Karuna Aur Kranti #3

My beloved Atman!

I stayed for a few days in a small village, nestled at the foot of a mountain. Each morning I would walk near that mountain. By the side of the path I befriended a little spring. I would sit there awhile, then return. It was a small spring, but so alive—movement, flow, life.

Two years later I went to that village again, in search of that spring. But it was no more. A great boulder had fallen upon it. Water still flowed, but the spring was gone. The spring had shattered into fragments. It had broken into many pieces—countless tiny trickles. No more thunder, no more speed, no more surge. The water seeped. The mountain still became wet from that water, but the spring was no more. Sitting beside that boulder I began to wonder: has a boulder not fallen upon the stream of man’s life as well? Has a rock not fallen upon man’s flow of consciousness—upon his inner spring?

Yesterday I said we have not accepted the natural form of man.

A second sutra I want to share with you: because we have not accepted the natural, by placing a rock upon the spring we have manufactured the unnatural. The movement has gone, the song has gone, the spring is lost. Now only small trickles remain—fragmented. By placing the rock of repression upon man, we have tried to make him unnatural. The process by which man is made unnatural is repression, suppression. And all that in man which has been repressed has broken into a thousand tiny rivulets, carving new channels, still moistening the mountain somehow. The glory of the spring has vanished, but the water spreads from all sides. Where there was a spring, now there looks to be a wound. Where there was a stream, now everything is clogged. And that spring which once gave life—bound now into little stagnant puddles—only gives filth.

Today, the second sutra I wish to speak: the greatest compassion needed for man is to free him from repression. For repression has made man cruel, hard, miserable, and tormented. Repression has filled him with violence, revenge, and who knows how many diseases.

This requires a little understanding.

It is not seen at once—because we have never seen the spring.

I had gone to that village twice—once when the spring was there, and the second time after the rock had fallen. But in the village of life into which we are born, we find the boulder already fallen. We have no clue about the spring. So we cannot even weigh what we might have been.

A long story of thousands upon thousands of years lies behind the fall of that rock. Hence we do not even know any longer that a rock has fallen. And it has shattered the spring—stolen the music, the beauty, the dignity, the majesty. It has destroyed everything. Only wounds and puddles remain, where nothing grows now except filth. So let us understand a little how this rock of repression has produced fragments within us.

It is difficult to understand—but if we investigate a little, it can be understood. Yesterday I was saying there is a madness in the world to accumulate wealth. But have you ever thought: from which broken fragments of the original spring does this madness for hoarding money arise?

I say to you: the person who remains incapable of giving and receiving love in life—upon whose stream of love a boulder has fallen—such a person begins to accumulate wealth. When the rock of repression falls upon the current of love, the madness to hoard money is born. There are deep reasons behind this.

You may have seen orphan children—their bellies appear very large. An orphan’s belly swells, because the orphan has no trust in a mother’s love. He has no certain assurance that milk will be given when he cries. So whenever he gets milk, he wants to store as much as possible. When food is available, he wants to gather as much as he can. In the orphan’s mind the instinct to hoard arises, because there is no trust in love.

But a child growing up by his mother’s side never drinks too much milk. Even if the mother tries to make him drink more, he refuses. He has a firm trust: whenever he cries, love will be present. It will become food for him. The orphan’s mind is not like this. When food appears, take as much as you can, hoard it—because there is no trust in love. If hunger strikes and there is no love, there will be trouble.

Children who do not receive love in life become filled with the tendency to hoard food. Money came much later—first there was food—wheat. People hoarded food. Later came money. And money found a thousand ways to hoard. How much wheat can you hoard? How much milk? How many fruits? They spoil, they rot. But money neither rots nor spoils. Money can be hoarded. Money is food in a changed form; and the craving for wealth is a transmuted love that remained unsatisfied.

That is why where the madness to hoard wealth exists, you will not find the fragrance of love. And where love blossoms in a life, you will slowly find the race to accumulate money has departed. Love and the race to hoard wealth do not coexist; they have no co-existence.

