Koplen Phir Phoot Aayeen #12

I was just now listening to a ghazal by Mehdi Hasan:
“The buds have sprouted again on the branch—tell him.
He hasn’t understood, nor will he understand—but tell him:
the buds have sprouted again on the branch.”

Such is the stream of sannyas: the buds have sprouted again on the branch.

In this land meditation has never died. Sometimes above the ground, sometimes underground, but its Ganga has flowed continuously, eternally. It flows today, it will flow tomorrow. And that is humanity’s one hope. For the day meditation dies, man dies. Man’s very life-breath is in meditation. Whether you know it or not, meditation is your innermost self—hidden within your breath, hidden within your heartbeat. What you are is nothing but meditation.

Still, the question is important.

If this country has given anything to the world—its one true gift—it is meditation. Whether in Patanjali, in Mahavira, in Buddha, in Kabir, in Nanak—the names kept changing, the gift did not. Through different names, different people, different voices, the same call, the same adhan is what we have offered the world, and that is meditation. So naturally the question arises: after touching Gauri Shankar’s heights, after recognizing the heights of Gautam Buddha, why did such disinterest in meditation spread through the Indian psyche?

On the surface it seems a contradiction. But this is how the human mind works. When something has been attained, for the ordinary mind its challenge evaporates. The ego feels challenged by what has not been attained, by what is difficult. Understand this—subtly. We have seen Mahavira, we have seen Buddha, Parshvanath, Kabir, Nanak, Farid—thousands of fakirs. A notion slipped into the collective unconscious: meditation must be something anyone can get; attaining it is no great thing. Farid got it. Kabir, a weaver, got it. Raidas, a cobbler, got it. The ego’s challenge was gone. Wealth seems difficult; meditation began to seem easy. People started running after wealth, after office, after prestige. In what is difficult there is challenge; it can feed the ego. What is simple, natural, accessible—there the ego finds no attraction.

The many radiant, luminous beings of meditation unintentionally stole the challenge of meditation from the masses. And it began to seem: if not today, then tomorrow we’ll get it; and if not tomorrow, then next life—what’s the hurry? The fleeting pleasures of life—who knows if they’ll be there tomorrow? Youth is here today; who can be sure it will be here tomorrow? The only certainty is that it won’t. Meditation—if you do it tomorrow, that will do. These waves of youth—fulfill them today. And meditation even comes to those who possess nothing. In the naked Mahavira we saw the flame of meditation. In Raidas stitching shoes we saw the aura of meditation. So the attraction faded: “This is something I can get any time.” But wealth, position, prestige—the many races of ambition—are not so easy. There is fierce competition, throat-cutting competition; you fight inch by inch. Then perhaps one person, out of millions, becomes the president of a country.

The ego’s delight is to rise above all. Meditation’s difficulty is that it says: the sweetness in sitting behind everyone is not found in rising above all. There is no competition there, no quarrel. No one can push you and get ahead of you in meditation, because it is not about the outside; it is about the inside. There you are utterly alone. No competition, no struggle, no grabbing. The ego finds no fun in that. The ego fears death: if flowers blossom in meditation, the ego dies. If the lamp of meditation is lit, the lamp of ego goes out. They cannot coexist. Either ego or meditation. Meditation is within you; the ego’s spread is across the whole world. The ego offers great temptations. And what temptation does meditation offer?

The ego gives big assurances—never fulfills them; it cannot. The ego is utterly impotent.

I have heard a story. A man, worshipping Shiva and chewing Shiva’s head day and night—because what is worship except pestering?—the same tune, the same refrain: “O Lord, give me something that makes life delightful. I ask just once—but give such a thing that I never have to ask again.” Harassed and exasperated—morning, evening, midnight, whenever the man woke up, he would fall upon Shiva—at last Shiva, in boon, picked up a conch from his altar and gave it to him, saying: “From today this conch has this power: whatever you ask of it, it will give. Now no need to trouble me—no need for worship or prayer. Give me a break. Whatever you want, ask it from this; it will give you instantly. Ask—and it will be present.”

