Jeevan Sangeet #8

This is a very important question, and it will be useful to understand it.

First, the soul is certainly beyond all pleasure and pain, all peace and unrest, all likes and dislikes—in essence, beyond all dualities and opposites. The soul is neither restless nor peaceful, because only that can be peaceful which can also be restless. It is the mind that becomes peaceful and the mind that becomes restless. Properly understood, the very existence of mind is unrest; the disappearance of mind is peace. But the soul is, in itself, never peaceful and never restless; neither in happiness nor in sorrow. The soul abides in a third state altogether, which is called bliss.

Bliss means: where there is neither sorrow nor pleasure. Bliss does not mean pleasure. Sorrow is a tension, and pleasure too is a tension. One can die from sorrow; one can also die from happiness. Sorrow brings anxiety, and happiness also becomes anxiety. Sorrow is an excitation; pleasure is also an excitation. The soul is free of excitation—there is neither the excitation of pleasure nor of pain there.

We know that sorrow torments. In countries like India, where there is poverty, starvation, hunger—suffering of every kind—people are extremely tense. But in countries like America, where everything is available—comforts, conveniences, wealth, property, abundance, affluence—people are tense there as well. Poor countries are full of tension; rich countries are full of tension! What does this mean? It means sorrow is one kind of tension and pleasure is another kind of tension.

The poor man is afflicted, and the rich man too! Their afflictions differ. Someone may suffer from hunger; someone else may suffer from overeating.

The soul accepts neither this tension nor that tension. The soul is tension-free—utter freedom from tension; there is no tension there.

I have heard: a man won a lottery of one hundred thousand rupees. His wife heard the news on the radio. She panicked—“If my husband hears that a full one lakh rupees has come at once, such happiness might shock him to death!” For he had never, in his life, even had ten rupees together at one time. Frightened, she went to the priest of the church next door, the church she attended. From that priest she had always heard that there is no real worth in money—only talk of knowledge and peace. She said, “I’m in trouble. A lottery of one lakh rupees has opened in my husband’s name. I fear that such a blow of happiness might be dangerous for him. Please do something so the shock doesn’t hit him.”

The priest said, “Don’t worry, I’ll come. I’ll reveal the news to your husband gradually.”

He arrived and said, “I’ve heard something—twenty-five thousand rupees have come to you in the lottery!” He thought, let him absorb a shock of twenty-five thousand first, then I’ll tell him another twenty-five, and then another twenty-five.

The man said, “Twenty-five thousand! If twenty-five thousand have come to me, I’ll give twelve and a half thousand to you.”

The priest dropped dead on the spot—heart failure. Twelve and a half thousand! The jolt of happiness did him in.

That’s the trouble—priests and monks keep advising others; it’s a great convenience. Let the misfortune fall on them, then they will know what it is that they’ve been preaching!

Happiness too has a blow, a wound. Sorrow too has a blow, a wound. And that is why it happens that if the blows of sorrow keep coming, a person becomes willing even for sorrow’s blows. He gets used to them, becomes habitual. Then the blow of sorrow no longer lands in the same way. His capacity to bear that degree of tension develops. So if one remains long in the same sorrow, that sorrow ceases to be sorrow. The reverse is also true. When the blow of happiness strikes for the first time, one feels something has happened. But if the same blow keeps striking every day, then one stops noticing. One becomes habituated to happiness as well, and then even in it one does not find happiness. One who lives continuously in sorrow no longer finds sorrow; one who lives continuously in happiness no longer finds happiness. When tension becomes a habit, the sting, the wound of tension dissolves.

I have heard: a fisherman came to the capital to sell fish. He sold his fish. On his way back he thought, “Let me see the capital.” He wandered into a street where there were perfume shops—shops of fragrances. The whole world’s fragrances were sold in that capital. The fisherman knew only one kind of “fragrance”—that of fish. He knew and recognized no other; even fish smelled fragrant to him.

As he entered the bazaar of perfumes, he held a handkerchief to his nose. “What mad people are these! What a stench they’ve spread!” The deeper he went, the more his life began to flounder. Unfamiliar fragrances pierced his being, struck him hard. At last he panicked and ran. But the more he ran—the larger stores lay within. How was he to know? Thinking he would get out of the market, he reached its very center, where those shops stood from which emperors bought their perfumes. There, from the assault of aromas, he fainted and fell. The shopkeepers rushed over. They knew that when a person faints, a sharp fragrance can revive him.