We can see wealth being accumulated. We can see people hoarding money. We also see some who are eager to distribute that money. But perhaps it does not occur to us that no matter how much wealth we distribute—if the current of love that has been broken does not become whole again—we will begin hoarding some other thing in place of money. But the hoarding will continue. In truth, one who lives in love loses the very worry about accumulation. He does not hoard.

Mohammed accumulated nothing his whole life. If someone brought an offering in the day, he would distribute it by evening. By night he would sleep a naked fakir, not a coin by his side, not a single grain of rice. Many times his wife said to him, “What are you doing? Tomorrow again there may be need.” Mohammed would say, “I have so much trust in love—he who sent today will send tomorrow as well. My trust in love is certain. Those who hoard for tomorrow are those who have no trust in love. Who knows whether tomorrow will come or not? They feel insecure about tomorrow.”

Then Mohammed fell ill. On the last night, the night of his passing, his wife thought, “It is midnight—medicine may be needed, a physician may have to be called. Let me save five coins at least.” She hid five coins beneath the bed. Near midnight Mohammed, in great restlessness, said to his wife, “It seems to me I do not see the trust of love in your eyes tonight. Surely you have kept something back.”

She asked, “How did you know?”

Mohammed said, “You do not appear as free as you always do. Today there is something that has bound you. Have you kept something back?”

She was frightened. She said, “I have hidden five coins, fearing the illness may worsen at night—so we might need to call a doctor or buy medicine. From where will we get it then?”

Mohammed said, “Foolish one! All life long—where did it come from? Still you learned nothing of that love? And yet you kept the money! Bring it—where are the coins? For if I die and God asks me, He will say, ‘At the final hour you dropped love and clutched money.’ Bring the coins! Distribute them. I have lived with love and with love alone I wish to depart.”

The coins were distributed. He drew the sheet over himself; that was his last act. He covered himself—and was gone.

Very likely, because of those five coins he lingered and struggled long. Perhaps he was searching: “What is the obstruction?”

But if five coins can bind so much, what of our condition? If merely five coins kept in the house can bind the mind to such a degree that Mohammed says, “I wish to present myself before Paramatman with love, not with wealth”—then what of us? And Paramatman is far away—when we love even a human being we present ourselves with money, not with love. We do not arrive with love. We love even people through money. We have made money the substitute for love. If we can give money, there is love. If we cannot, love becomes difficult.

Somewhere money has become a substitute, a surrogate, for love. But how can money be a substitute for love? Love is bliss, and money is only a burden. Love is freedom; money is only a weight. Money can be a utility; love is not a utility—love is a play. Love has no utility. Love is sheer, spontaneous joy. And money? Money is a utility. However much we accumulate, the inner lack of love remains unfulfilled.

A child may stuff his belly as much as he can, so that his small body seems dwarfed by his swollen stomach—yet the love that was missed cannot be found through that big belly. The rich man has created great iron bellies, for how much can be stored in a leather belly! So we build safes—iron stomachs that can be filled tightly and cannot be broken. Our safes are fashioned in the very image of our bellies. In them we hoard food—hoard and hoard—and each day we keep account.

There was once a spring of love. The stream broke—and it became the hoarding of money. Wherever we have suppressed man, wherever we have repressed him, there he has gone astray, become something else—something other than his destiny. But we are unaware. Thus far we have tried to build the whole of human life upon repression and suppression.

The man we have produced is a man made by pressing and pressing him down. He is like a seed surrounded by an iron mesh, or a plant bound from all sides. That is how we have raised man. The man who appears before us is not man’s destiny. He is sick, diseased. He is the victim—the casualty—of thousands of years of culture. Do not mistake him for man—he is only the shape of man, a phantom, a specter. He is not man. Man could have been something utterly different.

On this earth, where even ordinary bushes bloom, where common birds sing songs of joy, where simple animals live a natural life—man could have birthed such flowers of bliss, such fragrances of delight, such music as is beyond our imagination. But man has done none of this—he has been lost. He has produced only disease. We have produced only morbidity. And we have named that disease “civilization,” we have called it “culture.” Then to be free of disease becomes even more difficult.