He tried it. “Let a palace be made”—a palace was made. “Let it rain gold coins”—and gold rained. Blessed fate! Even if Shiva had not said so, he would have forgotten him. He forgot completely—where Shiva went, what happened to that poor fellow—none of it concerned him. No worship, no chanting. Now there was only the conch, and whatever he wanted.

But a problem arose. A mahatma became a guest in his palace. The mahatma too had a conch—just like his, only twice as big. The mahatma guarded it carefully. He had nothing else; in his bag there was just one big conch. The man asked, “Why do you guard this conch so carefully?”

The mahatma said, “This is no ordinary conch—this is a great conch. Ask for one; it gives two. Say, ‘Make one palace!’—it makes two. One is nothing. Always!”

Greed arose in the man. “That’s astonishing. I also have a conch, but a small, ordinary one. You have needlessly made me feel poor. Let me see the miracle of your conch!”

The mahatma said, “Seeing its miracle is difficult. In the stillness of night, when all are asleep, at the precise auspicious moment—midnight—one must ask. Stay awake and listen.”

At midnight the mahatma said to the conch, “Give the Kohinoor.” It said, “I will not give one; I will give two.” The mahatma said, “Fine, give two.” It said, “Not two—four. Mind whom you are talking to; talk with some sense!” The mahatma said, “All right then—give four.” The great conch said, “Now I will give eight.”

The man heard and said, “This is the limit! And here I am sitting with a beggar’s conch!” He caught hold of the mahatma’s feet. “You are a saint, a renunciate. Take my poor conch, and give me this great conch.”

The mahatma said, “As you wish. We wanted to be rid of it anyway. This cheat has tormented us. Ask for something and it babbles so much the whole night passes.”

He still did not understand what the matter was—that it was only a “great conch” in name; it only talked, it never gave anything. It always doubled the number. You say four; it says eight. You say eight; it says sixteen. You say, “All right, sixteen”; it says thirty-two. You speak a number; it multiplies by two. That’s all it knew—to double. It knew nothing else.

The mahatma left in the morning. The next night, at the right moment, the man asked the conch for something. It said, “You idiot! Why ask for one? I will give two.” He said, “Fine—give two.” It said, “I will give four.” “Then give four.” “I will give eight.” Dawn began to break. The numbers grew longer. The neighborhood gathered: “What is happening?” The whole locality woke: “What is the matter?” The number kept increasing; there was no giving or receiving. At last the man asked, “Will you give anything—or is it only talk, talk, talk?”

It said, “We are the great conch. We know mathematics. You ask—whatever you ask, we will double.”

The man said, “I’m ruined. Where is that mahatma?”

It said, “He wanted to be rid of us for a long time. He was waiting to find the real thing. He took the real conch. Now you won’t find him even if you search. We can get you to him.”

The conch had no legs, yet he still clasped it as if catching its feet, put his head on it, and said, “In any way—get me to the mahatma.” It said, “We’ll get you to two.” This is the limit. “To four.” The same babble. In two or four days the conch drove the man mad. The conch would nag him: “Ask for something!” The man would look around, afraid to say a word: “If I speak, this wretch will trap me again; then it’ll keep hounding me—‘Will you take thirty-two? Sixty-four?’” There was never any giving.

Such is the relationship between meditation and the ego. The ego is the great conch. However much you get, you want more. The number keeps increasing. The race quickens. And man never reaches a place where he can say, “The goal is here.” The goal remains a mirage—always at a distance. Much journeying; arriving nowhere. But there is plenty of running and jostling. And because the whole world is running, there is much struggle. And it doesn’t occur to one that so many people could be wrong. Who ever sits down for meditation?

Have you noticed the word “buddhu”—fool? It comes from “Buddha.” Those who sit with eyes closed, people say of them: “Look at this buddhu! Off to become a Buddha!” Set out to become a Buddha, and you end up a buddhu. And even if you do find yourself—the ego argues very logically—what on earth have you found? You already are yourself. What needs to be attained is what is far; why go after what you already are? It’s an argument—intellect understands it. What is already given by birth, what is your very nature—what is there to gain in it? Don’t waste time. Go after what is distant: go to the moon, climb Everest.

