offeeling.
Each experience has to be created with great sensitivity. When you makelove to a woman or a man, make it a great celebration. And each time bringsome new creativity into it. Sometimes have a dance before you make love.Sometimes pray before you make love. Sometimes go running into the forest,then make love. Sometimes go swimming and then make love. Then each loveexperience will create more and more sensitivity in you, and love will neverbecome dull and boring.
Find out new ways to explore the other. Don’t get fixed in routines. Allroutines are anti-life. Routines are in the service of death. And you can alwaysinvent—there is no limit to inventions. Sometimes a small change, and you willbe tremendously benefited. You always eat at the table. Sometimes just go onthe lawn, sit on the lawn and eat there. And you will be tremendously surprised— it is a totally different experience. The smell of the freshly cut grass, the birdshopping around and singing, and the fresh air, and the sun rays, and the feel ofthe wet grass underneath. It cannot be the same experience as when you sit on achair and eat at your table. It is a totally different experience. All the ingredientsare different.
Try sometimes just eating naked, and you will be surprised. Just a smallchange—nothing much, you are sitting naked—but you will have a totallydifferent experience, because something new has been added to it. If you eatwith a spoon and fork, eat sometimes with bare hands, and you will have adifferent experience. Your touch will bring some new warmth to the food. Aspoon is a dead thing. When you eat with a spoon or a fork, you are far away.That same fear of touching anything—even food cannot be touched. You willmiss the texture, the touch, the feel of it. The food has as much feel as it hastaste.
Many experiments have been done in the West on the fact that when we areenjoying anything, there are many things we are not aware of which contributeto the experience. For example, just close your eyes and close your nose andthen eat an onion. Tell somebody to give it to you when you don’t know what heis giving—whether he is giving you an onion or an apple. And it will be difficultfor you to make out the difference if the nose is completely closed and the eyesare closed, blindfolded. It will be impossible for you to decide whether it is anonion or an apple, because the taste is not only the taste; fifty percent of it comesfrom the nose. And much comes from the eyes. It is not just taste; all the sensescontribute. When you eat with your hands, your touch is contributing. It will bemore tasty. It will be more human, more natural.
Find out new ways in everything.
Tantra says: If you can go on finding new ways every day, your life willremain a thrill, an adventure. You will never be bored, and a bored person is anirreligious person. You will always be curious to know, you will always be onthe verge of seeking the unknown and the unfamiliar. Your eyes will remainclear and your senses will remain clear, because when you are always on theverge of seeking, exploring, finding, searching, you cannot become dull, youcannot become stupid.
Psychologists say that by the age of seven, stupidity starts. It starts near aboutthe age of four, but by the seventh year it is very, very apparent. Children startbecoming stupid by the age of seven. In fact, the child learns fifty percent of allthe learnings of his whole life by the time he is seven. If he will live untilseventy, then in the remaining sixty-three years, he will learn only fifty percent—fifty percent he has already learned. What happens? He becomes dull, he stopslearning. If you think in terms of intelligence, by the age of seven a child startsbecoming old. Physically he will become old later on—from the age of thirty-five he will start declining—but mentally he is already on the decline.
You will be surprised to know that your mental age, the average mental age,is twelve years. People don’t grow beyond that, they are stuck there. That’s whyyou see so much childishness in the world. Just insult a person who is sixty yearsof age, and within seconds he is just a twelve-year-old child. And he is behavingin such a way that you will not be able to believe that such a grown-up personcould be so childish.
People are always ready to fall back. Their mental age is just skin-deep,hidden behind. Just scratch a little, and their mental age comes out. Theirphysical age is not of much importance. People die childish; they never grow.
Tantra says: Learn new ways of doing things, and free yourself of habits asmuch as possible. And Tantra says: Don’t be imitative, otherwise your senseswill become dull. Don’t imitate. Find out ways of doing things in your own way.Have your signature on everything that you do.
I have heard:
Mulla Nasruddin has a very horny parrot. The parrot was continuouslysaying foul things, particularly whenever there was a guest, and Mullawas very worried. It was getting terrible. Finally somebody suggested tohim that he take it to the vet.
So he takes the parrot to a vet. The vet examines the parrotextensively and says, “Well, Nasruddin, you have a horny parrot. I have asweet, young, female bird. For fifteen rupees your bird can go in the cagewith my bird.”
Mulla’s parrot is in the cage listening. And Mulla says, “God, I don’tknow ... fifteen rupees?”
The parrot says, “Come on, come on, Nasruddin. What the hell?”Finally the Mulla says, “All right,” and gives the vet the fifteen rupees.
The vet takes the bird, puts him in the cage with the female bird, andcloses the curtain. The two men go and sit down. There is a moment ofsilence, and then suddenly, “Qua! Qua! Qua!” Feathers come flying overthe top of the curtain.
The vet says, “Holy gee!” runs over, opens the curtain. The male hasgot the female bird down on the bottom of the cage with one claw, withthe other claw he is pulling out all her feathers and shouting in delight,“For fifteen rupees I want you naked, naked!”
Even a parrot can learn human ways, can become imitative, can becomeneurotic. To be imitative is to be neurotic. The only way to be sane in the worldis to be individual, authentically individual. Be your own being.
So the first thing that Tantra says is: The body has to be purified ofrepressions.
Second, the senses have to be made alive again.
Third, the mind has to drop neurotic thinking, obsessive thinking, and has tolearn ways of silence.
Whenever it is possible, relax. Whenever it is possible, put the mind aside.Now you will say, “It is easy to say, but how to put the mind aside? It goes onand on.” There is a way.
Tantra says: Watch those three awarenesses. Awareness one: Let the mindrun, let the mind be filled with thoughts; you simply watch, detached. There isno need to be worried about it—just watch. Just be the observer, and by and byyou will see that silent gaps have started coming to you. Then, awareness two:When you have become aware that gaps have started coming, then becomeaware of the watcher. Now watch the watcher and then new gaps will startcoming. The watcher will start disappearing, just like the thoughts. One day, thethinker also starts disappearing. Then real silence arises. With the thirdawareness, both object and subject are gone; you have entered into the beyond.
When these three things are attained: Body purified of repressions, sensesfreed from dullness, mind liberated from obsessive thinking, a vision arises inyou free from all illusion—that is the Tantra vision.