I wish to say a few more things, so that we can see what shape the boulder has given our spring. Until we remove the rock, no revolution can happen in a human life. It seems as if no one is as eager for his own happiness as he is eager that another should not be happy. If we look inside people, we will not find a search for one’s own joy, but a search that no one else should become joyful.

I once stayed in a house. The owner always praised it. He had built it; since then he sang its songs—from morning till evening, always speaking of it. When I arrived, he would show me the swimming pool, then this, then that. Two years later I returned. He said nothing about the house. It was the same house. I asked, “What happened? You don’t talk about it?”

He said, “Did you not see? You arrived at night, so you didn’t see—look in the morning. A big misfortune has happened.”

I asked, “What happened? Has the house been damaged? It looks the same. The plants you planted have grown; flowers have come; the garden has turned green; the lawn is ready.”

He said, “That is all fine; it matters little. In the morning you will see.”

In the morning I saw—a large house had come up next door.

He said, “Since that house was built, all the joy of my house has gone.”

I asked him, “Then you were not happy with your house—you were happy looking at the neighbor’s huts. For the neighbor’s big house has brought you sorrow.”

Remember, the rich man is not as happy with his wealth as he is with the poverty of his neighbor. A man is not delighted in his big house; he is delighted in the huts around. And if a bigger house rises close by, his house remains the same, yet suddenly it becomes small, something is lost, something destroyed.

All of us are not so eager for our happiness as we are that the other should not be happy! Even to the extent that we are willing to be unhappy ourselves—but we will not let the other be happy. Surely something has gone wrong. This is a very diseased state of mind—a diseased mind that is eager to see the other miserable. A natural man would be eager for his own joy.

And remember, one who is eager for his own joy can never attempt to make another suffer. One who desires his own happiness will desire everyone’s happiness—for only among the joy of all can the flower of my joy also bloom. If all are miserable, how can my flower of joy blossom? One who wants his own happiness will want the happiness of all. And one who wants to see others miserable—in some sense he wants to see himself miserable too; otherwise he would not wish misery for others.

It is impossible that the whole village be sick and I remain healthy. That the germs of disease spread everywhere, and I alone remain well—how is that possible? The winds will bring those germs to me too; I will become miserable. However high I raise walls of iron, I will either bury myself alive inside, unable to come out—and then I may remain healthy, as a corpse—or if I remain alive and open the doors, the germs will come in, because the whole village is sick. If I want to remain healthy and am eager for my health, knowingly or unknowingly I must show eagerness for the health of all.

As true as this is on the level of the body, it is even more true on the level of the mind. If the whole village is sad, you cannot smile. And if you do, your smile will look sarcastic, like a mockery—hard, cruel. If the whole village is sad, how can you smile? Sadness has its germs too, which enter even deeper. If all are miserable, how can you be happy?

But we are strange. We do not want to see others happy. The final meaning of this is that we are suicidal—we are not prepared even to be happy ourselves. We have discovered a trick: if all people become unhappy, only then will we manage to be happy! How can I be happy when everyone is unhappy? If all are miserable I will fall only into a deeper misery. At most a consolation will remain: I am not alone in my misery—everyone is miserable. Only such a consolation can be had.

A healthy man will long for his own joy. I want to tell you: a healthy man will be very “selfish.” But self-interest is the very foundation of altruism. Remember, self-interest and altruism are not opposites, as the religious teachers explain. In truth, one who has not yet even become truly self-interested—how can he be altruistic? One who has not yet understood the good of the self cannot take a single step towards the good of others. But there are two kinds of sick people in the world—those who think their self-interest lies in harming others, and those who strive to benefit others though they have not yet benefitted themselves.

He who has not benefitted himself cannot benefit anyone. If another’s misery is to be removed, the first condition is to be free of one’s own misery. For one who has bliss can distribute bliss; one who has sorrow distributes sorrow. He may speak differently; he may label his packets of sorrow “happiness”—it will make no difference. He will distribute sorrow. He may come to give you joy, yet after a few minutes you will feel, “If only he would go now!” He has begun to give sorrow. He himself may not know it, but sorrow is what he delivers.

It will sound strange that a healthy person will be “selfish,” for we have been taught endlessly never to be selfish—that self-interest is a bad thing. I tell you: a healthy man will indeed be self-interested. It is utterly natural.

