Bahuri Na Aiso Daon #2

Chimanbhai Desai! I am opposed to ideologies as such—not only to Gandhian ideology. If one has to go beyond thought, it makes little difference by which “ism” you get entangled. Which thicket of thorns you are caught in is of no use to me; what matters is being free of thorns. All thoughts are no more than thorns: they can entangle, they cannot untangle.

Because I am opposed to ideologies as such, naturally the Gandhian bush is also one such bush. And because it is relatively recent, it traps many—especially the Indian mind, for which it has a special, though pathological, charm. The unconscious reasons behind that charm are startling. First: Gandhian ideology seats the poor man on Mount Kailash. It props up our inferiority complex. Our wounds get covered with flowers. We are poor, and it hurts. Gandhian ideology turns us into “Daridra-Narayan”—God in the poor—but only in words. It’s all a web of words. Calling poverty “holy poverty” changes nothing. If you call cancer “holy cancer,” what changes?

Old Ayurvedic texts call tuberculosis the “royal disease.” What fun is that—TB has come, I’ve got a royal disease; at least in that I’ve become a king! TB will still kill you. Naming it royal is no protection. Yet the mind seeks consolations, and consolations can mislead and delude for centuries.

Poverty is a great malady. Calling the poor “Narayan” hides the malady. Poverty must end, and the poor as poor must disappear. And now there is only one way to end poverty—maximum use of scientific techniques.

I support scientific techniques for the simple reason that your wounds will not heal by any other means. They can be hidden, but hidden wounds are more dangerous than open ones; you forget them, while pus spreads within. A small boil, if concealed and untreated, can turn into a fistula, even cancer.

India’s illness is ancient. For centuries India has been poor. Even in those days when the world called India the golden bird, India was poor. Golden, yes—but for a few. And even today, for a few, it is still golden. Poverty has a built-in mechanism: when ninety-nine out of a hundred are poor, the one remaining gets the golden bird. The pits of the ninety-nine hoist one man to the peak of wealth. Kings existed, maharajas existed, merchant-princes existed; for them life was golden. History and mythology sing their praises, creating the illusion that the whole land was wealthy. It is sheer untruth. This country has never been wealthy as a country. A small class sat on the chest of the whole land and exploited it.

Mahatma Gandhi wanted to bring Ram-rajya back. But if you understand the inner arrangements of that Ram-rajya, they were rotten, diseased. In Ram-rajya humans were sold in markets as slaves. What greater poverty is there than where people are forced to sell themselves? Even today it isn’t so. Who is willing to be sold? Markets for humans were like markets for cattle, with bidding and all. Men were fewer; more often women were sold. A land of sages and saints! A land of chaste Sitas, Parvatis, Draupadis! Women were sold in the bazaar like goods. Bids were called. This Ram-rajya Gandhi wanted to revive! Naturally, I oppose it.

There is no need to go back to the past. Nor can you—time’s clock does not turn backward. But one can concoct pretty tales of the past, weave dreams, and mislead people.

Karl Marx said religion is the opiate. He said it before Gandhi. Had he come after Gandhi, he could have presented Gandhi as proof: look—religion is opium! The whole country is poor, and opium is being fed—“Daridra-Narayan.” For centuries poor, and we fabricate false stories of Ram-rajya and spread the wind that Ram-rajya must return.

In Buddha’s time the population of India was two crores. Today India’s population is approaching seven hundred million. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar) have separated; if you include those, we have crossed one billion. From two crores to a billion—fifty times over! And you talk of spinning wheels? Get some sense. Will you clothe a billion bodies with charkhas? If you clothe them, bellies will be empty. Fill the bellies, and bodies will be naked. Will you farm for a billion with plow and bullock? Where is the land? How much can be produced that way, and what?

We will have to use new technologies. And why such fear of technology? In recent years Russia produced so much wheat that they burned wheat in locomotive furnaces because coal was expensive and wheat cheaper. America and Canada produce enough to feed the world. They collect such seas of milk that they keep distributing milk powder to the world. And look at the condition of your cow-mothers! Even milking them feels like a sin. They’re skin and bone—you’re sucking blood. Their life is drying away—skeletons! Eighteen crore cows—and you drink water in the name of milk. Yet you go on repeating the same foolishness.

Mahatma Gandhi was neither a great thinker nor did he leave a great ideology. Very ordinary things are trumpeted as “Gandhian thought.” In the hands of the blind, anything feels like a great treasure. You have lost the capacity to think. I want to take you beyond thought; you are falling below thought.

Think a little: Gandhi was against the railways and traveled by train all his life! He was against telegraph, telephone, the post office; yet no one sent as many telegrams and letters as he did. He would dictate letters even while sitting on the toilet. He’s on the commode, the secretary outside; he speaks, the secretary writes.

What world are you talking about? Suppose today there were no electricity, no trains, no airplanes, no cars, no telegraph, no telephone, no radio—you would fall into a primitive darkness. Keep spinning your wheel. And look at habitual spinners—they get “chakkar” (dizzy); those who spin too much become “ghanchakkar” (crackpots). Look at Morarji Desai! Spinning made him such a ghanchakkar that he began drinking his own urine. These are your grand Gandhian thinkers.

