Question 3

SOME DAYS I FEEL LIKE A SWAMI AND OTHERS LIKE A MA. CAN I BE BOTH? OR WILL I GROW UP SCHIZY?

The question is from Mallika.

Everybody is both, and you have become aware -- that's very good; that's a great insight into your being. Everybody is both. The difference between a man and a woman is not much; the difference is only of degree, quantity -- not of quality. A woman may be sixty percent woman and forty percent man, or may be just fifty-one percent woman and forty-nine percent man. And so is the case with men. It is only a question of percentage -- but both exist in you.

You come from both -- from your father and from your mother; they both have contributed to you. Men and women are not just men and women: they are bisexual, they are a meeting-place of both the sexes. The polarity is there. So, no woman is just a pure simple woman. If you understand this your life will become more clear to you.

In some moments a woman is more of a man than a woman, and so is the case with a man. In some moments he is very feminine; in some moments he is male, in some moments he is female. There are soft moments and there are hard moments, there are aggressive moments and there are receptive moments.

But up to now, the society has been conditioned in such a way, we have been taught and brought up in such a way, that man is man, woman is woman. This is a very false arrangement, untrue to nature. If a man starts crying and weeping, people start telling him, "Don't weep like a woman, don't cry like a woman; don't be sissy." This is nonsense -- because a man has as many tear-glands in his eye as a woman. If nature had not meant for him to cry and weep then there would have been no tear-glands.

Now this is very repressive. If a girl starts behaving like a man, is ambitious, aggressive -- mm? -- people start thinking that something is wrong: something hormonal is wrong. They call her a tomboy; she is not a girl. This is nonsense! This division is not natural; this division is political, social. Women have been forced to play the role of women twenty-four hours, and men have been forced to play the role of men twenty-four hours, which is very unnatural and certainly creates much misery in the world.

There are moments when a man is soft and should be feminine. There are moments when the husbands should be the wife and the wife should be the husband, and this should be very natural. And there will be more rhythm and more harmony. If a man is not SUPPOSED to be a man twenty-four hours, he will be more relaxed. And if a woman is not supposed to be twenty-four hours a woman she will be more natural and spontaneous.

Yes, sometimes in a rage a woman becomes more dangerous than a man, and sometimes in soft moments a man is more loving than any woman -- and these moments go on changing. Both these climates are yours; so don't think that you are becoming schizophrenic or something. This duality is part of nature. This duality exists up to the sixth center, the AJNA chakra. Only beyond the sixth the duality disappears -- but the duality disappears in the sense that now it becomes so harmonious, so one, that "man" and "woman" carry no sense.

In India we have depicted God as ARDHANARISHWAR -- half-man, half-woman. That is tremendously beautiful. That seems to be the best image ever invented of God: half-man, half-woman. That's how it should be. When you reach to the seventh, to the ultimate growth in your being, you will neither be a man nor a woman; or, both together -- in such harmony that there will be oneness. But before that, the duality continues. Nothing is wrong in it. Don't be afraid of it, because if you become afraid you wills tart repressing -- and any part repressed is a hindrance, is a block, towards the ultimate growth. No part should be repressed, no part should ever be rejected and denied: all has to be made part of the organic unity. Each part of you has to meet and merge into the other so that the conflict disappears and you become an orchestra.

And this is happening at each center. Look: our divisions are all false divisions. On the tree, on the apple tree, there is one apple. You say it is outer to you, outside of you; it is not inner, certainly not -- it is hanging on the tree. You eat it; you have eaten the outer. You digest it: it becomes your blood, your bone, your marrow... it will turn into your dreams, into your poetry, into your painting. Now it is no more outer, it has become part of the inner. The outer has dissolved into the inner. Then one day you die, and the earth will use your body as a manure, and again in the apple tree one apple will be born. Now the inner has become the outer.

The inner and the outer are continuously meeting and merging into each other. The demarcation is only utilitarian; it is not real. Where does the inner end and the outer begin? -- can you tell me? can you make an exactly clear line, where? The outer is continuously moving into the inner: you are breathing in. And the inner is continuously moving into the outer: you are breathing out. There is no demarcation between the outer and the inner, they are one.

In the same way, there is no demarcation between the lower and the higher. But people have mad ideas of demarcations, categories. People even think that the lower body is lower and the upper body is higher. Just because the lower body is lower they think it is lower as a value. Nonsense -- because your blood continues to flow around the body: the same blood goes to the feet, the same comes to the head. Your oxygen goes on being divided all over the body; you eat, and the food is digested by the whole body -- not the lower and the higher. The lower and higher are two aspects of the same reality, and so it is about man and woman. And if you look deeply then all duality is just a human categorization to understand things. Arbitrary is the categorization -- otherwise, everything is part of everything else. This whole existence is one.

