"EASY AND SMOOTH ENERGY ENHANCEMENT PUTS YOU IN CONTACT WITH KUNDALINI ENERGY WHICH SPEEDS UP THE PROCESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND INTELLIGENCE"

ENERGY ENHANCEMENT GIVES REAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE ABOVE AND BEYOND ALL OTHER COURSES

The Cleaning of the Base Chakra is, on the Physical Level, The Removal of Toxins - The start of the Creation of IMMORTALITY!

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• ENERGY ENHANCEMENT INITIATIONS 1 TO 4

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When I came to see Satchi at the airport for the first time I was struck by his energy but it was the second time, when he was talking to another student when meeting us off the train at Figueres that I really started to feel the Buddhafield of Energy Surrounding him. Suddenly I started yawning like the big healer guy in "The Green Mile" and then tears started from my eyes and I felt I was getting rid of a lot of Painful memories from the past.  Olympia Panza 2004

Brenda Wilkinson, Co Durham.
You have both made me think about life in a very different way and I thank you both with all my love.
 

MEDITATION, SHAKTIPAT, ENERGY CIRCULATION, THE KUNDALINI KRIYAS, THE FIVE ELEMENTAL PATHS OF THE CHI OF CHINESE ALCHEMICAL TAOISM, THE GROUNDING OF NEGATIVE ENERGIES, ACCESS TO KUNDALINI ENERGY, CHECK OUT FOOD, REMOVE ENERGY BLOCKAGES, STRONG PSYCHIC PROTECTION, LEARN THE MERKABA, PYRAMID PROTECTION, POWER TOWER PROTECTION, CREATE THE ANTAHKARANA, SOUL FUSION, MONADIC INFUSION, LOGOS INFUSION!!!

THE GROUNDING OF NEGATIVE ENERGIES AND THE SECOND FORMULA OF ALCHEMY

"Solve Et Coagule" said the Alchemists, or "Dissolve to Integrate". THE SECOND FORMULA OF ALCHEMY IS SEC A LATIN WORD MEANING "TO DRY" - Dry out the WATER OF THE Emotions - get rid of your fear, pain, anger, jealousy and negativity etc.  THROUGH VITRIOL.

"DRAIN THE LAST DREGS OF YOUR VITRIOL"

GET RID OF ALL YOUR ANGER AND PAIN WITH ENERGY ENHANCEMENT

This is "The Secret of the Golden Flower" a book translated from Ancient Chinese Alchemical Taoist sources by Jung. 

The Launch pad of Enlightenment and the Creation of Genius!

"Energy Enhancement does not promote a spirituality that grows only in the mountains, apart from the cities and the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It shows you how to integrate the peace of retreat with the activity of life - work, relationships, enjoyment, and spirituality - there should be no separation!" Energy Enhancement Student, Paul Inman

The Synthesis of Light Symbol

ENERGY ENHANCEMENT IN ARGENTINA

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THE TRUTH IS ONE, THE PATHS ARE MANY

The Energy Enhancement Symbol

The Energy Enhancement Symbol of the Twelve Petalled Lotus of the Heart Center with One of the Symbols of the Worlds Major Religions in Each One of the Petals. Inside the symbol is the Hexagram - The Seal of Solomon, with the Seven Chakras describing the Three Initiations on the Path of Enlightenment

- Initiation 1. The Opening of the Heart. Solar Plexus to Heart Chakra.

Initiation 2. The Mastery of Relationships, Abdomen to Throat Chakra.

Initiation 3. Enlightenment, Base to all the Head Chakras which is taught on the Energy Enhancement Course plus many other Initiations.

At the Very Center is the Heart Chakra radiating Peace and Light outwards.. like the Sun...

"The day is short and the work is Great and the workers are Lazy. But the reward is Large and our Master urges us to make Haste."

Writings of the Abbod of Halmyrach

SPEED UP THE PROCESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Speed Up the Process of Evolution, Intelligence, Emotional Stability, Energy, Kindness, Wisdom and Leadership which many courses profess to teach but which Energy Enhancement has given with both hands to the many and varied students taught by it.

STOP THE PAIN - TRANSMUTE AND DISSOLVE ALL TRAUMA AND NEGATIVE ENERGY

Testimonial From Gary Spaid a Wealth Counselor in Vail Valley, Colorado, USA.

So, what did we get? I can say that practicing the technique of Stage 4 of Level One of Energy Enhancement with Devi and Satchy gave more power to the top down approach of Meditation. I had an experience of the MAGIC!! that I so longed for in my meditation.

Sitting in the flame of Kundalini and seeing my karma burn up was a POWERFUL experience.

Graham Kuttner Simons Spain After Energy Enhancement Course Email...

Graham at the Beach in Spain
 

hiya Satchi,
howzitgoin?!
<grin!>

I was aware of a fair bit of energy in the car on the way to the airport, and on the plane - what were you up to?!

I suppose I'm supposed to believe that you were busy "healing" me!!!!

<wink!>

That is the way it felt all right, so, if so, thank you very much!


I felt very happy on the plane, and not in a selfish way at all, I felt like I was sparkling!


<LAUGHS!> I hope yer getting the "tone" / humour of this email,
I'm making fun of myself!

take care!

thanks for everything.

GKS

https://www.energyenhancement.org/page17.htm

THE PERFECT MASTER

Hail Great Scholar  

 Hail Great Scholar  

 

 NAWAB MOHAMMED KHAN, JAN-FISHAN, WAS OUT WALKING IN DELHI ONE DAY WHEN HE CAME UPON A NUMBER OF PEOPLE SEEMINGLY ENGAGED IN AN ALTERCATION.

 

 HE ASKED A BYSTANDER, "WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

 

 THE MAN SAID, "SUBLIME HIGHNESS, ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES IS OBJECTING TO THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS QUARTER."

 

 JAN-FISHAN WENT INTO THE CROWD AND SAID TO HIS FOLLOWER, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF."

 

 THE MAN SAID, "THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HOSTILE."

 

 THE PEOPLE EXCLAIMED, "THAT IS NOT TRUE: WE WERE, ON THE CONTRARY, DOING HIM HONOUR FOR YOUR SAKE."

 

 "WHAT DID THEY SAY?" ASKED THE NAWAB.

 

 "THEY SAID, 'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN."

 

 JAN-FISHAN KHAN SAID, "IT IS THE CONCEIT OF SCHOLARS WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE, QUITE OFTEN, FOR THE MISERY OF MAN. AND IT IS YOUR CONCEIT IN CLAIMING TO BE OTHER THAN A SCHOLAR WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THIS TUMULT.

NOT TO BE A SCHOLAR, WHICH INVOLVES DETACHMENT FROM THE PETTY, IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT.

SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE, BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS.

 

 "THESE PEOPLE WERE TRYING TO HONOUR YOU. IF SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT MUD IS GOLD, IF IT IS THERE MUD, RESPECT IT.

 YOU ARE NOT THEIR TEACHER.

 

 "DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT, IN BEHAVING IN SUCH A SENSITIVE AND SELF-WILLED MANNER, YOU ARE ACTING JUST LIKE A SCHOLAR, AND THEREFORE DESERVE THE NAME, EVEN IF IT IS AN EPITHET?

 

 "GUARD YOURSELF, MY CHILD. TOO MANY SLIPS FROM THE PATH OF SUPREME ATTAINMENT -- AND YOU MAY BECOME A SCHOLAR."

(YOU ARE NOT THEIR TEACHER. - SWAMI SATCHIDANANDA ALWAYS USED TO BE KIND TO PEOPLE UNTIL THEY BECAME HIS STUDENTS. THEN, "NOW, YOU HAVE COME FOR THE OPERATION OF THE EGODECTOMY!" OTHERWISE, YOU BOTHER PEOPLE)

 

 EXISTENCE IS -- UNEXPLAINED, UNEXPLAINABLE, UNKNOWN -- not only that, but unknowable also. There is no way to know it, because there is nobody who is separate from it. Knowledge needs separation. You can LOVE existence because love depends on union, and we are already united with it. But you cannot know it, because knowledge needs division, and there is no way to be divided from it.

 Knowledge means the knower is separate from the known. We are not separate from existence -- we ARE it. It is our such ness -- how can we know it? The claim to know is the greatest conceit. The claim to know is the greatest ego there is. Hence the knowledgeable man goes on missing it. Only lovers know, scholars never. But to be a lover needs courage -- you have to dissolve and disappear.

 To be knowledgeable needs no courage. That is the hiding place of the cowards. All cowards become scholars. Because they cannot love, the only thing left for them is to try to know. And because knowledge is impossible in the very nature of things, all that they claim is false.

 All knowledge is false, absolutely false. Not even a bit of it is true. It CANNOT be true. Only love is true, only love can be true.

 Do you see the point? The way of love is the way of union, and the way of knowledge is the way of separation. Love is marriage: knowledge is divorce. Love understands: knowledge only pretends.

 Remember it, because the mind is always trying to become knowledgeable. It is always collecting information and avoiding transformation. Information is a way of avoiding transformation. You go on collecting... you can become a walking encyclopedia, but still you will remain the same, exactly the same. Because this is not the way to grow in being, this is not the way to become wise.

 The knowledgeable man is never wise, he cannot be. He collects rubbish and thinks it is precious. But the first step has been wrong so the whole journey goes wrong. The more he thinks he knows, the less he knows. The more he thinks he is coming closer to knowing the truth, the farther away he is moving from truth.

 Existence is. If you are also in that state of isness you will understand what it is. But that is not knowledge. That's a totally different dimension. You will know, yet you will not be able to reduce it to knowledge. You will see, but you will not be able to describe it. The mystery will not be demystified by your knowing it -- it will be deepened, it will be thickened. Life will become more joyous.

 One cannot know, but one can dance it. One cannot know, but one can sing it. It can never become knowledge, but it can become ecstasy, great ecstasy. A great orgasmic life is possible.

 The Sufis say: Avoid being scholars, pundits. Avoid! Because sometimes it has happened that sinners have reached, but scholars never. Sin is not that big a thing as knowledgeability. Seen rightly, knowledge remains the ultimate sin.

 The biblical story is to be remembered again: Adam falls from grace -- not because of any sin but because he has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

 There were two trees, special trees, in the Garden of Eden: one was the tree of knowledge and the other was the tree of life. He became interested in the tree of knowledge. It looks foolish to us when we read the story. Why should he not go and eat from the tree of life? But that's what everybody else is doing too -- nobody wants to eat from the tree of life, because to eat from the tree of life first one has to pass through a kind of death.