So they opened their safes and brought out perfumes that even emperors could not easily obtain, thinking this poor man would come to. They held those fragrances to his nose. In his faint, he thrashed his arms and legs, banged his head. His very life seemed to be ebbing.

A crowd gathered. A man who had once been a fisherman himself said, “Friends, you’ll kill him. You think you’re serving him! You’re his murderers! Often ‘helpers’ turn out to be killers—just give them the chance! Move aside—you’ll take his life! As I understand it, it’s your perfumes that have made him unconscious.”

The perfumers said, “You’re crazy. Have you ever heard of anyone fainting from fragrance? From stench, yes—but from fragrance?”

The ex-fisherman said, “You don’t know—there are such ‘fragrances’ that you would call stench, and such stenches that someone might call fragrance. It’s only a matter of habit.”

He pushed the people back. The fisherman lay fallen; his basket lay fallen; his cloth lay there—dirty cloth, dirty basket in which he had brought fish to sell. They still reeked of fish. The ex-fisherman sprinkled water and put that filthy cloth and basket to the unconscious man’s nose. The man drew a deep breath, as though life had returned! He opened his eyes and said, “This is real perfume! These wretches were about to kill me!”

What had happened to that man?

If you become habituated to stench, it becomes fragrance. That is why the bhangis and chamars were not exactly rebelling to be free of their condition. They would never have, for they had become habituated to it. How long have shudras existed in India? For thousands of years India has behaved with extreme wickedness toward millions, while remaining religious in its own eyes! Proclaiming itself a holy land! And yet to millions it has meted out such mistreatment as has never occurred anywhere on earth, ever! But the shudras did not rebel.

Why? Because the shudras had become habituated. That very suffering had become part of their habit. When rebellion came, it came from those households that were not shudra. Because they could see: a man carrying human excreta from morning till evening! They felt the pain; for if they had to carry excreta all day, it would be beyond imagination. They would prefer death to carrying excreta.

But the one carrying it knows nothing of this. Therefore rebellion did not arise from within the shudras. When it came, it came from the sons of Brahmins, Vaishyas, and Kshatriyas. They felt the anguish that this should not be so.

You will be surprised to know that the poor and the oppressed seldom, if ever, revolt. The question of revolt hardly arises. They become habituated to their suffering. In India there is so much poverty, and yet nothing pricks us. An American comes and, seeing it, cannot understand why people are sitting quietly. Such poverty is unbearable! He sees it because he is not habituated to it. Habit makes a person capable of enduring anything—anything at all.

There are two kinds of tensions: of pleasure and of sorrow. Both are tensions. And the one who rises above both comes to experience the soul.

Let us understand this a little, and then we will take up the second point.

Buddha came to a certain village. When he arrived, the whole village, astonished, began to ask him: “We have heard that our village’s prince has also taken initiation and become a monk? That our prince has taken sannyas?” The whole village was amazed. For that prince had never descended from his palaces; he had never walked on anything but velvet and carpets. That he would become a monk, beg alms from village to village, walk barefoot—this was beyond imagination! They said to Buddha, “Our prince has taken initiation—this is a great miracle!”

Buddha said, “It is no miracle. When a man’s mind becomes habituated to one—just one—kind of thing, sometimes he becomes eager for a change. He has seen the tensions of pleasure to the full; now he is curious to see the tensions of pain. That’s all. One experience is complete, now he wants the other. And I tell you: just as he was extreme in pleasure, he will go to the extreme in pain as well.”

And so it happened. Within six months that prince surpassed all the monks in self-mortification. Where other monks walked on the royal road, he walked the thorny footpaths. Where others ate once a day, he ate once in two days. Where others sat in the shade, he stood in the blazing midday sun. His feet were pierced by thorns. His body shriveled and turned dark. After six months he was hard to recognize. He had once had a very beautiful body, a golden, radiant form. People used to come from afar just to see it. Now no one, seeing this body, could believe it was the same prince.

After six months Buddha went to him. He was lying on a bed strewn with thorns and stones—that was his way of resting. Buddha said to him, “Shron”—that was his name, Shron—“I have come to ask you something. I have heard that when you were a prince you were very skilled in playing the veena. May I ask you something—will you answer?”

He said, “Yes, certainly. People used to say there was no one better at playing the veena than I.”

Buddha asked, “If the strings of a veena are very loose, can music arise from them?”

