Question 2

EVERY TIME I THINK I WANT TO DO SOMETHING, THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE HAPPENS AND I FEEL AS IF I AM GOING CRAZY. IT FEELS AS IF I HAVE NO MORE POWER OVER WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME.

Nobody has -- because nobody is. The power is possible if you are there. You are not there. The whole is. These individual egos are not there. These are false entities, just illusions. An illusion cannot have power. That which is not, that which does not exist, how can it be powerful? Naturally, it is impotent.

So the first thing to be understood: the ego is impotent.

The whole is omnipotent; the part is impotent. But the part is impotent only if it tries to be separate from the whole. Once it dissolves itself into the whole, it becomes the whole. Then it is no more impotent; then that part also becomes omnipotent.

If you are trying to do something, you will feel helpless. Life happens; it has nothing to do with doing. In the very effort you are creating trouble for yourself. Don't try to swim upstream. Then you will feel as if the river is fighting you. It is not the river.

The river is completely unaware of you. The river is completely unconcerned with you. The river is not doing anything to you; the river is not being nasty to you. Only you are trying to swim upstream, hence you feel the river is going against you.

If you start floating with the river, all enmity disappears from the river. Not that it was coming from the river; it was coming from you. If you are trying to do something, the opposite will happen. That is the misery of human ego; that is the hell.

I have heard one beautiful story:

"An ascetic, a great ascetic, who lived his whole life as a celibate, who remained virgin, who was very much against sex and whose whole life was just an effort to fight against sex, against love, died. His chief disciple could not survive the shock; after just a few hours he also died.

When the chief disciple reached the other world he could not believe his eyes; he was shocked. The master was sitting there -- the great ascetic -- and Marilyn Monroe was sitting in his lap, almost naked, kissing and hugging the man! He was very shocked, but then, even in his dense head, understanding arose. He thought, 'Of course, god is just, and my great master has been well rewarded for all his austerities.'

So he went and touched the feet of his master and said, 'Master, now I can believe that god is just. In heaven you have been well rewarded for all your austerities, tapascharya, that you did in your life.'

The master looked very angry, and with deep condemnation he said, 'You blockhead! We are not in heaven and I am not being rewarded -- she is being punished.' "

The opposite is bound to happen. The ascetic is going to meet Marilyn Monroe; it is going to happen. The ascetic has created the whole thing himself.

In India there are many stories of great rishis, great seers. I don't see why they have been called great seers, because they seem almost blind. The stories are that whenever those great seers were deep in their austerities, in their fasts, in their sadhana, beautiful women from the other world would come; apsaras, heavenly damsels would come and try to seduce them.

It seems almost impossible. Why should it happen? Why is the other world so interested in seducing poor seers? And who is managing this whole nonsense? They are doing austerities to get out of the world, to stop the wheel of sansar; they are passing through the nightmare of nirvana, they are trying to become desireless -- why are they being punished? Why do beautiful women come to them and try to seduce them?

But still, the stories are logical. Nobody is sending those beautiful women. There is nobody to send them. There are no beautiful women to be sent. They are fighting upstream.

The more you fight with sex, the more your fantasy becomes real. The more you avoid sex, the more you fight with it, the more you go against it, the more your own dreaming creates damsels of the other world around you. It is your own upstream effort.

I'm not saying that transcendence of sex is not possible.

It is possible, but it is possible.... Almost always it is possible, but it is possible only if you flow with the stream, never against the stream. If you are not fighting with the stream, things will happen that you always wanted to happen, but because you wanted, they were not happening.

There is a proverb that man proposes and god disposes. But why should god be so against man? Why should he be so cruel? There is no god to dispose anything, and if there is, he cannot be so cruel as to dispose your poor desires. You don'task much. You ask almost nothing, trivia. Why should he dispose? He can't be so miserly.

But the real thing is: the moment you propose, in your very proposal you have created the disposal. You are fighting against the stream. Now you are moving upstream, and you will feel as if the river is moving against you.

Start floating with the river, and suddenly you will see the river is taking you to the ocean. And it is not against; it is very friendly, it is very lovely. No need to swim even, no need to make any effort -- effortlessly just float and the river takes you. Don't waste your energy.

The question is: EVERY TIME I THINK I WANT TO DO SOMETHING, THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE HAPPENS.

It will happen. It is your doing. Please stop proposing. Rather, allow happenings to happen. Move with things. Don't bring your will and your ego. The whole is vast and you are a tiny part. Accept this. Dissolve in the whole, merge yourself in the whole. Don't try to create an illusion that you are separate. You are not. Once this illusion is dropped....

And that is what I mean when I say drop the ego. Ego is nothing but the illusion of separation from the whole. Humbleness is nothing but a reunion with the whole, a remarriage with the whole. The ego is a divorce; humbleness is a remarriage, a reunion, unio mystica -- when you are united with the original source.