I don’t like myself, especially my body!
You have a certain idea about how the body should be, and if you have someidea you will be in misery. The body is as it should be. If you have some ideayou will be in misery, so drop that idea.
This is the body that you have got; this is the body that God has given to you.Use it ... enjoy it! And if you start loving it, you will find it is changing, becauseif a person loves his body he starts taking care, and care implies everything.Then you don’t stuff it with unnecessary food, because you care. Then you don’tstarve it, because you care. You listen to its demands, you listen to its hints—what it wants, when it wants.
When you care, when you love, you become attuned to the body, and thebody automatically becomes okay.
If you don’t like the body, that will create the problem, because then by andby you will become indifferent to the body, negligent of the body, because whocares about the enemy? You will not look at it; you will avoid it. You will stoplistening to its messages, and then you will hate it more.
And you are creating the whole problem. The body never creates anyproblem; it is the mind that creates problems. Now, this is an idea of the mind.No animal suffers from any idea about the body, no animal ... not even thehippopotamus! Nobody suffers—they are perfectly happy because no mind isthere to create an idea; otherwise the hippopotamus will think, “Why am I likethis?” There is no problem in it.
Just drop the ideal. Love your body—this is your body, this is a gift fromGod. You have to enjoy it and you have to take care of it. When you take care,you exercise, you eat, you sleep. You take every care because this is yourinstrument, just like your car that you clean, that you listen to, to every hum—toknow whether something is going wrong—mm? You take care even if a scratchcomes on the body. Just take care of the body and it will be perfectly beautiful—it is! It is such a beautiful mechanism, and so complex, and yet working soefficiently that for seventy years it goes on functioning. Whether you are asleepor awake, aware or unaware, it goes on functioning, and the functioning is sosilent. Even without your caring it goes on functioning; it goes on doing serviceto you. One should be grateful to the body.
Just change your attitude and you will see that within six months your bodyhas changed its form. It is almost like when you fall in love with a woman andyou see: She immediately becomes beautiful. She may not have cared about herbody up to this moment but when a man falls in love with her, she starts takingcare. She stands before the mirror for hours ... because somebody loves her! Thesame happens: You love your body and you will see that your body has startedchanging. It is loved, it is taken care of, it is needed. It is a very delicatemechanism—people use it very crudely, violently. Just change your attitude andsee!
Iam so terribly ugly and I have suffered much because of that. What should Ido?
Ugliness has nothing to do with your body. Neither has beauty much to do withthe body. The beauty or the ugliness of the body is very superficial; the realthing comes from within. If you can become beautiful within, you will becomeluminous. It has happened many times: Even an ugly person, when he becomesmeditative, starts looking beautiful.
This I have watched continuously, year in and year out. When people comehere they have totally different faces. When they start meditating, when theystart dancing, when they start singing, their faces relax. Their tensions drop.Their misery, which had become part of their face, slowly, slowly wears off.They become relaxed like children. Their faces start gleaming with a new innerjoy, they become luminous.
Physical beauty and ugliness is not very important. The real thing is theinner. I can teach you how to be beautiful from within, and that is real beauty.
Once it is there, your physical form won’t matter much. Your eyes will startshining with joy; your face will have a gleam, a glory. The form will becomeimmaterial. When something starts flowing from within you, some grace, thenthe outer form is just put aside. Comparatively it loses all significance: Don’t beworried about it.
Meditate, love, dance, sing, celebrate, and the ugliness will disappear. Bringsomething higher into yourself, and the lower will be forgotten, because it is allcomparative, it is all relative. If you can bring something higher into yourself. Itis as if there is a small candle burning in the room: Bring a bigger light into theroom and the small candle simply loses all significance.
Bring the beauty of the within, which is easier. With the other beauty Icannot help much; I am not a plastic surgeon. You can find some plastic surgeonwho can help you, but that will not help in any way. You may have a little longernose, better shaped, but that will not help anything much. If you remain the sameinside, your outer beauty will simply show your inner ugliness; it will become acontrast.
Bring some inner beauty.
Denise felt very self-conscious about her face. “I’m ugly,” she said toherself as she looked into the mirror. “My nose is crooked, my chin isweak, my ears stick out, and I have bags under my eyes.”
In desperation she went to a plastic surgeon and had a face-lift. Herchin was strengthened, her nose remodeled, her ears adjusted, and thebags under her eyes removed. After months of suffering, the ordeal wasfinally over. She was now able to entertain friends, but she still sulkedabout herself.
One day her friend Joan looked at her in amazement. “I don’t knowwhy you look so sad. You now have the face of a movie star.”
“I know,” sobbed Denise. “But now my new face doesn’t go alongwith my old body.”
A very ugly girl was sitting at the beach, when the waves washed a bottleat her feet. She opened it—and out blew a huge genie in a billow ofsmoke.
“I have been a prisoner in this bottle for five thousand years,” criedthe genie, “and now you have freed me. As a reward, I will fulfill anywish you make.”
Ecstatic, the ugly girl announced, “I want a figure like Sophia Loren, aface like Elizabeth Taylor, and legs like Ginger Rogers.”
The genie looked her over carefully, then sighed. “Baby, just put meback in the bottle.”
It seems so unfortunate that existence had to give women this thing calledmenstruation every month. It’s one of those things you know is coming, andyou know all the emotions and crazy things that follow with it. And yet it is themost difficult thing to be able to watch and not be identified with—at least forme. Funnily enough, even the men seem to get involved and identified with itwhen we are in it. How can we watch something that is such an intrinsic partof our biology?
The art of watchfulness is the same whether you are watching something outsideof you or you are watching something in your own biology—it is also outside ofyou.
I know it is difficult, because you are more identified with it; it is so close.But the problem is not watchfulness, the problem is identification. Thatidentification should be broken.
When you feel that your menstruation is coming, try to watch, try to see whatit is bringing along with it—anger, depression, hate, a tendency to fight, a desireto throw tantrums. Just watch—and not only watch but say to the man you love,“This is going to come within me. I will try my best to be aware, but if I getidentified you need not get involved in it, you can simply watch. You are faraway and outside of it.”