 The moment you eat the fruit from the tree of life, you will die as you are. You are momentary. Your being now is temporal. You will die in time and you will be born in eternity. That's what life is! -- life abundant, life eternal. You will die as a tiny being, you will disappear as a drop of water, and then you will appear as the ocean. Oceanic will be your resurrection! But before that, the dewdrop has to disappear.

 That is the fear. Because of that fear, Adam never went close to the tree of life. That's why you have not gone close to it. That's why millions of people go to the universities, to the libraries, but avoid going to a Master.

 A Master, a Perfect Master, is a tree of LIFE. He is not a teacher. A teacher means the tree of knowledge: a Master means the tree of life.

 A Master does not impart knowledge, he imparts being. He stirs your heart, makes it more alive. He breathes in you, gives you a new rhythm. He touches you in your deepest core and creates a dance there.

 Adam avoided the tree of life, so everybody else is doing it. Down the ages, people have been following Adam. But the tree of knowledge attracted him immensely. The temptation from the serpent was: "If you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will become as wise as God -- you will become a god." That's the temptation of knowledge. One thinks, "If I can know more, then I will be more -- I will become like a god." By knowing, nobody becomes a god, but only by BEING.

 The serpent is deceiving you too. The serpent is not something outside; it is another name for your mind. The mind says, "Know more -- if you know more you will be more." It convinces you very logically.

 Once Adam has eaten from the tree of knowledge, his eyes are closed towards eternity. He becomes caught up in the net of time. And time means death. And God has told Adam, "If you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will start dying. You will lose eternity. You will lose the quality of deathlessness. You will become a mortal!"

 This parable is immensely beautiful. I take it again and again -- it has so many aspects. To me this seems to be the greatest parable ever -- it has SO many meanings.

 If you eat from the tree of knowledge you will become mortal -- because you will become more and more confined into time, into mind. Time and mind are synonymous. It is mind that creates time -- psychological time, I mean, not the chronological time. The more you become mindless, the less you are aware of time. When you become perfect, you become constantly, completely unaware of time. Then all is eternity.

 Once a Buddhist monk came to see me. He had come from a very very far off place, Kalimpong. He travel led for many days to see me. He said, "I have only one inquiry to make, and only for that have I come."

 "What is the inquiry?"

 He said, "My inquiry is this: since you became enlightened, what has been happening? What experiences have you been going through SINCE you became enlightened? What has been occurring? What more? What new experiences after enlightenment?"

 I said, "You don't understand the word 'enlightenment'. After enlightenment, nothing happens. All happening stops, disappears. One simply is."

 He could not believe it. He said, "I cannot believe it. Something MUST be happening. Twenty years have passed... something MUST have happened! How can it be that nothing has happened?"

 I said to him, "You will be puzzled, but let me say it as it is: Before enlightenment nothing had ever happened, because all that had happened was just writing on water. After enlightenment also nothing has happened, because time has disappeared. So the first happening and the last happening was enlightenment. Before that, all that happened was valueless; now it makes no sense, it was like a dream. And once you are awakened, nothing ever happens again. Not that the sun does not rise, not that the night is not full of stars, not that the flowers don't bloom any more -- ALL this goes on! But nothing happens in you. All remains calm and quiet."

 

 After enlightenment there is no biography. After enlightenment all is silence -- because all is eternity. Things happen in time. Mind creates time because mind hankers for things to happen; mind hankers for excitements, something has to happen. If nothing is happening, mind becomes very uneasy. If good is not happening, let it be bad. If happiness is not happening, then let it be misery. But something must be there so one remains occupied. If nothing is happening, then you are at a loss -- then why exist at all?

 So mind goes on creating new ways, goes on projecting new events. "Tomorrow I have to do this, the day after tomorrow I have to do this." Mind cannot remain without events, so it projects events. And when events are projected time is created -- psychological time. When nothing is projected, time disappears.

 

 That is the meaning of the parable. God is right when he says to Adam: Don't eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, otherwise you will become a mortal. Then you will have to live in time! And you will become corrupted -- knowledge corrupts. You will not be innocent any more. You will lose trust, because knowledge creates doubt. And doubt is the thorn in the soul; it hurts, it wounds.

 Still Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and since then every Adam has been doing it.

 Sufis say we have to reverse the whole process. We have to vomit what Adam has eaten. We have to throw it back. We have to become pure of it. It has not to be allowed to circulate in our systems any more. With knowledge goes time, with time goes mind -- it is ALL entangled with knowledge. And once there is no knowledge, no mind, no time, you are back home.

 Let me repeat: Sinners have reached, but scholars never.

 I have heard:

 

 George Santayana, a great American philosopher, remarked once during World War II, "I am reading the Upanishads... to take the bad taste out of my mouth."

MANJUSRI AND THE SWORD OF THE MIND

 

The Upanishads? Why should he read the Upanishads to take the bad taste out of his mouth? The Upanishads are not knowledge: they are statements of pure joy, they are euphoric statements. They are ecstatic ejaculations, assertions of mad mystics. You cannot become knowledgeable by reading the Upanishads. They don't argue, they don't prove -- they simply declare!

 That's what Lao Tzu does, Buddha does, Plotinus, Eckhart, Rumi, Al-Hillaj -- all the mystics have been doing that. What they say is not knowledge: what they say is just an overflowing joy.

 When Aristotle says something, it is knowledge. When Plotinus says something, it is not knowledge. You have to make that distinction very clearly. When Jesus says something, it is not knowledge; it is just his ecstasy. It is not that he is saying it -- it is said through him. God is speaking through him. He is possessed by God. What he is saying is not knowledge. It is his declaration: "I have come home." It HAS to be declared. It has to be declared from the housetops. It has to be shouted in the marketplaces. But it is not knowledge! And the difference is very clear.

 If you read the Upanishads, you will see it. No argument is proposed, no syllogism, no proof, is given. Simply, the seer says: That art thou -- TAT-TVAM-ASI. Finished! He does not give any argument for it. He does not try to explain it. He does not propose a philosophy around it. Such a potential statement, bare, naked.

 When the Upanishads were for the first time translated into non-Indian languages, it was a problem for the translators: These people go on asserting without giving any proof -- what kind of philosophy is this?" It is not philosophy really. It is religion. And that is the difference between philosophy AND religion.

 Philosophy proves, argues, proposes, fights, debates: religion declares. Religion says: God is! No proof is given. If you ask a mystic, he will say, "Look into my eyes. Come, hold my hand! Feel it!" But is this an argument? And it is not going to convince the skeptic. He will look into the eyes and will not see anything. It can convince only the trusting. It can convince only the disciple.

 Santayana was bored with all the knowledge that the West has produced in these days, and could see perfectly well that "It is because of this knowledge that this world war is happening." Knowledge creates hate in the world, because it creates separation.

 Love is not possible out of knowledge, because love is a diametrically opposite dimension. Hence he is right to say, "I am reading the Upanishads to take the bad taste out of my mouth" -- the bad taste of knowledge, the ugly knowledge that has created the ugly war, the murderous knowledge.

 

 I have also heard: when Arthur Schopenhauer for the first time came across a translation of the Upanishads, he danced -- actually! With the Upanishads on his head, he danced in his garden.

 His students were a little puzzled. They said, "Has he gone mad or something?" And they inquired, "What is happening?"

 He said, "This is something I have been searching for -- this is not knowledge, this is knowing. This is authentic!"

 When he was just about to die, he said, "The Upanishads have been the solace of my life, and will be the solace of my death."

 What happened to Arthur Schopenhauer? What is the beauty of the Upanishads? What is the beauty of Sufism? What is the beauty of Zen? What is the beauty of Hassidism? The beauty is that they are not knowledge -- of course, great knowing, but not knowledge at all. Great insights are there, but no philosophy is proposed to be believed in. You don't become more knowledgeable through them: you become more innocent.

 

 RELIGION IS EXISTENTIAL, philosophy is analytical. Knowledge has to be analytical; it can't be existential. Knowing has to be existential; it can't be analytical. If you want to know, forget all about analysis; otherwise, you will come across MULCH knowledge but never will you become a knower.

 If you want to know a flower, don't dissect it -- otherwise you will destroy it. Be with it, in absolute quietness, with a throbbing, loving heart. Breathe it in, dance around it, sing a song, or be silent! Play upon a guitar, or on a flute. These are the ways to become friendly to the flower. When you are playing on a flute the flower starts leaning towards you, the flower becomes open. He understands... a friend has come. He knows when the cuckoo calls, he knows when a peacock dances -- he will know you too if you sing a song or play on the flute or dance a dance around it. Those are the languages he understands. Or silence he understands -- the silence of the stars and the earth.

 Just be silently with the flower! Or let tears flow, let your tears drop on the flower. He understands that language too. When it rains and it has a contact with the clouds.... But be existential, don't be analytical, and the flower will release its secrets to you.

 Secrets can be released only to friends. When you are analytical, you are an enemy. When the scientist goes to the flower, he goes in a very antagonistic mood, very egoistic, self-willed, adamant, stubborn. He goes like a rapist. Science is a kind of rape on nature.

 Be a poet, be a painter, be a musician -- these are existential ways. And the flower, slowly slowly, will gather trust in you, will know that "This man is not dangerous, he is not a scientist. He is not after knowledge. He will not rape me. He is a lover." And the flower will drop all protections, defenses, arm ours. And suddenly there is a meeting -- AND a kind of knowing which is not knowledge.

 That's how one comes to know God.

 Remember these two words: analytical and existential. Never be analytical. That is the path of knowledge. Be existential -- that is the path of knowing. Knowing is loving: loving is praying: and one thing leads to another.

 It is a well-known fact of history that in Greece, Aristotle formulated the syllogism as a way to explain and examine valid reasoning. He was the father of logic in the West. But at the same time, almost exactly the same time, another man in India was working on the same lines -- but in a totally different dimension, with a totally different quality. His name was Gotama -- the founder of Indian logic. rut the difference is great. Their syllogisms are almost the same, their logic is almost the same -- it has to be -- but the difference is in their goals.
 

 Aristotle says: it is to explain and examine valid reasoning. Gotama created similar syllogistic forms, but as he stated at the beginning of his Naya Sutras, the purpose of the study was to aid human beings in the attainment of supreme felicity -- liberation, MOKSHA, ecstasy, samadhi.