You ask: “You seem opposed to Gandhian ideology and supportive of modern technique and machinery.”

Certainly I support science. Totally, unreservedly I support science. Because I see only one hope for humankind’s survival now—and that is science.

But the fools in this land invent every kind of argument, never examining how false their logic is.

You say: “But you know that because of technique and machines Western life has become disturbed, tense, and agitated.”

That is not because of technique and machines. The cause is the absence of religion, the absence of meditation.

These Gandhian people are spreading stupidity in this land. Not only they—others are also anti-science. Their single motive for opposing science is that if science is right, then our five thousand years of rishis and sages are exposed as hollow. They deprived us of science. By calling the world “maya,” illusion, they prevented us from understanding it. Your avatars, tirthankaras, your Shankaracharyas—all get caught in this net, because all who said “the world is illusion”—whether Mahavira, Buddha, or Shankaracharya—kept saying “maya,” yet still had to beg for food. If the world is illusion, why beg? Buddha renounced everything but kept a begging bowl. If the world is illusion, whom do you beg from, what for?

A famed physician, Jivaka, constantly accompanied Buddha, a gift from King Bimbisara. If the world is illusion, what medicine? And if the world is illusion, whom are you teaching? This is delicious! If I were to meet Shankaracharya, my first question would be: If all is false, why are you pestering the false?

If you weren’t here at all, my speaking would be insanity. If you are, then speaking has meaning. If you aren’t, I am deranged—no one is here and I’m talking! If the world isn’t, where are people? If all is illusion, whom do you address? It’s rope, but you see a snake. Shankaracharya is beating the rope with a stick while saying, “It’s a rope, not a snake!” Then why beat it? He spent his life refuting maya. Do you need to refute what doesn’t exist? Does anyone write a scripture to prove that donkeys have no horns? Not even donkeys declare, “A donkey’s horns are illusion.” Do we need arguments to prove that sky-flowers don’t exist?

Yet Shankaracharya spent a lifetime proving the world is illusion, and for a thousand years his followers—dandi sadhus and mahatmas—have done a single thing: “The world is illusion.” The result: we were deprived of understanding the world. What is not, why understand it? Why inquire into its secrets? Thus we were deprived of science. Now, being deprived, we seek solace in the claim that science has no substance—the grapes are sour!

“And don’t you see what’s happening in the West? Because of science, life has become disturbed, tense, agitated.”

This is plainly false.

I myself live scientifically. I use the entire apparatus of science. I am neither deranged nor tense. I use whatever science has discovered. I am an ultimate consumer of science. I have no faith in poverty, and I do not call the world illusion. The world is as true as Brahman—perhaps a bit more so, not less. For to know Brahman you must go via the world. Brahman is known through the world. Brahman is hidden in the world. The world is manifest; Brahman is hidden. The world is solid; Brahman is airy, intangible—unseen, but experienced.

I am not deranged. Look at my way of living—utterly scientific. Whatever the best of science has discovered, that I use—only that I use.

The West’s problem is not that science made them mad; their trouble is extremism—just as yours is. You died being Brahman-obsessed; they are dying being world-obsessed. But neither side sees its excess. You rot, starve, are wretched, sick, because you did not use science to create wealth. Your hollow sadhus kept preaching renunciation. If the world is to be renounced, why create wealth? Wealth is dirt, filth of the hand. Drop it, run away—the sooner the wiser!

Curious contradictions abound, yet with eyes open we don’t look keenly. Jain monks renounced the world, yet Jain temples are the richest. Does the contradiction not strike you? The world is maya; gold is dirt—yet Mahavira’s idols are cast in pure gold, not clay. Temple finials are gold, not clay. And the competition between religions—whose temple is richer, whose donation boxes fill more, how much property, how much cash? That becomes the prestige. And these are the people who preach wealth is nothing, only a dream. What are you entangled in?

These scriptures—Jain, Buddhist, Hindu—abuse wealth and praise charity. Sometimes I’m startled: when will intelligence arise in us? If wealth is false, what remains in gift? They preach, “Wealth has no substance,” yet say, “Charity brings great merit!” You will earn merit from gifting the insubstantial? Whom are you fooling? But such poison, such opium has been fed for centuries that people don’t see the contradiction.

A woman said to her neighbor, “Why did you hit my son?”
The neighbor said, “He called me a fat buffalo.”
The first woman said, “Sister, instead of hitting my son, you should reduce your intake. The boy wasn’t wrong.”

Children see straight. Perhaps she was a Tun Tun!

I’ve heard: Tun Tun was traveling in a bus. On one side sat Amitabh Bachchan, on the other Vinod Khanna. Vinod, being my sannyasin, tolerated for a while. But tolerance is not a sadhana of my sannyasins. Finally he said, “Sister, why are you elbowing me?”
Tun Tun said, “Limit it is! I’m elbowing you? Is breathing a crime?”