And the man can know that a woman in menstruation is in difficulty. Sheneeds your compassion.
And the same should be done by the woman, because you may not know, butman also has his period every month. Because it has no physical expression, forcenturies nobody has been aware that man also goes through the same cycle. Hehas to, because he and she are parts of one whole. A man also, for four or fivedays each month, goes into a dark hole. You can at least throw the wholeresponsibility on your menstruation. He cannot even do that because hismenstruation is only emotional. He passes through the same emotions that youpass through. And because there was no physical expression of it, nobody everthought about it. But now it is an established fact that every month he passesthrough the same situation as you. So he is not superior in that way, and you arenot unfortunate in comparison to him.
The difficulty arises that when you love a man and you live with him longenough, slowly, slowly your body rhythms become very, very harmonious. Sowhen you have your menstruation, he also has his menstruation. That creates thereal trouble—both of you are in a dark hole, both are depressed, both are sad,both are in despair. And you throw the responsibility on each other.
So the man has to find out when he has his period. And the way to find out isto just write down in your diary, every day, how it is. And you will find a blockof five days when you were continuously in depression, in a bad mood, ready tofight. Watching for two to three months—noting in your diary—you will cometo an absolute conclusion: These are the five days. Make your woman aware:“These are my five days.”
If they are different from your woman’s, it is good, fortunate, because thetrouble will be only half. So, the man can watch when the woman throwstantrums and does all kinds of stupid things. He need not participate, he need notanswer, he need not react. He should play cool and give the woman a chance tosee that he is playing cool, which means, “I should be aware.”
But if these periods coincide, then there is a real calamity. But then, too, youboth can be aware. You can see that he is also suffering from his menstrualperiod and it is not good to throw anything more upon the poor fellow, and hecan understand that you are suffering and “It is good to keep my load onmyself.”
Just be watchful.
Soon there will be a possibility ... It was really the religions of the worldwho have been preventing it; otherwise, the menstrual period can disappear—and from women more easily than from men. If you are on the pill, perhaps itmay disappear. To many women the pill is a perfect thing—the perioddisappears. So there is no harm; be on the pill. And just a few days ago I heardthey have discovered a pill for the man too, so he can also take his pill.
But that will only change your biological situation. What is more important isto be aware. If you can be aware of the situation and not get identified, that willbe far more significant.
But the pill will take away your physical pain. And I am perfectly in favor ofthat. There is no need to suffer any physical pain unnecessarily—if it can bealleviated. So find a pill and forget about the physical, the biological suffering.... And awareness you can practice in a thousand other ways. There is no need tosuffer bodily, physical pain unnecessarily. Perhaps the pill can ease your period.Certainly it can stop the possibility of your getting pregnant—which is ablessing, because the world does not need any more population.
But meanwhile, try awareness.
When I have my period I always go mad. Last time I smashed some things inthe house. Why do I always feel so destructive during my period?
To feel wild is not bad, but to break anything is not good. Whenever you feelwild, dance a wild dance—but never destroy anything. It may not be a problem—you can destroy a pot—but the very idea of destruction is bad. It gives you adestructive attitude toward life. And the pot is just an excuse. You would reallylike to destroy more valuable things—even valuable relationships, people ... Butyou cannot destroy that much, you cannot bear it, so you break a poor pot—andhe has not done anything!
For many women the days of the period are a little destructive, and thereason is very biological. You have to understand and become a little alert andaware so that you can rise a little higher than your biology; otherwise you are inthe grip of it.
If you are pregnant, the period stops because the same energy that has beenreleased in the period starts being creative: It creates the child. When you are notpregnant, every month the energy accumulates and if it cannot be creative then itbecomes destructive. So when a woman is having her period, for those four orfive days she has a very destructive attitude, because she does not know what todo with the energy. And the energy vibrates, it haunts the innermost core of yourbeing, and you cannot give any creativity to it.
All creative energy can become destructive and all destructive energy couldhave become creative. For example, Hitler. He wanted to be a painter in the verybeginning, but he was not allowed. He could not manage to pass the examinationand enter into the art school. The man who could have been a painter becameone of the most destructive men in the world. With the same energy he may havebecome a Picasso. And one thing is certain—he had energy. The same energycould have been infinitely creative.
Ordinarily, women are not destructive. In the past they were neverdestructive because they were continuously pregnant. One child is born, thenthey are pregnant again. Another child is born, and again they are pregnant. Fortheir whole life they used their energy.
Now, for the first time in the world a new danger is arising, and that is thedestructiveness of women. Because now there is no need for them to be pregnantcontinuously. In fact, pregnancy is almost out of date. But the energy is there.
I see a deep connection between birth control methods and the Women’sLiberation movement. Women are becoming destructive and they are destroyingfamily life, their relationships. They may be trying to rationalize it in manyways, but they are trying to be liberated from the slavery. In fact it is adestructive phase. They have the energy and don’t know what to do with it. Thebirth control methods have stopped their creative channelization. Now if somechannels are not opened to them, they will become very destructive.
In the West the family life is almost gone. There is continual conflict,continual fighting, quarrelling and being nasty to each other. And the reason is—and nobody understands what the reason is—a biological problem.
So whenever you feel that the period is coming, be more alert, and before itstarts, do wild dancing.
You can go beyond nature because you have a higher nature also. One can gobeyond biology, and one has to, otherwise one is a slave to hormones! Sowhenever you feel destructive, start dancing.
What I am saying is that dancing will absorb your energy. You are doing theopposite. You say you like to rest and not do anything during these days, but dosomething—anything, go for a long walk—because the energy needs release.Once you catch the point, once you know that the dance relaxes you completely,those four days of your period will become the most beautiful because you willnever have so much energy as then.
Can you say something about women’s menopause?
In each person’s life the times of change come, and one of the greatest things toremember is that when you change a certain pattern of life, you have to changenaturally. It is not in your hands.
Biology makes you capable of sex at the age of thirteen or fourteen—it is notyour doing. At a certain age, as you are coming closer to forty or forty-two,biology’s purpose is finished. All those hormones that have been propelling youare disappearing. To accept this change is very difficult; you suddenly startthinking as if you are no longer beautiful, that you need a face-lift.
I have heard about a woman who was saying to the plastic surgeon, “Ineed a face-lift.”