Have you ever understood the meaning of swarth—self-interest? It contains two words: ‘swa’ and ‘arth’—that which is meaningful for the self. One who has not yet shaped a life meaningful even to himself—how can he be meaningful to anyone? Let this lamp of inner light first be lit within me; then from the windows of my house that light may reach the houses of others. But if my own lamp is extinguished—how can my light reach anyone? Those whose homes are dark have gone out to light the lamps of others. It is very likely that through their noise and bustle they will blow out whatever little lamps were lit in others’ homes. Those whose own houses are dark—whose lamps will they light?

What sickness has possessed man that he is so eager to see others miserable? He has given good names to this, and hidden the truth beneath those names. If a man abandons his clothes and stands naked on the road, many will run to touch his feet. This is the worship of suffering. We will call it renunciation, austerity. If a man throws himself into suffering with his own hands—his prestige will rise. If someone deliberately imposes pain upon himself…

Recently I passed a village. A man was going towards Kashi, rolling his body along the ground. He was crawling towards Kashi; his knees and hands were scraped, bleeding. Hundreds were worshipping him on the way. I said to them, “You are criminals—you are the ones dragging this man upon the earth. Because of the respect you give him, his blood has become meaningless—and your respect appears far more meaningful. His hands and feet are torn, yet he is crawling—because you honor him. And in your honor there is great violence. Why are you so delighted to see this man in pain?”

“No,” they said, “he is not in pain; he is doing tapascharya—austerity.” Tapas means suffering chosen by oneself.

There is enough suffering already—without choosing it. The world is already in pain. Each person is in austerity: the shopkeeper in his shop, the clerk in his office. And those who have gathered in the capital—does their austerity have any end? Is there any limit to their suffering? There is no need to choose more austerity. Man is already too miserable.

Yet we say, choose suffering willingly! If the ground is smooth, do not sit upon it—place a few thorns and then sit! Then ten or twenty people will arrive to honor you. So long as there are those who honor suffering, man cannot be happy. We must learn to honor joy—but deep within us there is some opposition to happiness. Somewhere the current was diverted. All of life in the world seeks joy—only man seeks to make others miserable. Where did our stream break? What happened?

From childhood we do not want to see anyone happy. A small child—we want him to be miserable in every way. If a child is lively, runs, jumps—everyone at home becomes upset, the parents become annoyed. In truth, life is always lively—running, jumping, dancing. But parents expect a small child to sit like an old man, limp in a corner. If by chance a lump-of-cow-dung child is born, the parents say, “So obedient!” If a statue of dung is born, what more to say! He is supremely obedient, greatly praised by the parents. Their minds feel relieved—if only a dead child is born! If a living child is born, the parents begin to cut off his hands and feet; society begins to cut them; the helpless child is cut on all sides. The exuberance in his life is snatched away from all directions.

We have devised very clever tricks—tricks against which a child cannot even rebel. We say we will educate him for twenty-five years. The child is being educated for twenty-five years—yet in that education nothing truly valuable is taught—nothing valuable that gives direction to life. At most we teach him how to earn bread. And bread? The uneducated have always earned it; animals find their food; birds find theirs.

If education only teaches how to earn bread, it hardly seems meaningful. But we have made prisons of twenty-five years—calling them universities and schools with beautiful names. Into those prisons we pour the children.

Have you ever stood near a primary school where your child is confined? You have never gone—because you are delighted that the little nuisance has gone to school. School is deliverance for the parents. Sunday is trouble for them, because life returns home. Life has been sent to school. They have made the house comfortable—no one will spoil the sofa, break a photo, shatter the glass, or drop the mirror. Let the mirror be saved—even if the child’s soul breaks. The mirror is very precious.

Better not to keep such fragile things at home. Let the children throw things, play, run. Do not steal their joy. Otherwise they will steal the joys of others their whole lives. Then we will not understand why they are so eager to rob others’ happiness. Those whose childhood joy is stolen become eager to steal everyone’s joy.

Go stand near a school once. When the children come out, they leap as if released from prison. Satchels fly, shouts ring. When the bell rings, it seems life has returned. Five or six hours we confine small, helpless children within prison walls.

