Piya Kokhojan Main Chali #9

Anand Mohammed! Human intentions never reach God—they cannot. A person’s intentions are only extensions of his passions and desires. Even if a person seeks God, he will not seek God for God’s sake, but for something else—for wealth, for position, for prestige.

There are temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras. So much worship, so much prayer, so much adoration—and all of it false. The intentions themselves are not pure; the mistake is at the very foundation. People are praying, but their prayers are only the forms of repressed desires—each is a demand.

And where there is demand, what kind of prayer is that! Prayer is gratitude, the feeling of grace. Prayer is the “Ah!” that says: So much has been given that I was not worthy of! My vessel is small; my little pitcher has been filled from the ocean! And even if I were to want, what would I want! Even if I were to ask, what would I ask! I have neither the worth nor any earning—yet the sky has poured upon me! Life has been given, beauty has been given to life, the capacity to experience has been given, consciousness has been given, and within consciousness the possibility of liberation—what more pearls are there to beg for!

But even our prayers are filled with desires. That is why our prayers cannot fly; they have no wings. They cannot even rise from the ground. If they try to rise, they fall. They remain stuck in the earth; they have no flight toward the sky.

Therefore, union with God happens only without intention.

You say: “Without intending to, my eyes happened to meet yours.”

This happens only in accidental moments, not through calculation. This window opens suddenly… If you sit prepared, understand that all your preparation is preparation to miss. Listening to the distant call of a cuckoo, a window may open and become prayer. The morning sun may rise, and for a moment you fall still—and the window opens. The night may be filled with stars and your thinking may come to a halt within! And what would you think anyway?

Who could be more foolish than the one who looks at the sky and still goes on thinking? If a sky laden with infinite stars does not render you thought-free for a moment, you are deranged. If those countless stars cannot break the trance of your thinking, cannot set flowing within you a current of mystery; if the flowers blossoming on the trees do not become flowers of wonder within you—then there is no way to meet God.

Neither the Gita will unite you, nor the Quran, nor the Bible. Flowers unite. Moon and stars unite. Sunrise and sunset unite. The birds’ chorus unites. A waterfall cascading from a mountain unites. God is written all around you in just this way!

And this happens unbidden. When you go to a temple, there is effort there, a certain planning. The Hindu goes to the Hindu’s temple—that’s where the miss has already occurred. God belongs neither to the Hindu, nor to the Muslim, nor to the Christian, nor to the Jain. The Muslim goes to the mosque; there too he has arranged for his ego. The Christian will read the Bible; he sees nothing in the Gita. The Jain bows before Mahavira; before Buddha he stands stiff and proud. These blind, disoriented ones—these are out in search of God! Their journey begins wrongly; they missed the very first step—how will they ever reach the goal!

My whole effort, Anand Mohammed, is to make you intentionless. To let you taste that moment when, within you, no storm of intentions is raging; no demand, no desire, no ambition, no hankering—only a stillness, a void, a silence; a silence so deep that even if storms come, even if tempests blow, your silence does not shake or waver; such stillness.

And such stillness happens on its own in the presence of nature. It happens unawares.

Whenever God has become available to someone, it has been without intention. Those who set out with intention kept missing. Those who moved without intention arrived.

“Without intending to, my eyes happened to meet yours,
and suddenly spring burst into my life.”
It is always thus that spring arrives. Thus it will always arrive. This is the way spring comes.

You say: “The heart no longer has its former turmoil; now the hour to dissolve in love has arrived.”

The hour to be annihilated in love is precisely the birth of new life. And such a life has no end. Blessed is the one who dies in love.

As it is, everyone must die; but most die in vain—living in vain, dying in vain; they live in graves and fall into a grave to be finished. The one who dies in love goes beyond death. He has conquered death. For him, the gates of the nectar of immortality open.

And surely, before that, all commotion will subside. Before love’s death, a deep silence will descend—as if nothing remains, no one remains within; everything emptied out—vacant. In that very emptiness, on one side there will appear death, because the ego is gone; and on the other side the beginning of a new life, because God has entered.

If you dissolve, God is found now—here, in this very moment, instantly. As long as you are, God cannot be found.

Anand Mohammed, the auspicious hour is approaching. Let it come; do not stop it. Do not falter out of fear of death; do not hesitate. Do not stop advancing out of fear of death. Do not turn back out of fear of death.