Shron said, “How could it, Lord! If the strings are loose, they cannot be struck into resonance; how can music arise?”

Buddha said, “Then if the strings are pulled very tight, can music arise?”

Shron said, “If the strings are too tight, they break; even then music does not arise.”

Buddha asked, “When, then, does music arise?”

Shron said, “Perhaps you will understand, perhaps not; but those who know the birth of music will say: there is a state of the strings when one cannot call them loose and one cannot call them tight. Between tightness and looseness there is a point—at that time the string is beyond both tightness and looseness. In that very moment music is born—when the string is neither tight nor loose.”

Buddha said, “This is what I came to ask, and this also I came to tell you: the rule by which music arises from a veena is the very rule by which music arises from the veena of life. There is a state of life’s strings when there is no excitation to this side or that; no pull to this side or that; the strings are in the middle. Then there is neither sorrow nor pleasure, because pleasure is a pull and sorrow is a pull. When the strings of life are in the middle—beyond both pleasure and pain—there, that is known which is the soul, which is life, which is bliss.”

The soul is certainly beyond both. And until we take our gaze beyond both, we will have no experience of the soul.

There is a purpose. But not the one people usually think; it is something else. When we pray that another’s soul may find peace, our prayer cannot give peace to the other’s soul. But when we become prayerful for another’s peace, our own soul becomes peaceful.

When I wish and think of giving someone pain, it is not necessary that the other will be hurt; but the one who wishes to hurt another sows countless seeds of suffering within himself. The one who desires another’s sorrow creates the possibility of sorrow within. What we want for others—knowingly or unknowingly—becomes our own fate.

So when we say, “Pray for the other’s peace,” it has several meanings. First: the person who prays for another’s peace cannot at the same time contrive their unrest. And if he does, he is a hypocrite. To pray for someone’s peace and then work for their disturbance—such a person is deeply dishonest. The point is: the one who prays for another’s peace will, little by little, stop creating the means of their unrest. Gradually, the urge within to see the other unhappy will diminish.

And remember, within all of us there is a desire to see the other unhappy—and almost no desire to see the other happy. When a grand house rises next door, you may well tell the owner, “What a fine, beautiful house!” But have you ever peeped within to see what happens there? Inside it is: “Good—when will this house collapse? When will God bring it down? What has this wretch gone and done!” That is what happens within.

In another’s sorrow we feel a certain peace, and in another’s joy we feel a certain restlessness. Unknowingly, we are eager for the other’s suffering.

A man was dying. He called his sons close and said, “I am dying. Will you fulfill my last wish?” The elder sons were shrewd; they kept quiet. The youngest was naive. He said, “You say it—I will do it.” The father drew him near and said, “All my elder sons are worthless; see, they won’t fulfill a dying man’s wish. You are so good. I whisper in your ear: when I die, cut my corpse in pieces, throw them into the neighbors’ courtyards, and report it to the police.”
The boy said, “But what does that mean?”
He said, “Son, you don’t know—seeing the neighbors in trouble has always brought me peace. And when my soul is on its way to heaven and the neighbors are going to court in handcuffs, I will feel great delight. At least arrange some joy for me at the final moment—arrange a little happiness for your dying father!”

There was a German poet, Heinrich Heine. He wrote that one night he dreamt God stood before him and said, “I am very pleased with your poems. Ask—what boon do you want? What happiness do you desire? I will give you all joy you ask for.” Heine said, “Something amazing happened in the dream. For when God said, ‘Ask for the happiness you want, and I will give it,’ it occurred to me that taking my own happiness wouldn’t be as much fun. I said to God: ‘Forget about my happiness—grant me the boon of what suffering you can inflict on my neighbors!’”
On waking, he said, “I was quite shaken—what a thing I said in a dream!”
But in dreams, the truth often slips out. Awake, a man goes on saying false things. In a dream a son throttles his father; awake he touches his feet. In a dream a man runs off with the neighbor’s wife; awake he says, “All are my mothers and sisters!” In dreams the more real man appears—the one who is inside. We are all eager for the other’s suffering.

Therefore, by praying for another’s peace and joy, it is not that the other will necessarily receive peace and joy. But we will continually rise higher—because the one who has wished for another’s happiness stops devising the means of others’ sorrow. The one who has wished for another’s happiness undergoes a revolution within. There is no greater revolution than this: that I can feel joy in another’s joy! To feel sorrow in another’s sorrow is very easy. To feel joy in another’s joy is very difficult—because in another’s sorrow there is little difficulty in becoming “sorrowful”; in fact, there is a certain flavor in it, a certain enjoyment too.