Sit next to Tun Tun—when she breathes, elbows will hit. The tide is coming; waves will hit!

Instead of seeing your own foolishness… Chimanbhai Desai is from Porbandar. So, it seems, he is hurt. Porbandar—the birthplace of Gandhi! And I oppose Gandhian ideology—he must be restless. Open your eyes a little.

Do one thing. Since you are in Porbandar, apply Monkey-Brand black tooth powder as kohl in your eyes. And rub the old woman’s kohl on your teeth, because the stronger the teeth, the stronger the eyes! So rub the old woman’s kohl on the teeth, and Monkey-Brand black tooth powder into the eyes! This Monkey-Brand powder must have been first invented by Lord Hanuman—he anointed his eyes with it. Let me give you this secret: don’t keep rubbing on the teeth; apply it in the eyes! Only then could he, when sent for the sanjeevani herb, see the entire mountain covered with sanjeevani, and so he brought the mountain itself. Eyes become so keen they see every herb as sanjeevani.

Open your eyes a little. Use a little intelligence.

The West is not going mad because science gave it unprecedented affluence. It is going mad because science amassed means while meditation did not arise. When a sword falls into a child’s hand, is it the sword’s fault? A sword can kill and can save. In a child’s hand it is danger—he will either hurt someone or himself—blood will flow. Don’t abuse the sword; make the child mature.

The West is engaged in that attempt. People ask me, “Why do so many come to you from the West, and why so few Indians?”

What will Indians do? They are busy putting monkey-brand tooth powder in the eyes and the old woman’s kohl on their teeth—and spinning the wheel. Where’s the leisure for meditation? In the West a fierce revolution has arisen—a storm of attraction to meditation, a powerful longing. Thoughtful Westerners see clearly that science alone gives us means, but who will use the means? The subtler the means, the subtler the consciousness required. The more complex the means, the calmer the consciousness needed. Otherwise, the complexity of means imprints complexity on consciousness. If a mountain of wealth piles up while within you remain childish impulses, what will you do? There will be danger: whoring, drinking, gambling—something perverse. But if there is meditation within, wealth can be put to wondrous use.

I am not anti-wealth, nor anti-meditation. In a meditator’s hands, wealth becomes uniquely useful; and when the wealthy receive meditation, meditation ripens with ease.

The poor cannot meditate; what has not been mastered outside—wealth—how will the inner be mastered? And if somehow the inner is forced, outer obstructions keep intruding—hunger, disease, lack of shelter, rain, cold. Then we invent insanities: “Discard clothes, be naked, practice austerity. If there are no clothes, smear ash.” Instead of finding clothes, we teach ash-smearing.

Ash-smearing is only a substitute for clothing, but unscientific. When someone rubs ash on the body, do you know the scientific meaning? The pores of all the hairs are clogged with ash. Air enters the body through every hair. You do not breathe only through the nose. You cannot live well on nose-breathing alone.

Scientists say if all your skin pores were sealed by a coat of tar—leaving nose and mouth open—you would die within three hours. Your nose breathes, yes; but every cell needs breath. You have about seven hundred million living cells; they need respiration.

Smear ash and sit in the cold—you think it is tapasya? We sit clothed and under quilts, still shiver; and that man sits in the cold—you think, “Ah, what an ascetic!” It’s no tapasya; he has blocked the pores, air doesn’t enter, so he doesn’t feel cold.

In the heat, people light braziers around themselves; we call it tapasya. Not so. Each cell secretes sweat to save you from heat. It’s your natural air-conditioning. When sweat beads appear, they evaporate using your body’s heat—cooling you. But when someone sits with braziers, the moisture in the cells dries; they become almost dead. Within those deadened layers, heat or cold hardly penetrates. He has numbed his skin, killed it—lost one-fifth of life, for the skin is your fifth sense.

Every pore should be alive. Science has created all facilities. For centuries your sadhus went to the Himalayas for peace, silence, coolness. For that coolness and silence they went there. Today science can provide a sound-proof, air-conditioned chamber in your home. Every home should have one—a temple. Why go so far, when the Himalaya can be brought home? And how many can go to the Himalayas anyway? Suppose all set out…!

The great Western thinker Immanuel Kant said: Count only that rule as ethical which, if everyone adopted it, could still be fulfilled. Do not call that ethical which only a few can do while the rest carry on as before. Until everyone could follow it without harm, it is not ethics but an exception. This was his test of morality. He did not count celibacy as moral; nor do I. Because if everyone became celibate, the result would be collective suicide of the human race. Suicide of mankind cannot be moral.

So there is some immorality in celibacy. If a few practice it, it isn’t obvious; a few change little. Kant himself never married; I have not married. But I cannot make it a moral rule. It is my whim, my way. I choose to live as an exception. But I cannot impose it on all: “Be celibate!” Man’s ego, however, loves to impose what it does on everyone else. And because of such egotists many foolish demands have been thrust upon you.