Love is death, and prayer is the ultimate death. But only after death is That known which has neither birth nor death.

Shri Modi! This question is a little complex. Complex because the fault in it hardly lies with the person, yet the entire blame is dumped on him. The fault is of the system. The whole arrangement is unnatural—and wherever the arrangement is unnatural, distortions like these naturally arise.

Marriage is an unnatural arrangement. Except among humans, no animal or bird has the institution of marriage. Even among humans it hasn’t existed forever; it’s a much later invention. There were some initial benefits for which it was invented, but the harms were there too. The benefits were lost long ago; now only the harms remain.

But once social arrangements shackle a person, they don’t let go. And only a few have the courage to go against society’s accepted notions. Only a few have the capacity to rebel—and society crushes the rebel, because the rebel is dangerous. He sows doubt about the system, he fans the winds of rebellion. And society—especially its contractors, whether they be religious leaders, politicians, or others—know full well that this is a fire: if rebellion catches, it won’t be extinguished. It is best to crush it at the very beginning; do not let even a spark survive, otherwise it will flare up and consume the whole forest.

When marriage was first invented, it had its reasons. The biggest reason was that powerful men—those who wielded the stick—would take possession of women, just as they seized things. They seized land. The stronger the man, the larger the land he grabbed, the bigger the feudal lord or emperor he became. These very looters we keep reading about in our histories; some we even call “Alexander the Great”! All looters—only not small-time looters, big ones. So big that we hesitate to call them looters. Small looters die in jails; big looters get a place in history, their names inscribed in golden letters. They seized land, they seized wealth, they seized women. And not just one or two—according to their strength, they seized as many women as they wished.

As recently as the beginning of this very century, the Nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives! Just fifty years ago! This is not some tale from five thousand years back. Five hundred wives—perhaps he couldn’t recognize them all, perhaps he didn’t even know all their names; perhaps one wife’s turn would come once a year, or once in two years!

In Krishna’s life it is said he had sixteen thousand queens. Nothing to be surprised about. If the Nizam could have five hundred wives in the twentieth century, then five thousand years ago sixteen thousand is not excessive—merely thirty-two times that.

In those times, the number of wives was the measure of a man’s power. Today we weigh power by wealth or by position—who is a minister, prime minister, president—so too there was a time when wives were the measure.

Those with power seized wives. What was the poor man to do? The common man? There would be no women left for him. Therefore marriage had to be invented. The meaning of the invention of marriage was that even the poor could get a wife. That was its utility; otherwise the poor would get no woman at all.

Remember, nature creates males and females in balance. At birth, on average, 115 boys are born for every 100 girls, because nature knows from experience that males are the weaker sex; their resistance is lower than females. By the time marriageable age is reached, about 15 boys will have died. Girls don’t die as easily. So by around eighteen there remain roughly 100 boys and 100 girls. Nature keeps a balance. If a few men seize thousands of women, what happens to the rest? Society had to devise some arrangement, and then had to sanctify it with religion: that to take another’s wife is a sin, to even look at another’s wife is a sin. This had its utility.

Hence we had child marriage. Otherwise, before a girl even had the chance to become someone’s wife, the strong would have driven her away. So we married girls off in childhood itself—before any king or noble could lay claim. Then to ensure that a married woman could not be seized, society had to create a moral notion, an imprint: that each man must remain faithful to his own wife, and to even look at another’s wife is a sin. Repeated for centuries, this has now become our inner voice. That is how conscience is manufactured.

That voice still sits deep within us today. But the arrangement that was made has long outlived its time. No one now has the power to seize thousands of women. Yet the old line is still drawn, and we keep walking it like beggars.

This did bring a benefit: even the poorest man could have a wife; otherwise only the rich, the powerful would. And that would have been injustice. What of the poor man’s sexual longing! And the poor are many. Their lives would become unbearably hard. Some arrangement was needed for them. Fine—let the well-to-do gather the most beautiful women, but at least leave something for the poor. Just as food is needed for the poor, so too is a woman. It is a need.

But there was a harmful consequence too. Its other side was that a man had to live his whole life with one woman. The senses have this nature: with repeated use of the same object, they get bored. If you had to eat the same vegetable every day—however much you liked it—you would be bored.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin entered the service of a Nawab of Lucknow. The Nawab was very pleased with him. Nasruddin is a clever man, with great expertise in flattery—and what else do nawabs need around them but flatterers?