What joy could there be in climbing Everest? What joy did Edmund Hillary have standing upon its peak?

I have heard a story—not necessarily credible, but I feel like believing it—that when Edmund Hillary, Tenzing, and their team reached Everest, they found a sadhu already there, puffing on a chillum. Hillary knocked his own head: “We’re finished!” Before Hillary, at least a hundred expeditions had perished, with no trace—lost in icy storms. The journey was arduous. Somehow he managed to reach, and here this fellow sits, smoking his chillum! He sat nearby and looked closely: was it a man or some spirit? For he had none of the equipment necessary to reach Everest—just a pair of tongs stuck in the ground, a chillum in hand, and he was so absorbed his eyes were closed. Hillary thought: a great mahatma, a siddha—perhaps he reached here by some siddhi. He fell at the sadhu’s feet.

Falling at his feet jarred the sadhu’s doze a little. He opened his eyes, looked carefully—what’s this? His gaze fell on Hillary’s shining watch. He said, “Boy, what will you take for that watch? I’ve long been looking for a good watch. You’ve arrived at the right time.”

Hillary said, “Maharaj, take the watch—but tell me how you got here.”

What the sadhu said—“How did I get here? That’s exactly what I was going to ask you: how did you get here? People called me a buddhu, a village simpleton. So I came to prove that I am the first man to climb Everest. I’ll make history. I may not have read history, but I’ll make it. How did you reach?”

Hillary said, “You’ve spoken my secret too. That was my feeling—make history, be the first man. Brother, don’t tell anyone that you were already here with your tongs planted, taking a puff.”

The sadhu said, “Don’t worry. Many have come and gone. We just sit here with our tongs planted, taking puffs. And under the spell of the puff, who remembers who came and who went? Now give the watch and be on your way.”

What taste is there in climbing Everest? Man can take on all the hardships of climbing Everest, but he is not ready to take on the small hardship of going within. He can go to the moon with his life in his hands. Just now, the seven who were on their way to the moon ended midway. But the idea of going within does not appeal to the ego.

Precisely because those summits were touched. When so many had reached the peaks, the Indian ego felt no further longing to move in that direction. That is why India became so grossly materialistic; today, nowhere on earth is there a country so materialist. Yes, we may talk endlessly of spirituality, but our so‑called spirituality is nothing but blather—bombastic hot air. In truth, we are thoroughgoing materialists. After traveling throughout the West for five years I can say from my own experience: there is no society more materialistic than this one. No one clutches money with the ferocity you do. People spend money; they don’t clutch it. People live with money; they don’t strangle it. People use money; you lock it in safes. Whether money is locked in the safe or the safe is empty—what difference does it make? You are never going to use it anyway.

I have heard of a man who had two gold ingots. He had buried them in the garden. He had buried them, yes, but his life remained stuck there. Two or three times a day he would circle back to that spot. He couldn’t sleep at night. His wife kept saying, “What’s the matter with you? Whenever I look, you’re off again! You’re dying in that corner. Shall I have your grave dug there? What do you go to see? I can’t see a thing there.”

What could he say! He went to look at the buried ingots—to see that no one had dug them up, that nothing had gone wrong, that there was no danger.

Wives aren’t made of stone; how long can they watch this daily drama? One day he went off “on holiday.” What holiday! His mind was stuck on the ingots. The wife seized the moment, had the place dug up—two gold ingots! “Ah, a kingdom has fallen into my hands,” she said. She took the ingots out, put two ordinary bricks in their place, and had the pit filled. Exactly as it had been.

Husband returned. The four daytime rounds continued; the nighttime rounds too. But whenever he went out, the wife would smile. He was puzzled. Before, she used to be furious—she would scold him, say all kinds of things: “Is your head all right? Why do you keep going there? Are your forefathers buried in that corner?” Now she was absolutely quiet and only smiled—suppressing her laughter. Some secret was afoot.

This went on for months. One day suspicion ripened; something was too fishy. She no longer mentioned that corner at all. Go six times, go twelve times, sit there all night—she slept peacefully. So he dug and looked. He found bricks—but not gold. Then the secret was clear. He came inside and asked his wife, “Well, where are the ingots?”