The surgeon looked at her and said, “There is nothing wrong, it is justage, don’t be worried about it. Why unnecessarily go to the trouble?” Butthe woman was insistent, so the doctor said, “Okay. But it will cost youfive thousand dollars.”
The woman said, “That much money I don’t have. Can’t you suggestsomething cheaper?”
The doctor said, “Yes. You can purchase a veil.”
It is one of the Western problems. In the East no woman is worried, thingsare accepted as they come. Acceptance has been the basic foundation of Easternlife. The West is continuously imposing on nature, demanding how thingsshould be. Nobody wants to become old. So when the time of transition fromone stage of life comes, a very strange phenomenon happens: Just as a candlecomes to the very end, and there are only a few seconds and it will be gone, atthe last moment the candle suddenly becomes bigger with all its power. Nobodywants to go.
It is a fact well-known to medical science that at the time of death peoplesuddenly become completely healthy. All their diseases disappear. This is thelast effort of their life—to resist death. The people who are related to them feelvery happy that suddenly all diseases have disappeared, the person has becomecalm and quiet; but they don’t know that it signifies death. The diseases havedisappeared because their function is fulfilled, they have killed the man. Now, itis the last spurt of life.
The same happens with every biological change in life. When sex isbecoming irrelevant, you start thinking of sex more than ever, and suddenly, agreat spurt! Because so much sexuality is suddenly overwhelming the mind, themind can only understand logically, rationally one thing—from where is thissexuality coming?—it must be coming from the repressed unconscious. That iswhat Sigmund Freud and his followers have been teaching to the whole world.They are right on many points. They are wrong on many points, particularlyabout the transition when you are no longer young and the hormones in you aregoing to disappear, and the interest in sex is going to die. Before dying it willexplode with its full force, and if you go to a psychoanalyst, he will say that youare sexually repressed.
I cannot say that, because I know that this sudden overwhelming sexualitywill be gone by itself, you don’t have to do anything. It is the signal that life ispassing through a change. Now, life will be more calm and more quiet. You arereally entering into a better state.
Sex is a little childish. As you become more and more mature, sex loses itsgrip over you. And it is a good sign. It is something to be happy about. It is not aproblem to be solved, it is something to celebrate.
In the East no woman ever feels troubled by the transition from youth to oldage. In fact she feels immensely happy that now that old demon is gone and lifecan be more peaceful. But the West has been living under many illusions. One isthe illusion that there is only one life—that creates immense trouble. If there isonly one life, and sex is disappearing, you are finished. Now there is no moreopportunity; there will not be any more excitement in life. Nobody is going tosay, “You are beautiful and I love you and I will love you forever.”
So first, the illusion of one life creates a problem. Second, the psychoanalystsand other therapists have created another illusion—that sex is almostsynonymous to life. The more sexual you are, the more alive you are. So whensex starts disappearing one starts feeling like a used cartridge. Now there is nopoint in living; life ends with sex ending. And then people try all kinds of bizarrethings—face-lifts, plastic surgery, false breasts ... It is stupid, simply stupid.People start trying wigs. They start trying dresses which are sexually provoking.
Almost all Western women are starving—they call it dieting—because theidea in the West is that a woman is beautiful if she is not fat. Nature has someother idea. The woman has to be a little fat, because the woman, for nature, is amother. A mother needs extra fat for the child, because when the child is in herwomb he will need food, and when the child is in the womb the mother startsfeeling nausea, she cannot eat, she starts throwing up. She needs emergency fatin her body so she can feed the child, because the child needs food; he isgrowing fast. Science says that in the nine months in the mother’s womb, a childgrows faster than he will ever grow again in his seventy years of life. So fast ...in nine months he passes through almost the whole evolution of man, from thefish—all the stages. His requirements have to be fulfilled by the mother, and shecannot eat. You can imagine, it is troublesome to have a child in your belly. Idon’t think any man would be ready to be pregnant. He would commit suicidewithout any doubt! He would jump from a fifty-story building—‘“Pregnant? I amfinished.” Just think of the idea that you have a child in your belly, and you willgo crazy. But how to get rid of it? The mother goes through immense suffering,great sacrifice.
Hence, in the East, we have not created the idea of a skinny woman. Ofcourse the skinny woman looks more sexually attractive, younger. The fatwoman looks less sexually interesting, because she loses proportions. Her waistis no longer very small. Her body has gathered so much fat that nobody will feelattracted to her. She does not have the necessary attraction for the human mind.
Just the other day somebody brought me a book of pictures taken by afamous photographer, and just on the front page is a famous film actress. In theEast she cannot be conceived of as very beautiful; she must be dieting, anddieting is nothing but the rich man’s idea of starvation. Poor people starve bythemselves; rich people starve in a costly way, under professional guidance.
The fear is that you will not be attractive, that you will not be looked at bypeople anymore. You will pass through the street and nobody will look back:“Who is going by?” To have attention is a great need for mankind, andparticularly for women. Attention is nourishment. A woman suffers immenselywhen nobody pays attention to her. She has nothing else to attract people with,she has only her body. Man has not allowed her to develop other dimensions,whereby she can become a famous painter or a dancer or a singer or a learnedprofessor. Man has cut all the other dimensions from a woman’s life throughwhich she could be attractive and people would pay respect to her even whileshe becomes old.
I have to remind you of the meaning of “respect.” It means looking back.When somebody passes by, “re-spect.” It has nothing to do with honor. It hassomething to do with the fact that you are suddenly aware that a beautiful thinghas passed.
Woman is left by man with only the body—so she is much concerned withthe body. That creates clinging, possessiveness, fear that if the person who lovesher leaves, perhaps she will not find another. Without attention she starts feelingalmost dead; what is the use of life if nobody pays attention to you? She does nothave an intrinsic life of her own. Man has taught her that her life depends onothers’ opinions about her.
You see that all over the world beauty competitions are arranged only forwomen—and women do not even revolt against the idea. Why not for men? Justas you choose a Mrs. or Miss Universe, choose a Mr. Universe. Nobody bothersabout the man’s body. He can grow fat, he can become Winston Churchill; hestill attracts attention because he has power. Ugly, as fat as you can conceive, hiswhole face hanging—he needs a face-lift! But he will not bother. There is noneed. He can have power, he can be the prime minister, he can be this and he canbe that.
