Main Kaun Hun #8

Until now, the message given to the ordinary person has been one of repression: suppress yourself, restrain yourself, be controlled. Turn your eyes away from where there is beauty. Flee from where there is fear.

Just now a certain Swami-ji Maharaj returned from London. Lakhs of rupees were spent to ensure that no woman should come into his view. From the mind that harbors such terror of beauty, we can guess the degree of its sensuality and sexuality. And of a man who is so afraid of women, we can also infer what kind of bestial impulses must be attacking him from within. In beauty, one who sees only sex and cannot glimpse the Divine, his story of repression is very clear. Yet for thousands of years man has been taught only to suppress himself.

No one is freed by repression. Repression only increases the poison; it intensifies the disease. So it seems obvious: if you don’t repress, then indulge. One way is this—so that a woman does not appear before you, put out your own eyes; become Surdas. The other way is—if a woman appears, become Genghis Khan: immediately send her to your harem. Wherever beauty appears, instantly lock it within your four walls.

These two ways are not two ways; they are two sides of the same coin. They are two faces of the same man. There is no fundamental difference between Genghis Khan and Swami-ji Maharaj. The man who is so frightened of woman is eager to assault woman. He is afraid of his own assault. These are two sides of the same coin: the craving for animalistic indulgence and the inhuman urge to repress.

I support neither of these. So you will have to try to understand me with a little sympathy.

First I want to say that it is precisely because of repression that, on seeing beauty, the urge to immediately own it arises. To enjoy beauty is a very different thing. If, while walking by the roadside, you see the beauty of a flower and instantly feel like plucking it, then I would say you have not known the flower’s beauty at all—because the moment you pluck it, the flower will become lifeless and dead.

One who loves a flower cannot pluck it. His very love will become the reason that restrains him. For what does plucking mean? It means destroying the flower. In truth, whenever we take something into our fist, we destroy it. To clutch something in the fist is a sign of a very ugly mind. One who has a sense of beauty has no urge for ownership—for ownership means slavery, an attempt to make someone a slave. And one whose mind has tasted beauty will also recognize the ugliness of slavery.

No, our sense of beauty is extremely feeble. What you would call aesthetic sense simply hasn’t developed in us. Within us sits the animal ready to devour, to grab, to become the owner. And the more we have repressed it, the stronger it has become; the more we have pressed it down, the louder it demands.

If the sense of beauty can be cultivated, a person doesn’t wish to become an owner. And the very experience of beauty is so profound a delight that no other indulgence remains to be desired.

So I would like the sense of beauty to be developed. That too requires training. We ordinarily think that on seeing a flower we all see its beauty; if so, we are mistaken. The beauty of a flower is not visible to everyone. We have heard poems, we have heard handed-down talk for thousands of years that the flower is beautiful; therefore we continue to call the flower beautiful. But this is only a tradition; we have no actual perception. No flower arrests us. No flower transports us into a state of rapture. No flower makes us dance. We do not even pause for two moments before a flower and allow it to enter our eyes completely. No, we know nothing of flowers. We have read poems, seen paintings, and heard from tradition that the flower is beautiful. We have merely accepted it.

We do not know the beauty of the human body. We do not recognize the beauty of the eyes. Our capacity to understand beauty is next to nothing. We have all assumed that from birth we have a sense of beauty. It is as if we assumed that from birth everyone knows mathematics, and there is no teaching of mathematics. If everyone in the world believed they were born knowing math, you can be certain all the mathematics in that world would be wrong. If we assumed from birth that we knew language, then no language would be spoken in the world. Whatever we have presumed to be innate has fallen into difficulty. We have presumed that we know beauty.

To know beauty demands great training.
The sense of beauty is a great sadhana.

And when the sense of beauty begins to awaken, we do not want to be owners—because the urge to own is the mark of an ugly mind. In truth, any man who wants to become a woman’s husband, her master, does not love that woman. The very desire to be a master is the desire to make someone a slave. And would we make a slave of the one we love?

On the day there is a truly good world, there will be lovers and beloveds—but husbands and wives cannot exist. It would be hard to find a relationship more ugly than these. Ownership! And women are writing to their husbands in letters: “Your servant.” And husbands are greatly pleased. Indeed, “husband” means “swami,” the master.

But in the relationships human beings have created so far, there is no relation to beauty. We want to use the other person as a means. A husband wants to use his wife as a means, like a machine that will help release some boiling energies within him. This is not a relationship; nor is there any sense of beauty in it. Nothing could be more ugly.