 The difference is clear. Even if reason has to be used, it has to be used with full awareness to help ecstasy, to help supreme felicity, ultimate liberation. For no other reason.

 Philosophy is not an end in itself: it is a means. If it helps, good; if it doesn't help, throw it away, it is garbage. Use your mind to go beyond mind. Let philosophy commit suicide in you.

 That is the message of this small story.

 

 NAWAB MOHAMMED KHAN, JAN-FISHAN, WAS OUT WALKING IN DELHI ONE DAY WHEN HE CAME UPON A NUMBER OF PEOPLE SEEMINGLY ENGAGED IN AN ALTERCATION.

 

 HE ASKED A BYSTANDER, "WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

 

 THE SUFI MASTERS BELIEVE IN SITUATIONS. Nobody else believes in situations so much. But the Sufi Master and his approach is that you can teach your disciples only in a certain situation, in a certain context. If the context is not there, the teaching will be lost.

 You can beat iron only when it is hot, and you can give it a shape and a form. But when it is cold, it is impossible. A situation is a hot state of affairs. Sufi Masters watch always for particular situations to give particular lessons. It may take years, but they never speak out of context -- never.

 So, to be with a Sufi Master needs great patience, because he will not speak unless the situation has arisen and things are hot and he can give a shape and form. He can teach you something only when the situation is ready.

 The Master is passing, a crowd is there.

 

 HE ASKED A BYSTANDER, "WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

 

 THE MAN SAID, "SUBLIME HIGHNESS, ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES IS OBJECTING TO THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS QUARTER."

 

LEONARDO DA VINCI AND ENERGY ENHANCEMENT INITIATION FOUR - SOUL FUSION

 

Now, this almost always happens to knowledgeable people. They become haughty, they become egoistic. They carry that air around themselves of holier-than-thou. They are always putting everybody else right. They are always searching to condemn, to make people feel guilty. This is a way of the ego to satisfy itself. This is not the indication of a man who knows.

 A man who knows never makes anybody feel guilty. The man who knows helps people to get out of their wrong patterns, but does not make them feel guilty. It is a great art, the most sublime art there is. It is very subtle -- has to be, because when you are trying to change a person it is very easy to make him feel guilty; it is very easy because the thing is delicate and you are touching his sensitivity. And you are trying to change him, so somehow or other you are saying, "You are wrong as you are." That has to be avoided.

 Man is not wrong, never wrong. That should remain the fundamental. Man in his innermost core is always right -- even though he may commit a few errors on the surface. But those errors are momentary, of not much value. But his fundamental goodness, his natural goodness, is absolute.

 Once a person starts feeling guilty, you have contaminated his natural goodness. You have hurt him deeply; you have created a wound in his soul. So the art is never to create a wound in the soul. The real Master is always indirect. He changes people, he transforms people, but his way is always indirect. The person who is being changed and transformed never comes to know of it -- or comes to know only when he has already changed, when he is already transformed. Then he feels grateful.

 The Master's touch is a very subtle touch. It is never offensive, it is never aggressive, it is never violent. There is no condemnation in it. There IS compassion. There is love. There is great desire to help, to be of help, but there is in no way any effort, even a slight effort, to make the person feel that he is wrong.

 Once you make a person feel he is wrong, you have created a barrier in his transformation process. Because once he thinks, "I am wrong," he loses hope. If he feels guilty he becomes closed up; he is no more open to you. Once he feels guilty, he becomes defensive. Once he feels guilty, he starts fighting back. And if again and again he is made to feel guilty, he starts accepting the idea: "This is how I am. When everybody says, 'You are wrong,' then I must be wrong." Then he starts persisting in his wrongness. Then he says, "Now, everybody says I am wrong so I AM wrong, and there is no possibility of my ever being right. So why bother? Then just be as you are. This is my fate! This is how I have been made by God. This is how my parents have brought me up. This is how the society has conditioned me." A thousand and one explanations he finds, and he relaxes... he will forget all possibilities of growing.

 Never condemn a man, never make him feel guilty. It is a crime. Rather, when you find a man is doing something wrong, provoke his natural goodness! Remind him of his Tao, of the kingdom that is within, of his divine nature. Remind him of his divine nature first, and with that remembrance he will be able to see what wrong he is committing. You will not even be needed to pinpoint it -- he will know himself.

 Bring light to him! Don't say to anybody, "You are stumbling and you have broken this and you have fallen on this table and this table is turned upside down" -- don't say anything like that. Bring light and give light to the man, and he will know what he has done. But from your side there should be no indication about his being wrong, in the wrong.

 

 THE MAN SAID, "SUBLIME HIGHNESS, ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES IS OBJECTING TO THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS QUARTER."

 

ASCENSION IS SOUL FUSION

 

This is the sign of a stupid disciple. And when I say 'stupid' I don't mean that he is not knowledgeable -- stupid people can gather much knowledge. Knowledgeable people are always stupid people. To become knowledgeable is their way of hiding their stupidity. They hang certificates and degrees around themselves , and it feels good! Except for a stupid person, who carts about the degrees and the scholarship and the certificates and the examinations that you have passed? It is always the stupid person who becomes interested in these things. These are his ways to prove to the world that "I am not stupid." But in the very effort of proving that "I am not stupid," you are simply declaring that you are stupid.

 A man who is wise need not prove that he is wise -- his wisdom is enough, a proof unto itself. It is self-evident. It needs no certificates , it needs no degrees, it needs no scholarship.

 

 JAN-FISHAN WENT INTO THE CROWD AND SAID TO HIS FOLLOWER, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF."

 

 This is a hot situation. People are there and the disciple was condemning them and, of course, he was clover, logical. He could prove by scriptures; he could quote scriptures and prove to them that they are wrong, that their behaviour is wrong. And he was doing that. Suddenly the Master appears in the crowd and says, "Explain yourself! What are you doing?"

 

 THE DISCIPLE SAID, "THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HOSTILE."

 

 Now, if you are wise, it is impossible to say this. Unless you have some ego in you, you cannot feel anybody as hostile. If you have a wound on the foot and somebody touches it, it hurts -- but not because of his touch. It is because of the wound. If he touches somewhere else, it will not hurt. It hurts because of the wound, not because of his touch.  Whenever you feel somebody is hostile to you, remember well: you must be having a very very strong ego -- he has touched the wound, he has put his finger on your ego. Hence he looks hostile; otherwise, there is no question! He is just himself. How can he be hostile to you? And EVEN if he is hostile, that is HIS problem; that should not become your problem.

 Buddha is insulted by people many times, stones are thrown at him, people abuse him... he smiles. Once he said to a group of people who had come with very great hostility, "I feel sorry for you. You are almost in a rage! You must be burning within. I feel sorry for you. What can I do for you to help? How can I calm you down? You are in a spiritual fever!"

 He does not say anything about himself. He is not saying, "You are being hostile to me." He is not saying, "Why are you hostile to me?" He is not saying anything in reference to himself; that is not the point at all.

 Somebody asked, "But we are being hostile to you, and you are feeling sorry for us? We are enemies! We want to uproot you and your doctrine completely. And you are feeling sorry for us?"

 And Buddha said, "Yes. You may be hostile from your side. For example," Buddha said, "you can throw a burning torch into the river -- it remains fire TILL it touches the river. The moment it touches the river, it cools down. I am cool. You throw fire at me -- it remains fire from your side, but the moment it touches me it becomes cool. It disappears! I am not hurt, you cannot hurt me -- because the one who used to be hurt is no more. That ego is gone.

 "I have searched for it, and it has not been found. There is nobody inside me -- how can you be hostile to me? I am not -- how can you be hostile to me?"

 

 THE DISCIPLE SAID, "THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HOSTILE."

 

 THE PEOPLE EXCLAIMED, "THAT IS NOT TRUE: WE WERE, ON THE CONTRARY, DOING HIM HONOUR FOR YOUR SAKE."

 

 "WHAT DID THEY SAY?" ASKED THE MASTER.

 

 "THEY SAID, 'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN...

 

 "And they told me, 'Hail, Great Scholar!' And I was condemning scholars -- as Sufis have always been doing -- I was condemning scholars and scholarship. And these foolish people, they say, 'Hail, Great Scholar!' This is an insult. This is being hostile towards me.

 "I am saying that scholars are the persons who have created the misery in the world, and they called me a scholar! These people have to be put right."

THE CROWN OF THE BUDDHA IS SOUL FUSION

 JAN-FISHAN SAID, "IT IS THE CONCEIT OF SCHOLARS WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE, QUITE OFTEN,FOR THE MISERY OF MAN. AND IT IS your CONCEIT IN CLAIMING TO BE OTHER THAN A SCHOLAR WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THIS TUMULT. NOT TO BE A SCHOLAR, WHICH INVOLVES DETACHMENT FROM THE PETTY, IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE, BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS."

 

 THE MASTER IS SAYING, These people are poor people, innocent people. They don't understand great, subtle distinctions between words. They have not been hostile to you! According to themselves, they were praising you. They were saying that you are no ordinary person -- you are a great scholar. From THEIR side, nothing is wrong. And from where have you got this conceit that you have gone beyond scholarship? This is an even greater ego, to think that you have gone beyond scholarship .

 It is very difficult to go beyond knowledge, beyond the claim of knowledge. It is the last step in the journey. The moment a person goes beyond knowledge, he becomes enlightened. Because the moment knowledge is dropped, he enters back into the Garden of Eden.

 Knowledge is not a bridge: it is a barrier. The moment the barrier disappears, you suddenly find that you have always been home. You had never left it. You had not gone anywhere. But remember: to come to that point is a very great accomplishment. Why?

 Ordinarily, man, is ignorant -- ignorance hurts. "I am ignorant, I am inferior."

 One of my sannyasins, a beautiful sannyasin, is Shanti. She goes on writing questions again and again that "Osho, I feel very inferior, because I can do only cleaning work or I can prepare food. I cannot be a great group leader. I cannot do something which is important. I cannot be a great editor. I am very inferior."

 Now, this poor Shanti is unnecessarily suffering. My whole work consists of leaning! What else am I doing here? And preparing food -- what else am I doing, Shanti? You are just next to me!

 But the mind goes on earring these ideas: "I am just cleaning or evoking food, and I am not a great group leader, therapist, editor, or somebody important in the office. I am nobody." 5;he goes on asking, "What should I do?"