I agree with Kant. This means the old idea of sannyas is not moral. If all became sannyasins, what would happen? Who would give them alms, food, clothes? How would they live? If a few become sannyasins among millions, it goes unnoticed—fine, life goes on.

Only that is moral which all can adopt without life being harmed.

Gandhi’s ideology is wholly immoral: if all lived by it, India’s population would fall back to two crores; eight hundred million would have to die. Though he called himself nonviolent, he would carry the responsibility for the greatest violence in history—far beyond Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah—beyond all of them combined. If you followed Gandhi comprehensively, at most two crores would survive—in the barest manner of living. Eight hundred million would die. They are dying even now—rotting, crawling, dragging. Yet our stupidity repeats its arguments and seeks “solutions” whose foolishness is obvious, but blind eyes cannot see.

A patient went to a doctor.
Doctor: What’s your problem?
Patient: For an hour after getting up in the morning my head spins.
Doctor: Simple! Get up an hour later.

What a neat trick! But the stupidity—he will still get dizzy after getting up, whether after one hour or two.

The West is agitated, certainly—but not because of science; because of lack of religion. You, too, are agitated—but because of lack of science.

I want a humanity in which religion and science are united. Science is religion on the outside; religion is science on the inside. There is no need to maintain conflict between them. Gandhian ideology fosters a conflict. Gandhi speaks of “synthesis,” but whether he understood synthesis is doubtful. Synthesis can mean only this: wherever things appear opposed, we find a bridge—the bridge between body and soul, earth and sky, West and East. “Allah-Ishwar tere naam” is not synthesis; the Allah-believer is as stupid as the Ishwar-believer—no bridge is needed between two stupidities. They are already alike—backs to each other, but both utterly foolish.

Real synthesis must be between science and religion. The day that happens, man will appear on earth in his full dignity, glory, majesty, and beauty.

But Chimanbhai Desai says, “The West stands on the brink of collective madness.”

Certainly. And where do you stand? On the brink of collective suicide. If forced to choose between the two, I would still say: choose the West. If those are the only options, better to go mad while enjoying every comfort than to die hungry, rotting, begging—calling that “life.”

When Mulla Nasruddin’s father was dying, he called his son: “Son, one last lesson. The distilled essence of my life: money cannot buy happiness.”
Mulla said, “Father, I take your word that money can’t buy happiness. But permit me one submission—since we may never meet again: at least money can buy the misery of your choice!”

Think carefully. Mulla spoke to the point—your choice of misery. If money can’t buy happiness, neither can poverty. So drop that point. But money can at least buy the sorrow you like. Isn’t that something? You’ll be unhappy in a hut or in a palace—then why not be unhappy in a palace? At least enjoy the palace; suffering will be there anyway. If you will be unhappy in a desert or in a garden, better be unhappy in the garden—at least the cuckoo will call, the papihas will sing, flowers will bloom, some fragrance may drift by, a peacock may dance!

I tell you: if only East and West were the options, choose the West, not the East. But synthesis is possible—so the question of choosing doesn’t arise. That is what I am attempting. Hence both East and West will be angry with me. Many millions will be upset—ironically, I work for their sake. But that is the charm of this work: those for whom you labor will abuse you. The East will abuse me for destroying the East, drowning its culture and religion—because the East’s religion and culture can survive only in poverty; once poverty goes, the structure collapses. That’s why you see: when a man gets rich, he honors your culture only formally; otherwise he goes to Paris to have fun.

I’ve heard: in heaven one day Jesus’ father Joseph and his mother Mary were chatting. What is there to do in heaven—gossip! Mary said, “Joseph, sometimes I feel like going down—it’s been two thousand years—to see how our son’s followers are. They say there are millions now. Those rascals crucified him then; now they worship—churches are built, priests and monks by the millions. I’d like to go once and see.”
Joseph said, “Go by all means. Call me every evening on the phone with updates.”
So Mary came to Earth. Each evening she’d call—Jerusalem first, then Rome, the Vatican—reports came: prayers in churches, monks and nuns, monasteries—Jesus’ ideas have spread. But every day the tone of her voice changed. Joseph would ask, “When are you returning?” “I’ll come, what’s the hurry? What is there to do in heaven?” Then five or seven days passed with no calls. Joseph grew anxious. He told Saint Peter, “Find out what’s happened.” On the seventh day the phone rang. She used to say, “O most revered husband, my Lord, my beloved.” Now—even over the long-distance line—you could smell wine. She’d had a solid drink. And she said, “Dear Jo-Jo!”
Joseph was shocked—“Jo-Jo!” She’d never used such words. “For seven days you gave no news?”
Mary said, “Jo-Jo, there was no time to call. I’m in Paris. What fun! What revelry! I say, you should come too. How long will you sit there aging? Listen to me—come! Enjoy a bit.”
Joseph could smell the wine, hear the intoxication. He asked, “Mary, what’s happened to you?”
She said, “My name here isn’t Mary, it’s Mimi. This is Paris. And I tell you I’ve no intention of returning. I’ve seen your heaven.”