The way we have prepared the human mind, we have not included any education in beauty. If only we could awaken to the beautiful, it would appear not only in human beings; it would appear in the moon and stars, in the sky, in the clouds, in pebbles and stones, in flowers and leaves. It would appear all around us. And the beauty that then appears everywhere—of that, a part will be seen by a man in a woman, and by a woman in a man. Then this beauty will lose its specifically sexual meaning.

When beauty is seen in a stone, in a flower, in a leaf, in the moon and stars, in the gusts of wind, in the waves of water, in the darkness of night, in the morning sun—when beauty is seen everywhere—then the beauty in a man or a woman becomes merely a part of this vast beauty. Its erotic meaning dissolves.

But we have not seen beauty everywhere. We do not see beauty at all. Therefore, where we see the possibility of sexual gratification, there we begin to talk of beauty. This so-called beauty withers in two days. The fairest woman ceases to be beautiful after becoming a wife; the handsomest man ceases to be beautiful after becoming a husband. The moment the object is obtained, beauty is lost. It was not beauty; the craving within was something else—the desire to enjoy the body, the urge to satisfy lust. Beauty was only like the flour that we put on the fishhook. No one puts flour on the hook to feed the fish; we put a little flour because the fish will not agree to swallow the hook directly. It will agree to eat the flour, and the hook will catch in its throat. What we are calling beauty right now is nothing more than the flour on the hook of our sexual arousal. We have no sense of beauty. When the sense of beauty awakens, we will begin to see beauty throughout life.

So I would urge you: enlarge your sense of beauty. As long as only women seem beautiful to you, or only men seem beautiful, understand that these are merely words smeared like flour over your sexuality. And then there are only two outcomes: either lock all the beautiful women of the world in your harem, or, like some Swami-ji Maharaj, close your eyes and spend lakhs so that no woman comes into sight. These are traits of the same mind.

No—cultivate your sense of beauty so fully that wherever there is beauty, it comes into view. Then it becomes asexual, free of lust. What has sex to do with a leaf? What has sex to do with a flower? What has sex to do with a lone cloud drifting in the sky? But the man who fears beauty in woman will unknowingly begin to fear even a flower—because deep down he will feel that wherever there is beauty, there is the flour and there is the hook. He will grow panicky. Hence the renunciate will begin to fear flowers, fear the moonlight of night, fear beautiful music, fear beautiful paintings—because in his mind beauty equals sex. That meaning is a disaster; it is not appropriate.

Life is beautiful in many meanings. Sex too can be beautiful—but it is only one dimension of beauty. And in the lives of those whose dimensions open from all sides, the dimension of sex, by itself, dissolves into that vast dimension of beauty.

No, I am not saying that sex will not remain in their lives. But there will be a fundamental difference. Right now, beauty is seen only in sex—and as soon as sex is satisfied, beauty departs. That is why the urge to possess arises. For what we want to use as a means, we must own completely. What we wish to use as an instrument—we want to be sure no one else uses it. Jealousy seizes the mind.

One who has a sense of beauty cannot harbor jealousy, because jealousy is profoundly ugly.

At present we desire ownership because without ownership we cannot satisfy the demands of sexual relationship. This ownership does not arise from beauty; it arises for the sake of the reality hidden behind our thin notion of beauty. If you repress it, that reality only grows stronger. If you indulge it blindly, there is still no escape. What is needed is a vast sense of beauty—so vast that sex remains only one dimension within it.

Beauty has infinite dimensions. And remember: when beauty begins to satisfy us from infinite dimensions, its sexual meanings fade away. Therefore, naturally, the person who can see beauty in nature can, if he wishes, very easily be free of sex. Generally, the person who sees beauty in poetry does not need to stand on his head to practice celibacy. The person who sees beauty in scientific discovery often forgets that there is even a world of sex. A great scientist, a great poet, a great philosopher becomes so absorbed in his quest that no other path can attract him. Therefore, generally, you will find greater renunciates not among “holy men,” but among those whose lives have flowed toward the search for supreme beauty, supreme truth, the supreme good (Shivam). But those whose sole goal is somehow to escape sex will not escape it—because what we try to escape encircles us; what we run from pursues us; what we throw out of the mind starts entering within with double force.

So I say: neither repress, nor go crazy in indulgence. I say: bring a vast sense of beauty. This infinite life is to be enjoyed. And when you gain the capacity to enjoy the moon and stars, the desire to clutch with the fist will diminish—because the moon and stars cannot be held in the fist. When beauty is seen in the wide, expansive ocean, you will not feel like bringing it home and locking it in your bathroom. And when it is experienced that beauty can be enjoyed without ownership—what ownership is needed over the moon?—then even in the ordinary parts of life, even in ordinary relationships, we will be able to enjoy beauty.