 This is the question every child asks in the beginning: "What should I do to become important, to be somebody special in the world?" And there are only a few ways: either have money, more than others have, and you will be special; or have more power, political power, than others have, and you will be special; or have more knowledge than others have and you will be special. Or, if you cannot do anything else then at least renounce everything and become a great mahatma. But do something! Be special!

 The inferiority complex inside goes on pulling and manipulating you to do something so that you can stand out, you can be outstanding, so people know who you are.

 You can have money. It is not difficult -- many stupid people have money. You can become politically powerful, not a problem -- only stupid people become politically powerful. You earl gather knowledge: so many stupid people have so many degrees and scholarships, names, fame. It is not difficult at all! But deep down you will remain the same: unaltered.

 This is not the way to transform your being. You earl have AS mush knowledge as possible, but how is it going to make you more knowing? Maybe others will think you know so much, but you, deep down, will know perfectly well: "This is only in the memory. My being has remained untouched by it."

 And then, one day, you can gather another conceit, the greatest there is, that "I renounce all this knowledge too. Now I will be like Socrates -- the one who knows only one thing, that he knows nothing."

 But deep down you are still hoping that people will think you are a Socrates. You are a plastic Socrates, synthetic, just put together, not a real Socrates. A real Socrates is a great accomplishment.

 How does the real Socrates happen? It is not by renouncing knowledge and declaring, "I have renounced knowledge, I am no more a scholar, I don't pay any value to scholarship" -- not that way. The real Socrates happens only when, slowly slowly, you understand the unknowability of life and existence -- the utter unknowability of existence, the absolute suchness of existence. And there is no way to know it, because we ARE it! Not that you renounce scholarship, no, but that you fall in love with life itself. Not that you burn your scriptures -- that is very easy. Even in burning the scriptures you are paying too much attention to the scriptures; they are still important to you.

 

ENLIGHTENMENT IS SOUL FUSION

 There is a famous painting of a Zen monk burning scriptures. If I had been there I would have told him, "Why burn them? Why take so much trouble? Keep them, and if some time you have nothing else to cook your tea with, you can use them. But why take so much trouble in burning a big fire? You can cook your food some day if it is needed -- unobserved by anybody, unexhibited. This is an exhibition: taking all your scriptures to the market place and burning them there. It is an exhibition. You are again hoping that "Now people will know here is the real Socrates."

 This is not the way to become a real Socrates.

 It is not against the scripture that the real happens: it is going deeper into existence and being that the real happens. The scriptures are forgotten! And once in a while, one can look into them, because they are assertions of old Masters, beautiful assertions. Of course, you cannot become a knower through them, but they can be great witnesses to your knowing.

 Certainly, if you see the sun rising and you enjoy and dance with it, and one day you come across a few immensely beautiful lines of Kalidas about the sunrise, you will be surprised: he has said the thing that you would like to say! but you cannot. You don't have THAT quality to express. Not everybody is a Kalidas.

 Remember: everybody can become a Buddha, but not everybody can become a Kalidas. Everybody can become a Buddha, but not everybody can become a Mozart or Beethoven. Everybody 's potential is to become a Buddha, because Buddha is your nature. But these are specific qualities, talents. A Kalidas is a Kalidas! He can sing a song that nobody else may be able to sing again. A Shakespeare is a Shakespeare -- the way ho can put words together... nobody may be able to put those words together again the same way. He is a magician with words, you may not be.

 Scriptures are good! You cannot become wise through them, but the day you become wise you can relish scriptures. You can just go into them -- here and there a look -- and immense joy arises through them too! Because suddenly an insight that has happened to you is expressed by somebody else five thousand years before. Then you are not only linked with existence through space, you are linked with existence through time too. A new kind of expansion happens. Five thousand years before, somebody sings a song in the Vedas, and one day, reading it, suddenly you see he has stolen your words! Five thousand years have disappeared. Between you and that unknown man, anonymous, there has arisen a bond, a friendship, a love, an intimacy. He has become your contemporary. You are not apart any more! He had seen things the way you see them; he has uttered the things that you would like to utter but you cannot.

 These are the two dimensions: one is through space. I am contemporary to you through space. You are sitting in front of me -- we are contemporaries. I am contemporary to Buddha, to Jesus, to Krishna, to Rumi, to Hillaj... and to thousands more, through time. They are also sitting exactly in front of me as you are sitting in front of me. You are sitting in front of me in space, they are sitting in front of me in time.

 So when I say something about Buddha, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, I am not talking about historical figures -- I am talking about my contemporaries. And life is immensely enriched when you can have Buddha on your one side and Lao Tzu sitting on the other side, and sipping a cup of tea. Life is immensely rich.

 I am not saying burn the books. They are valuable, but they are valuable only for those who know how to cater into lithe and existence. Then they can enter even into books, because they are part of life. But if you cannot enter into a tree, into the being of a tree, how can you enter into the being of a book? Impossible. The tree is more alive, contemporary to you in space. You can hug it. The book can become contemporary to you only in time -- for that you will have to grow, you will have to expand. You will have to become so huge that time and space both disappear in you. Then not only are the past Buddhas your contemporaries, but future Buddhas too. Then the whole existence exists in THY moment, culminates, converges, in this moment. ALL that has been, all that is, and all that will be, converges into this here now. And then the beauty is tremendous, and the benediction is incalculable, immeasurable.

 The Master asked, "What did they say? Why did you feel that they are hostile?"

 

SOUL FUSION

 "THEY SAID," SAID THE DISCIPLE, "'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN."

 

 HE WAS SAYING IT, but he was saying it without knowing it. He had heard it. He was repeating it; it was a mechanical repetition. He was being a parrot.

 AND that danger is always there for disciples: they can become parrots. That danger has to be avoided. That danger is great! And it comes so slowly and seeps into your blood and bones that you will never become aware of it.

 Disciples go on listening, listening, listening, and one day they start repeating. And they have forgotten completely that what they are saying is not their own. Never repeat that which is not your own! because you will be getting into trouble. It will remain formal. And it will be so formal that your whole being will contradict it. You will say one thing and you will do another thing -- because your doing will come from you, and your saying will come from all that you have heard. This creates a dichotomy and a very ridiculous situation. And everybody can see it -- it is so apparent.

 Whenever you repeat something that you don't understand, your whole life will contradict it, will belie it.

 

 I was reading a beautiful anecdote:

 

 Philadelphians have always been noted for their striving towards perfection, as the following story illustrates:

 Fenton, visiting the City of Brotherly Love, decided to dine in Philadelphia's most exclusive restaurant.

 "Your order?" asked the waiter.

 "I'll have the hamburger plate," replied Fenton after examining the menu.

 In a few minutes the waiter returned. He uncovered a casserole dish revealing two hamburgers. From a pocket the waiter produced a pair of silver tongs and with them he transferred the meat patties to the diner's plate.

 "We never touch anything with our hands," said the waiter, smiling.

 "Very nice," said Fenton.

 "Cleanliness is our motto," retorted the waiter. "And we never touch anything with our hands."

 "That's wonderful!"

 "We even have a special rule about visiting the lavatory. See this little piece of string attached to my apron?"

 "I noticed all the waiters had them. What's it for?"

 "Well," said the waiter, placing a large potato on Fenton's plate with his silver tongs,” if I have to go to the bathroom, I just unzip my pants and take it out with that piece of string. That way everything stays sanitary."

 "But how do you put it back?" asked Fenton.

 "I don't know about the other men," said the waiter, "but I use these tongs. We never touch anything with our hands."

 

SOUL FUSION

 That is the situation... when you are just repeating, when you have learnt a formality which has not become your being, your whole life will belie it. On the surface you will manage, but life is not lived only on the surface; it has many layers.

 The problem for the disciple is that he listens to great truth. The Master goes on sharing whatsoever he has experienced. You can become parrots. Remember it. Listen, learn, but talk to people only when it has become YOUR experience, never before.

 You can share only your experience, and then it has a beauty. When you start talking about somebody else's experience, it is ugly. And you may be repeating the same words! -- that is not the point.

 

 "THEY SAID, 'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN."

 

 You can understand only that which you CAN understand in a certain moment. The Master speaks from his vision. You understand from your capacity. The Master is like an ocean; you have your small cup -- you cannot contain the ocean. To contain the ocean you will have to break your cup; then you will contain the ocean. The ocean cannot be contained in the small cup of thread . The head has to be broken completely. When you are headless , you will contain the ocean.

 But that will come when it comes. In the beginning everybody has to listen from the head, and the head goes on playing tricks. You hear one thing, you understand quite another.

 

 Passing a door in the early morning, a drunk noticed a sign which read RING THE BELL FOR THE DOCTOR. He did just that and a sleepy-eyed man came to the door.

 "What do you want?" asked the man.

 "I want to know why you can't ring the damn bell yourself."

 

 It was written on the door RING THE BELL FOR THE DOCTOR.... Now the drunk is drunk; he understands in his own drunkenness. He is puzzled why the doctor cannot ring it himself, why somebody else is needed.

 

 People are almost drunk with knowledge, drunk with ego. drunk with blindness. Somehow they manage, just somehow. It is a miracle how people go on managing and living for seventy years. It is REALLY a miracle.

 

 The young couple was going at it hot and heavy on a park bench when the girl was heard to say, "Morris, could you please take off your glasses? They're hurting me." Quickly he whipped them off and went back to work.

 After a few moments, the girl could be heard again. "Morris, could you put your glasses back on? You're kissing the bench."

 

 Just thin glasses, just a little consciousness, and it is enough to carry on your day-to-day work. It is not enough to enter into reality. The reality will need eyes all over your being -- eyes and eyes. It will need great awareness, it will need awakening.

 So this disciple HAS heard that the Master says that scholars have been the cause of the misery in the world. Yes, they have been. Without understanding what they are saying, they have created much misery for humanity. Without understanding what they are saying, they have been advising people. They have poisoned people's minds.

 

 JAN-FISHAN SAID, "IT IS THE CONCEIT OF SCHOLARS WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE, QUITE OFTEN, FOR THE MISERY OF MAN. AND IT IS YOUR CONCEIT IN CLAIMING TO BE OTHER THAN A SCHOLAR WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THIS TUMULT.

 

 "Now you are gathering another conceit which is more subtle, subtler than the first. Somebody thinks, 'I am a scholar, a great Scholar.' Now you are thinking that you have renounced all that kind of childishness -- you are no more a scholar. You are still a scholar."

 

 "NOT TO BE A SCHOLAR, WHICH INVOLVES DETACHMENT FROM THE petty, is an accomplishment."