Man has managed over the centuries to have all the other dimensions ofattracting people. And he has left only one dimension to woman—her body. Hehas made woman just a vegetable—and naturally the vegetable starts beingworried if there are no customers! It is not a coincidence that in the mostsexually perverted country, France, people say when they are in love with awoman, “I want to eat you.” Are these people cannibals? Is the woman avegetable, or what? “I want to eat you” shows a great respect for the woman!When nobody says to her, “I want to eat you,” she thinks, “I am now finished.Life has come to an end.”
What you have to learn is first, a deep acceptance of all the changes thatnature brings you. Youth has its own beauty, old age has its own beauty too. Itmay not be sexual, but if a man has lived silently, peacefully, meditatively, thenold age will have a grandeur of its own. Just as the snow-covered peaks lookbeautiful, the white hairs of old age also have their own beauty. Not only beauty,but wisdom too, which no young man can claim, because all his behavior isstupid. He is running after this woman, running after that woman ... The oldman has stopped all this running business. He has settled in himself; he is nolonger dependent on anybody else. The old woman should follow the same way.There should be no difference between men and women.
Love happens only when you are beyond biological slavery. The biologicalrelationship is so ugly that for centuries people have decided to make love indarkness, without light, so they don’t see what they are doing.
When life is going through a biological change, it is not only to be accepted,it has to be rejoiced in that you have passed through all that stupidity, that nowyou are free from biological bondage. It is only a question of conditioning.
One has to accept life. But your unconsciousness does not allow you toaccept life as it is—you want something else.
It is perfectly good when sex disappears. You will be more capable of beingalone. You will be more capable of being blissful, without any misery, becausethe whole game of sex is nothing but a long misery—fighting, hate, jealousy,envy. It is not a peaceful life. And it is peace, silence, blissfulness, aloneness,freedom, which give you the real taste of what life is.
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Just today I was informed that billions of dollars are spent in America on plasticsurgery. Almost half a million people every year are going through plasticsurgery. In the beginning the age group that used to go through plastic surgerywas when a woman—and it was confined only to women—when a womanstarted feeling old. She used to go through plastic surgery to remain a littleyounger, attractive for a few days more.
But a recent development is that the major part of the people who are goingin for plastic surgery in America are men, not women, because now they want tobe younger a little longer. Deep down they will become older, but their skin willshow the tightness of a young man. And the most surprising thing in the reportwas that even a twenty-three-year-old boy has gone through plastic surgery tolook younger. America is certainly the land of lunatics. Now if a twenty-three-year-old boy thinks that he needs to look younger ...
It is so ugly to go against nature. It is so beautiful to be in tune with natureand whatever gifts it brings: childhood or youth or old age. If your acceptanceand your welcoming heart are ready, everything that nature brings has a beautyof its own.
And according to my understanding—and the whole of the Eastern seers arebehind me in support—man becomes really beautiful and graceful at the highestpoint of his age, when all foolishness of youth has gone; when all ignorance ofchildhood has disappeared; when one has transcended the whole world ofmundane experiences and has reached to a point where one can be a witness onthe hills—while the world is moving down in the dark dismal valleys, blindlygroping.
The idea of remaining continuously young is also ugly. The whole worldshould be made aware that by forcing yourself to be young, you simply becomemore tense. You will never become relaxed.
And if plastic surgery is going to succeed, as it becomes a bigger and biggerprofession in the world, then you will find a strange thing happening: Everybodywill start looking alike. Everybody will have the same size nose which is decidedby computers; everybody has the same kind of face, the same cut. It will not be abeautiful world; it will lose all its variety, it will lose all its beautiful differences.
People will become almost like machines, all alike, coming from theassembly line, Ford cars, one by one. They say every minute one car comes outof the Ford factory, similar to another following it—in one hour, sixty cars.Twenty-four hours a day it goes on; the shifts of workers go on changing, but theassembly line goes on producing the same cars.
Do you want humanity also to be streamlined, assembled in a factory, exactlylike everybody else, so that wherever you go you meet Sophia Loren? It wouldbe very boring.
Everybody wants to live long, but no one wants to be old. Why?—because ofthe next stage. Nobody is really afraid of old age, but after old age is death andnothing else. So everybody would like to live as long as possible, but never tobecome old, because to become old means you have entered into the area ofdeath. Deep down the fear of becoming old is a fear of death, and only thosewho don’t know how to live are afraid of death.
One aphorism says, “Youth is a malady of which one becomes cured a littleevery day.” Old age is the cure! You have passed through the whole fire test oflife, and you have come to the point where you can be utterly detached, aloof,indifferent.
But the West has never understood the beauty of old age. I can understand,but I cannot agree. In the West the idea is: The trouble with life is that there areso many beautiful women—and so little time! That’s why nobody wants tobecome old, just to stretch the time a little more. But I say unto you: The troublewould be even worse if there was so much time and so few women. As it is, it isa perfect world.
In essence, what does it mean to be male or female?
To be male or to be female is more a question of psychology than of physiology.One may be a male physiologically and may not be a male psychologically, andvice versa. There are aggressive women—and unfortunately they are growing inthe world—very aggressive women. The whole Women’s Liberation movementis rooted in these aggressive women’s minds. When a woman is aggressive sheis not womanly.
Joan of Arc is not a woman and Jesus Christ is a woman. Joan of Arcpsychologically is a man; basically her approach is that of aggression. JesusChrist is not aggressive at all. He says: “If somebody hits you on one cheek, turnthe other. Give him the other cheek, too.” That is psychological non-aggressiveness. Jesus says: “Resist not evil.” Even evil has not to be resisted!Non-resistance is the essence of feminine grace.
Science is male, religion is female. Science is an effort to conquer nature;religion is a let-go, dissolving oneself into nature. The woman knows how tomelt, how to become one. And each seeker of truth has to know how to dissolveinto nature, how to become one with nature, how to go with the flow, withoutresisting, without fighting. As you become more and more meditative, yourenergies become non-aggressive. Your violence disappears; love arises. You areno longer interested in dominating; instead, you become more and moreintrigued with the art of surrendering. That’s what makes a feminine psychologyfemale.