Just now a friend of mine had gone to Italy. He returned quite shaken and told me he had an experience there that frightened him greatly. He was walking along the road—he is a very handsome man. A woman came up to him, closed her eyes, stood before him and said, “Let me run my hands over your face. I have never seen a man with such beautiful features, such a beautiful countenance.”

He got very flustered. So flustered he couldn’t refuse. So flustered he couldn’t run away. Meanwhile the woman, eyes closed, ran her hands over his face, thanked him, and moved on.

He said to me, “Italians seem very lustful!”

I said: “You are lustful. The woman who stroked your face, thanked you, and moved on—who did not even look back—you should be ashamed to call her lustful! She is not lustful. She did not wish to assert ownership. She had no desire to drag you to bed. She merely touched your face, that too with eyes closed, and thanked you that she beheld a beautiful person, paid her respects, and went on her way.”

This experience is like pausing a moment to look at the moon. Like closing one’s eyes upon seeing the waves rise in the sea. After all, if the sea can be enjoyed, and the moon can be seen, and the flowers blooming in another’s garden can be appreciated, what is the objection to admiring a beautiful face?

That friend was thinking the woman was lustful and he himself was desireless. But think once yourselves: who is lustful between the two? It is the friend who is lustful. There was nothing to fear. Nothing to be so frightened about. And this beauty of the face is also of the Divine. To claim ownership over it—“my face, my beauty”—is ignorance as well. And then, the woman thanked him and did not even look back. She did not ask his name and address, where he lived, where he was staying. She had nothing to do with it—just as a stranger might pause upon seeing a flower blooming by the roadside and, thanking the unknown gardener, move on. Would you call such a person lustful?

No, I cannot call that woman lustful. I believe she has a sense of beauty that does not demand ownership. And the more such a sense of beauty develops, the more the mind gradually becomes free of sexual craving. Because the more you can drink in beauty, the more you can be absorbed in beauty, the less the demand remains on the physical plane.

There are reasons for this.
The higher the direction in which we find fulfillment, the more the demands of the lower directions disappear. A man who lives in a hut and is given a great palace to live in—do you think he will keep returning to the hut? A man who had colored pebbles in his hands and suddenly finds a diamond mine—do you think he will have to force himself to renounce the pebbles? They will fall from his hands by themselves; his hands will be filled with diamonds and jewels.

In our lives, the higher the enjoyment rises, the more yoga at the lower levels happens on its own. The higher the plane on which we can enjoy, the more, at the lower plane, renunciation comes of itself. One who has begun to savor beauty in a spiritual sense—his bodily enjoyments of beauty begin to wane by themselves. But one who has had no spiritual experience, who has not gazed upon beauty as the vast truth of the Divine—then in his life sex remains the only center. Whether he builds a harem of a thousand women, or walks with veils over his eyes—it does not make much difference. That man is lustful. A fire is burning within him. He is suppressing that fire. Beware of such people.

But we have become cautious of the man with a thousand women; we have not yet become cautious of the man who covers his eyes. And until we do, this will keep pouring poison into our lives; it will keep distorting our lives.

Life is indeed to be enjoyed. Enjoyment should rise higher day by day. There are infinite dimensions of enjoyment—from the body to the Divine. The higher the enjoyment enters life, the lower plane’s yoga comes of itself.

But the reverse does not happen—that you bring yoga at the lower plane and enjoyment blossoms at the higher. You may empty your hands of pebbles; it is not guaranteed that you will find a diamond mine. But if a diamond mine is found, it is certain your hands will be emptied of pebbles. By abandoning the lower, the higher does not arrive; but by attaining the higher, the lower surely falls away. It is necessary to understand this secret well—because one or two more friends have asked questions on this.

As he has put it, if Mahavira and Buddha spoke only of renunciation, then the fault would be certain. However, I do not accept that they speak only of renunciation. Mahavira and Buddha speak of enjoyment; we, in our foolishness, take it to be renunciation.
There are reasons for that.
There are reasons: wherever we feel the juice is, Mahavira and Buddha seem to have risen and moved away from there, so we conclude they have “left” it. They have not left anything. In this world no one can really leave anything—except leaving the foolish behind. No wise person practices renunciation; only the ignorant do. And the ignorant, by renouncing, fall into troubles beyond measure. The wise one attains something—and then something drops. His life becomes a life of joy.

