The fifth question:

Question 5

YOU SAY NOT TO CONVERT ANYONE OR SAY YOU HAVE FOUND IT. BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU, OSHO? WHAT ABOUT WANTING MY BELOVED TO BECOME A SANNYASIN?

Prita, do what I say to you, don't do what I do! -- because then you will get into trouble. That day will also come when you will be able to do what I do. But wait, have a little patience.

You ask me, "YOU SAY NOT TO CONVERT ANYONE OR SAY YOU HAVE FOUND IT. WHAT ABOUT YOU, OSHO?"

The question is relevant, because that's what I go on doing. But that appears to you as conversion. It is not conversion, it is seduction. It has no logic in it. Conversion has to be logical. The difference is great.

Somebody comes and asks me, "What is sannyas?" and I say, "I don't know. Become a sannyasin." And something happens and he becomes a sannyasin. Now will you call it conversion? I have not even given any rationale for it, I have not argued. This is seduction, pure and simple. This is infection, not conversion.

I am contagious. If the man is available, if he can just be with me for a few seconds, he starts getting crazy. It is not conversion. He simply falls in love. He starts feeling to be with me, whatsoever it is. He does not care what it is.

Christian missionaries do the work they call conversion. That is conversion: they argue, they prove, they bring books to you, and they force it inside that Christianity is the only way if you want to be saved. They make you frightened, afraid. For that they have created hell, the hellfire and the eternal punishment there and the rewards in paradise.... They make you afraid of hell, and only they can save you, and they make you very greedy for paradise, and only they can deliver the goods, nobody else. And they prove in a thousand and one ways that Jesus is the only Master. That is conversion.

What I do is not conversion. What Jesus did was not conversion, it was seduction. What Buddha did was not conversion, it was seduction, pure and simple. Just to be with a Jesus is to fall in love. It is impossible not to fall in love with such a beautiful man.

A letter has been found written by Pontius Pilate to the Roman emperor, in which he says, "This man is so beautiful that I am feeling guilty." In fact, Pontius Pilate had fallen in love with Jesus. The moment he asked, "What is truth?" and Jesus remained silent, without saying anything, he fell in love. That silence overwhelmed him. In that letter he writes....

That letter is kept in the Vatican; they don't release it, they don't publish it because that will have great impact on the story that they have been telling the people.

The letter says, "I have fallen in love with this man. This man is so beautiful that I have never seen such a graceful person. He can't do any harm, that is impossible. I have heard him talk with people. I have watched him closely. I have been in crowds, hiding myself, to see what is happening to people. And I have always come back overwhelmed. He is a magician. Just by being with him something starts happening. He is not of this earth."

These are the words of Pontius Pilate.

If you are in close contact with Jesus, how can you remain untouched, unmoved? That movement happens in your energy. So from outside it may appear to you that I go on converting people into orange people. That is not true, or only very superficially true. I have not converted anybody. I am available. If you are available, the thing happens on its own accord.

"YOU SAY NOT TO CONVERT ANYBODY OR SAY YOU HAVE FOUND IT."

Yes, I say don't say that you have found it, because if you say that, it simply means you have not found it. But I understand your puzzle. Because I say I have found it, so the problem arises in your mind whether I have found it or not? -- because I say I have found it. Again from the outside it is one thing, from the inside it is another.

I am not saying that I have found it, IT is saying! And there is a great difference. When you say you have found it, you have not found it. When IT says, and you are simply helpless and you cannot do anything about it, IT asserts -- remember, IT, not you -- when your enlightenment says, not you, when your inner light starts declaring itself, what. can you do? Where are you? You are no more there, so you cannot even prevent it. Listen attentively: you cannot declare it, you cannot prevent it from being declared. When I say to you don't say it, I am simply saying wait for when IT says. If you say it, it will be false; then you have not found it. But a day comes when suddenly you find that IT declares inside you. And the difference is so clear. It comes from such an innermost core, and your mind is just on the surface. Your mind becomes an audience -- it simply hears it being declared, it has no part in it. But that is an inner phenomenon. Unless you have experienced it, it will not be possible for you to understand it.