She said, “What difference does it make to you? You weren’t going to spend them anyway—just keep them buried. Whether they’re gold or clay—what’s the difference to you? Your business was to circle around, so keep circling. As for the gold ingots—they’ve been spent.”

Women know how to spend. Look at the husband—he seems like a beggar. Look at the wife—she’s a queen. See the two together and it’s obvious: because of her he looks like a beggar; because of him she looks like a queen. It’s an arrangement. The two wheels keep turning together. The bullock cart rolls on.

But the man had a great awakening. He realized he had been circling for months around lumps of clay! It was all belief. He thought they were gold. That night he wanted to go make his rounds, but there was no point anymore.

In this country people bury money and imagine they are spiritual because they don’t spend it. In the West people spend what they earn. They spend, so you can see it. And when you see it, the Indian envy stirs: “Wretches, they’re spending everything—pure materialists, they’ll rot in hell!”

And you? With your heavy strongbox will you march straight to heaven? You are rotting here; you will rot there too. They at least are enjoying themselves here. As for the future—let the future be seen then. Why such hurry now!

India touched the peaks of meditation. That itself became India’s misfortune. Sometimes fortune turns into misfortune. In the West scientists, doctors, surgeons, musicians, litterateurs—countless people—asked me: “Whenever we came to India to meet you, the Indians we knew, whose guests we were, mocked us, ridiculed us: ‘What are you after meditation for? What’s in meditation? The whole East is going West to learn science—and you’re a first-class fool, possessed by this mania for meditation! And even if great heights of meditation were attained here, what came of it? People are dying of hunger. Do you want to starve too? Turn back now. Nothing is lost yet.’”

In the Indian mind—the mind of the vast masses—other things have taken the place of meditation. There is taste for wealth, for position, for prestige. And today in the West a vast thirst for meditation has arisen.

The commune that the sannyasins built in America—there was no other secret behind the American government’s destruction of it but this: the commune was attracting America’s talent. The most gifted people were, in some form or another, being drawn to it. And the commune began to produce a fear in the minds of the American authorities: If people start sitting silently in meditation, what will happen to the Third World War? If people are filled with meditation and love, what will become of America’s empire spread across the world? If in people’s minds the race for position, prestige, and money disappears, America’s present power—the dollar—will evaporate into thin air. A small commune of five thousand became so intolerable to them that it had to be erased at any cost, razed to the ground. Bulldozers must run so that where the commune stood, the old desert returns. In five years we had turned that desert into an oasis. That oasis had to be wiped out.

The day I first arrived in the commune, there wasn’t a single bird. It seems birds and animals are more intelligent than people. Gradually birds began to come. Gradually herds and herds of deer began to arrive. You have seen deer; I have seen deer. But the understanding the deer showed in the commune was astonishing. They would stand in the middle of the road; you could honk your horn—they wouldn’t budge. They knew: this is a tribe that harms no one. Get out of the car and nudge them and only then would they yield the way. In America every year there are ten days’ leave to hunt deer. In those ten days you can kill as many deer as you like. So from far and wide, as far as deer could come, they all gathered in the commune. We had the space—some one hundred twenty-six square miles. Thousands of deer came of their own accord—as if by an inner message that here there is no danger, not even a stone will be thrown, no bullet will fly.

The commune did not harm America in any way. It only made a dead desert into a living oasis.

But that itself became the thorn, because the people there had gathered for meditation. And if meditation seizes America’s talent—and it surely will—the destruction of the commune makes no difference. America is exactly in the opposite condition to us. They have touched the peaks of wealth. Money does not attract there now. So from the outside you see they have so much money; but money doesn’t attract anyone there. In the commune there were sannyasins who donated one crore rupees—that was their entire wealth. They didn’t keep even a single paisa back for tomorrow. Two hundred crore rupees were given by sannyasins alone to build the commune. We did not hold our hands out to anyone else, nor did we beg from anyone. And while giving those two hundred crores, no one urged anyone else.