Have you seen the statue of Mahavira? And have you looked at the faces of Jain monks? Then you will see the difference. Mahavira’s image appears utterly healthy. But look at the monk who follows Mahavira: if a little blood were seen in him, there would be suspicion that his renunciation is not complete. If the least bit of relish shows in his life, there will be doubt that attachment remains. If any Mahavira-like merriment appears in him, we become suspicious; devotees run away, fearing that some secret doorway is letting juice back into life. No—we will only worship him when he is absolutely corpse-like. He must be wholly bloodless. The more sallow he becomes, the more we say his renunciation is ripening. The more dead he looks, the higher we say he is rising. The more he lives, terrified of life, inside a self-made prison, the greater we declare his stature to be.

Mahavira—Mahavira is another matter. Mahavira did not renounce anything; Mahavira attained something. And because of that attainment, naturally, something had to be thrown out. If I bring something new into the house, old junk furniture must be taken out. Naturally, something descended into Mahavira’s being, and some things had to be thrown away like trash. That is not renunciation; it is preparation for a greater enjoyment. I see it in precisely these terms. In Buddha’s life something so wondrous descended that what was futile had to be discarded.

If your pocket is filled with shiny one-paise coins and you win a lottery of a hundred thousand, you will empty your pocket at once. A beggar sitting by the roadside may think, “What a great renunciate!” Naturally—he does not know this man has won a large lottery; he only sees him fling shiny coins onto the road and dash toward home. He can’t carry such a load now. He doesn’t know a great attainment has happened, so those one-paise coins have become meaningless. The beggar will say, “You are a great renunciate,” and gather the coins. And he may even dream, “May such a day come to me when I too can throw these coins away.” And if tomorrow he sees that man dancing along the road in joy—the man who won the lottery—he will think, “Because he renounced, he attained great joy. I too will renounce these coins and become blissful.” He will be mistaken. If that beggar were to throw away his coins, a hundred-thousand lottery will not fall into his lap. When the lottery comes, then indeed you can throw away the coins.

We, beggar-like, have seen Mahavira and Buddha brimming with joy and wondered, “How did they come to such bliss?” Then we looked at what they had “left”: someone left a palace, someone a wife, someone wealth. We think, “If we too leave, we too will gain that joy.” This logic is false. It is upside-down. They received something—therefore they could leave something. But we try to get something by first leaving—and the result is the same as what has been happening for two or two-and-a-half thousand years in the wake of Buddha and Mahavira: dry-boned, skeletal people stand behind them, like bony frames. They have gained nothing, though they have certainly left something. Now their plight is grave: what they left was their only possession—that too is gone; what was to be gained—they are stuck in hope—that has not come. They hang like Trishanku, in-between. Hence they have one relish: to persuade those who have, to leave too. They keep trying to get everyone else’s tails cut as well; the more tails cut, the better.

No, I do not speak of renunciation. And if anyone does, I say he is wrong. I speak of supreme enjoyment. Around that supreme enjoyment, all kinds of renunciations happen—this is another matter—there is no need to worry about them.

I speak of health. If sickness falls away, there is no need to talk about it. I speak of attaining the higher dimension. If the lower dimensions drop, there is no need to speak of them. My way of thinking is the way of “attaining more,” not of “leaving more.” And I tell you: the secret of life is attainment; the secret of death is renunciation. If you want to die, renunciation is the path. If you want to attain supreme life, supreme enjoyment is the path.

But people get me wrong. Perhaps you think I am endorsing what you are currently enjoying. I am not. I am only saying that what you are enjoying shows you have no inkling of the greater enjoyment. I am not saying the pebbles you clutch are precious. I am saying that your clinging to pebbles tells me you have not yet discovered the diamond mines. I do not say, “Drop the pebbles,” because until you find diamonds, play with them like toys—otherwise you will land in great difficulty. I say, “Search for diamonds; keep playing with the pebbles; let the search for diamonds continue.” The day diamonds are found, you will drop the pebbles and run so fast that you will not even return to announce, “I have renounced pebbles.” And if someone does go around saying, “I have renounced pebbles,” understand: those pebbles were not pebbles to him—they were still diamonds. And he has not yet found diamonds—for only then can pebbles become pebbles.

I am not endorsing your indulgences; in a very deep sense, I am more opposed to your indulgences than the renouncer is. The renouncer has great faith in your indulgences: he says, “Drop them and you will find God.” He gives your indulgences great value—so much value that if you agree to give them up, God can be had. He is assigning a big price to them, not a small one. He is saying, “With the pebbles in your hand, you can buy diamonds: drop these and take diamonds.” He gives your indulgences great value.

