The third question:

Question 3

YOU FILL ME OVERFLOWING WITH YOUR LOVE. I WISH I COULD GIVE YOU EVERYTHING BUT I HAVE NOTHING. THESE DAYS SO MANY TALENTED, SKILFUL PEOPLE HAVE COME I HAVE NO SKILLS, NO TALENTS... I FEEL USELESS.

Sucheta, you don't know the usefulness of the useless. In fact, the useful is only useful insofar as it has a certain utility. But the useless has no limitation to it.

What is the use of a roseflower? No use, but life would be very empty without roseflowers. What is the use of laughter? It is not a commodity, it does not feed people. If you are hungry it will not help. If you are ill it will not help, it is not medicine. If you are fighting with somebody it will not help, it is not an atom bomb. Of what use is laughter? That's why the people who look at life with the eyes of a utilitarian don't laugh. They don't love, because what use is love? To them it is wastage, a wastage of energy, time, life. To them it is stupid because it is useless. They earn money rather than falling in love, because money is useful. Love has no utility, but love has grandeur and splendor. And without love what is life?

Of what utility is meditation? Sometimes people come to me and they ask, "What will we get out of meditation?" They are thinking of getting some profit, they want some result. They want to be very certain, because they will be putting so much energy into it -- what are they going to get out of it? And I say to them, "You are not going to get anything out of it."

Meditation is not a means to some end, it is an end unto itself -- that's why it has no utility.

What utility is there in poetry? That's why in the countries where people become too money-minded poetry starts disappearing. Have you watched it happening in America? Politicians, rich people, businessmen -- they live long; poets die very soon. It is a strange statistic: poets, novelists, painters, peter out very soon. By the time they are forty they start petering out. Politicians remain young and vital long enough.

It was not so in ancient Greece. In ancient Greece poets, philosophers, mystics lived very long. In India, in the past, yogis and meditators lived very long, but now that is not the case any more. Politicians and actors in India live long. And actors retain their youth more than anybody else, and politicians go on remaining healthy very long. You can see Morarji Desai. What could be the reason behind it? It is not what he says. He says that he drinks his own urine; that's why he is so healthy and young. That is all nonsense! It is politics. Politics is respected now. Whatsoever is respected, whatsoever people pay attention to, becomes so important, so ego-fulfilling, that one can live just out of that ego-fulfillment. One can remain vital.

Now this is a known fact: that when people retire, they die soon. What happens? They start feeling useless. Somebody was going perfectly well, and now he is sixty and he retires. And he was healthy and he was never ill, and everything was good. He was a commissioner or a collector and people were respectful towards him, and he was honored and respected, and he was doing some useful work. Now suddenly he is retired, all his utility is gone. He is no longer a commodity. He suddenly feels he is useless. He suddenly finds that he has no excuse to live any more. For what? Nobody thinks about him any more. Even his own family people simply neglect him, ignore him. He becomes part of the junk. Slowly, slowly he starts shrinking. He starts feeling, "Now only death can relieve me of this uselessness."

That's why in America poets and novelists die young. Poetry is not respected. Where money is respected, poetry can't be respected. Money is useful; of what use is poetry? When somebody becomes a poet his family feels very sad.

A man was saying to me.... After many years he had come to see me, and I asked him how things were going: ''How is your eldest son?" He said, with such sadness, "He has become a poet." As if he had died! "And what about the second?" He said, "He does not earn anything either." Te first has become a poet and the second does not earn anything either; both are useless.

We measure people by their utility. We reduce people into commodities. And I'm not saying don't do anything useful. I'm saying do useful things, but remember the real and the greatest experience of life and ecstasy comes out of doing something useless. It comes through poetry, it comes through painting, it comes through love, it comes through meditation. The greatest joy floods you only when you are capable of doing something useless, useless in worldly eyes. Because it can't be reduced into a commodity, that's why they call it useless.

Now if you invent something, a gadget, you can patent it and you can earn money out of it. But if you write a beautiful poem you can't earn any money out of it; it is just wastage. People say, "What are you doing? Why are you wasting your life?" But writing poetry -- if you really have been into it -- is a great joy in itself; nothing else is needed, you are already rewarded. No other extrinsic reward is going to make any difference to you. The reward is inward, intrinsic; it arises out of the activity. Writing poetry, painting, or playing on the flute -- they are not utilities.