Look—when someone dies in a house and people gather to express sympathy, just look at their faces, listen to their words. They speak of grief, they even shed tears; but if you observe their overall mood, it seems they are experiencing a strange pleasure. And if you go to someone’s house to mourn—someone’s father has died—and you begin to weep, and he says, “What nonsense are you talking? What is the point—what’s gone is gone”—you return very dissatisfied.

I once lived in a house where the lady of the home had a regular practice: if anyone died anywhere, she would go to offer condolences. I asked her, “Tell me honestly—when you go to express grief, and you find that the family places no value on your grief, do you feel good or bad?” She said, “I feel bad. It’s astonishing—we’ve come to express so much sorrow, and the family doesn’t care at all.”
If you too have ever gone to share someone’s grief, look within: is there not some taste, some relish, even in that grief?

Two men are fighting on the road and a crowd gathers—people on their way to court stop, office-goers stop, college students stop. Everyone drops a thousand tasks and stands watching two men fight. What are you seeing there? Some even say to them, “Brother, don’t fight.” But inside their minds it is, “Let’s hope they don’t stop, otherwise all the fun will be spoiled.” And if you stand to watch a fight and it fizzles out on the surface, you go away disappointed: “Nothing happened—wasted time.”

All this does not show on the surface, but our mind is like that.

In the First World War some thirty-five million people died. And while the war was on, a strange phenomenon was observed: as long as the war lasted, diseases in Europe decreased, mental illnesses decreased, murders decreased, fewer people went mad. All the averages fell. There were fewer robberies, fewer suicides. Psychologists were baffled: what could war have to do with the decrease of these things? No connection was evident. If there is war, those who want to commit suicide should still do it, those who want to murder should still murder. Yet all crime averages dropped.

Then in the Second World War—about seventy-five million were killed—the averages fell even further. Psychologists were utterly at a loss: why does this happen? Gradually it became clear: in wartime people become so exhilarated; the war gives people so much “juice.” With so many killings happening—without committing any private murder—one takes relish in the general slaughter and feels satisfied. Where there is such vast destruction, why attempt petty destruction? One merges into the collective destruction and is satiated. Where the whole society has gone mad—where there is wholesale madness—who bothers about private madness? Then one’s personal craziness is unnecessary. When everyone is mad, all seems fine!

You must have seen it too: when there was an India–China conflict—or with Pakistan—people’s faces changed; there was a glow on faces never otherwise seen in India. A man would get up at five in the Brahma-muhurta to see the newspaper, to hear the radio: “What happened?” A man who never rose before seven would get up at five and ask, “Any more news?” And in everyone you could see a momentum, a sparkle, a certain happiness.
Strange—isn’t it? There is war; people are being cut down and dying; fires burn, bombs fall—and so much joy!

The sadist sitting inside us—the one who delights in another’s suffering—gets deeply satisfied. Outwardly he talks of patriotism, nation, religion—this and that. All that is just chatter. The real meaning is something else: we want to make others suffer, and in making them suffer we feel gratified.

So that prayer for the other’s welfare, for the other’s peace—whether it brings peace to them or not—is not what is important. What is important is that in praying, in cultivating that feeling, we are transformed. The one within us who wants to make others suffer begins to dissolve. That is what is valuable. Those are the meanings that matter.

I would like to say two or three things. First: do the eyes of American boys have more sparkle—are they more brahmachari than you? Do English children have more brilliance, more vigor? In Russia the freshness you see in the young—do they practice more brahmacharya than you? The first point is: this is not a question of brahmacharya. And the irony is that the more this country has preached brahmacharya, the worse the consequences have been. It has not helped; it has harmed.

The truth is that the amount of vigor destroyed by our education in brahmacharya is hard to calculate. For thousands of years we have been talking in the wrong way in this land—unscientific, unnatural ideas—and we want to rely on them. People have neither enough to eat nor to drink, and then we say: “There’s no glow because there is no brahmacharya!” People are dying of hunger, the whole country is starving—where will vigor come from? where will the shine come from? We won’t grasp the real issue.

This country is in a strange condition. Your sadhus and sannyasins talk more dishonestly than anyone. The real fact is the nation is starving: there is no blood in the veins, no food to eat, no milk, no water—nothing. And then talk? Clever people say: “Brahmacharya has gone wrong; that’s why vigor has vanished! Teach brahmacharya!”