Until recently—though there is a little difference now—the prison walls and school walls even had the same color. The jail walls were red, the school walls red. The color has changed a little. But changing the color does not change the wall. Whether red or yellow or white—it makes no difference. A wall is a wall. There we strip life of its joy, press it into a mold. We break the inner spring and place stones here and there. In small ways we steal their delight.

If this joy is snatched from all children—and it has been; it was stolen from us yesterday, today we steal it from others; those we rob today will rob their children tomorrow—this has been happening for centuries. Childhood is robbed of joy, and then the man spends his life robbing the joy of others. A dreadful contagious disease.

What do we teach? In school—do we teach joy?

There we produce sad faces. Serious faces. We turn out men who are solemn, grave—for whom life is no play, but a burden. That is why, at a university convocation, look at the scene: vice-chancellors, rectors, deans, draped in black gowns—ghosts standing there. Garments fit for a cremation ground—why are they worn there? A climate of great seriousness is created. Very serious, very grave matters are going on. Look at the faces: of vice-chancellors, of teachers—they are stone statues. They are doing some heavy work.

But what they are doing is only this: whatever liveliness life has, whatever exuberance, whatever flow—they are blocking it from all sides. Oh yes, they are giving it channels. They are trying to turn the river into a canal. Water flows in a canal too—but have you seen a canal and a river? The difference is fundamental. A river has a life of its own; a canal has none. There is a flow, but the engineer leads it wherever he wants.

We do not allow men to become rivers; we make canals. Our entire education is a device to canalize the river of man. In a canal there can be no joy. We snatch away all joy. From childhood, the whole arrangement is such that the child cannot be delighted in anything. You will say, “Strange! Parents want their child to be happy.” Yes—but they want him to be happy in their way.

How can a child be happy in the parents’ way? This is a trick to impose sorrow. It is a great deception. Parents say, “We want our child to be happy—do we not?” But happy our way. An old man’s way of happiness for a child.

Reverse it for a moment: give power to the children and let them say to the elders, “Be happy in our way.” Then you will know how hard it is for the old to be happy in a child’s way. Then children will say, “Jump! Leap! Break things! Run! Climb trees!” The old will say, “This is not happiness—this is madness.”

But there has been no dialogue between children and elders. They have not understood one another. The elders do not seem to suffer outwardly; inwardly they do—for the man who is old today was once a child. If he became diseased in childhood, his old age can never be beautiful and healthy. He will carry the disease into old age. That is why no old person appears peaceful and joyful. The roots were cut in childhood—the roots of joy were broken.

So go to the monks and saints—there is great seriousness. The moment you arrive there you must become serious as well. You cannot laugh in their presence. If you do, it will appear profane, impure. There you must sit with folded hands. There too we have created the air of the cremation ground; there too there is no news of life.

In China there were three fakirs. No one knew their names, for they never disclosed them. When asked, “What are your names?” they would laugh so loudly that people began to call them “The Three Laughing Saints.” That became their name. And when anyone asked, “Your names?” they would say, “We ourselves do not know. We feel like laughing that you have a name! No one truly has a name—names are given. In childhood we all arrive nameless, and we depart nameless.”

The three would laugh, saying, “We are amazed— we have no names, yet the whole world has names.” They would go to villages; people would ask for a discourse. They would say, “In discourse there is somewhere a deadness—a heaviness. We know only how to laugh—nothing else.” They would stand at the crossroads and begin laughing. Laughter is contagious—soon villagers would gather; seeing the three laugh, someone among them would begin to laugh; then laughter would spread. If they stayed two or three days, flowers of laughter bloomed throughout the village.

In one village one of them died. People thought, “Now the other two will be sad.” They went—and found the two holding the dead one’s hands and feet, swinging him and laughing. The villagers said, “Fools! What are you doing? He has died—and you are laughing!” The two replied, “For one who laughed all his life, death too becomes laughter.

“In truth, one who has wept all his life—his death becomes weeping. Death is the ultimate consummation. We become in death what we have lived. If death appears dark and terrible—it is not because death is dark, but because we have lived in darkness from childhood. Our whole life is dark—hence the final fruit appears dark.”