 

 Not to be a scholar means one is no more interested in the trivial: one is interested only in the real, in the ultimately real. One is not interested in theories any more: one is interested only in existential experiencing.

 "Why are you wasting your time?" the Master said to the disciple. "Who are you to teach these people? They may be ignorant, they may not know as much as you know, but they did not mean any of fence to you. They were thinking that to call somebody a great scholar is to pay respect. Look at their intention. Their intention was good. They are innocent people. Now you are confusing them. You are not helping them to become more clear. Now you will create a fear in them; now they will be afraid even to use the word 'scholar'. And they will be at a loss as to how to respect somebody.

 "And you don't have that accomplishment, because not to be a scholar is the highest kind of consciousness."

 The first stage is ignorance, the second stage is knowledge, but both are similar in one way. The first state is unconscious ignorance, and the second stage is unconscious knowledge. And the third state is conscious ignorance. The first comes back, but with a new form. The sage again becomes a child, the circle is complete -- but in a totally different way. CONSCIOUSLY a child again -- this is rebirth.

 Jesus says: Unless you are born again you will not be able to enter into the kingdom of God. This is rebirth: Unless you become a child again, unless you become ignorant again, with absolute consciousness that there is no way to know, that there is nothing to know, that there is nobody to know... so all three points of knowledge simply disappear into oblivion, and then the suchness of existence opens up. There is great ecstasy and great benediction.

 Yes, love is there and dance is there and celebration is there, but there is no knowledge. That is a great accomplishment. And for that one needs detachment from the petty.

 "Why are you bothering about these people and what they have said? Why are you so much interested in words? And can't you see your conceit? -- that by trying to teach them that scholars are the cause of misery, you are trying in a subtle way to pronounce, to propound, that you are not a scholar -- AND YOU ARE A SCHOLAR, because whatsoever you are saying is not your own experience. You have heard me say it and now you are, parrot like, repeating it. You must have been searching for these people; these people are victims."

 Whenever you have some information, you start searching for somebody in whose mind you can pour it; otherwise, it creates a restlessness. Unobserved, you go on searching for somebody unaware. Whenever you have some information, it is very difficult to keep it inside yourself. That's why it is so difficult to keep a secret, almost impossible. It becomes heavy. One wants to say it to be unburdened.

 It is very difficult to contain something that you have come to understand and not to say it to others. People search, they move around, they wait for some victim.

 

 "SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE," SAID THE MASTER, "BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS..."

 

 "And so are you -- you are unaltered. You have not yet been transformed. You have become very much informed, that's true. The information is so much that you cannot even digest it. And what you are doing here is just a kind of diarrhea . You are throwing it on these poor people. And they have not done anything! You have just found an excuse: 'You are hostile -- you called me a great scholar, and scholars are the cause of the misery of the world.'"

 Unaltered. Knowledge never alters anybody. You remain the same, knowledge goes on being accumulated on the SAME Level. And unless the level changes, unless you have an altered state of consciousness, nothing is going to help. You can have all the scriptures of the world by your side, but you will remain as miserable as before.

 

 "SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS."

 

 But they become very very conceited, they become very egoistic.

 

 A man who had just been promoted to vice-president boasted so much about it to his wife that she finally retorted, "Vice-presidents are a dime a dozen. Why, in the supermarket they even have a vice-president in charge of prunes."

 Furious, the husband phoned the supermarket in the expectation of refuting his wife. He asked to speak to the vice-president in charge of prunes.

 "Which kind?" was the reply. "Packaged or bulk?"

 

 Presidents and vice-presidents and professors and scholars, they all go on bragging -- they are somebody special. On their noses it is written: "Look who I am. I am not an ordinary mortal." Just puffed up egos. And just a small prick and the balloon bursts.

 Beware of it. The ways of the ego are very cunning. Unless one is very very aware, it goes on coming back from the back door.

 

 "THESE PEOPLE WERE TRYING TO HONOR YOU. IF SOME PEOPLE THINK MIND IS GOLD, IF IT IS THEIR MUD RESPECT IT."

 

 THIS SHOULD BE the approach of a really human person. If it is their mud and they think it is gold, why disturb them? It is THEIR mud. They respect it and they think it is gold -- let them be happy whatsoever they think. Don't unnecessarily disturb them. And:

 

 "YOU ARE NOT THEIR TEACHER."

 

 A Master is allowed to disturb, nobody else. Why? Because if somebody else disturbs people, he will ONLY disturb, he will not be able to reset. He will not be able to create the harmony again.

 He will disturb the first thing, and he will not be able to create anything else instead. He will demolish the old building... it may have been a ruin, but still people were living in it. Now they will be under the sky in the rains, and under the hot sun. Don't demolish a building unless you can construct another and better.

 Remember it: if you can't give truth to people, don't take their lies away. Otherwise, they will be left in such agony, their lives will become impossible. At least they were living -- with their lies they were hoping. Don't destroy people's beliefs if you cannot give them truth. If you cannot give them trust, don't destroy their belief. If you can give them the real coin, it is perfectly okay to take their false coins away. Only Masters are allowed, only Buddhas are allowed, to shake, shatter, to destroy, because they can create. Because destruction in itself is not the goal -- the goal is creation.

 

 "DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT IN BEHAVING IN SUCH A SENSITIVE AND SELF-WILLED MANNER YOU ARE ACTING JUST LIKE A SCHOLAR AND THEREFORE DESERVE THE NAME EVEN IF IT IS AN EPITHET?"

 

 The Master has used the situation in a beautiful way. He has made it absolutely clear to the disciple that he has been acting like a scholar -- he knows not a single thing. He is a pretender. But he can destroy those innocent people's beliefs, and he can enjoy that he can destroy. He can argue, he can silence those people -- although he cannot convince, because no argument ever convinces. Only the PRESENCE of a Master is a convincing source, not an argument.

 

 "GUARD YOURSELF MY CHILD. TOO MANY SLIPS FROM THE PATH OF SUPREME ATTAINMENT -- AND YOU MAY BECOME A SCHOLAR."

 

 In the world of the Sufis, a scholar is the dirtiest thing. Mm? If you fall too many times from the path you MAY become a scholar. Just as it is said: When a poet fails he becomes a critic, exactly the same way it can be said: When a sage fails to become a sage, he becomes a scholar.

 To you also, I say:

 

 "GUARD YOURSELF, MY CHILD. TOO MANY SLIPS FROM THE PATH OF SUPREME ATTAINMENT -- AND YOU MAY BECOME A SCHOLAR."

 

 Scholarship, to be a pundit, is not an attainment: it is a failure. It is a consolation only. You have missed the real treasure, and now you have just old dirty books -- and that is a burden, NOT a liberation. Books cannot liberate. In fact, books themselves wait for somebody to liberate the truth from them -- how can THEY liberate you?

 When a Master is there, he liberates truths from the imprisonment of books. That's why I have chosen so many books to speak upon. Many truths are imprisoned there -- they have to be liberated. The book cannot liberate you; how can a dead book liberate you? Truth liberates. And if you know the truth, you can liberate truths from books too.

 But remember: this is not possible if you only become a scholar. This is possible only when you become a sage. And who is a sage? A child again. A child who has consciously understood the futility of knowledge, and has understood the ultimate beauty of ignorance.

 

 

Chapter No 10 Buddha and the Beast  

 

 

The first question:

 

 Question 1

 WHAT EXACTLY IS MAN?

 

 MAN IS A MERE PERHAPS, A POSSIBILITY, A POTENTIAL, a becoming, a longing. Man is not yet. Man has to be. That's the agony of man, and the ecstasy too. The beast is -- there is no growth possible. It is a finished product. There is no possibility to seek and search and be. Hence, there is no freedom. The beast is in absolute bondage. The beast lives and dies without knowing that he lives and dies. The beast is, but knows not that he is.

 Man is and KNOWS that he is, but knows not WHO he is.

 Man is a constant process. Something is always happening, is always on the verge of happening. Man is an excitement, an adventure, a pilgrimage.

 No beast can ever miss its destiny. It is always predetermined. The beast has an absolute fate. Nothing is going to be otherwise. The beast is pre-programmed. Man has no pre-programme but is just an opening. A thousand and one things are possible. Hence the anxiety: "To be this or to be that? To go to the east or to the west? To live this way or to live that way? And what is right? And what is going to fulfill me?"

 Each moment man has to decide. And, obviously, when you decide, there is trembling. You can always go wrong. In fact, the possibilities to go wrong are more. Out of one thousand and one ways, only one will be right. Hence great trepidation, anguish: "Am I going to make it? Am I going to succeed in being myself? Or is it just going to be a long futile effort, and in the end frustration and failure? Will I be able to know life abundant? Will THIS life become a foundation for a greater life to come? Or is there nothing but death? Is there only the grave in the end, or something more?"

 Man is an open being. EVERYTHING is possible, but NOTHING is certain. The beast is absolutely certain. It has a definition. Man has no definition.

 So when you ask me: WHAT EXACTLY IS MAN? you ask me a wrong question. Man is nothing exactly. He is just a vague longing, a very very vague dream of things to be, of things which may be possible, may not be possible. Man is a hesitation. Each moment man is gripped by hesitation, because any single step gone wrong will destroy your whole life.

 Man can lose. No beast can ever lose. But because man can lose, man can gain too. They both come together. Man can grow -- man is growth. The mere perhaps can become actual. The potential can be transformed into reality. The seed can become a flowering. That which is just unmanifest can be manifested, and then there will be great splendor, great benediction.

 The Buddha is, knows that he is, and also knows who he is. These are the three states of growth: the beast, the man, the Buddha. The beast has only one dimension -- he IS, he exists, utterly unaware that he exists. Hence he cannot think of death.

 Death is not a problem for the beast. Death can only become a problem when you know that you are. With that very knowing the fear arises that some day you may not be -- because there was a time when you were not, there will again be a time when you will not be. Your existence is momentary. You can disappear any moment. You will disappear some day. Death is bound to happen. It is only man who knows about death.

 That's why man creates religion. Religion is man's response to the possibility of death. It's man's effort to conquer death. No animal is religious, cannot be. Without the awareness of death religion has no possibility. But before you can become aware of death, you will have to become aware that you are. That's a basic requirement.

 So man knows he is -- and also becomes aware and apprehensive that any moment he will not be. Time is short. For the beast time is non-existential, time is not. The beast lives in a timeless world. Each moment. Neither thinking of the past, nor imagining about the future.