Teaching brahmacharya cannot become bread. Nor can it become milk or food. And you will be surprised to know: the weaker the body, the more un-brahmachari it becomes. The more unhealthy the body, the more sexual and obsessed it is. The healthier the body, the less the sexual urge. That is why the poor have more children and the rich fewer. Often the rich have to borrow children, while the poor stand in queues producing them. Do you know why?

The wealthier a country becomes, the more the birth rate falls. France, for instance—people live in comfort. The comfortable are not very sexual; the unhappy become very sexual. Why? Because for the unhappy, sexuality remains the only pleasure, the only juice. A rich person can enjoy the vina, can listen to music, can swim, can walk in forests, can go to a hill station. For the poor there is no hill station, no vina, no music, no poetry, no literature, no religion. For the poor, sex is everything: that is his hill station, that is his vina, that is his happiness. He returns home beaten and battered by life, exhausted; for him there is one rest—sex. No other rest. He goes on producing children. And the more the body is internally agitated—and remember, an unhealthy body is agitated, tense—the more it seeks release; and the release is sex.

Sex is, in fact, the activity of an excited body. The body is overheated, so it throws some energy out to become calm and relaxed. The healthier, more restful, more blissful and tranquil the body, the less the need for sex.

A poor nation can never be free of sex. But the sadhus and sannyasins explain that the trouble is “lack of brahmacharya,” hence all this chaos.

It is not the lack of brahmacharya. And note a second point too: if education in brahmacharya turns into repression, it does more harm than good. Suppression is harmful. And what does brahmacharya education mean in India? It means: keep men and women far apart. The farther apart they are kept, the more they think about each other. The nearer they are, the less they obsess. The more the thinking, the more sexuality increases; and the more sexuality increases, the more brahmacharya becomes impossible.

One of my friends, a Delhi doctor, went to England for a medical conference—five hundred doctors gathered from all over the world. In Hyde Park, there was a casual get-together—food, drink, talk. My friend is a Sikh from Punjab. Right by where these five hundred doctors were mingling, on a bench, a young man and woman were in each other’s arms, lost in another world. The doctors grew restless; they tried to talk to one another, but their eyes kept drifting there. Their hearts muttered: “Why doesn’t a policeman come and take them away? What indecency is this? This could never happen in our country. What is going on? What kind of culture, what barbarity!” They kept stealing glances. Their hearts were now completely captured by that scene.

A neighboring Australian doctor put a hand on my friend’s shoulder and said, “Sir, don’t keep looking there again and again, otherwise the policeman will come and take you away.” My friend said, “What are you saying!” The Australian replied, “That is between those two; a third party has nothing to do with it. Your repeated staring is proof of an unhealthy mind. Why do you keep looking?”

My friend protested, “But it is indecent. Where five hundred people are present, two people are sitting locked in an embrace—that is indecent.”

The Australian said, “Who among the five hundred has noticed, except you? Who cares? And those two know that five hundred educated doctors are gathered here; they have no fear of rudeness from them—so they sit peacefully. Whether alone or with five hundred around makes no difference. But why are you disturbed?”

My doctor friend told me, “I got very nervous. And when I looked within, I found the man was right—some disease within me was being revealed there; otherwise what purpose did it serve me?”

In a country where men and women are kept far apart, this is the mischief that happens. People will read the Gita with a pornographic book hidden inside it; the cover will be the Gita, the inside smut like the Koka Shastra. Where separation and repression are taught, these disturbances begin.

Just the day before yesterday I read in the newspaper that in Sydney, a city of about two million, a European actress was invited for a nude show, hoping crowds would gather. Only two people came to the theater in a city of two million. Two people—for a naked woman! And the poor woman caught a chill from being naked; the weather was cold. She was very upset: “What kind of town is this!”

If we were to place a naked woman in Udaipur, how many would come to see? Two? Everyone would come. Yes, the difference would be this: the slightly bolder would come through the front door; the sadhus, sannyasins, mahants, leaders would come through the back door. But they would all come. No one would miss it.

Some would even come saying, “I am going to study who all goes there.” “I am only going to observe who turns up.” That too would happen.

How did such misfortune take root here?