Man has almost arranged heaven on earth. Only one lack remains: within there is a sense of meaninglessness, a hollowness. Meditation will fill it. Add meditation to science, and what has never happened on earth will happen. Then heaven needn’t be kept in the sky; we can build it here. We put it in the sky only because we failed to create it here.

The West is capable of building heaven; the East has the science of meditation. A trade is possible; neither will lose—both will gain.

You ask, “Then why do you blindly support it?”

Is it my blind support—or your blind opposition? I support what I see. But you do not see. How much do you know of the West? I have so many Western people around me, and I see in them a quality the Eastern man lacks: whatever they do, they do with total dedication—complete craftsmanship, skill, scientific precision, intelligence. The Eastern man in front of them appears lazy, slack, slothful—good-for-nothing.

People ask me here, “Why have you put Westerners in charge of so many tasks?”
What to do? You’ll be surprised: even work you’d think only an Indian could do—like designing covers for Hindi books—is being done better by Westerners. English covers, fine; but Hindi? Yet the beauty with which Westerners do it, Easterners don’t. We had to remove Easterners even from that. They write Hindi now; the new covers you see—the script is by Westerners. They have a certain grasp—a scientific sensibility.

I see something else: turn this sensibility inward and it becomes meditation. The Eastern man is so broken—after calling everything “maya,” after renouncing again and again—his limbs are broken. He can’t do anything. And what he can’t do he calls bhav-bhajan. He cannot even do that! Absolutely slothful. Yes, give him a spinning wheel—he’ll spin. Is there any skill in spinning? Old grannies have done it forever. When they can no longer do anything else, villagers give grannies a spinning wheel. That’s India’s condition. Nothing else can be done—so give them a charkha. Do you think the charkha is Gandhi’s invention? It’s ancient—grannies have always spun it. For centuries we’ve told children the granny on the moon spins a wheel. Why a granny? Because only she spins. Now you would have even the capable ones spin—and to what end?

Gandhi’s ways are absurd. In this country, the more absurd the method, the more applause. A mosquito net isn’t some great scientific device, yet Gandhi wouldn’t use one; instead he’d smear kerosene on his face and sleep. A person may abandon intelligence, but still keeps some accounts. Yet this gets applause! Books praise his “renunciation”—no mosquito net, kerosene on the face! Kerosene is harder to get than a net. A net is no luxury. But smear kerosene and spoil your skin; mosquitoes won’t come near—well, even mosquitoes won’t approach! And the mahatma sits daubed in kerosene.

Just look at these absurdities. But once you label someone “mahatma,” how can he be absurd! If I call your mahatma absurd, I become your enemy—what can I do if your mahatma behaves absurdly?

A son said, “Mom, give me a quarter.”
“Why?”
“The teacher fined me a quarter for being late to school.”
Mother: “You’re following your father’s path—wherever he goes, he gets ‘late.’ Why did you need to lie down?”
She heard “late” and assumed “to lay down.” The boy said he was late to school, so the teacher fined him—she took it otherwise.

Mulla Nasruddin’s son Fazlu’s progress report came: “Your son is quite bright, but he spends most of his time chasing and teasing the girls. I’m trying to find a way to break this habit.” Fazlu’s mother wrote back: “We received the report. I hope in the near future you will succeed in breaking my son’s habit. P.S. If you do find a method, please let me know so I can try it on Fazlu’s father, Mulla Nasruddin.”

Our own preconceptions—through them we see, think, and spin in circles. You are poor; instead of ending poverty, you seek some justification for it. If in the West some people go mad or commit suicide, your heart is secretly pleased—“Ah, how blessed we are! In our poverty there’s no need to go mad or commit suicide.”

But remember—even to go mad requires a bit of talent. Have you ever seen a dunce go mad? Madness needs a sharpness. So, seeing someone go mad, the dullard must be happy: “We are blessed indeed! Surely in past lives we did great merit; that’s why God made us dull. Otherwise look what happens to the talented!”

Among the world’s greatest talents, many went mad. Why? There is risk at the heights—when you touch peaks, there’s fear of falling. Friedrich Nietzsche died insane. But if I had to choose between being Chimanbhai Desai of Porbandar and being Nietzsche, I’d choose Nietzsche. Between Gandhi and Nietzsche, I’d choose Nietzsche. Better to die mad than to smear kerosene on my face. Nietzsche went mad from the heights of genius. He could have been saved—had he found the art of meditation, he would have become a Buddha.

Nietzsche had the same potential as Buddha. I have examined both with care. The same insight, the same edge, brilliance, fire—perhaps a bit more. He lacked only a way within. His talent could not be satisfied by the outer; the outer soon seemed futile, and he knew no inner path. In that dilemma he went mad. But that madness is fortunate; in his next life Nietzsche will become a Buddha. Gandhi may take many births—perhaps even after eighty-four lakh wombs, if he becomes a Buddha, it would be a miracle. If you keep spinning and spinning, what will you become but a spinning wheel?