 Man cannot live in the present. He thinks of the past and all the nostalgia. Days that were golden and are no more. And thinks, imagines, fantasizes about the future -- days as they should be.

 Man lives in the past and in the future. The beasts live only in the present. But they are not aware that this is the present. They cannot be aware of the present. Only one who is aware of past and future can be aware of the present, because the present is sandwiched between past and future.

 The animals have no anxiety. The memory does not disturb them, and imaginations don't stir their hearts. They are simple. Existence has no complexity for them. When they live, they live; when they die, they die. They are innocent. Time has not entered to corrupt their being.

 But man lives in time. Is aware that he is, but is not aware who he is. And that becomes a great problem: Who am l? This is the fundamental question that any man can ask. Out of this fundamental question is all philosophy, all religion, all poetry, all art -- different ways of raising the question: Who am l? different ways of answering it. But the question is one: Who am l?

 If you try to understand man's life, you will see this single question persisting. Yes, the man who is mad after money is also trying to answer the question: Who am l? By having money, he thinks that he will know who he is -- he will know he is a rich man. He will have a certain identity. The man who is searching for power is basically trying to answer the question: Who am I? By becoming a prime minister of a country he will know: I am the prime minister.

 But these answers are superficial and are not going to satisfy really. They can satisfy only the mediocre. They cannot satisfy the really intelligent person. Even when you have become very rich, your intelligence will go on persisting, asking, "Who are you? Yes, you have money, but who are you? You are not the money -- you cannot be that which you possess. Who is this possessor? Yes, you have become the prime minister of a country, but that is just a function, that is not your being. Who are you? Who is this person who was not a prime minister and is now a prime minister, and tomorrow may not be again? This prime-ministership is just an episode -- in whose life?"

 The question persists. It can't be answered by these superficial efforts and endeavors. But basically man is trim to do that. He becomes a husband, he becomes a mother, father, this and that... but the basic urge is somehow to have a certain identity: "I am the wife, I am the husband, I am the father, I am the mother." Still you have not answered the question. Your being a mother or your being a father is just accidental, on the surface. Your innermost core remains untouched.

 This is not real identity. This is a pseudo identity. The child will die -- then who are you? Then you are not the mother. The husband may leave -- then who are you? Then you are no more a wife.

 These identities are very fragile, and man lives constantly in the crisis of identity. He tries hard to fix some definition around himself, but they go on slipping out of his hands.

 Only the religious person really asks the question, and asks in the right direction.

 The Buddha exists just like the beast. The Buddha knows just like man that he is. But a third dimension has opened: he knows who he is -- he has come to see his innermost being. He has not searched for the identity in the outside world, because there can't be any identity. How can it be in the outside world? You ARE your inferiority, you ARE your inwardness, you ARE your subjectivity -- how can you know it through objects?

 You may have a beautiful house, but it is outside. You may have beautiful art, paintings, antique art works, but they are outside! They can't define you. You remain undefined by them. One day the house is on fire and all your identity is burnt, and. you are standing on the road, again puzzled: "Who am I?"

 That's why people commit suicide. If their money is gone, if they become bankrupt, they commit suicide. Why do they commit suicide? One wonders -- why? Money can be earned again.... Look deep into them -- that was their identity. They had believed long that "This is me." Now all that bank balance is gone. Again the problem arises: Who am l? And they wasted their whole life in creating that bank balance. Now they are not ready to go into that effort again. It is too much. They have utterly failed.

 In fact, by being. a bankrupt the suicide has already happened! Their identity is gone. They no longer know now who they are. Their face has disappeared. How can they live without a face? Your woman dies whom you had loved... and you commit suicide, or you start thinking of committing suicide! because that woman was your identity. Now you are left alone, empty. And to start from the very beginning, from scratch, seems to be too much. It is better to finish this whole thing.

 These are the three stages. And when I say the beast, there are many men who are like the beast. They are -- they are not even aware that they are. They live mechanically. There are many people who are men -- they know they are, but they don't know who they are. And there are only few and far between, those rare people, who know who they are. They become three dimensional.

 Man is a bridge between the beast and the Buddha. Remember, man is a bridge. Don't make your house on the bridge; the bridge is not meant for that. The bridge has to be crossed. Don't remain a man, otherwise you will remain in anxiety and anguish -- because man is not a place to stay and abide. It is a passage to be passed. It is a ladder! You cannot stay on the ladder. It is only a link from one point to another point.

 The beast is, and is in a certain state of contentment. No anxiety, no fear, no death, no ambition, no longing; utterly calm and quiet. But unaware, unconscious. The Buddha is again contented, utterly at peace, at home; has arrived, the journey is finished. There is nowhere to go, he has attained. Between these two is man: half-beast, half-Buddha. Hence the tension: one part moving backwards, one part moving forwards.

 Man is torn apart.

 Let me repeat: Man is not a being yet. Man has lost one kind of being -- the being of a beast. And man has not yet attained another kind of being -- the being of a Buddha. And man is constantly moving between these two beings, between these two banks.

 You cannot go back, because in existence there is no backward movement. You cannot go back in time; time has only one dimension: it flows forward. You can go only forward. Don't waste your time in thinking that you can also be a beast and can live like a beast: eat, drink and be merry. It is not possible for a human being. He will have to think, he will have to contemplate. He cannot afford non-thinking. And it is very risky to do that, because then you will be stuck and you will become a pool of dirty water. Your freshness, your aliveness is possible only if you go on flowing and flowing till you reach the ocean. That ocean I am calling the Buddha -- the Buddha state of consciousness.

 Man HAS to become a Buddha. Create that intense desire, that intense longing, to become a Buddha. Be in a passionate search for it. Put ALL the energy that you have! Become aflame with that longing... and you can become a Buddha. And the day you become a Buddha, you have become a being again -- and a being on a higher level, on the highest Level. There is nothing higher than that.

 

 You ask me: WHAT EXACTLY IS MAN?

 

 As man, man is nothing exact -- just a vague phenomenon, cloudy, foggy. Man is not exact because he is a crowd. Man is many men; hence he is foggy. The unity is missing. You don't have the center -- the center arises only through consciousness. Man simply lives like a driftwood.

 That's why I say man is a mere perhaps, a bewildering paradox, an absurd being. He is and he is not. He is an in-between. He is the only animal that can make a fool of himself. No animals can make fools of themselves -- only man, because man has the capacity to become wise.

 If you don't grow into wisdom, you will behave like a fool. That's what the majority of the people in the world ARE doing. If you watch from a detached viewpoint, you will be surprised how people are living... in such a mess, in such confusion, in such madness. How are they moving? They are not moving at all -- they are jogging on the same place.

 And if you watch man, you will be surprised: it is very rare to come across a wise man. Fools and fools... fools abound. But remember: no other animal can behave like a fool. Have you seen a dog behaving like a fool? Never. Because they cannot be wise they cannot be took. Both the possibilities arise simultaneously.

 Watch yourself. Watch your foolishnesses. Be constantly alert about what you are doing with your life. It is a precious life. It is of such value that you cannot measure, you cannot evaluate it. But because it is given to you as a gift, you don't appreciate its value. Because it has been just a blessing from God, you have taken it for granted. This is foolish! Don't take it for granted. This is an opportunity to grow.

 And you have to answer to God for what you did with your life. Have you come the same as you had gone? Or even worse? Think of this, that man is answerable. And unless you are a Buddha you will not be able to answer. Because to be a Buddha is to be a God -- and that is your intrinsic possibility. And unless you are a God, you will not feel contented.

 And only then will you know what exactly you are. Right now, you are nothing, a mere Lee r leapt....

 

 The second question:

 

 Question 2

 BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO YOUR WORDS FOR SOMETIME AND I CAN ACCEPT EVERYTHING YOU SAY ON TRUTH AND NO-TRUTH. ONLY ONE QUESTION REMAINS IN MY MIND: IF MY ENLIGHTENMENT DEPENDS ON ME AND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH TOTALITY AND NOTHING ELSE, WHAT IS THE POINT IN MY SURRENDERING TO A HUMAN MASTER?

 

 THE MASTER IS NOT HUMAN, only looks human. The Master his a passage to the totality. This is the beauty of being a disciple, because only the disciple is able to see that the Master is not human. The curious visitors, or the students, who have come to gather a little bit of knowledge here, will not be able to see that. And then this question will arise.

 Kenneth, you are right: you are here, still, unrelated to me. You are here uncommitted to me. You are here uninvolved with me.

 You are a spectator, not a participant. And the greater mysteries become available to those who DARE to participate. Don't remain a spectator, otherwise I will remain human. Become a participant! and you will see a transforming vision. You will see that something has changed in you. I am the same! But when you become a disciple, you have the eyes which can see that the Master is not human.

 If the Master is human, he is not the .Master. He is only a teacher. To the student I remain a teacher. To the spectator, how can I be available in my totality? Unless you come close... and what ELSE is discipleship? -- courage to come close to somebody where death is possible, courage to come close to a fire where you will be burnt to ashes. And only then is there resurrection.

 Jesus was a human being to the Jews who crucified him. But he was not a human being to Luke, to Thomas, to Mark. To the disciples he was Christ, son of God. To the spectators, to the crowd, he was the son of the carpenter Joseph, son of man, and of a very ordinary man. They were not watching the same person, remember; although they were looking at the same person, they were not seeing the same person at all. Their visions made the difference.

 To the disciples, Buddha was not human. Hence, they called him Bhagwan. But to the spectators he was just as human as anybody else.

 And the problem is that the disciple cannot prove it -- these things are beyond proof. They are, but they are not available to proof. And those who were saying that Buddha is just human were more logical -- because he feels hunger, becomes thirsty, falls ill. These are the proofs that he is human! What more proof do you need? Became old, and died of food poisoning. What more proof do you need? How can God die? Human beings die; God is eternal. How can God fall ill? And Buddha falls ill. His private physician, Jivaka, has to follow him continuously. Does God need a physician? Only a human being needs a physician.

 When it is hot, Buddha perspires. What more proof do you need?! When it is cold, he shivers. A thousand and one proofs can be gathered together that he is just like us. What is the difference?

 And the disciple will always be at a loss, although the disciple will laugh about all these proofs, because these are just stupid things that have been collected by the people. They are irrelevant facts, because the disciple has come so close that he has been able to have a contact with the Master's soul -- the Master's body has become irrelevant. The body is just a vehicle.