I do not give your indulgences even the worth of two cowries. Because I tell you: by dropping them you will get nothing. They are utterly worthless. Drop them and you will not get religion. Drop them and you will not get heaven. Drop them and you will not gain merit. Drop them and you will not find God.

The renouncer tells you that by dropping them, you get something. Whatever yields something upon being given up has value. And if by dropping something you can get God, then its value is no small matter. If something can even buy God, its value is immense. The renouncer gives your indulgences great value—and therefore you too give great value to the renouncer’s renunciation.

You are both hedonists, standing back-to-back, enjoying the game. That renouncer too is a hedonist. And you too are “renouncers,” in the same sense that he is a hedonist. You both stand back-to-back, mutually appreciating each other. He praises you; you praise him. You say, “You are great; you have renounced so much.” He says, “You too can be great—make a little renunciation; the things are in your hands; drop them and you too will be great.”

I give neither of you any value. Because the day I value your indulgence, on that day I could also value the renouncer’s renunciation—after all, what has he given up? Exactly what you have. And if what is in your hand is trash, then he too has given up trash. Can God be obtained from trash? Can liberation ever be bought with trash?

Have a little grace toward Mahavira and Buddha. They did not attain liberation by throwing away trash; because they attained liberation, the trash fell away.

I am not on the side of “self-restraint,” because I am not on the side of repression. But do not take this to mean that I am on the side of un-restraint. Do not take it to mean that I promote indulgence. Our mind rarely thinks beyond two choices. We think either this side or that side; we see no other way. This is the narrow setup of our intellect.

We say: either this or that. We say: either night or day. We have no feel for twilight—when it is neither day nor night. We have no feel for dawn—when the dark has gone but the sun has not yet risen. There are other times; there are other directions in life. It is not right to smash everything into just two. And the truth is: where there are two, the third is always present. And where there are two, the third is the true path—because it is different from, and above, both.

So when I say all this, I see that you keep understanding something else. You understand only what you can. What I say often misses. For example: I am an opponent of indulgence, but I am not a supporter of renunciation. Now it becomes difficult—because if one is against indulgence, he “ought” to support renunciation. I oppose indulgence in this sense: there are greater enjoyments. I am not a supporter of renunciation because the renouncer does not become available to those greater enjoyments.

But look deeper and you will find it hard to locate anyone more supportive of renunciation than I am. For the supreme renunciation flowers in the supreme enjoyment I speak of. There renunciation comes by itself. It is not something you “do”; you hardly notice it—it happens.

I have little love for the word “self-restraint.” The word itself is rather poor. It means something has been checked and controlled. Whatever is controlled, whatever is restrained, remains within.

If someone says, “I have restrained lust,” then sit a little away from him—because his lust will be more than yours, who have not restrained it. Your water flows a little; your lust is like a river. His lust has become a pond; he sits guarding it with restraint. Keep a little distance. Be careful with him. His lust can burst forth at any time. A river is less dangerous. When ponds burst, they do more damage—because we do not expect ponds to break. He has been holding it back; within him waves are rising; steam is building; it can explode. The chance of explosion is greater.

I am not in favor of restraint, because the precise meaning of restraint is repression and suppression. But does that mean I favor un-restraint? Am I telling you to go and live an unrestrained life?

No, I am not saying that. I am saying: if you truly want a life of restraint, do not begin with restraint. Restraint is a by-product. When someone sows wheat, chaff also appears with it. Chaff is the by-product. Do not go to sow the chaff—no wheat will grow that way. Do not think, “Since chaff has been born with wheat for so long, out of pity now wheat should be born with chaff. Since chaff has accompanied wheat for countless births, surely wheat will show some compassion: if we sow chaff once, wheat too will appear with it.” Wheat will show no compassion at all. Wheat does not grow from chaff. If you sow chaff, even the chaff you had will be spoiled; nothing will happen. Yes, when you sow wheat you need not worry about the chaff—it comes on its own with wheat. Restraint is the husk; understanding is the grain.

What should awaken in you is discernment (vivek), not restraint. And when discernment awakens, you suddenly find that un-restraint has ended—because un-restraint is simply the absence of discernment. Un-restraint means you have no intelligence. Un-restraint means you lack understanding. Un-restraint means you do not have the discrimination to see where the door is and where the wall is. Lacking eyes, you bang into the wall and break your head. Then you say, “Now I will restrain myself; I will not hit the wall.” What restraint will you keep? How will you avoid it? You need eyes.