To understand feminine psychology is to understand the psychology ofreligiousness. The effort has not yet been made, and whatsoever exists in thename of psychology is male psychology. That’s why they go on studying rats,and through rats they go on concluding about man.
If you want to study the feminine psychology, then the best examples will bethe mystics—the purest examples will be the mystics. Then you will have tolearn about Basho, Rinzai, Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu. You will have to learn aboutthese people, because only through their understanding will you be able tounderstand the peak, the highest crescendo of feminine expression.
What is the difference between the female mind and the male mind?
Modern research has come to a very significant fact, one of the most significantachieved in this century, and that is that you don’t have one mind, you have twominds. Your brain is divided into two hemispheres: the right hemisphere and theleft hemisphere. The right hemisphere is joined with the left hand, and the lefthemisphere is joined with the right hand—crosswise.
The right hemisphere is intuitive, illogical, irrational, poetic, platonic,imaginative, romantic, mythical, religious; and the left hemisphere is logical,rational, mathematical, Aristotelian, scientific, calculative.
These two hemispheres are constantly in conflict. The basic politics of theworld is within you, the greatest politics of the world is within you. You may notbe aware of it, but once you become aware, the real thing to be done issomewhere between these two minds.
The left hand is concerned with the right hemisphere—intuition, imagination,
myth, poetry, religion—and the left hand is very much condemned. The societyis of those who are right-handed—tright-handed means left hemisphere. Tenpercent of children are born left-handed but they are forced to be right-handed.Children who are born left-handed are basically irrational, intuitive, non-mathematical, non-Euclidean ... they are dangerous for society so it forces themin every way to become right-handed. It is not just a question of hands, it is aquestion of inner politics: The left-handed child functions through the righthemisphere—that society cannot allow, it is dangerous, so he has to be stoppedbefore things go too far.
It is suspected that in the beginning the proportion must have been fifty-fifty—left-handed children fifty percent and right-handed children fifty percent—butthe right-handed party has ruled so long that by and by the proportion has fallento ten percent and ninety percent. Even amongst you here many will be left-handed but you may not be aware of it. You may write with the right hand anddo your work with the right hand but in your childhood you may have beenforced to be right-handed. This is a trick because once you become right-handedyour left hemisphere starts functioning. The left hemisphere is reason; the righthemisphere is beyond reason, its functioning is not mathematical. It functions inflashes, it is intuitive, very graceful—but irrational.
The left-handed minority is the most oppressed minority in the world, evenmore than people of color, even more than the poor people. If you understandthis division, you will understand many things. With the bourgeoisie and theproletariat the proletariat is always functioning through the right hemisphere ofthe brain: The poor people are more intuitive. Go to the primitive people, theyare more intuitive. The poorer the person, the less intellectual—and that may bethe cause of his being poor. Because he is less intellectual he cannot compete inthe world of reason. He is less articulate as far as language is concerned, reasonis concerned, calculation is concerned—he is almost a fool. That may be thecause of his being poor. The rich person is functioning through the lefthemisphere; he is more calculative, arithmetical in everything, cunning, clever,logical—and he plans. That may be the reason why he is rich.
The same applies to men and women. Women are right-hemisphere people,men are left-hemisphered. Men have ruled women for centuries. Now a fewwomen are revolting but the amazing thing is that these are the same type ofwomen. In fact they are just like men—rational, argumentative, Aristotelian. It ispossible that one day, just as the communist revolution has succeeded in Russiaand China, somewhere, maybe in America, women can succeed and overthrowmen. But by the time the women succeed, the women will no longer be women,they will have become left-hemisphered. Because to fight, one has to becalculative, and to fight with men you have to be like men: aggressive. That veryaggressiveness is shown all over the world in Women’s Liberation.
Women who have become part of the Liberation movement are veryaggressive, they are losing all grace, all that comes out of intuition. Because ifyou have to fight with men you have to learn the same trick; if you have to fightwith men, you have to fight with the same techniques. Fighting with anybody isvery dangerous because you become like your enemy. That is one of the greatestproblems of humanity. Once you fight with somebody, by and by you have touse the same technique and the same way. Then the enemy may be defeated butby the time he is defeated you have become your own enemy. Just superficialthings change, deep down the same conflict remains.
The conflict is in man. Unless it is resolved there, it cannot be resolvedanywhere else. The politics is within you; it is between the two parts of themind.
A very small bridge exists. If that bridge is broken through some accident,through some physiological defect or something else, the person becomes split,the person becomes two persons—and the phenomenon of schizophrenia or splitpersonality happens. If the bridge is broken—and the bridge is very fragile—then you become two, you behave like two persons. In the morning you are veryloving, very beautiful; in the evening you are very angry, absolutely different.You don’t remember your morning ... how can you remember? Another mindwas functioning—and the person becomes two persons. If this bridge isstrengthened so much that the two minds disappear as two and become one, thenintegration, then crystallization, arises. What George Gurdjieff used to call the“crystallization of being” is nothing but these two minds becoming one, themeeting of the male and the female within, the meeting of yin and yang, themeeting of the left and right, the meeting of logic and illogic, the meeting of
Aristotle and Plato.
If you can understand this basic bifurcation then you can understand all theconflict that goes on around and inside you.
The female mind has a grace, the male mind has efficiency. And of course, inthe long run, if there is a constant fight, the grace is bound to be defeated—theefficient mind will win, because the world understands the language ofmathematics, not of love. But the moment your efficiency wins over your grace,you have lost something tremendously valuable: You have lost contact with yourown being. You may become very efficient, but you will be no longer a realperson. You will become a machine, a robotlike thing.
Because of this there is constant conflict between man and woman. Theycannot remain separate, they have to get into a relationship again and again—butthey cannot remain together either. The fight is not outside, the fight is withinyou. And this is my understanding: Unless you have resolved your inner fightbetween the right and the left hemispheres, you will never be able to bepeacefully in love—never—because the inner fight will be reflected outside. Ifyou are fighting inside and you are identified with the left hemisphere, thereason hemisphere, and you are continuously trying to overpower the righthemisphere, you will try to do the same with the woman you fall in love with. Ifthe woman is continuously fighting her own reason inside, she will continuouslyfight the man she loves.