Vincent van Gogh committed suicide—the greatest painter of the West in two centuries. Why? Because what he wished to paint of the outer, he finished. He spent a year on a single painting—the sunrise—his lifelong longing: to paint a sunrise like none before. When it was done, he shot himself. A year he was mad with sun—studying all its phases, twenty-four hours. Watch the sun with open eyes in Arles, where it blazes strongest—your head will start to ring. But he made the painting. The day it was complete, he wrote to his brother: “My work is done; there is nothing more to paint,” and shot himself. Had he known meditation, a new world of painting would have opened with no end.

The outer has limits; the inner has none. If I must choose between spinning the wheel and painting like Van Gogh, I will choose Van Gogh—even if I go mad for a year, even if in the end I have to take my life. There is dignity even in such a suicide, a declaration of genius even in such madness.

Do not be hasty to pass judgment on the West; try to understand. Do not hide your wretchedness; there is cunning in that.

Mulla Nasruddin asked Chandulal, “Brother, your bicycle shop is booming! You never get a breath from fixing punctures—till midnight!”
Chandulal said, “There’s a secret. My boy roams around pricking tires. I pay him ten paise per puncture; I charge twenty-five to fix each. Cash business. He earns roaming all day—no more school. He punctures, I repair. He collects his ten, I collect my twenty-five. Both of us are happy—father and son in partnership.”

Your priests and pundits don’t want you prosperous. Your gurus don’t want you prosperous. Your vested interests don’t want you to have intelligence, talent, dignity, individuality. If that arises, will you accept such fools as leaders? Could Morarji Desai get a single vote if people had a little talent? But people don’t—so in villages they prop up a scarecrow: a stick with a pot for a head, an old khadi kurta, a Gandhi cap, churidar pajama…even that would win elections: “pure khadi-clad!” Put a charkha by his side, a flag in his hand—what more is needed? What else is there in Morarji? Good to stand in a field to scare birds. I suspect even birds wouldn’t be scared—“Oh, it’s Morarji—let him stand!” Flies sit on his face; first shoo them, then speak of scaring birds!

Your politicians are happy that you remain as you are. Wherever they have made the mistake of changing you, they have suffered.

Recently Iran’s Shah died. His only “crime” was to educate and enrich Iran, to make it a world power. He paid for this sin.

Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was told in 1930 by a team of scientists: if Ethiopians could get clean drinking water, diseases would fall and life span increase. They drink filthy puddle water. Selassie laughed: “Keep your knowledge. I don’t want the people to change even a bit, because any change will ultimately affect me.”

He spoke a profound truth—old but shrewd. “Let them die if they must. If they die early, no harm. If they are sick, no harm. But I want no social revolution or scientific method here.”

The Shah made that mistake. He should have sat at Selassie’s feet. The very students he educated became his assassins. The revolution in Iran began with students. He sent students all over the world, spent billions on education so they would be educated. With education, horns sprout—thinking begins. Then they ask for democracy; “this dictatorship won’t do!”

This is a strange world. Politicians’ interest is that you remain poor, uneducated, dull. The duller you are, the stronger they are. Look at their faces—one worse than another. Not two pennies’ worth of intelligence among them. Not just Morarji Desai—Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram—none behind the other! Their foundation is your stupidity. They don’t want you prosperous or thoughtful. There’s danger in that. And your pundits, mahants, saints, mahatmas—all depend on the dogma that “the world is suffering.” How can they allow the world to become blissful? Their ground would vanish. How will they preach liberation from birth and death? People would say, “Maharaj, you get liberated—we are fine. Why should we get out of the cycle? We want to return again and again.”

Rabindranath prayed: “O Lord, your world is so lovely—your flowers, butterflies, rainbows, sun, moon, stars—how can I ask for liberation from the wheel? I pray only this: send me again and again into this world—endlessly.”

Your sadhus can’t agree with Rabindranath. I say: Rabindranath is a seer; your saints are donkeys. He speaks to the point. The world…today the moon and stars are beautiful because you couldn’t spoil them; rainbows too—you can’t sectarianize them. The earth you have ruined. If the earth becomes natural again, if the mahants’ enclosures are broken, prisons dissolved, science brings outer prosperity and religion—no Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist—just religion: esa dhammo sanantano—the eternal law by which one enters one’s own soul and becomes centered. If you taste that, why seek liberation from the cycle? Why?

But what of your priests then? They live off your misery. Their very trade is wrong; in their trade is conspiracy.

One night a group drank heavily in a bar—danced, drank, revelled. When they left at midnight, the owner said to his wife, “If such customers came every day, our attic would be built in no time.” The man paying laughed: “We’ll come morning, noon, and night. Just pray that our business runs well.”
The owner said, “We’ll certainly pray that God prospers your business. But tell me—what is your business?”
The man said, “Better not ask. Just pray it goes well.”
The owner grew suspicious. “Still—tell me so I can pray meaningfully.”
“My business…what to say! I sell firewood at the cremation ground. The more people die, the better my business. So pray my business runs—people should die daily. The cholera in the village is why today we had such fun. If cholera continues, we’ll revel every day!”