Eyes are another matter; they are not restraint. And when a person with eyes leaves a room, do you call him “very restrained” because he does not bump into the walls and goes straight out the door? He will say, “I do not even see any need to bump into things; where the door is, I go.” Have you ever made a vow, while leaving by the door, “I will exit only through the door”? Have you sworn any oath before a god, “I solemnly promise I will no longer crash into walls; I will go only through doors”? No oath at all. Yet you go out the door and do not hit the wall. Why? Because your eyes see that a door is a place to exit and a wall is not.

Discernment should awaken. When discernment awakens, it becomes clear where the door is—the way out—and where the wall is—not a way out. Then anger appears like a wall, and forgiveness like a door. Forgiveness becomes a way through; anger becomes a place to smash your head. Those who gain discernment do not “renounce” anger; anger gets renounced.

People say Mahavira was greatly forgiving. They are wrong—completely wrong. Only those who are angry can be forgiving. First you must be angry; only then can you “forgive.” When we say “Mahavira was supremely forgiving,” we assume he must also have felt anger—because what meaning has forgiveness where no anger has arisen? I say Mahavira was not “forgiving”; Mahavira was non-angry. In truth, anger is so foolish that it did not seem worthy of him. He was not bestowing mercy on anyone; he was being merciful to himself.

Buddha once passed near a village, and the villagers hurled many abuses at him. When their abuses were nearly exhausted, Buddha said, “I need to reach the next village quickly. If your conversation is finished, may I go?”

They said, “This was not a conversation; we gave you plain abuse. Did you not understand?”

Buddha said, “Had I not understood, I too would be ready to abuse you. I did understand. Therefore I ask: if your talk is complete, may I go? I must reach the next village.”

They said, “If you understood, then we want an answer.”

Buddha said, “If you wanted an answer, you should have come ten years ago. Then I was as foolish as you. Then if you gave me one abuse, I would give you two. Before your abuse finished, mine would be out. You would barely start, and I would answer with double weight. But now it is a little difficult; you have come to the wrong man. Now abuse has become difficult—because it has become difficult for me to put myself into suffering.

They said, “We are abusing you—will you really not answer?”

Buddha said, “In the last village some people brought sweets. I told them, ‘My stomach is full.’ They took their trays back. I say the same to you: my belly is already full of your abuses. No hunger remains. Please take your trays back.” And Buddha added, “I feel pity for you. Those people who took their sweets back must have distributed them somewhere. But what will you do with these abuses? Because I refuse to accept them. You have the right to give; at least grant me this much right—to accept or not. I refuse to accept your abuses.”

This man is not “restrained,” with anger surging inside while he grits his teeth, clenches his fist, and thinks, “I won’t let the anger out.” If he is such a person, no understanding has dawned.

A man of restraint need not have understanding; but a man of understanding will have restraint.

My emphasis is not on restraint; my emphasis is on discernment. My emphasis is that understanding be born within you.

And let me tell you: often those who impose restraint from above help to destroy their own discernment and achieve nothing. A man who forces rules upon himself lessens the possibility of understanding. A man who binds himself with oaths diminishes his capacity for insight.

In Calcutta I was once a guest in an elderly gentleman’s home. He must have been around seventy; he has since passed away. After hearing me, he said, “It is surprising; what I have been waiting all my life to hear, you have said. I have taken a vow of celibacy three times.”

I asked, “A vow of celibacy three times? Once should be enough. What does it mean to take it three times?” Another simpleton present felt no such doubt; he was delighted and praised the man as a great renunciate. I said, “Forget three times—tell me, why not a fourth?”

The old man was very good. He said, “Not because the third succeeded, but because after three failures it was proved that this is not in my power.”

I said, “You have misunderstood. The failure was not yours; the failure was in the method of restraint. Have you understood what sex is? Have you inquired into the mystery of sex? In the very moment of intercourse, have you remained aware and seen what it is that calls, what it is that attracts?”

He said, “No, never. Out of fear I went into sex with eyes deliberately shut, and returned repenting, weeping, taking vows, chanting mantras and Navkar. Then ten or fifteen days of remorse, and after ten or fifteen days another attack; and then, full of remorse, like a fool, I returned again.”

A restrained man becomes incapable of understanding—because what you have vowed against has become your enemy; how will you understand an enemy? Understanding requires sympathy. To understand even a “bad” thing, you need sympathy. To understand a “bad” thing, you need a friendly hand. To understand a “bad” thing, you need the neutral attitude of an observer. But one who has taken a vow has become partisan; he cannot be neutral. He has already concluded that sex is evil and has taken up enmity—“I will restrain it.”

Such a man will never understand sex. He will never know it. He will live surrounded by vows. And a man surrounded by vows becomes a hypocrite.