The two said, “We are very happy, and we swing him because he deceived us. We had agreed that we would go first—but he went ahead. Had he told us, we would have gone earlier. He slipped away quietly.”

The villagers said, “Even so—do not celebrate so. It looks bad. At least keep silent if you will not weep.” The two said, “Remember—there is no such thing as ‘silence’ in between. Either a man laughs or he weeps; there is no space between.”

And truly there is none. Either you laugh or you cry. There is no in-between. Either you are blissful or miserable. If you are not in bliss, know that you are in sorrow. If you cannot laugh, know that tears have grown heavy within.

Then they took the corpse. The whole village was sad, but the two were laughing. At the cremation ground they lit the pyre. The villagers said, “Change your companion’s clothes—this is our custom.” They replied, “No—he told us not to change his clothes. He said, ‘I am changing my garments myself—what more is there to change? Place me as I am.’ We must honor his wish.” They placed him as he was, and lit the fire. Slowly laughter spread—for within his garments he had placed sparklers and firecrackers. As they began to burst, the whole village started laughing. “What a strange man! Even in death he makes us laugh. Though the heart wants to weep, from his pyre leap fireworks! What a man—he laughed at death, made a joke of it!”

He who laughs all his life—death becomes laughter for him as well. But we weep our whole lives. Our initiation is into weeping; from childhood we prepare each child to weep—not to laugh. We stop his spring of laughter from all sides; we block his joy everywhere. Then if he proceeds to make others miserable, do not be surprised. This is one reason why humanity hangs upon the cross. But we do not realize what we do, nor what small things bring what results later on.

A mother weans her child early—from her milk. She wants to end it soon; she can—because it is in the mother’s hands. In the West mothers have almost stopped feeding. Perhaps in a hundred or hundred and fifty years no mother will agree to nurse her child. But do you know? The peace, the ease, the joy the lips of the child received at the breast—if this is snatched, if that stream is blocked, new streams will be sought.

The whole world smokes cigarettes. I say to you: a substitute is being sought for the joy the lips did not receive. In a society where mothers stop nursing, smoking will go on increasing. If all mothers stop, we will find some other device for the lips. But a cigarette can never give the joy the mother’s breast could. However many you smoke—sixty or a hundred a day—nothing comes of it; only the lips move, burn—and nothing more. No substitute can give what the original could.

Yet mothers and fathers will instruct the child, “Do not smoke”—but they do not see from where the urge to smoke is arising. For the child, life begins at the lips. Life first touched him through the lips. Love’s stream first came through the lips. If the lips remain unfulfilled, they will go on demanding; all life they will demand, “Something is empty here—fill it.” Then…what will he do? He will burn his lips with cigarettes. But he will not receive the mother’s breast, the mother’s love through it. He will never even understand what has happened within—what this madness is.

Small children delight in playing with their whole body. In truth, if we too were healthy, we would delight in playing with the whole body. But we are not healthy. We will not lie upon the river sands, nor dance upon them, nor leap into the water, nor splash fountains of water. We will never be joyful with our whole body. We have denied the body. We have chosen a few parts in which alone we will allow joy. But have you wondered—how did we choose those parts? The body is one—how did we divide it? We were made to divide it. In suppression—in repression—the rock that fell upon us compelled us to choose.

A small child plays with his whole body. He will play even with his genitals. But parents stop him: “Don’t! What are you doing?” For the first time he learns that touching the genitals is a sin. A gap opens between his body and the genitals. Now, all his life, this part will not remain the part of his body. For the first time he becomes conscious that there is a part of the body which is sinful to touch, sinful to look at—something to be hidden, not to be touched. And all his life he will revolve around that organ. The satisfaction of touching which was made incomplete—and that place made conscious—now the whole world becomes phallic. The entire world revolves around the sex center.

The cause is not dirty films, not obscene books, not vulgar songs or posters. The cause is the beginning of bodily repression in the child. We taught the child: “Do not touch that part.” He had no idea—his whole body was his body. He had no knowledge—and there was no need for any.