There are trades that depend on your cholera, your malaria, your sickness. Your priests have similar trades.

The cause of the opposition I face is simply this: If I am true, then your priests are false. The conflict is big—not the old petty Hindu vs Muslim, Christian vs Hindu, Jain vs Buddhist, Sikh vs Buddhist. My conflict is such that if I am right, then the whole apparatus of Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh gurus is wrong. If I am right, the life-basis of all your saints and mahants is threatened. So it is not easy for them to let me live.

Hurry. If you would understand me, understand quickly. Do not postpone to tomorrow; tomorrow is uncertain. All these saints and politicians will want to finish me. It is natural. I see nothing unnatural in it. The straightforward reason is: I speak the art of creating heaven on earth. Gandhi cannot agree; he too hopes for heaven above—Vaikuntha after death.

I want to bring Vaikuntha here. Enough of this nonsense about after death. We are alive now. If we cannot be in heaven while alive, how will we be in heaven after death?

I tell you: learn to be in heaven now. If there is a heaven afterward, at least you’ll have some knack for it.

Kahlil Gibran said well—I agree with him. “O priest, do not stop me from drinking wine, for you yourself have written that in heaven streams of wine flow. Let me drink a little, so I develop a habit. Otherwise, how will I drink there all at once? Let me practice a bit here. What logic is this—that here it is haram, there halal! The drinking is the same, the drinkers the same, the giver the same. Here haram, there halal—what philosophy is this?”

I tell my sannyasins: drink here, live here! Live to the full; drink to the full—savor every moment, for God is rasa—pure essence of joy. Then, if there is something beyond, you will be ahead in the line—because you’ll know how to drink, how to live. Your saints will not be able to drink there either—they will stand stiff, swatting flies—no courage to live.

Now think: if the chief of the Swaminarayan sect—the Pramukh Maharaj—goes to heaven, and Urvashi appears, what will he do? He will have to veil himself; Urvashi doesn’t veil—scriptures say nowhere that apsaras veil. He will have to walk veiled like Marwari women peeping through two fingers—“Is that a man or a woman?”

Recently his parade in London was on an elephant. Someone asked me, “You called mahants donkeys; why was his parade on an elephant, not on a donkey?” Because if you seat a donkey on a donkey, how will people know who is who? Seat a donkey on an elephant and he stands out. Put a donkey on a donkey, and people will ask, “Which one is the Swami? Whom shall we bow to?” Hence the elephant.

But these men who do not look at women will be in deep trouble with apsaras. Menaka will pass—and their soul will depart; Urvashi passes—another heart attack. They’ll have to be kept in heaven’s emergency ward—if there is one—with nurses—and that will create fresh complications.

I am teaching you the art of living. Gandhi’s vision is not worthy of being called a vision, nor his ideology an ideology. He was a political figure—nothing more. He never knew meditation or samadhi. He spent his life on futile occupations—but with stubbornness. Stubbornness is highly honored here; we call the stubborn “hatha-yogis.” Do any stubborn thing and you’ll get disciples. Gandhi nourished that tradition, so he found many. His language resonated because it was yours.

A daughter told her father, “Papa, I am in love. Marry me to this boy. I will marry only him; I will live only for him, or I’ll die.”
Father: “Child, be patient. Before marriage, find out what work the boy does, how much property he has.”
Daughter: “Oh Papa, you’ll like him. He is asking exactly the same questions about you.”

The same language. The boy asks, “What’s the father’s status, the property?” The father asks the same of the boy. The language here has stood still for five thousand years—stagnant pools where we rot; the river has long gone. I want to make rivers flow again; naturally you resist. My words sting, disturb, anger—then, in rage, you say things you haven’t thought.

You say: “Then why do you blindly support it?”

In my life I have never blindly supported or blindly opposed anything. Even if I wanted to, I could not—because meditation is the eye, and beyond meditation there is no other eye. Samadhi is the ultimate vision. Once samadhi happens, no blindness remains in your life—none can remain.

Krishna Shobhana! It’s good you have come bathed and washed. But understand what bathing and washing mean—because you might not. Krishna Shobhana is speaking a bit in the sadhukkadi idiom; she’s saying something fine and subtle.

I certainly gave Krishna Shobhana as much love as I have given very few. But it often happens that when love is had for free, we fail to understand its meaning, we fail to feel its value. That is what happened in Krishna Shobhana’s life. In this country I don’t know how many people I have loved—loved unconditionally! And over and over I experienced that the more love you give people, the more unable they become to understand it. Because in my love there is no condition, no demand; they don’t have to pay a price, they don’t even have to prove any worthiness. I give because I am full of love. The question of their worthiness or unworthiness simply doesn’t arise. I give because I have; I give because by giving it grows. But then I began to see that they were not able to receive it. They could not take it in. Or slowly, slowly they became accustomed—as if this is just my nature. They became deprived of the sense of value. They could not gauge the worth. They could not enthrone that love in their hearts. Then I was compelled to withdraw my hands. I had to start breaking away from people. Only then did understanding begin to dawn.