No—understanding is a different thing.
Understanding is a liberation; restraint is a bondage.
Understanding is a joy; restraint is a pain.
Understanding is naturalness; restraint is an awkward, artificial imposition.

I am not in favor of restraint. But remember: no one is more in favor of restraint than I—because what I am saying results in restraint.

Keep two things in mind. First, if you have labeled something as evil without understanding it—only because someone else called it evil—you will never be free of it. Do not proceed by assuming anger is evil. To begin with, take it simply as an unknown fact that surrounds your life. There is anger—and you have already judged it as evil without knowing. Very few people have ever been authentically angry in their lives. Those who have been authentically angry are very few. And if a person becomes authentically angry even once, he steps outside anger. But when we get angry, we don’t do it fully; it is half-hearted, suppressed even as it surfaces—some of it leaks out, some of it is pressed down. You never truly allow anger to happen; therefore you never see anger in its entirety. If you could see anger completely, after that anger becomes impossible.

So I do not say: take anger to be an enemy, a sin. Anger too is a collaborator, a friend. And if the Divine has given it, it has a purpose, a place in the mystery of life. If a child had no anger—if someday we start producing children without anger—they will be children without a spine.

And it may be that the governments of Russia and China will sooner or later try such things. Many experiments are already underway, and many secrets are in hand. For anger to arise, certain biochemical arrangements in the body are necessary. If certain chemical elements are absent, anger cannot arise. So it would not be surprising if totalitarian countries tried from childhood to destroy those chemical elements in their children. In a country where children never feel anger, there can never be rebellion. And the children of a country without anger will become like sheep and goats.

Anger has its meaning. In fact, even poison has its meaning in life. Poison is not always lethal; sometimes it saves. Ask allopathy: most of its medicines are poisons. You take poison every day in the form of drugs. If tomorrow someone arranged to eliminate all poisons from the world, allopathy would end. Poison does not only kill; it also cures. It is a matter of use. Anger is not only poison; at certain moments it is nectar. What is needed is understanding—and then we can use anger too as a means. And with understanding, I will tell you the ultimate use of anger.

You are walking on a path and a large rock lies there. You could sit down beating your head, saying the road is blocked—how can I go on when this rock is here? But you don’t realize that if you climb onto the rock, the path opens again—and at a higher level. The higher you climb the rock, the higher the plane on which the path opens. Yet you see the rock and sit there lamenting beside it. The rock can become a step, or it can be an obstacle. What you make of it depends on you.

If you have concluded that anger is evil, you will never climb it. And one who cannot climb anger will never attain to non-anger. And one who cannot climb anger will not arrive at a higher level in life.

Lust, sex too is a stepping-stone for rising in life. Hate is a stepping-stone. Violence is a stepping-stone. Everything in life has its use. So do not proceed by branding things as evil. Do not assume evil from the start. First recognize, first inquire; climb the rock and see whether it is there to block you or to become a stair. And when you have seen everything completely, I tell you, you will even thank the Divine: “You gave me anger; otherwise I could not have attained non-anger. You gave me lust; otherwise I could not have attained celibacy. You gave me cruelty; otherwise I could not have attained compassion.”

First point: do not assume evil. Whoever assumes evil can never be free of it.

Second point: why proceed with the notion “I must get rid of it”? Whoever holds “I must get rid of it” will never be rid of it. To say “I must get rid of it” means the verdict is already in: it is bondage, slavery. You begin from a decision; begin from impartiality. Decision should be the last thing—after knowing. But we are strange people: like the cheating schoolchildren who, when given a math problem, flip the book to the back to see the answer first. They see the conclusion first; then there is no need to learn the method. And another’s answer cannot become your answer.

Cheating schoolchildren can be forgiven; but our entire society is cheating. We begin our lives with other people’s conclusions, and then the method is never undertaken. The mathematics Mahavira did, Buddha did, Krishna did—we don’t want to do. We flip the Gita to see what the final answer is; we want to start from the answer. One who starts from the answer never undertakes the journey, because an answer means the journey is over.

Do not start from conclusions. Do not say “it is bad.” Do not say “I want to be rid of it.” Say: whatever is, I want to know it. And having known what is, I will decide whether it is to be dropped or to be held. And the delightful thing is this: once you truly know, you never have to decide. The day you know, whatever is to be dropped falls away with the knowing itself. No separate effort is needed to leave it. In fact, the day you know it is to be dropped, you have arrived at the place where the capacity to drop has arisen within you. Before that, you cannot even truly know.