Now this is a sad phenomenon -- that even in India politicians and actors live long. In the past, meditators used to live long, because people knew the use of uselessness. Now politicians live long. Why? -- because politicians seem to be useful people. If a politician comes into town the whole crowd gathers. If a poet comes, nobody goes. Who bothers about a poet? Who thinks that he is special? Who cares? And naturally the poet also starts thinking deep down in himself, "I am useless, I am doing something which is not right. I am guilty, I am a burden on the earth."

Morarji Desai is healthy at the age of eighty-two, eighty-three, not because he drinks his urine but because in India this calamity has happened: that only the politician is respected. The mystic is no longer respected, the meditator is no longer respected. In fact, a strange phenomenon is happening: it is very difficult to find an American who does not meditate. It is as difficult as it is difficult to find an Indian who meditates. Meditation is useless activity.

But people are very clever in finding rationalizations. Now Morarji says that he is healthy because he drinks his urine.

It reminds me of a story....

A man became one hundred years old, he completed a century. Newspaper reporters came, and the TV people and the radio people came to have an interview. And they asked him, "What is the secret? How could you live so long? And you are still so healthy and so young looking. You don't look more than fifty."

The man was very happy and he said, "There is a secret -- I never ate meat in my life, I never drank any intoxicating beverages in my life, I never smoked, and I never befooled with women. That's my secret." And they were all impressed. They were just writing the interview, and then suddenly by the side of the room somebody fell and laughed loudly and screamed.

So they asked, "What is the matter? What happened?"

And the man said, "Don't be worried about it. That is my dad. He is drunk again and befooling with the maid."

And they asked, "How old is he?"

And he said, "He is one hundred and twenty."

You can always find why you have lived long, how you have lived long: you ate this, you did that yoga exercise. But the real phenomenon is simply different. If you are enjoying what you do, if you are respecting what you do -- useful, useless -- if you see that your life has a meaning, you will live long, because it is through the feeling of being meaningful that one lives long.

In different societies different kinds of people live long. In a primitive society the magician lives long, because he is the most respected person. And I call that society the highest and the most civilized -- that is my criterion of calling a society civilized -- where a poet, a painter, a musician, a meditator, a lover, lives long. That is the highest kind of society. Why? -- because the uselessness is respected.

There is a story about Lao Tzu.

He went into the mountains with his disciples. They went into a forest where all the trees were being cut. Thousands of people were cutting the trees, the whole forest was being destroyed. But there was one big tree, so big that one thousand people could have sat underneath it, in its shade. Its foliage was great, it was a huge tree! They had never come across such a tree, and nobody was cutting it!

So Lao Tzu said to his disciples, "Go and inquire. They have destroyed the whole forest. Why have they not cut this tree?"

And the disciples went and inquired of people, and the people said, "That tree is useless! First, its wood is such that you can't make anything out of it -- no furniture can be made out of it. Secondly, its wood is such that you cannot use it even as a fuel -- it creates so much smoke, and such a bitter smoke, that people start weeping and crying, tears start rolling down their cheeks. Its leaves are so bitter that no animal is ready to eat them. It is a useless tree! That's why it has not been cut."

When they came back Lao Tzu laughed and he said, "Look! I have been teaching you always the use of uselessness! Now see the beauty of this tree -- it is saved because it is useless." Lao Tzu said to his disciples, "If you want to be saved, be useless. Otherwise you will be cut sooner or later. Never become useful, otherwise you will be in trouble. Be useless like this tree and you will live long and your foliage will be great."

Lao Tzu has something immensely important in that message. That's my own experience too: remain in your deepest core. Use is only on the surface. Yes, one has to do something for a livelihood, to have a shelter, to have food. One has to do something, that's okay; but don't think that is your life. Livelihood is not your life. And the standard of living is not the standard of life. A standard of living comes from usefulness, through useful activities, and a standard of life arises out of USELESS activities -- music, poetry, painting, meditation, love.

So Sucheta, don't be worried. I will need all kinds of people around here -- useful, useless. I will need all kinds of people here. I would like to make this commune the richest commune. And utility can never make a commune very rich -- materially, of course, but not spiritually. So, if you feel useless don't be worried. I will use your uselessness too. I will make you a huge tree with great foliage. And the people who are engaged in useful activities, they will also need sometimes to rest under the tree, in the shade. We will need poets and painters and musicians. We will need all kinds of crazy people here, so Sucheta, don't be worried.