People have money. And they have understood that what money can buy is worth two cowries. There is something else that money cannot buy—and now only that is the search, that is the thirst, that is the quest, that is the longing. Meditation is the collective name for all of that. Love is joined to it. Compassion is joined to it. Meditation is a temple with many doors. Everything that money cannot buy is joined to it.

In the West there is an unprecedented attraction to meditation, because the West has never touched the heights of meditation—no Gautam Buddha, no Kabir, no Raidas. The Western soul is empty; hands full, life hollow. This condition has produced a revulsion for money in the West and a revulsion for meditation in India. The wheel of life is very strange. There is a real fear that the East will become the West, and the West the East.

In the Indian Parliament, in answer to a question by the leader of the opposition, the concerned minister replied that neither God nor any of his sannyasins would be stopped from coming to India. The rumor that my sannyasins would be barred from entering India is false.

I sent a few sannyasins to Indian embassies in different countries. At the embassy in Athens they asked: “Why do you want to go to India?” The sannyasin who went there said, “To meditate.” And you will be amazed: the ambassador replied, “There is no place in India now for meditation, yoga, etc. We don’t want this kind of traveler.”

I sent word to the young woman: tell the ambassador we want a written reply. Put in writing what you are saying. But India’s spinelessness is such that they didn’t have the courage even to write that down. They would grant no permission to go, and give no written refusal either. Because I wanted a written reply so we could prove that the minister who spoke in Parliament lied.

Here, every day, from morning to evening, the police make their rounds—four and five times a day—needlessly harassing Suraj Prakash: “How many foreigners are staying here?”

If you have no objection to foreigners coming to me—this you proclaim in Parliament—then have at least a little integrity. Why send the police here? And why such panic about foreigners? If they are coming to India to learn meditation, your eyes should be on their money. You have nothing to do with meditation. If they come, they will spend something before they go; some coins will surely fall into the begging bowl of India. But no. The reason is that America is pressuring India not to allow anyone to come to learn meditation. Because in the West there is a panic: if people become interested in meditation, they will lose their appetite for the pointless occupations in which they have been kept entangled.

It’s a strange state of the world. The West longs to journey into meditation; their governments are doing everything to block that longing. Here in the East we touched the sky of meditation—this is our bequest. We can reclaim it with ease. But we are denying our own inheritance. There is hardly another world so blind as ours. And especially to prevent anyone from coming to me is sheer crime, because I do not regard sannyas as world‑renouncing, nor do I want meditators to abandon home and flee to the Himalayas.

My effort is so different from the old that perhaps the political leaders of India or of the West are not even capable of understanding it. My effort is this: you can travel both journeys together, because they are not enemies. Meditation takes you within. The deeper you go within, the more your intelligence is polished. And the more your intelligence is polished, the better you can travel the road of success in the outer world. I do not see the outer and inner as enemies—they are two sides of the same coin. Therefore neither the Indian government nor the American or European governments need fear me. They should be utterly unafraid. The truth is, if they obstruct me, they betray their peoples and nations and hand them over to those who are anti‑life. What they want will produce the opposite result. They have no idea of my unique way of living. I am saying: precisely while living in the world you can become temples of God. And then let the temple be as beautiful as possible—if it can be of gold, encrusted with diamonds and jewels, so much the better.

Within me there is no opposition between outer and inner. Yes, in the past it was true: those who were eager to go within opposed the outer; those eager to remain in the outer opposed the inner. Their days are over. Why carry their dead conditionings? Will you not allow anything new to happen in this world?

My experiment is new. There is no need to link it to any old experiment. I want each person to be rich in a total way: within, the kingdom of heaven—and without, too.

Because I respect the individual, and because for me the individual is the ultimate unit, his freedom is life’s supreme value. Therefore, the less the pressure of bayonets upon him, the less the pressure of rules upon him, the less the discipline imposed by others upon him, the better. I want to see the individual free. And I want education for the individual such that, along with his freedom, flowers of responsibility also bloom in his life.