If the world becomes healthy, our whole body will be our body—no part separate, this part different and that part different. But we make the child conscious—rebuke him repeatedly. We fill him with condemnation towards one part of his body. That part becomes separate. And once separate, he will seek to be reunited with it for the rest of his life. He will live in that trouble. His dreams will be filled with sexual excitement. His stories, novels, songs, films—all will try to offer substitutes: “Take this in place.” But fulfillment will not happen. He will even create Shiva-lingas. And the story of Shiva-lingas is old; he will search for new symbols through which he can obtain that same fulfillment which was taken away. That stolen satisfaction, that stolen feeling, this repression, this condemnation will break his spring and lead him onto wrong paths.

It is amazing—why have we gone mad over certain parts of the body? If a statue of a woman is made, the breasts seem not like parts of a statue; it appears the statue was made for the breasts. If a picture of a woman is drawn, it does not seem the whole woman is important—only the breasts. Why is humanity so obsessed with breasts?

Two reasons. First, the breast was taken from the child too soon. It was his first introduction, and it was snatched early. The longing remains. Hence the male is all his life eager, anxious, disturbed about breasts.

Why is the woman so eager? If it was taken from the man, why is the woman also obsessed? She is too, for it was taken from her even earlier. And very early she is made conscious that this part is not part of the body—this must be hidden, or displayed—but never simply accepted as naturally a part of the body. We have cut the body into parts. There will be results—ill results—and man will become more and more diseased. And the new problems brought to solve these will create further diseases.

We will never go to the root to remove the stone we dropped upon man’s spring—to make him healthy, simple, natural. As he was born, help him to grow that way. Work so that his stream does not break into fragments—so that it remains whole.

Because this has not yet happened, man hangs upon the cross. And it will not happen further either if we do not understand; we will not remove the stone. We are all people who place stones. Good people, respectable people, keep piling stones upon each person.

Our entire social order—our system of education—mother, father, friends, loved ones—all are trying to place stones upon a newly arrived child. They will press him from all sides. Tomorrow he will stand deformed, crippled. Then we will condemn him. We will declare him a criminal; send him to prison, to asylums. Tomorrow he will be a patient in hospitals. This will all go on—these remedies will continue—but we will not remove the stone. The stone remains where it is.

There are even some who say perhaps the stone was not placed correctly—therefore the whole mess. Some say, repress more strongly. Some say, place the stone more firmly—do not allow the spring to appear at all. Then…stagnant pools will form—the spring will not appear. There are those who say, if man could be killed somehow—cut everything off—so that he remains like a ghost, like a shadow with no life at all… Such people surround us.

Among them are “great souls,” religious teachers—the very people at whose feet we bow. They tighten our noose. They do not help us to live. They show us the path to liberation—but not the way to live. They say: “How to die quickly; and how, after dying, never to return to life again”—this they teach. The first mistake was to come into life; do not commit this mistake again by returning. Life is sin; the body is sin—erase it all, destroy it all, and journey to Moksha. Be freed from the wheel of birth and death.

If this tendency remains—as it has till now—we will not be able to fill life with flowering.

Nietzsche would say—and he was right—that the religious teachers repressed man in the hope of making him religious. They could not make him religious. They poisoned man to destroy his nature, to mold him into what they wanted—the statue they wished to cast. The statue did not take shape, but one great result occurred—the poison worked. He did not change—but he became poisonous. Distorted, ugly, spoiled from all sides.

Yesterday I told a symbolic tale: when Jesus was crucified, on either side of him two thieves were crucified. I find this deeply meaningful. What we call “evil” and what we call “good” are the two halves into which we have split life. Until we accept both together and build the house of life, one side the bad man will hang on the cross, on the other the good man too will hang. For the bad man is a half man, the good man is also a half man. No one is whole. And until we are whole we must hang upon the cross of sorrow, pain, and anxiety.

But we have declared certain things evil, and now we are unwilling to reconsider whether they are evil. We have condemned the body—and for thousands of years we have believed the body is bad. Today we are not ready to think again: what is evil in the body?