But there are parallel experiences which can be of help. You say to a woman "I love you", and you don't love. You are simply interested in having a night with her, you just want to hop in bed with her. You say "I love you"; you don't mean anything. It is just a way, a mannerism. It is gentlemanly to say it, it is polite to start that way; a little introduction is needed. You cannot just jump into the bed without an introduction... the woman may get angry. She may start calling the police, or the crowd may gather and you may be beaten. You are just persuading her. You say "I love you", but you know it is not coming from the heart. It is just in the head, cerebral.

Then one day you really fall in love with a woman, and the difference is clear, loud. Now the whole heart is saying "I am in love " You are not saying it, the heart is saying it. You are not there at all, you as the mind. The mind is a listener now; the heart says "I am in love."But the difference is such that only you can know when you are formal and when you are true.

If you declare that you have found the truth, then it will be wrong. But if IT declares, then there is no problem. What can you do about it? Even if you want to prevent it, you cannot prevent it.

It happened in the case of Mansoor, one of the greatest Sufis, Al-Hillaj Mansoor. One day, sitting silently before his Master -- his Master was also a great mystic, Junaid -- he simply declared "Ana-el Haqq! I am God! I am Truth!"

The Master said, "Keep quiet! Don't say it. Keep it inside you. You are not supposed to say it. You know perfectly well that we exist in a Mohammedan country, we are Mohammedans. If people come to hear it, they will kill you."

Mansoor kept it for a few seconds, and then declared again, "Ana-el Haqq! I am God!"

The Master said, "Mansoor, have you heard me or not?"

Mansoor said, "I have heard you, but IT declares. Now death or no death, IT declares. I have been trying, Master. I have been trying whatsoever you have said, but IT declares." And those passionate eyes, and that ecstatic energy; and Junaid knew perfectly well that he could not be prevented. So he said, "You had better go for a pilgrimage. Go to Kaaba. But keep it to yourself. Try, contain it! Don't allow it out. There will be danger." He went to Kaaba.

That has been one of the most ancient traditions in the Sufis -- that when somebody comes to declare it, he is sent to Kaaba. The journey cools him, his ecstasy becomes cooler and cooler and cooler. And the impact of Kaaba... because that stone is not just a stone. In fact, no stone is just a stone, and certainly that stone in Kaaba is not just a stone! It is the rarest stone in the world because millions who have known God have kissed it. No other stone like that exists. Millions who have known God have kissed it. That stone has a different vibe, no other stone has that pulsation. So it is an ancient tradition in the Sufis that when somebody declares, he has to go and kiss the stone. By kissing that stone something happens. So many declarations, the whole stone crying and shouting "I am God", that your own small voice is lost -- it cools. Then you know that so many have known; there is nothing to declare. Millions have known, "I am not new, I am not the first one there. I am not a pioneer."

Mansoor was sent, but he could not reach because in the middle he was caught. He was declaring. Even when he was going alone, suddenly it would happen and he would declare. He was caught, brought to the court, was killed.

But even when he was being killed he was declaring. It is not right to say that HE was declaring; IT was declaring through him.

When you have come to know it, if IT declares, good. Sometimes it declares, sometimes it. does not declare. In the case of Junaid it didn't declare, it simply remained there. It depends. Junaid was capable of remaining silent. But with Mansoor it was uncontainable. But one thing has to be remembered: you are not to declare it -- that must be kept in mind, continuously in mind. If you declare, you have done something false, you have committed a sacrilege.

You ask me, "YOU SAY NOT TO CONVERT ANYONE OR SAY YOU HAVE FOUND IT. WHAT ABOUT YOU, OSHO?"

I am crazy. You leave me alone. Do what I tell you to do, don't do what I do. You will have to wait for that moment. That moment will come, and when it comes it is such a liberation. But if you start pretending before it comes, you will be preventing it; then it will never come. It never comes to pretenders.

And you ask, "WHAT ABOUT WANTING MY BELOVED TO BECOME A SANNYASIN?

Prita.... I can understand. When you are enjoying something, something like sannyas, you would like it to be shared by your beloved. Who would not like that? But there is a danger: don't go and become aggressive, otherwise you will do exactly the opposite of what you wanted to do. Nobody wants to be pulled, manipulated. Nobody wants to be dominated -- certainly not men. No man wants to be a follower of his woman; the ego is very strong.