Why is the state needed? It is needed because individuals are dishonest, individuals are thieves, individuals are murderers. Just think: the need for the state is an insult to you. The more the state is deemed necessary, the greater your humiliation. Soldiers standing on the streets, the towering buildings of the courts—this is not your glory. It simply indicates that you are not worthy of trust. To keep you in control, trust will be placed in guns, in swords, in violence.

I am an anarchist in the sense that I want to see the individual in his ultimate aura, where his own consciousness, his own awareness, gives discipline to his life so that there remains no need for any discipline from the outside. No, this will not happen in a single day. And perhaps it may never be fully accomplished. But at least we should dream good dreams. If it is only a dream, so be it. All ideals are dreams. It is our good fortune that dreamers have been born in the world and will go on being born. Wherever now and then there is a faint fragrance, a flower unexpectedly blossoms, a lamp suddenly lights—these are the blessings of those who dreamed. Perhaps their dreams did not come true in their own lives, but the seeds they sowed—one day a gust of monsoon, one day a patch of earth—turns those seeds into flowers.

I think the day may hardly come when there is absolutely no need of the state. But my conscience refuses to accept that; it still hopes that someday that day will arrive, that morning will surely come. So what if the night is dark! So what if the night is very long! So what if the dawn is delayed! Every night has its morning; this night too will have a morning. Far away, very far perhaps, but there is still this hope: that we can give such awareness to human beings that there will be no need for policemen on the streets; that we can give such peace to human beings that there will be no need for courts; that we can give such understanding that no one will encroach upon another’s boundaries. The need for the state will grow thinner and thinner; it should grow thinner and thinner. As the individual awakens, the state should bid its farewell. And there is that purely imaginary day when every person on earth will be radiant with Buddhahood and this whole earth will glitter with human lights—there will be Diwali—on that day there will be no need for the state, no need for anything of the sort, no need for politicians either. It is a simple matter: if people stop falling ill, there is no longer any need for doctors.

One morning, on his way to the market, Mulla Nasruddin was stopped by his doctor, who said, “This is the limit! I’ve been reminding you for four months. I cured your boy. You’ve neither paid my fee nor the cost of the medicines. Am I running a clinic, or a charity?”

Nasruddin said, “Look, don’t make a mountain out of it. The truth is bitter.”

The doctor said, “Great! The thief scolding the constable!”

A crowd gathered—market business. And in this country, no one lets two people even talk, especially when the talk is juicy. Nasruddin shouted, “Brothers, come here, all of you, and listen. I’ll tell you the truth.”

The doctor said, “What kind of man are you? I’m asking for my fee; there’s no question of hearing some ‘truth.’ Do you admit or not that I cured your boy, gave him medicine, and visited four times?”

Nasruddin said, “That’s fine. But who spread smallpox through the whole school? My boy did. And who deserves a commission on all you earned? Who else but me? Like a gentleman I didn’t come to your house, thinking you’d send the commission yourself. You must have some sense. My boy will be useful again—after all, he’s my boy. Say the word and he’ll spread an illness whenever you like. But talk business.”

The doctor said, “Business? You mean I should give you money?”

Nasruddin said, “Mean? Money? Speak in rupees, sir! There are at least five hundred boys in that school. And my one boy worked hard to spread the smallpox. Have some consideration—behave like a decent man. Let’s talk accounts. How much did you collect from those five hundred boys? Bring a full accounting. And if you don’t show up by tomorrow, remember, I’m an old hand of the Congress. The day after, I’ll start a sit-in at your door. The whole village will know this dishonest doctor is robbing a poor man!”

The doctor said, “Brother, come with me. Let’s go inside. We’ll sit in the dispensary and talk. Whatever needs to be settled, we’ll settle. Fine—if it’s about money, it’s about money, but let’s go inside. Don’t discuss this in the crowd. There are other doctors in the village—heavy competition.”

As long as there is illness in the world, doctors are needed. Only China is a country where, for five thousand years, there has been a unique rule. And when you first hear of it, it sounds surprising. The rule is: every person must be personally related to some doctor, and every month he must pay that doctor a fixed fee because he has not fallen ill that month. In the month he does fall ill, the doctor receives no fee. On the contrary, the doctor must make arrangements for the patient’s household expenses—for his wife and children. It sounds strange, but it is profoundly psychological. A doctor’s duty is to keep a person healthy. If he cannot keep him healthy, he should pay a penalty. He can charge for health.