All relationships—almost all, the exceptions are negligible, can be left out ofaccount—are ugly. In the beginning they are beautiful; in the beginning youdon’t show the reality; in the beginning you pretend. Once the relationshipsettles and you relax, your inner conflict bubbles up and starts being mirrored inyour relationship. Then come fights, then come a thousand and one ways ofnagging each other, destroying each other. Hence the attraction forhomosexuality. Because at least a man in love with a man is not that much inconflict. The love relationship may not be very satisfying, may not lead totremendous bliss and orgasmic moments, but at least it is not so ugly as therelationship between a man and a woman. Women become lesbians wheneverthe conflict becomes too much, because at least the love relationship betweentwo women is not so deep in conflict. The same meets the same; they canunderstand each other. Yes, understanding is possible, but the attraction is lost,the polarity is lost—it is at a very great cost. Understanding is possible, but thewhole tension, the challenge, is lost. If you choose challenge, then comesconflict, because the real problem is somewhere within you. Unless you havesettled, come to a deep harmony between your female and male mind, you willnot be able to love.
This is the whole difficulty of the modern mind: All relationships arebecoming by and by casual. People are afraid of any sort of commitment,because they have come to know at least one thing out of bitter experience—whenever you become related too much, the reality erupts, and your innerconflict starts being reflected by the other and then life becomes ugly, horrible,intolerable.
If you are outside of it, it may look like a beautiful oasis in the desert but asyou come close the oasis starts drying and disappearing. Once you are caught init, it is an imprisonment, but remember, the imprisonment doesn’t come from theother, it comes from within you.
If the left-hemisphere brain goes on dominating you, you will live a verysuccessful life—so successful that by the time you are forty you will have ulcers.By the time you are forty-five you will have had at least one or two heart attacks.By the time you are fifty you will be almost dead—but successfully dead. Youmay become a great scientist, but you will never become a great being. You mayaccumulate enough of wealth, but you will lose all that is of worth. You mayconquer the whole world like an Alexander, but your own inner territory willremain unconquered.
There are many attractions to follow the left-hemisphere brain—that is theworldly brain. It is more concerned with things: cars, money, houses, power,prestige. That is the orientation of the man who in India we call a grustha, ahouseholder.
The right-hemisphere brain is the orientation of the sannyasin, one who ismore interested in his own inner being, his inner peace, his blissfulness, and isless concerned about things. If they come easily, good; if they don’t come that isalso good. He is more concerned with the moment, less concerned with thefuture; more concerned with the poetry of life, less concerned with the arithmeticof it.
There is a way to follow life through arithmetic and there is another way tofollow life through dream, through dreams and visions. They are totallydifferent. Just the other day somebody asked, “Are there ghosts, fairies, andthings like that?” Yes, there are—if you move through the right-hemispherebrain, there are. If you move through the left-hemisphere brain, there are not.
All children are right-hemisphered. They see ghosts and fairies all around,but you go on talking to them and putting them in their places and saying tothem, “Nonsense. You are stupid. Where is the fairy? There is nothing, just ashadow.” By and by you convince the child, the helpless child. By and by youconvince him, and he moves from the right-hemisphered orientation to the left-hemisphered orientation; he has to. He has to live in your world. He has to forgethis dreams, he has to forget all myth, he has to forget all poetry, he has to learnmathematics. Of course he becomes efficient in mathematics—and becomesalmost crippled and paralyzed in life. Existence goes on getting farther andfarther away and he becomes just a commodity in the market, his whole lifebecomes just rubbish ... although, of course, valuable in the eyes of the world.
A sannyasin is one who lives through the imagination, who lives through thedreaming quality of his mind, who lives through poetry, who poeticizes aboutlife, who looks through visions. Then trees are greener than they look to you,then birds are more beautiful, then everything takes a luminous quality. Ordinarypebbles become diamonds; ordinary rocks are no longer ordinary—nothing isordinary. If you look from the right hemisphere, everything becomes divine,sacred. Religiousness is from the right hemisphere.
A man was sitting with his friend in a cafeteria drinking tea. He studiedhis cup and said with a sigh, “Ah, my friend, life is like a cup of tea.”
The other considered that for a moment and then said, “But why?Why is life like a cup of tea?”
The first man replied, “How should I know? Am I a philosopher?”
Do we need special meditations for women?
No. Meditation is concerned with your consciousness—and consciousness isneither male nor female. This is one of the fundamentals I want the world to beaware of.
All the religions have denied the woman any possibility for spiritual growth,thinking that her body is different, her biology is different: She will not be ableto reach to the ultimate flowering of consciousness. But it is strange that nobodydown the centuries ever inquired: Who reaches the ultimate flowering—thebody, the mind, or consciousness?
The body is different. If the body was going into meditation, then therewould be certainly a need of different meditations for women than for men.Because the body is not involved in meditation, there is no question of anydifference. For example, in yoga, where the body is very important—all the yogapostures are basically rooted in physiology—there are many postures which arenot suitable for a woman’s body, and there are many which are more suitable fora woman’s body than for a man’s body. So yoga can make a distinction: yoga formen, yoga for women.
Mind is also different. Man thinks logically, linguistically. The woman ismore affected by emotions, sentiments, which are nonverbal. That’s why shetends to be not willing to argue. Rather, she would like to scream and fight, cryand weep. That’s the way she has been for centuries, and she wins in it—becausethe man simply feels embarrassed. He may be right logically, but the womandoes not function logically.
So if meditation was concerned with mind, then too there would be adifferent kind of meditation for women than for men. But meditation isconcerned with the very essential core of your being, which cannot be dividedinto male and female.
Consciousness is simply consciousness. A mirror is a mirror. It is not male, itis not female. It simply reflects.
Consciousness is exactly like a mirror, which reflects. And meditation isallowing your mirror to reflect, simply to reflect the mind in action, the body inaction. It doesn’t matter if the body is a man’s or a woman’s; it does not matterhow the mind functions—emotionally or logically. Whatever the case, theconsciousness has simply to be alert to it. That alertness, that awareness, ismeditation.
So there is no possibility of any difference in meditation between man andwoman.
What is the right way to meditate?