People are strange. Only when things are lost do they understand. What keeps coming, they simply accept as a right. When it is gone, then they weep, then they repent. So it happened with Krishna Shobhana—she repented and cried. While love was being showered, she even reached the point of dropping sannyas. Because love was coming anyway, even sannyas had no value for her. But now I have pulled back my hands. Now I am taking each step very thoughtfully—not because I have become miserly, but because this is the only way I can fill your heart with bliss; there is no other way. Otherwise you will miss—I will keep raining, and your pots will remain turned upside down. Now it has become difficult to meet me. Now I hardly meet anyone. I have stopped talking too. Thus, slowly, I am withdrawing myself. Soon I will stop speaking as well. Only then will you understand. The more I move away, only then will it dawn on you: Oh, how much was being given, and we did not receive!

And this has not happened only with Krishna Shobhana; it has happened with many. Just now Swami Anand has come back. A few days ago he had left sannyas. He left with such stiff pride, as if he had gained something. Now he has returned, and shame is lowering his eyes. But re-entry is not that easy now. Now a price will have to be paid. When he went, he thought, What’s the big deal? I’ll come back again; I’ll take sannyas again. Is there any difficulty in sannyas?

The first time, I give sannyas very simply. The second time, it becomes difficult. The second time, I become hard. I am not hard by nature, so I have to make an effort to be so. He went off with U.G. Krishnamurti; not only did he go, he was persuading others too. There were a few other fools here who got excited along with Anand. He misled Kiran, he misled Chaitanya Bharati, and it was Anand who was busy misleading and entangling Himmatbhai too. But now some sense has come. Now the point is understood: Anand, you are Anand—not Parveen Babi! U.G. Krishnamurti took Parveen Babi and vanished. Now Anand sits thinking that just as he disappeared with Parveen Babi, he will disappear taking him along too. Now a little wisdom has dawned.

Himmatbhai ran back earlier. I always count Himmatbhai among the “doodh ki duhaniya.” This is a word from my village; you may not know its meaning. In my village, when children play games, very small kids also come saying, “We’ll play too.” And in between they create a fuss, jump about, push in here and there, and spoil the game. So there is a custom in my village: the older kids say, “All right, play.” But they announce to everyone: “This one is a doodh ki duhaniya.” Doodh ki duhaniya means: don’t assign any value to him; let him jump and prance, but don’t take him seriously—he is not really part of the game. He won’t listen, won’t go away; he’ll cry and shout, bring his parents and create a scene. So let him live under the illusion that he too is part of the game—but don’t take him seriously; the game does not depend on him. They call such a one doodh ki duhaniya. Like milk teeth—soft, of no real value, bound to fall out—these are not real teeth: a fake player, a childish player.

Himmatbhai’s worth is only that of a doodh ki duhaniya. He has come and gone many times; I don’t even count him. When he wants to come, he comes; when he wants to go, he goes. He will keep coming and going, he will keep wasting time. Still, I was surprised—he may be a doodh ki duhaniya, but he returned quickly. But Anand sat stiff in his ego. Now he has come. Now it is clear to him that he is not Parveen Babi. But it won’t be easy now, Anand. I won’t take you back just like that. Think of the antics you pulled when you left. And think of the other innocents you were inciting. Ask forgiveness from them. And whomever you went and told upside-down things, ask pardon from them—that you were wrong and speaking foolishly. Then you will get readmission.

Likewise, Shobhana too had left. Now she says, “Bhagwan, I have bathed and washed and come.” She’s saying she has washed away all that rubbish. “I received so much of your loving...” But this recognition, Shobhana, has come to you now, not then! Had it come then, who knows where you would be today. Still, better late than never—the one who loses his way in the morning and returns home by evening is not truly lost.

Now you say: “Now let me have a little to drink as well.”

I poured so much then, but you didn’t even part your lips. I am still willing to pour, but now you will have to gather the receptivity to drink. Then I did not even ask whether you were worthy or unworthy. Now, by your prayer alone I cannot make you “drunk.” Now only when prayer is joined with worthiness can the intoxication happen. I am becoming strict now, and I must become strict. But it is good you have bathed and washed. Make sure it is not only a saying—see that you have truly bathed and washed.

A child asked his father, “Father, we are playing cops-and-robbers and I am the detective. Tell me some trick so no one can recognize me.” “Son,” the father said, “wash your face with soap; then no one will recognize you.”

So I think you must have washed your face thoroughly with soap. Drop the old identity. Drop the old identifications. Then the drinking will happen too.

A drunk was telling his friends, “These days faces really deceive. Once a gentleman actually took me to be Vinod Khanna.”
Another said, “That’s nothing. A gentleman mistook me for Morarji Desai. I was drinking liquor; he thought I was drinking urine.”
The third said, “Oh, leave it—that’s nothing. When I went to jail the fifth time, the jailer said, ‘Good Lord, so you’re back again!’”

The drinking will happen too—don’t be nervous at all. But now gather worthiness. Now it cannot happen for free.

That’s all for today.