Mm? -- that is the meaning of Kabir singing again and again: Wherever you find the one, touch the feet. Wherever you find outer and inner meeting, the higher and lower meeting, the material and the God meeting, wherever one is present, bow down, surrender to it. You are closer to reality when you are closer to the one. That's why I say that the true sage will not be an escapist, because for him there can be no "this world and the other world." For him, this shore is the other shore. He will be in the world and not of the world. He will be a lotus flower -- in the water, and yet untouched by it. For him there is no division. In fact, for him there is no division into good and bad, moral and immoral, God and Devil. All divisions are part of one organic existence.

So Mallika, a good insight has happened to you. Don't lose it, and don't be worried that you are going schizophrenic. Up to the sixth, the division remains and becomes more and more clear cut; and again and again one will feel the changing, shifting. It is a shift: a few hours you are man, a few hours you are woman. If you watch it exactly, you can know exactly how many minutes you are a man and how many minutes you are a woman. It is a periodical change. In yoga they have worked hard on these inner secrets. If you watch your breath, that will exactly give you the time. When one nostril, the left nostril, is breathing you are feminine. When the right nostril is breathing you are male. And after nearabout forty-eight minutes they change.

Continuously -- day, night -- this change happens. When you are breathing by the left nostril your right-brain hemisphere functions: the right is the feminine part. When you are breathing from the right nostril your left brain functions: that is the male part. And sometimes you can play games with it. If you are very angry then do one thing: close your right nostril and start breathing by the left, and within seconds you will see the anger has disappeared -- because to be angry you need to be in the male part of your being. Try it and you will be surprised. Just by changing the breath from one nostril to another, something of tremendous importance changes. If you are feeling very cold towards the world then breathe from the left nostril and let your imagination, fantasy, warmth, flow in -- and you will suddenly feel full of warmth.

In tantra they say: Never make love unless you have checked your nostril -- never make love. If the man is breathing from the feminine nostril then the woman has to breathe from the male nostril. Then there will be real orgasm. Otherwise, love will be just a wastage of energy -- not more than sneezing. You will feel relived after a sneeze -- a good sneeze, one feels relieved -- but nothing much will happen out of it.

If the woman is in the feminine nostril, then the man has to be in the male nostril. And according to this, Vatsayana -- the first REAL sexologist -- worked hard into deeper mysteries. He says: When the woman is in the male climate she should be on top of the man, she should play the role of the man. Man need not be always in the missionary posture.... That is called "the missionary posture" in the East because in the East it was never known that the man has to be always on the top. Only when Christian missionaries came to the East people became aware that this foolishness exists in the West -- so it is known as the missionary posture.... Sometimes the woman is in a male climate: she should be on the top and she should be active; and the man, if he is in the feminine climate, should be passive. He should play wife and she should play husband. And then there will be a great meeting.

And this has to be remembered always, because there are acts which can be done more easily when you are in the male climate. When you are doing something hard -- carrying a rock, pushing a rock -- check your nostril. If it is not in the male climate it is not good. It may be dangerous for the body: you will be very soft. When you are playing with a child, or just sitting with your dog, feel that you are in the feminine -- more affinity will arise. When you are writing a poem or painting or making music you should be in the feminine... unless you are trying to create a war music! then it is okay, you should be in the male climate -- aggressive.

Watch it, and you will be becoming more and more aware of these two polarities. And this is good that these two polarities exist: that's how nature arranges for rest. When the male part becomes tired you move to the female part; the male part rests. When the female part is tired you rest; you become male. And this is an inner economy -- one goes on changing. But your society has taught you wrong things: that a man is a man, and HAS to be a man twenty-four hours -- this is too much of a duty. And a woman has to be a woman twenty-four hours -- soft, loving, compassionate: this is too much of a duty. Sometimes she also wants to fight, be angry, throw things -- and this is good, if you understand the inner play.

I have heard... A little boy was overheard by his mother. He was sitting all alone in his room, bored, and he was muttering: "I wish I were two dogs -- then I could play together."

These two polarities are a good inner play -- the play of consciousness. This is how God has become divided in you, to have a play of hide-and-seek with himself. When the play is over, when you have learnt that which is to be learnt from the play, when the lesson has been learnt, then you pass beyond the sixth.