Everywhere else the arrangement is upside down: we pay for illness. It is dangerous to make a doctor’s livelihood depend on a person’s sickness. It means we are forcing him into a contradictory situation. The longer the patient remains a patient, the more the doctor benefits. And yet a doctor’s duty is to make the patient well as quickly as possible. What a tangle we put the doctor in!

A young man finished his education, returned home, and became a doctor. He said to his father—who was also a doctor—“Now you don’t worry. You’ve worked hard all your life. I’m here now; I’ll run the clinic.”

The father said, “Fine. I’ll give you three days. Let me see how you manage. I’ll take a little holiday.”

After three days the son reported, “You’ll be happy to know that the millionaire old lady whom you couldn’t cure in twenty-two years—I cured her in three days.”

The father slapped his forehead. “If you run the business like this, what will happen to your younger brothers? And your future children? That old lady’s illness paid for all your education. On her rests all our grandeur—the car at the door, the bungalow, the garden, the best schools for the children. Idiot! In three days you cured her! That’s the end of the practice. I’ll have to return tomorrow. You’re fit to be no more than a compounder. It will take you years to become a doctor. It’s a matter of experience. Slowly you’ll learn. You’ve read books, but you haven’t seen life.”

And it is true. A poor man falls ill and recovers quickly—the same medicines. A rich man falls ill and it takes a long time; he never seems to recover. Things get worse; more specialists are needed, more X-rays, newer experts—the case keeps expanding. The matter is simple: if you have money, be careful about falling ill. If you don’t, fall ill without worry. A poor man—he can be ill whenever he likes, no harm done. But the moneyed man should place each step with great care, counting every breath; it’s a risky matter.

Exactly the same here: you are unconscious, asleep; therefore the state is needed. And that is why politicians are opposed to all those things that can fill you with awareness. Why are they against me? For this very reason: I am discussing sutras that fill people with awareness, that give them consciousness, that awaken their souls, that give them true understanding and the courage to live by that understanding. The state becomes superfluous; politicians become superfluous. They are no longer needed. And they want to preserve their necessity. They do not want people to be full of meditation or for samadhi to spread in people’s lives.

Imagine: I wanted to stop over in England for one night at the airport. My plane had been in the air for twelve hours, and by law the pilot could not fly any longer. For just six hours, at midnight, I wanted to rest in the airport lounge where any transit passenger may stay. But the British Parliament and Government had already decided that I should not be allowed entry into England. The astonishing thing is that entry into the airport lounge is not entry into the country. But authority and the exercise of power are blind. I tried to explain to the airport chief that entry into the lounge is not entry into England—this is an international airport. Otherwise, what is the meaning of its being international if it is England? And there is no door from this lounge to go outside. I only need to sleep for six hours. In the morning I shall be on my way. What troubles you?

He said, “It does not trouble me. I am troubled that I’m stopping you! But this file… there are orders from above that you be harassed in every possible way. And if you insist on staying, you are to be put in jail, not allowed to remain in the lounge. Because you are dangerous.”

I said, “Use your own sense—of course I am a dangerous man. I carry no bombs, no guns, and yet I’m dangerous. But what danger can I create while sleeping six hours in a lounge?”

The file recorded: this man is dangerous; his presence can destroy the country’s morality; his presence can destroy the country’s religion; his presence can influence the minds of the young. This man is intellectually brilliant. Therefore he should not be allowed entry into England.

Is being intellectually brilliant a crime? And by sleeping six hours in an airport lounge will I do all this—or simply sleep? Will I corrupt the nation’s morality, destroy the religion they have built over two thousand years, all in a six-hour sleep?