 If I am traveling in a car and the car is broken, I am not broken. If the car is rattling and making all kinds of noises, that is just in the mechanism of the car. So is the body -- a vehicle. But something deeper than the body is there, something higher than the body is there -- something of the totality. A window has opened into totality.

 Who is a Master? One who is in tune with totality.

 To be in love with a Master is to approach totality. To you, totality will be just a word. You can understand it intellectually. And that's what has happened to Kenneth.

 

 He says: I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO YOUR WORDS FOR SOME TIME, AND I CAN ACCEPT EVERYTHING YOU SAY ON TRUTH AND NO-TRUTH.

 

 This is an intellectual understanding. You must be an intelligent person! So what I say, you understand. I am not using very difficult words; my expression is as simple and common as anybody else's. I am not using a special terminology. I am not using any jargon, so you can understand. There is no problem in it.

 But to understand that which I say is one thing, and to understand me is quite another. If you only understand that which I am saying, you will gather only the superficial; you will miss the essential, because the essential cannot be said. The Tao that can be said is not the true Tao. And the God that can be uttered is not the real God. Religion in its fundamental richness remains unexpressed.

 So what I am saying is not that which I am.

 

 Buddha was passing through a forest. The whole forest was full of dry leaves; leaves were falling. The trees were naked. His disciple, Ananda, asked him, "Bhagwan, a question has been persisting in my mind again and again. And now I cannot resist -- I have to ask it. This is my question: you have told us many things -- have you told all that you know? or is it only a part?"

 Buddha took a few leaves, dry leaves, from the ground in his hand and said, "Ananda, how many leaves have I in my hand?"

 Ananda said, "Not more than a dozen, just a few."

 And Buddha said, "How many leaves are in this forest?"

 And Ananda said, "Millions and millions -- cannot be counted."

 And Buddha said, "So is the case, Ananda: what I have said is just like the leaves in my hand, and what I have not said is like the leaves in this whole forest. But don't think that I am a miser, that I don't want to say those things -- they cannot be said by their very nature. It is impossible to say them."

 

 The student will learn only that which has been said. The disciple learns that which is not said and cannot be said. To the student, words reach, and he will become knowledgeable. To the disciple, the being reaches, and he becomes knowing, not knowledgeable.

 That is the function of the relationship between a Master and a disciple. It is a love affair! It is intimacy. It is ajar more intense intimacy than happens in any other love. When two persons are in love, it is the intensity of sexual desire, a physical closeness. Soon it will disappear. It is not going to last long. It is momentary, because sexual energy is momentary. The body is momentary.

 The relationship between a Master and a disciple is the relationship between two souls which are eternal. Once established, it

 

 Kenneth, you say: I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO YOUR WORDS FOR SOME TIME AND I CAN ACCEPT EVERYTHING YOU SAY ON TRUTH AND NO-TRUTH.

 

 And it is not a question of acceptance either. It is a question of being DROWNED in me! Accepting, you remain yourself. Accepting, you are not coming out of your ego. You say, "Yes, my logic also says this is right -- I agree." This is a kind of agreement. You remain you, I remain me, and there is a kind of agreement. But when you dissolve, it is not a kind of agreement. It is not that you accept what I say. There is no question of acceptance or nonacceptance .

 Remember: if you accept, any day you can reject -- because there is no guarantee that tomorrow also I will be saying the same thing. Today you have accepted something that I have said; tomorrow you may not be able to accept it.

 But the disciple is one for whom acceptance, non-acceptance, have become meaningless. He is drowned in me. So if today I am saying one thing, he listens joyously. And there never arises an idea whether to accept it or reject it -- there is no question because there is no separation. As if what I am saying, he is saying. Not that he agrees. There is nobody to agree with it. Not that he nods his head in agreement -- that head has disappeared; there is nothing to nod. Then tomorrow, even if I say just the opposite of it, there is no problem, because there is nobody to reject.

 Yesterday it was like that. Today it is like this. Tomorrow it will be like that. His attunement with my being is so total that he understands. It is not a question of acceptance but of tremendous understanding -- which knows no rejection. This is trust. Between the Master and the disciple blooms a flower called trust. And it is trust that leads you to God, to totality.

 

 You say: ONLY ONE QUESTION REMAINS IN MY MIND...

 

 And that is not one question -- that is thousands of questions. In one question are condensed all the questions possible.

 

 IF MY ENLIGHTENMENT DEPENDS ON ME AND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH TOTALITY AND NOTHING...

 

 Yes, I say again and again: Your enlightenment depends on you -- but not as you are today, not as you are now. This you has to go. Another kind of you has to come into existence. This you is the barrier; enlightenment doesn't depend on it. Otherwise, it could have happened already. This 'I' that you are carrying, this person Kenneth, in you who says "I am" -- no, on this enlightenment does not depend. It is the barrier, it is the hindrance.

 If this 'I' dies, then a different kind of phenomenon arises in you -- which is no more 'I' but a kind of pure 'amness'. When you say "I am," I is false, am is true. And you will need a Master to destroy your I and to free your am. That amness, undefined, pure existence, being, innocence -- that amness is the door to enlightenment.

 But where are you going to drop your I? That I is surrounding your am so much that you cannot even conceive what amness will mean without I. In fact, the question will arise: How can there be amness if there is no l? I seems to be more important; am seems to be just shadow to it. The truth is just the opposite.

 I is false: amness is the truth.

 And when you surrender to a Master, you don't surrender your amness -- it CANNOT be surrendered -- you only surrender your I. A Master takes away things which you believe you have but you don't have. A Master takes away your diseases only. And when all the diseases have been taken away, health wells up.

 The health cannot be given by the Master, that's true -- because a given thing will be a given thing. And if it is given, it can be taken away. If it is a given thing, somebody can steal it. If it is a given thing, somewhere you can forget, lose track of it. A given thing is not of much importance. The Master never gives you truth: he only takes your lies away. When all the rocks of the lies have been removed, truth flows. That is your innermost spring. Nobody needs to give it to you.

 But who will take your I? Who will drink this poison of your I? You will need somebody who has come to a point where his immortality is revealed to him -- he can drink all your poison.

 You must have seen pictures of Shiva. A beautiful myth is behind those pictures. If you have looked closely into a Shiva picture, you will see that his throat is blue. That is a very very beautiful story. DEVAS, gods, and the anti-gods, ASURAS, were churning the ocean to find elixirs -- but you cannot find elixir directly. It is hidden deep.

 The first thing that they came across was not elixir but poison. Now who should drink the poison? Shiva drank it. That's why his throat has become blue. Only HE could drink it. You can drink death only when you know you are deathless.

 When the disciple comes to the Master, he brings all kinds of poisons. Unknowingly he has been nourishing those poisons. And the ego is the greatest poison. And before your immortality can be revealed to you, your poison has to be removed. Who is going to drink it?! Only one who knows that he is deathless can drink it.

 The Master drinks all the poison out of the disciple's system. Slowly slowly, he takes away all the poisons from the disciple. And one day, when all the poison has been taken out, the immortal is there in all its glory.

 

 You say to me: ONLY ONE QUESTION REMAINS IN MY MIND: IF MY ENLIGHTENMENT DEPENDS ON ME...

 

 Certainly it depends on you, but not as you are right now. This you is false. This you has to go. This you has to cease, then the real you will arrive.

 

 ... AND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH TOTALITY AND NOTHING ELSE, WHAT IS THE POINT IN MY SURRENDERING TO A HUMAN MASTER?

 

 It is certainly true that the question is of your relationship with totality and nothing else is needed -- but as long as you are, you will resist totality, you will fight totality. You cannot relate with totality. You have to go, only then is the relationship there.

 The Master is needed only to take away all that is unnecessarily around you -- the hindrances, the barriers. The Master will give you your real being by taking all that is unreal in you. When you surrender to a Master, you surrender only the unreal because you have only the unreal! If you already have the real, there is no point in surrendering to a Master. But if you HAD that, you would not have been here in the first place.

 What are you doing here? Why are you even listening to me? For what? It all depends on you and your relationship with totality... why listen to me? This must be somewhere a deep ego which is rationalizing. The ego is VERY clever. When it listens to such statements, that the enlightenment depends on you, the ego says, "Look, so it depends on me -- there is no need to surrender." When it is said that it is only a question of your being with totality, the ego says, "Perfectly true -- there is no need to surrender."

 I am not interested in your surrender at all -- because what have you got to surrender to me? Only diseases, poisons, energy blockages. You have no riches to surrender to me! Only miseries, frustrations, despairs, anxieties. What have you got to surrender to me? But people cling even to their misery. They think it is some kind of treasure.

 Watch the cunning ways of the ego.

 And when you surrender to a Master, you surrender only all that is false. And in that surrendering, the Master is just an excuse. If you can surrender directly to the totality, perfectly good -- you go and surrender to totality. But where are you going to find the totality? Where? You don't have the eyes to see the totality. And totality cannot be encountered directly. You will come across it only in indirect ways. You will fall in love with a woman -- surrender! because the woman represents a kind of totality. The feminine aspect of it. You may fall in love with a friend -- surrender! He represents another kind of totality, another aspect of it. Another window opens. You love music -- surrender!

 Don't go on using this word 'totality'. "Why should I surrender to music? I am going to surrender to totality. Why should I surrender to love? I am going to surrender to totality. Why should I surrender to beauty? I am going to surrender to totality."

 Where will you find totality? Totality exists in millions of forms... the beauty of the sunrise, and the silence of the night, and the loving eyes of a friend, and the warm hand of a woman. These are ALL gestures of totality. Totality comes in these ways. These are totality's approaches towards you.

 The Master is the CLEAREST way of totality reaching towards you, a CONSCIOUS way of totality reaching to you. The woman is unconscious, the friend is unconscious -- they are unconsciously parts of totality. A Master is consciously part of totality; hence, there is no substitute for a Master.

 Jesus is right when he says: I am the way -- unless you go through me, you will not reach. He is not talking only about himself -- the Master is speaking. And whenever a Master speaks, he speaks for all the Masters, past, present future.

 
 

 The third question:

 

 Question 3

 WHY AM I SO AFRAID TO ASK YOU A QUESTION?

 

 EVERYBODY IS, BECAUSE TO ASK a question means to put your head in front of me. And one never knows what I am going to do with your head. I may hit, I may cut it. I may make a football of it... nobody knows! Fear is natural.

 One thing is certain, that I am going to do something drastic. Fear is nothing out of place, but still ask -- because that is the purpose of your being here and my being here.