You are asking for the right meditation. The first and primary work is to cleanyour interior being of all thoughts. There is no question of choosing to keep thegood thoughts in and to throw the bad thoughts out. For a meditator, all thoughtsare simply junk; there is no question of good and bad. They all occupy the spaceinside you, and because of their occupation, your inner being cannot becomeabsolutely silent. So good thoughts are as bad as bad thoughts; don’t make anydiscrimination between them. Throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Meditation needs absolute quiet, a silence so deep that nothing stirs withinyou. Once you understand exactly what meditation means, it is not difficult toattain it. It is our birthright; we are absolutely capable of having it. But youcannot have both: the mind and meditation.
Mind is a disturbance. Mind is nothing but a normal madness.
You have to go beyond the mind into a space where no thought has everentered, where no imagination functions, where no dream arises, where yousimply are—just a nobody.
It is more an understanding than a discipline. It is not that you have to domuch; on the contrary, you don’t have to do anything except clearly understandwhat meditation is. That very understanding will stop the functioning of themind. That understanding is almost like a master before whom the servants stopquarrelling with each other, or even talking with each other; suddenly the masterenters the house and there is silence. All the servants start being busy—at leastlooking like they are busy. Just a moment before, they were all quarrelling andfighting and discussing, and nobody was doing anything.
Understanding what meditation is, is inviting the master in. Mind is aservant. The moment the master comes in with all its silence, with all its joy,suddenly the mind falls into absolute silence.
Once you have achieved a meditative space, enlightenment is only a questionof time. You cannot force it. You have to be just a waiting, an intense waiting,with a great longing—almost like thirst, hunger, not a word....
In meditation, the longing becomes just a thirst for enlightenment and apatient awaiting, because it is such a great phenomenon and you are so tiny.Your hands cannot reach it; it is not within your reach. It will come andoverwhelm you but you cannot do anything to bring it down to you. You are toosmall, your energies are too small. But whenever you are really waiting withpatience and longing and passion, it comes. In the right moment, it comes. It hasalways come.
osho international meditation resort
Location: Located 100 miles southeast of Mumbai in the thriving modern city ofPune, India, the OSHO International Meditation Resort is a holiday destinationwith a difference. The Meditation Resort is spread over 40 acres of spectaculargardens in a gorgeous tree-lined residential area.
Uniqueness: Each year the meditation resort welcomes thousands of people frommore than 100 countries. The unique campus provides an opportunity for a directpersonal experience of a new way of living—with more awareness, relaxation,celebration, and creativity. A great variety of around-the-clock and around-the-year program options are available. Doing nothing and just relaxing is one ofthem!
All programs are based on the OSHO vision of “Zorba the Buddha”—aqualitatively new kind of human being who is able both to participate creativelyin everyday life and to relax into silence and meditation.
Meditations: A full daily schedule of meditations for every type of personincludes methods that are active and passive, traditional and revolutionary, andin particular the OSHO Active Meditations!™. The meditations take place inwhat must be the world’s largest meditation hall, the Osho Auditorium.
Multiversity: Individual sessions, courses and workshops cover everything fromcreative arts to holistic health, personal transformation, relationship and lifetransition, work-as-meditation, esoteric sciences, and the “Zen” approach tosports and recreation. The secret of the Multiversity’s success lies in the fact thatall its programs are combined with meditation, supporting an understanding thatas human beings we are far more than the sum of our parts.
Basho Spa: The luxurious Basho Spa provides for leisurely open-air swimmingsurrounded by trees and tropical green. The uniquely-styled, spacious Jacuzzi,the saunas, gym, tennis courts ... all are enhanced by their stunningly beautifulsetting.
Cuisine: A variety of different eating areas serve delicious Western, Asian, andIndian vegetarian food—most of it organically grown especially for themeditation resort. Breads and cakes are baked in the resort’s own bakery.
Night Life: There are many evening events to choose from—dancing being atthe top of the list! Other activities include full-moon meditations beneath thestars, variety shows, music performances, and meditations for daily life.
Or you can just enjoy meeting people at the Plaza Café, or walking in thenighttime serenity of the gardens of this fairy-tale environment.
Facilities: You can buy all your basic necessities and toiletries in the Galleria.The Multimedia Gallery sells a large range of OSHO media products. There isalso a bank, a travel agency, and a Cyber Café on campus. For those who enjoyshopping, Pune provides all options, ranging from traditional and ethnic Indianproducts to all global brand-name stores.
Accommodation: You can choose to stay in the elegant rooms of the Osho
Guesthouse, or for longer stays opt for one of the Living-In program packages.Additionally there is a plentiful variety of nearby hotels and serviced apartments.
www.osho.com/meditationresort
Osho defies categorization. His thousands of talks cover everything from theindividual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facingsociety today. Osho’s books are not written but are transcribed from audio andvideo recordings of his extemporaneous talks to international audiences. As heputs it, “So remember: whatever I am saying is not just for you ... I am talkingalso for the future generations.”
Osho has been described by the Sunday Times in London as one of the“1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by American author Tom Robbins as“the most dangerous man since Jesus Christ.” Sunday Mid-Day (India) hasselected Osho as one of ten people—along with Gandhi, Nehru, and Buddha—who have changed the destiny of India. About his own work Osho has said thathe is helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being.He often characterizes this new human being as “Zorba the Buddha”—capableboth of enjoying the earthy pleasures of a Zorba the Greek and the silent serenityof a Gautama the Buddha.Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho’stalks and meditations is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom ofall ages past and the highest potential of today’s (and tomorrow’s) science andtechnology. Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science ofinner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges theaccelerated pace of contemporary life. His unique OSHO Active Meditations aredesigned to first release the accumulated stresses of body and mind, so that it isthen easier to take an experience of stillness and thought-free relaxation intodaily life.
Two autobiographical works by the author are available:Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect MysticGlimpses of a Golden Childhood
www.OSHO.com
A comprehensive multilanguage Web site including a magazine, OSHO Books,OSHO TALKS in audio and video formats, the OSHO Library text archive inEnglish and Hindi and extensive information about OSHO Meditations. You willalso find the program schedule of the OSHO Multiversity and information aboutthe OSHO International Meditation Resort.
http://osho.com/allaboutosho
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