The male ego is very aggressive. That is one of the greatest experiences woman should have learned by now. I know people, couples....

The man had been drinking for thirty years and destroying his health, and knew it. But he could not stop it because the wife had been against it. I told the wife, "You drop fighting. You simply allow him; not only allow him, you do whatsoever he wants. Help him drink. When he comes home, ask him 'Would you like to have some drink?' "

She said, "What are you saying? Thirty years I have tried, and he has not stopped! Now I am to help him to drink?"

I said, "You just try. Maybe it is you who have prevented him. He could have stopped, because I know him. He loves me, he comes to me, and he says to me and he cries; he says, 'I know that this is wrong. I am destroying myself, my family, everything.' "

And the wife said, "I know too that he loves you, because whenever he is too drunk he simply talks like you. But it is too much! In the night at two o'clock he will start delivering a sermon. And for exactly ninety minutes! And he repeats it word for word."

But the wife listened to me and stopped saying to the man.... It was hard for her, because she had also been, for thirty years, in the old habit of nagging. The husband was puzzled. He could not believe that the wife was bringing alcohol for him, serving it. He came to me after one week. He said, "What have you done to my wife? It is strange, but suddenly I am feeling that now the time has come to drop it."

The male ego.... You are against smoking and your husband will smoke. You are against this and he will do that. He has to protect himself. He's so afraid of you -- that if he does not protect, you will eat him, you will absorb him. He's afraid because he knows you have the capacity to absorb him. Once, he had lived in a woman's womb, and he's very afraid. Somehow he has escaped from the clutches of the mother who was saying, "Do this, don't do that. Be like this, don't be like that." Somehow he has escaped. And I say 'somehow' because nobody really ever escapes from the mother, very rarely. When you escape you become enlightened. The mother goes on following, and then you find a wife, and the wife starts mothering you. And he becomes afraid that now again the same thing is beginning, and the wife starts nagging, "Don't do this, do that." And she starts guiding -- about small things, about great things, about everything -- and she does it out of love! That love is not suspected, but one loves one's freedom too.

You ask me, "WHAT ABOUT WANTING MY BELOVED TO BECOME A SANNYASIN?"

Wanting is okay, but keep it inside yourself. Don't you start nagging him, otherwise I will miss one sannyasin! You simply let him be. You be a sannyasin, you enjoy your sannyas, you become more loving, you become more silent, you become more ecstatic, and leave him alone. Never even say a single time, "You also become a sannyasin." Let him think himself. Let him feel you, what has happened to you. Let him see; he has eyes. If you are transformed by becoming a sannyasin, he will start feeling that something has to be done now. If he can see that some flowers are blooming in you, the fragrance will transform him -- not you, but the fragrance. And when the fragrance transforms there is no resistance, because the fragrance comes so invisibly, so silently, so noiselessly. And nobody can resist it because nobody knows when it has entered into their being, remember it.

If you want your beloved to become a sannyasin, you simply let him see what has happened to you. Let him see your dance and celebration. If that transforms him, good, but don't become a Christian missionary. Don't start pounding on him, don't start arguing with him. Don't start manipulating, controlling him, otherwise you will create resistance. And if resistance is created, then it becomes more and more difficult. Even if some day he becomes a sannyasin just because you have been nagging too much and he wants to be free of the nagging and just decides that it is okay -- "Become a sannyasin and keep this woman's mouth shut" -- then he will be just a sannyasin from the outside. He will resist me.

So this has to be remembered not only by Prita but by everybody else: we love, and naturally we want to share, but love has to be alert, aware. And this is the awareness that has to be kept alive: never encroach on anybody's freedom, never encroach on anybody's space. Love, but keep distance. Love, but remain alone and let the other be alone. If you can allow the other freedom to be alone, then your love is aware. If you start encroaching on the other, if you start possessing the other, if you start manipulating and dominating the other, if you start monopolizing the other, directing the other, then you are destroying your love. Your love is unconscious, and unconsciousness is always a poison. Love dies because of unconsciousness.

That's why so many people love, but still love doesn't seem to happen. So many people go on falling in love and falling out of it. Nobody remains there. Why do people fall out of it? -- because of the unconscious, because of the mechanical habits. Avoid that. If your love is deep enough and your joy of sannyas is true, that will do, that will transform him.