Knowledge, in the ultimate sense, is character. Socrates’ saying is: “Knowledge is virtue.” To know is character. But we have mistaken other people’s knowing for our own; that is why we are in trouble.

I say to you: only those who have not known have to “do.” And remember, if you have not known, then it is better not to do. At least no danger will be created. The harm that comes from not knowing and yet doing is far greater than the harm of not doing. In the hands of the ignorant, action invariably proves dangerous. And in this world, the ignorant are the most industrious. For the one who knows—once you truly know—there remains no need to do, because what you know is absorbed into your very life-breath; it becomes part of your being. Once you know that fire burns the hand, do you need to do something extra to keep your hand from burning? That very knowing becomes your doing. You naturally keep away from fire. You do not even have to try to avoid it; you simply avoid it. It becomes your spontaneous way: where there is fire, your foot does not step forward.

But if someone says, “I do know that fire burns, but how should I stop getting burned by it?” what will we say to him? We will say, “You don’t know; perhaps someone else knows. You have merely heard from them that fire burns—you yourself have not been burned by fire.” Otherwise, once scalded by milk, even buttermilk is sipped with caution. He not only sips milk carefully, he sips buttermilk carefully too—because buttermilk somewhat resembles milk. One burned by fire not only keeps away from fire; even when something looks like fire, he places his step with care. Nothing extra needs to be done—knowledge becomes life.

Therefore I will not tell you how to renounce evil. I will tell you: know what evil is. I will not give you a technique to drop evil. The way to drop evil is to know it. And the way to know evil is to refrain from first calling it evil. Take it as a fact—that it is.

Anger is—do not become the judge of whether it is good or bad. Do not take sides. Be neither friend nor foe. Anger is a fact, a piece of life—know it. And for knowing it, do whatever is needed—for the sake of knowing. So when anger arises—on your wife, on your son—inform your son: “Today let me be totally angry, so that I can fully see what this anger is.” And the day you announce your anger, no havoc will be created at home; rather, the whole house will laugh at you, and can laugh—and the house too will benefit: “Today father is doing anger.” But when father pretends that he never gets angry—while he does—then no one benefits. Neither you nor the other. And if one member of the household declares, “Today I am going to be angry, and I want to see it through,” the whole house becomes a laboratory. There will be no ill consequences of that anger, for the family it becomes a kind of joke; and for you there will be no ill consequences either, because there is no suppression, no reactions. Only when anger is expressed fully will you be able to know what anger is.

Gurdjieff was a fakir—he died only a few days ago. Whoever went to his ashram, he first had them do such experiments. He would say, “Be angry—and be angry intensely—when it comes.” And he would create situations that would bring anger. And when someone was filled to the brim with anger—burning, hands and feet like fire, flames leaping from the eyes, teeth clenched, hands itching to grab a throat—at that very climax Gurdjieff and his companions would shout, “Wake up! Be aware! Now look—what is happening inside!”

In that very moment, in that very situation, when anger is present like a blaze all around, if you can awaken and see what is happening within, you will not be able to enter anger again. Then anger will appear as madness to you—temporary madness. Then you and anger will become two—anger will look like a tongue of fire, and your awareness will be felt as separate. The day you see anger in this way, from that day you will not need to ask, “How to drop anger? In which temple should I swear an oath? Which master’s amulet should I tie to my arm? Which scripture should I carry on my head?” From that day you will be outside anger. The futility of anger, the fire of anger, the poison of anger—you will have known it.

And after this, if ever an occasion arises to use anger, you will only be able to act it—you will not be able to be angry. The acting of anger can be useful; in life, it may be needed.

India has been hearing for thousands of years that anger is bad. Therefore, even when enslaved, it could not even act anger. Not getting angry—that’s fine; but we couldn’t even enact it. If only we had been able to act anger! If four hundred million people had decided to show anger to the British for just one hour, slavery would have ended in an hour—no more time would have been needed. But we couldn’t even manage the acting.

Because we are a repressed people; we fear that if we act, the real thing might erupt. It is suppressed within; hence there is fear even in acting. Only one who has no repression of anger within can act anger. He has no fear.

You cannot even dance in play with a woman if you have repression of sexual desire within; you fear that the desire might manifest. One like Krishna can dance with a woman—there is no repression, hence no fear.

Do not proceed by accepting “evil” as evil; rather, know what it is. Do not desire liberation in advance. Know—and that which is to be dropped, drops the very moment it is known.

There are a few more questions; I will speak with you about them in the evening discourse.

I am deeply obliged for the peace and love with which you have listened to my words. And in the end, I bow to the Lord seated within all. Please accept my salutations.