 Ask if a question arises; don't be afraid. And if you are very much afraid, you can do one thing a few people do: you can ask in somebody else's name. Then he gets the beating and you envoy.

 But ask. Without asking, it will persist. And it may be important; it may have something of immense importance. It may change... the answer may become a new vision. In spite of the fear, go on asking -- till questions disappear and the questioner disappears too.

 But fear is natural.

 I have heard:

 

 A man came to a doctor complaining that he had an uncontrollable cough. The doctor gave him a bottle of castor oil and said, "Go home and drink down the entire bottle and come back tomorrow. "

 When the patient came back next day, the doctor asked, "Did you take the castor oil?"

 The man answered, "Yes."

 The doctor then continued, "Do you still cough?"

 The patient said, "Yes, I continue to cough."

 The doctor gave him a second bottle of castor oil and said "Take this, and come back tomorrow."

 The next day the man returned. The doctor asked him, "Do you still cough?"

 And the patient said, "Yes, I still cough regularly."

 The doctor then gave him yet another bottle of castor oil, and said, "Drink this entire bottle tonight and come back tomorrow morning."

 The patient returned and the doctor looked at the poor wretch and said, "Do you cough now?"

 The patient quiveringly answered, "I don't cough any more -- I am afraid to."

 

 You go on asking questions and I will go on giving you castor oil bottles. Sooner or later, one day you will be afraid to cough -- afraid to ask a question.

 Your system has to be cleansed. Your question should not be just out of curiosity. Remember that. Never ask a question just out of curiosity; that is meaningless. If a question has something important for you, if your life depends on it, if it has something to do with your lifestyle, with your habits -- mechanical, robot like -- if it has something about it that if it is solved you will become more aware, ask it. Don't ask metaphysical questions, because they are not going to change you. Ask psychological questions -- only they are going to transform you.

 Bertrand Russell has said: There are three possibilities of man's approach towards life. One is conflict with nature, second is conflict with other human beings, and third is conflict with oneself.

 The first has been the way of the Western philosophy, Western science, Western speculation, thinking. A fight with nature. The Western mill became objective: How to transform nature? -- that became the root question. They have not been able to transform it, although they have destroyed it. They have destroyed the rhythm of nature. They have destroyed the ecosystem. They have created havoc in nature's harmony. And now there seems to be no going back. The earth is dying.

 There seems to be only one possibility, that man should migrate from this planet to another planet. Within a hundred years it will be impossible to live on this earth. It is almost turning into a corpse. This earth has been so much raped by science, so much wounded, crippled, paralyzed, because of that approach: conquer nature! And man became absolutely absorbed and occupied with only one thing: how to conquer nature? -- and forgot everything else.

 The Chinese mind has moved in a different way. Its sole concern has been: How to live with man? Its concern has been social. Man is a social animal. How to create better moralities? How to create better social systems? How to have a better society? a higher culture? a better civilization? About nature, the Chinese mind has not been in conflict. It appreciates nature, it loves nature. Nature has an aesthetic value for the Chinese. Enjoy it! There is no need to conquer. Celebrate it! There is no need to fight.

 The basic problem for the Chinese mind has been: How should we make man more human? The whole struggle is: How to destroy between man and man, -- hatred, anger, rage, animality -- the beast-like attitudes, the violence? China has created one of most civilized cultures there ever has been.

 The Indian mind has taken the third route: How to transform oneself? The West has given birth to science, China has given birth to a higher quality sociology, India has given birth to the supreme science of psychology -- the science of the soul. That's exactly what psychology means. In fact, Western psychology should not call itself psychology, because it is not a science of the soul at all. On the contrary, it only observes human behavior -- from the outside. It thinks about man also as an object. It reduces man's dignity. It turns man into a mechanism.

 It is not important for the Western psychology to think: What is inside man? All that is important is what he DOES, how he functions -- his behavior. But in the Indian consciousness, the only basic problem has been: How to conquer oneself? How to raise one's consciousness to the highest peak possible? How to become a Buddha?

 These three approaches have been prevalent.

 

 Never ask a question which is not really of any concern to your spiritual growth. My whole concern here is to help you become more conscious. Don't ask stupid questions. And sometimes even very intelligent people ask stupid questions.

 Just the other night I was reading an ancient book written by a great Hindu philosopher, Kumaril. He criticizes Buddha on many accounts, but one thing was so ridiculous that I could not believe that a man of the intelligence of Kumaril should raise such a question!

 It is said -- by the disciples of Buddha, of course -- that he was all-knowing. 'All-knowing' does not mean that he was a kind of Encyclopedia Britannica. 'All knowing means that he knew all that is worth knowing. 'All-knowing' means that he knew all that is helpful for the consciousness to grow. And what has this Kumaril done? He says, "This is wrong, because he did not know how many insects are in the world." Now this Brahmin, Kumaril, must have been a stupid kind of person. How many insects there are in the world Buddha did not know, so he is not all-knowing.

 Sometimes it can happen: you may be an intelligent person on the surface, you may have logical acumen, cleverness, and still, deep down, you are stupid. Now what kind of question is this? It is so absurd just to think of it.

 Never ask a question which is not relevant to your spiritual growth. And whenever a question arises about your spiritual growth, put all fear aside -- you have to ask it! Even if my answer shatters you, even if I hit HARD on your head, I do that, I teach you, by hammering your head... I keep an invisible hammer in my hand always, and whenever I see that some skull is worth breaking, I really break it.

 But you will be grateful one day that your skull was broken, that you were killed in your stupidities. So whatsoever the cause of your fear, you have to ask it. That is the only way to come closer to me. Each question asked, answered, brings you closer.

 And I am not saying that if there is no question, then too you have to ask -- then there is no problem. Don't ask if you don't have any question. That too happens. People are such that they live in extremes. There are people who write to me: "So many people ask questions and I have not asked a single question up to now -- am I doing something wrong?" If you don't have a question, there is no need to ask one. But if you HAVE a question, it has to be asked -- whatsoever the cost.

 

 The fourth question:

 

 Question 4

 WHAT IS A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE?

 

 MARGO, FIRST: a mystical experience is not an experience at all. It is called 'mystical experience' because we have to call it something, but it is not an experience at all.

 An experience is always outside you. You see the clouds in the sky, or the lightning in the sky. Or, you can see the same inside too: you can close your eyes and you can see light inside That too is outside -- because the seer remains always outside the seen, the observer remains outside the observed, the experiencer remains outside the experienced. And the mystical experience is not something outside you: it is very special kind of experience, unique.

 What is its uniqueness?

 The experience and the experienced become one, the knower and the known become one. There is no division at all. It is not that you see something, but that you are it. God is never experi-enced as an object : God is always experienced as your innermost being,. "ANA'L HAQ!" declares Al-Hillaj Mansoor -- "I am God! " the Sufi says. Or "AHAM BRAHMASMI!" the Upanishads declare -- "I am all!" It is not an experience! All experiences have been dissolved. Nothing is left. Only pure consciousness is there, but in that pure consciousness this understanding arises. The knower and the known are no more separate.

 The mystical experience is such that you are involved in it with your totality. It is not in the head, it is not in the heart either; it is not in the body, it is not in the mind, it is not in the soul only. It pulsates all over you and beyond you. It pulsates with your totality .

 I have heard a very ancient parable:

 

 Once it happened, three saints, very famous saints, well-known saints, were passing through a forest. They all had worked hard, disciplined their lives arduously. They were great seekers. One was a bhakti yogi -- a follower on the path of devotion, love, prayer. Another was a gyan yogi -- a follower on the path of knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, awareness. And the third was a karma yogi -- a follower on the path of action, service, commitment.

 They all had done all that a man can do, all that is humanly possible, but yet they had not experienced God. Now they were getting old, and getting a little bit frustrated too. Time was slipping out of their hands, and the goal was as far away as ever, and coldness was settling. But that day a miracle happened.

 Suddenly, it started raining,. They all had to rush into a small temple. The temple was very small; just four pillars and a roof, open from all sides, and the rain was really strong, and the wind was strong, and the wind was bringing rainwater inside the temple. It was getting wet almost over the place. So they all had to stand just in the middle, surrounding the Shivalinga -- it must have been a Shiva temple. And as the water started coming more and more inwards, they had to come closer and closer.

 They were coming so close that they were touching coach other. Suddenly, when they touched each other, they felt that they were not three there but four. Surprised, startled... and the fourth, and the presence of the fourth, was so strong that they asked each other, "What are you feeling?" And they all said, "Something strange is present here."

 Slowly slowly, the presence became very very clear and radiant. It was such ecstasy to see that presence. They all fell on their knees, and they asked the presence -- because it was SO clear that it was God and nobody else -- they asked, "Why? We have worked our whole life and we could not even see a glimpse of you, and today what has happened? Why have you suddenly come?"

 And God laughed and said, "Because you all are together here. Touching each other, you have become total. And I can only be available to you when you are total. Now, you are not fragments. Up to now you have been fragments: one was working through the heart, another was working through the head, and the third was working through the body. You were fragmentary. And I am not available to the fragments: I,am available only when somebody becomes total. In this moment, your energies met and mingled with each other.

 "I have always followed you, but have remained invisible because the I can only see me when it is total. Now you can touch me! Now you can have me! You have been missing me for only one reason: you were adamant, stubborn; you were clinging to one fragment -- and God is a totality."

 

 This is my message to you: A mystical experience is a total experience -- of the body, of the mind, of the soul. ALL IS INVOLVED IN IT. Nothing is outside it. So don't reject anything in your life; let everything be absorbed. That's why I say 'from sex to super consciousness' -- everything has to be absorbed in it, nothing has to be rejected. The person who rejects anything has rejected God himself -- because God IS totality.

 Accept all, appreciate all. Rejoice in all! And let your life become a total organic unity. When you are organically one, you will have that orgasmic, oceanic experience called the mystic experience. It is not an experience... you ARE it. The experience is not separate from it.

 God is not seen: one becomes God.

 

 Liberation does not happen to you: you become liberation. Nirvana is not something in your hands: you are Nirvana.

 Enlightenment is not something that happens in you: you are it!

 Hence, though we call it, 'spiritual experience', it really cannot be called spiritual experience. There are sexual experiences, but no spiritual experiences. There are aesthetic experiences, but no spiritual experiences. There are MANY kinds of experiences, but spiritual, mystical experience is not one of them: it is absolutely a separate reality. It is all alone. It is a category in itself.