No—there are other fears which are not being stated. What is stated is something else. The fear is that people have the capacity; they only need to be reminded. And the beauty of capacity is that even if you make people forget it for two thousand years, it can be remembered in an instant—like a long-forgotten name that won’t come, and then suddenly a chance arises and you say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue.” You know it’s on the tongue, yet it won’t come into your grasp. The more you try to remember, the harder it becomes; a great restlessness appears. That restlessness is intense because you know for sure the name is right there; at some level it is remembered—and yet some barrier blocks the way to that level. Some walls have been raised, some memories have intruded, some doors and windows have been shut. You can’t find the way to reach that memory. Then, frustrated, you give up. You go into the garden and begin to water the trees. Suddenly, while watering a rosebush, you remember. So much effort, and it was stuck; with no effort, it appears. When you were trying, you were tense. When you gave up, you relaxed—and memory had the chance to surface.

In this sense, they are right. The religion they have built in two thousand years is false; the morality they have given people is untrue—because by that morality no one became moral. Prisons have multiplied. Laws have multiplied. Lawyers have multiplied. Courts have multiplied. If their morality were true and successful, there should have been a decline. But there is no decline. Therefore their fear is justified, because I want to remind you of what is your very nature—something they have covered with countless layers. Yet bringing that nature to the surface can happen in a single moment, in a tiny instant. I remember my own remembrance. In my presence I can remind you of yours. My lamp is lit; suddenly you too may remember: what happened to your lamp? A little search—and what has been imposed from above falls away, as if it had never been imposed.

I am an anarchist because I am an individualist. The individual has a soul, and in that soul lies all the truth of life, all its nectar. And I have a single aspiration: that such an awakening arise within the individual that no state, no law, no external discipline is needed. Far away… beyond the horizon… someday perhaps this may happen. But at least we can dream. At least there are no shackles on dreams. And one good dream is a hundred thousand times better than a bad reality.

I was saying that as consciousness increases, the need for the state will disappear. This question is ancillary to that. The state will no longer be necessary because only an unconscious person commits crime. From one filled with awareness, crime does not arise. From one filled with awareness there is neither crime nor even the notion of guilt.

It is true that through the centuries the ideas of crime, fault, of being a criminal, have kept changing. Yet in one form or another, in ever-new guises, like a shadow, the fundamental sense of guilt has kept dogging man. It is your own shadow. And until you are filled with light within, there is no way for that shadow to vanish.

Consider: we have called Yudhishthira “Dharmaraj,” the king of righteousness. It was a different age, a different atmosphere. Yudhishthira could gamble and still be Dharmaraj. And not just any gambling—after losing everything, he even staked his woman. Which shows that in his mind, toward women there was nothing beyond the feeling that they were objects. They too were things. The house was staked, the palace was staked, the woman too was staked. She too was a possession, an object. And yet throughout Indian history no one raises the question: how do we go on calling this man Dharmaraj? And if these are the ways of a Dharmaraj, then it’s the limit—what would be the ways of an unrighteous king?

But at that time, in that era, gambling was like playing cricket or tennis. There was no obstacle to gambling, no evil seen in it. Hindus still repeat that old memory: every Diwali night they gamble a little. If not all year, at least one night; if not much, at least a little—stake five or ten rupees. But they keep themselves linked to their forefathers, preserving the glory of their tradition. They keep reminding themselves that they too are descendants of Yudhishthira. If the occasion arose, even now they could stake their woman. They don’t do it—that is another matter—because women have become dangerous and might stake them instead. The times have changed; the intentions have not.

But behind all such norms there is one fundamental fact: man is unconscious. It never even occurred to Yudhishthira that what he was doing was ignorance, and that staking a woman is an insult to womanhood—dragging her down from the level of a person to the level of a thing. This can never be forgiven.

You can find the same point illustrated in thousands of ways. Even today you do many things that seem right to you; tomorrow those who come after you will declare you criminal for those very acts. This story will continue until we can bring as many people as possible into the state of awareness.

Awareness simply means:
- I do not perform any act that robs anyone of their rights or violates the boundary of anyone’s personhood.
- I do not do anything I would have to hide.
- I do not do anything I would ever need to regret.

For an aware person, all these considerations are present of themselves. Sifted through them, the actions of his life become free of crime and of the shadow of crime.

O.K. Maitreya!