Because we tried to force brahmacharya, not allow its natural growth. Natural growth in brahmacharya is a different matter. And if you want the natural growth of brahmacharya, then comprehensive sex education must be given, not education in brahmacharya. Complete sex education must be given to every boy and girl, so each child knows what sex is; and boys and girls must be kept close enough that they do not begin to feel they are two different species of animal—rather than one and the same species.

Here, a thousand men may be sitting, and if a single woman enters, all thousand become instantly conscious: “A woman is coming!” This should not be so. Women sit separately, men separately, with a gulf in between. What madness is this? Why should the mind be constantly fixated on male and female like this? Why such a wall? We should be near, close. Let children play together, grow up together, know each other—then this madness will not be there.

What is the condition today? It is difficult for a girl even to walk through the marketplace, to go to college. It is almost impossible that she steps out and does not meet a few who will hurl abuse, jostle her, throw a pebble, or fling a filmi song. Something or other will happen on the way. Why? The descendants of rishis and munis behave so strangely!

There is a reason—and that reason is exactly the education of those rishis and munis. By constantly making man and woman enemies, we have produced this harm. Whatever you forbid becomes attractive; whatever you deny becomes a call. Whatever you say should never be spoken of will be spoken of even more—secretly. Whatever you try to stop will kindle curiosity: “What is the matter?” The mind ceases to remain healthy; it becomes unhealthy.

Notice this: if a veiled woman walks down a street, she will attract more attention than an unveiled woman. If a woman goes with a veil, every man wants to see what is under the veil. An unveiled woman—what is there to see? You see and the matter ends. The more we hide, the more difficulty starts. With difficulty come wrong paths; everything gets distorted.

Brahmacharya is wondrous. The power of brahmacharya has no limit. The joy of brahmacharya is extraordinary. But brahmacharya is available to those who understand the mind’s states, recognize them, and, by understanding, become free of them.

Brahmacharya does not come to those who understand nothing and merely repress the mind. Repression accumulates steam within—and then that steam begins to escape by reverse routes. It will escape; it cannot be contained.

Brahmacharya is indeed wondrous. But the experiment conducted in this country has not created brahmacharis; it has created an excessive sexuality. At this time it would be hard to find a more sex-obsessed nation on earth than us—almost impossible. Yet we go on chanting brahmacharya, while the collective mind grows more diseased.

I was at a college for a few days. One day I was leaving and heard the principal loudly scolding a boy. I went in and asked, “What’s the matter?” The principal was pleased: “Please sit and explain to him. He has written a love letter to a girl.”

The boy said, “I never wrote it; someone else must have written in my name.”

The principal said, “You’re lying. You wrote it; there have been reports before. You even threw stones at some girls. We know that too. Every girl should be regarded as your mother or sister.”

The boy said, “I do regard them so—what are you saying! I have never thought otherwise. I regard every girl as mother or sister.” The more he denied, the more the principal shouted.

I said, “Hold on a minute. May I ask a few questions?”

“Gladly,” he said.

He thought I would question the boy. I said, “Not the boy—I want to ask you. How old are you?” He was fifty-two. I asked, “With your hand on your heart, can you say you have reached a state where you regard every woman as your mother or sister? If you have, then you have a right to say something to this boy. If you have not, you are not even entitled to speak.”

He turned to the boy and said, “You go out now.”

I said, “He will not go out; we will talk in his presence.”

And I told the boy, “You are crazy. If you are telling the truth that you regard all girls as mother or sister, that is worrisome—you are sick, something is wrong. And if you wrote a love letter, you did nothing wrong. If boys and girls of twenty to twenty-four stop loving, that day this world will become hell. One should love, but you wrote abuse in your love letter—that is foolish. Do love letters require abuse? If I had my way, I would teach you how to write love letters. This love letter is wrong; writing love letters is not wrong—it is completely natural.”

But when something unnatural is imposed and we say, “Treat girls as mother or sister,” the result will be the opposite. On the surface the boy will say, “I see them as mother and sister,” yet his whole nature will want to love some girl. Then he will throw acid, hurl stones, write abuses, scribble obscene verses on bathroom walls—he will do such things. Then all this happens. And society becomes filthy, not noble.

Love has its own sanctity. What is more sacred than love? But by separating men and women we have destroyed even the sanctity of love—we have made it dirty. By obstructing every natural thing we have made everything unnatural. And then the consequences that must follow are following.

India cannot move toward brahmacharya until a healthy and scientific outlook regarding kama and sex is developed. This madness must stop. We must put a check on it and stop teaching falsehoods. The harm they are causing is incalculable. You cannot even imagine how much damage we are inflicting on our children.