The truth is: all the joys of life come to us through the body. Sunlight reaches us through the body. The fragrance of a flower comes through the body. The songs of birds reach us through the body. All that of this world touches us—through the body. And remember, we reach the world through the body too: to a flower through the hand; to the sun through the eye.

But in condemning the body we have hammered nails into all its doors, locked them, lost the keys—because the body is “bad.” We have shut the greatest capacity for bodily joy—touch. We neither dance naked to the winds that they may caress every pore, nor sit naked in the sun that its rays may touch every cell. We do not lie upon the sand, nor roll in the water. We neither love anyone with our whole being nor touch another with our whole body. There is fear everywhere. We have crippled touch. Touch is the body’s greatest sensitivity—and we have opposed it. Everyone carries an unseen sign across the heart: “Touch me not.” Do not touch me; stay at a distance. Even when we speak, it is at a gentlemanly distance.

I stayed for some days among a tribal people. I was amazed. If they speak with you for an hour, they will touch your body at least a hundred times. In conversation they will hold you again and again. I calculated—if the talk lasts an hour, at least a hundred touches. In our one-hour talk, if there are three touches, it is much. And if there is touch, it can only be of someone very close. If an unfamiliar person comes close, there may be quarrel and trouble. We have closed the door of touch. Yet through touch come great joys of life—and we have shut it all.

We have kept a few doors slightly open. We have kept the eyes open—hence the eyes have become diseased. We make them do too much. If we wish to touch a man in love, we cannot touch—so we have to touch with the eyes. The eyes become ill, for they cannot do the work of the hand. Thus the “ogler” is born.

Do you know the word “luchcha”? It means one who stares. In Sanskrit lochan means “eye.” Luchcha—one who has become nothing but eyes—an ogler. We say “alochaka”—critic—the one who looks very closely. Luchcha is one who only goes on looking, whose stare becomes a grasp. He tries to make the eye do the work of the hand—poor fellow becomes an ogler.

Truly, if we search within, we will find the ogler in a hundred out of a hundred. Not less. For the work meant for the body we force upon the eyes. We have made one door—eye-centered—and strain it for too much. The eye has become sick; it neither sees rightly nor recognizes rightly—because we compel it to do what is not its work.

This too is a stone upon us—no sense is free to do its full work. We neither hear rightly, nor touch rightly, nor see rightly. Since the body is condemned, these too are condemned. The religious teachers instruct: do not take taste in food—eat tastelessly. Among Gandhi’s eleven vows is this too: aswad—eat without taste.

Madness to the extreme! At least one can understand this: take such relish in food that even food becomes Brahman—so much relish that through food you glimpse the ultimate. But “do not taste at all”—what will be the outcome? You will have to suppress. Taste will arise, and you will not take it; you will have to kill the tongue. Slowly the door of taste will close. Thus we close all doors—and the person is closed.

Have you thought—if you had no eyes, would life and the world be what they are? A great part would be cut off forever. If you had no ears—would life be what it is? A great part would vanish. Without eyes, all of color, form, light departs. Without ears, all of sound dissolves. Without taste, all flavor leaves. Without smell, fragrance departs. Without touch, touch departs. If the five senses can be closed, you will be sealed in a capsule—in a tomb. You will not be related to this world or to Paramatman—you will be imprisoned in your ego. The repressors have taught the closing of the senses—not the path of life!

Tomorrow, in the third sutra, I will say: go so far out through the senses, and allow so much in through the senses, that the gap between inner and outer finally falls. Until the gap between outer and inner dissolves, the bliss of wholeness is not possible. Until then, the stone remains upon our chest. This is my second sutra.

Some friends have sent questions; I will take them up slowly. Those who wish to come for meditation tomorrow morning, come bathed, in fresh clothes. While coming from home, be silent; and upon reaching the place, do not speak—use no words. Come and sit quietly. Come before eight o’clock exactly. Today some arrived late. Once the process begins, it will be difficult to understand. Come five or ten minutes before eight. Not after eight. From eight to nine there will be a meditation experiment. Some questions regarding meditation have been asked; I will speak of them there. Here, the evening talks will be about these matters of discourse.

You have listened to me with such peace and love—for that I am deeply obliged. And in the end, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.