The third question:

Question 3

I HAVE COME HERE AS A VISITOR AND AM VERY MUCH PUZZLED BY SEEING ALL THAT IS HAPPENING HERE. IT ALL LOOKS VERY CRAZY TO ME.

It is.

It looks crazy because it is different. It looks crazy because you are not accustomed to it, and if you remain only a visitor you will go with the idea that this place is crazy. If you really want to know what is happening, become an insider, get into things, participate.

The so-called sane humanity is not sane at all. The normal person is not normal at all. If the normal person is normal then Jesus is abnormal, then Buddha is abnormal, then Jalaluddin Rumi is abnormal. But would you like to be the normal grocer, the bank manager, the politician, the schoolmaster, the clerk, the inspector of weights and measures? Would you like to be that normal person? Don't you have a deep desire to become something like Christ, Buddha? But they are abnormal, they are not normal. Their response to life is unique. People have always thought them crazy.

In fact, if you are miserable people think you are normal, because everybody is miserable. If you are happy, bubbling with joy, people think you must be a little crazy. Because this life is such -- how can you bubble with joy? How can you dance? -- you must be crazy, something must have gone loose inside you, You need a little tightening of the nuts and bolts. How are you happy? Life looks so sad, and everybody is so sad, and suddenly you start laughing? Life is not fun, it is a serious affair, and you are dancing?

This place is crazy. But don't watch it from the outside. There are things in life which can be known only by participation, because you will need a different vision to appreciate what is happening here. Your ordinary categories won't do. You will not be able to pigeonhole what is happening here, you will not be able to label it. That's what you want to do. You would like to label it: if it is something like a Catholic church you will not be offended. You say, "Okay, so it is a Catholic church, so it is like Catholics -- " finished. You have labelled it, and now there is no need to bother about it.

This place is offensive. And small things create offenses in people -- very small things -- because they come full of prejudices. If you can see that this is a Hindu ashram and dead and dull and stupid people are sitting and doing yoga postures -- no juice, no life, just dry, with closed eyes, sitting from morning to evening -- you will say, "Okay, so this is a yoga place; so people are doing yoga." Finished! You have labelled it.

I don't allow any labelling. You cannot label it, it is outlandish. You cannot call it Christian, you cannot call it Jewish, you cannot call it Hindu, you cannot call it Buddhist. It is all and it is none. It is the birth of a new vision, a new life, a new religion, a new tradition, a new future, a new man.

That's why all the religious people are against me. They think I am not religious. How can they think so? -- because they cannot label, they cannot put me in a certain category. They are baffled. They don't understand what I am saying, because I am talking about Sufis, and I am talking about Hassids, and I am talking Zen, and I am talking about Tantra. It is beyond their comprehension. They live in certain caves: it is open sky. They live in life-negative moods: it is life-affirmation. They think that God can be attained only if you destroy your life, if you commit a subtle suicide, a psychic suicide. Here, loving life is the way to God, the only prayer. If you are in deep love with life you will find God; there is no other way to find Him.

There are people who want everything clean, clearcut, logical, so that their mind can figure out what it is. It is an illogical place, irrational, absurd.

You come with your certain ideas, and when those ideas are not fulfilled you feel baffled, you feel angry, offended. This whole place is being created in such a way that it offends many people, because that is my way to screen those people out. Somebody comes to the gate and, seeing the marble gate, he escapes... so good, so kind of him! Because he had come to see an Indian kind of ashram, not a marble gate, his ideas are shattered. He wanted to see people living in poverty, in a kind of spiritual dirtiness. He wanted to see people almost starved, fasting. The marble gate is there to put these people off. I don't want them inside.

Small things offend people, and they don't see how small things become barriers.

Arup's mother, Gita, has written a question that she wants her family to become more interested in me, but the only thing that seems to create trouble is my pictures with fantastic hats! That is creating the trouble -- so good! Now bring more hats for me, because these are the people I would not like to be here. I would not like for them to be here because such stupid minds have to be kept out. These minds cannot grow.

In the new commune I am going to make it such that only those who are really daredevils will be able to enter into it. A thousand and one things will prevent them, because those are the people who, even if they come in, they will go out. So why waste time on them? It is better to keep them out, bracket them out.

If you are just a visitor here you will miss the whole point of what is happening. You will have to become part of the dance. Enter into things, meditate. And remember, if you go back without participating, WHATSOEVER you will say about this place will be wrong.

A circus was touring Ireland and one of the acrobats, being a Catholic, went to confession at this little village church.

As the confession finished the priest said, "I don't know you, do I? You will be a stranger here?"

"Yes, father," he said. "I'm an acrobat with the circus."

"Ah, is that a fact now?" said the priest. "I have always been interested in acrobatics. Of course, being a man of the cloth I am not able to go to the circus, but I would be much obliged if you would give me a little show."

"What -- here and now?" asked the acrobat.

"Yes, go on," said the priest, "there's no one about."

And so the acrobat began doing his cartwheels and flip-flaps and standing somersaults, right there in the side-aisle of the church.

They had not seen a little old biddy at the back. She watched the goings on for a minute, then rushed out and said to her friend, "Ah, Bridie, you'd better get home and put some clean drawers on! You should see what kind of penance the old fool is dishing out now!"

Whatsoever you say, unless you have participated and seen things from the inside, will be wrong.

Don't remain a spectator here. This is a place to be experienced. This is not a physical phenomenon that is happening here. You cannot simply look at it and take a few pictures and go home and put those pictures in the album. You will miss the soul of it. It has to be recorded in the innermost core of your being.

Become a participant. Don't remain an outsider.

Then too, you will say, "This is crazy", but then the meaning of the word 'crazy' will have utterly changed.

A jazz musician who'd never entered a church in his life found himself passing a little country church just as a service was about to begin. Out of curiosity he decided to go in and see what it was all about.

After the service, he approached the rector and said, "Say Rev, you just about knocked me out with the good words. Like I really dug it the most, man. Jeez, baby, it really blew my mind. It was wild, ya dig?"

The rector was flattered but said, "Well, thank you. Most gratifying, I'm sure. However, I wish you wouldn't use those common expressions at the portals of a holy edifice."

But the musician went on, "And I'll tell you somethin' else, Rev -- when the cat came round with the breadplate I was so high with the whole scene that I came across with a fiver!"

"Crazy, baby, crazy!" said the rector.

If you participate, you will see it is crazy -- but with a totally different meaning to it.