Then all that you always wanted to happen starts happening, but it never happens till you stop wanting.

This is the dilemma. If you go on wanting, your very want will create a situation in which it is not going to happen. And of course, the mind will say, 'Make more effort.' The mind will say, 'This time you lost; next time bring more willpower.'

Willpower is a dirty word. The greatest stupidity there is, is the idea of willpower. The will belongs to the whole; it doesn't belong to the part. My leg cannot have its own will. If it tries to have its own will, it will be paralysed. My hand cannot have its own will. The whole, my whole body, me, can have a will.

We are just the hands and legs of the whole. We cannot have wills -- only the whole. The whole wills, and everything happens to us.

Once you accept this, all effort, all struggle, is gone then. One moves effortlessly. All weight, all heaviness from the head disappears, all headache disappears. In fact, the head itself disappears. Then life is an ecstasy, a continuous bliss, an eternal celebration, a benediction.

But you go on trying to do something. It is exactly there, precisely there, where you miss. And the more you miss, the more you desire -- a vicious circle is created.

"Over a friendly game of chess, Father Shaughnessy said to Rabbi Ginsberg, 'Tell me Rabbi, have you ever tasted ham? Be truthful now.'

'Once,' said the rabbi, reddening slightly, 'when I was in college, I must admit curiosity overcame me and I had a ham sandwich. But tell me Father, be truthful now. Did you ever perhaps with a girl?...'

It was Father Shaughnessy's turn to blush. He said, 'I must confess that once in college, before I was ordained, I did have a little.'

Silence fell, and the Father said with a sad smile, 'It is better than ham, isn't it?"'

The moment you fight with anything, you give it tremendous power. The moment you fight with anything, you give it tremendous attraction. The moment you fight with anything, it becomes infinitely inviting.

Sex is not as beautiful as people who have denied themselves think. In fact, if sex is completely allowed, totally free, sooner or later one gets fed up with it. Already it is happening in the West. People are fed up with sex; hence the attraction for drugs. And because the governments go on denying drugs  -- the same as they were doing with sex before -- the drugs have a tremendous attraction.

Whatsoever is denied becomes tremendously powerful over you, because the mind goes on constantly fabricating fantasies around it.

 You try anything. Try to fight with anything. Small things.... If I tell you that to touch your nose is a sin.... It is absolutely nonsense, and such an innocent thing -- touching your nose -- but try it. For three weeks think that touching your nose is a sin -- you will go crazy! You will find places where nobody can see and you will touch your nose. And you will enjoy it, I tell you. And then you will feel guilty that you have missed one more opportunity of getting to heaven.

And the more you avoid it and the more you control yourself, the more you will ask, 'What has happened?' The nose was never attractive; you never even bothered about it. You were not even aware that it existed. Suddenly it has become the very center of your mind. You will think of noses, beautiful noses -- not one, rows of noses, longer and longer and longer rows, and in your dreams you will touch thousands of noses, and in the morning you will feel guilty and you will have to go to a priest to confess that again you have done the same sin. This is what has happened.

In my childhood, in my family tomatoes were not allowed. Because I was born in a jain family, and tomatoes look like meat -- just look! They are very innocent. You cannot find more innocent people than tomatoes! But they were not allowed. They had a tremendous attraction for me.

Once, staying with a friend, curiosity overtook me, and he offered tomatoes and I ate. They were so beautiful; they have never been as beautiful since then. But in the night I vomited. I felt so guilty. And then, when I vomited, I understood that these tomatoes are really very dangerous things. I had never vomited before that. My whole being was upside down, I couldn't sleep the whole night, and the next day I fasted, just to repent. Now it all looks stupid, but then it was relevant.

And all the things -- whether it is sex, whether it is food, or whatsoever -- once it is denied, once an authority says, 'No, it is wrong,' suddenly your innermost unconscious mind starts thinking about it, imagining how to get it. You go on projecting and you go on colouring it, making it more and more beautiful.

Drop all this nonsense. Float with life. Trust in life. And that's what I call trust in god.

Forget all gods; they are man-made, manufactured by the human mind. Trust life, and wherever life leads you, go with it. Don't try to swim upstream, and all that you would like will happen -- but not because you would like it.

In fact, a deep desire for it exists in you because already life has planned to fulfill it for you. The deep desire simply indicates that life has planned it to be fulfilled for you. You just allow life, you float with life, and it will lead you to the promised land. That's why a deep desire goes on asking.

People go on creating a paradise somewhere beyond the clouds. The paradise is herenow. You create a paradise because you deny yourself many things and you desire many things and you go on fighting and the whole life becomes miserable.

In this misery, you create hope, because otherwise the misery would be too much. Everybody would commit suicide if there was no paradise. Because of paradise you go on -- it is only a few days' trouble and then everything will be okay; you will be with god in paradise.

You are never going to be with god in paradise unless you are with god herenow. Be with god today.