Doctors across the world say that after sexual maturity—after fourteen or fifteen—it is natural for a boy to feel curiosity toward girls and for a girl toward boys. If it doesn’t happen, there is danger. It is perfectly natural. Now it is in our hands to guide this curiosity onto cultured, wholesome paths. The more cultured the path, the more it will help the youngster conserve vital energy, gather strength, and move in the direction of brahmacharya.

But what do we do? We erect a stone wall between them and open every door to secrecy. And the great irony: on one side we preach brahmacharya, and on the other the whole society advertises sexuality. Children are tormented twenty-four hours a day by sexual propaganda, and at the same time tormented by preaching of brahmacharya. These two opposing teachings together put their lives in a disastrous conflict.

Indian children have as much vigor as any children in the world. But the big cause of its diminution is poverty and lack of nutrition. An even greater cause is our unscientific outlook on sex. If this outlook becomes scientific, our children can be more vigorous and radiant than those of any nation.

But extremely dull-witted sadhus keep saying whatever comes to mind—people who know nothing of biology or physiology, nothing of the body, nothing of how semen is produced. They go on preaching nonsense. They explain as though there were some storage tank of semen in the body, and if it is spent you will die!

There is no storage tank of semen. Semen is produced as it is spent. There is never any need to panic about its expenditure—science says so. But this does not mean one should squander it thoughtlessly. Semen is produced daily. And this talk that “if a single drop of semen is lost, your life is destroyed”—those who say such things should be fined and prosecuted. A child who reads such a thing loses a drop and is terrified for life: “I am finished.”

No one dies, and life is not destroyed. And the great irony: semen is a part of the body. When so-called spiritualists give such importance to a bodily fluid, you can see how body-obsessed they are. It is not of such ultimate value. And remember: the harm does not come from semen being spent; the harm comes from the belief that if semen is spent, damage will occur. That mental notion distorts and harms. This is not to say I advise reckless spending.

Those who know deeply say nature has arranged it so you cannot spend too much. The body has an automatic mechanism; you cannot overspend. But you can choose to spend nothing at all—that is possible.

Understand both points. You cannot spend excessively; there is a limit. Beyond that the body refuses; it is automatic. But you can choose to spend nothing.

To spend nothing can happen in two ways. One is by force—such a person will go mad, like sealing all the vents of a kettle; the steam will make it explode. One who blocks by force becomes deranged. Of a hundred mad people, eighty are mad on account of sex.

There is a second way: let your attention flow upward—meditation. Let attention be absorbed in the search for truth, for the divine—where the bliss you discover is millions of times more than in sex. If attention moves there, the entire sexual energy begins to rise upward. Then a man simply finds that sex no longer pulls; it does not even stand on his path.

It is like a child playing with pebbles; someone tells him there is a mine of diamonds and jewels nearby. The child runs there, finds jewels—will his attention return to pebbles? The matter is finished. All his energy will now gather jewels.

Until a person becomes oriented toward the divine, his attraction will inevitably be toward sex. The moment he moves Godward, all energies set out on a new journey.

Do you know the meaning of brahmacharya? It means life like the divine: brahma-charya—conduct like Brahman. It is not fundamentally about sex or semen. How does life become godlike? When consciousness flows toward the divine, conduct gradually becomes divine. And when the mind moves upward, it does not move downward; the descent stops. If I am speaking here and someone begins to play a vina nearby, your minds will suddenly go to the vina—you won’t have to be led; they will go. In a moment you will find you have forgotten to listen to me and are listening to the vina.

When the vina of the soul begins to play within and attention shifts from the body to the soul—then the fruit that arises is brahmacharya. The joy of such brahmacharya is extraordinary, its peace is extraordinary, its mystery is wondrous. But it is not available to those who suppress and repress.

So you say our youths’ faces are weak, their eyes lack light. But line up our sadhus and see—shouldn’t they have that light? They look sicker and more feverish than us; their condition is worse. Then we say, “They are practicing austerities; that’s why they look like this!”

This lack of luster is due to poverty, destitution, hunger. And this obscenity and sexual obsession is due to the wrong direction of brahmacharya—education in repression.

A few questions remain; I will speak about them in the evening discourse.

I am deeply obliged for the peace and love with which you have listened to me. Finally, I bow to the Divine seated within all. Please accept my pranams.