One day the Nawab and Nasruddin sat to eat together. New okra had arrived; a very delicious okra curry had been prepared. The Nawab praised it and called the cook to compliment him. Nasruddin would not miss such a chance. He said, “Delicious it must be! I am a botanist—okra is nectar; there is no vegetable superior to okra. That is why okra is so honored in Lucknow, for connoisseurs live here.” Nasruddin went on and on. When flatterers start, they don’t stop. And since the Nawab was pleased, he said, “Think of these not as okra, but as Laila’s fingers! Ah, their taste! Their juice!...”

The cook heard this too. He hadn’t known okra was such a marvel. Next day he made okra again—morning and evening. The third day too, and Nasruddin kept building bridges of praise. On the sixth day when okra came again—the Nawab was fed up, morning and evening okra!—he flung the plate. “Call that idiot cook! Will he kill me?”

As the Nawab’s mood changed, so did the flatterer’s. Flatterers are great connoisseurs of the wind’s direction. Not only did the Nawab blast the cook, Nasruddin stood up and slapped him a couple of times. “Scoundrel! You want to kill the sovereign? This is poison, not okra! Okra is so despised that who eats it? Only the poor who have nothing else! Even its name—bhindi! You think you know the Nawab?”

The Nawab was startled. He said, “Nasruddin, six days ago you said okra was nectar, and now you say it is poison?”

Nasruddin replied, “My lord, I am your servant, not okra’s. You pay my salary, not okra. If you say nectar, it is nectar; if you say poison, it is poison. If you say heaven, I will declare it heaven; if you say hell, I will declare it hell.”

Even the most delicious food, if eaten every day, kills the subtle tendrils of taste. Your tongue stops tasting it. This is a natural law. It is the nature of the senses. Until you go beyond the senses—until a path beyond them opens in your life—and there is only one path: meditation—until then this trouble will remain. If you had to listen to the same music every day, you would panic, be bored, get distressed, even deranged.

I have heard that Nasruddin bought a sitar and kept plucking only one string—tun-tun, tun-tun. One day, two days...

His wife said, “What are you doing? You are driving us mad. We have seen other sitar players—there are other notes, other strings; they run their hands across the strings. You keep pulling a single string, tun-tun-tun-tun. Is this sitar playing? Is this any way?”

Nasruddin said, “You don’t understand. Those people move their hands here and there across the strings because they are searching for their note. I have found mine—why should I search? I will play only this.”

The wife went to her parents’ home. What else could she do? The children said, “Put us in a hostel.” Children who had never agreed to a hostel all went. When Nasruddin was left alone, he opened his heart and went on tun-tun whether day or night.

The neighborhood was distressed. There is a limit to endurance. One night at 2 a.m. a man across the way shouted, “Nasruddin! If you make this tun-tun for even one more minute, I will go mad!”

Nasruddin said, “Brother, you’re late. I stopped two hours ago.”

A person will go mad with a single note. What is true of the ear, of the tongue, is also true of sex—because that too is a sense. The same woman, the same man—boredom is natural, nothing unnatural about it. Until you have become meditative, it is entirely natural to get bored: the same body, the same structure, the same proportions, the same geography—nothing left to explore.

When a man is curious about a woman, many things are involved. One is the desire to uncover what is hidden, the secret.

That is why women keep themselves covered. In countries where women conceal themselves more, they attract men more. Don’t think that veiling is due to modesty alone—don’t be mistaken. Concealment is a method of attracting; the more something is hidden, the greater its invitation.

Western women do not seem so alluring—even the most beautiful—because they are nearly half-naked. On the seashore you can see them fully naked, sunbathing. Men pass by; no one pays attention.

Indian women seem more attractive. Why? Wrapped in saris, concealed, they have become secret, mysterious. Don’t think this happens from any great spirituality or religiosity. It is cleverness—India’s centuries-old experience: reveal things and their juice is lost; keep them covered, and the juice lasts longer.

And since India wanted to preserve the tradition of marriage intact, women were kept well covered. Perhaps the husband never sees his wife naked. Even when he makes love, it is in darkness, quietly, lest anyone know; in stealth.

And surely, stolen kisses are sweeter. One can’t be sure in the dark whether she’s one’s own wife or someone else’s! In the dark, how would you know!

They were clever who made the rule: make love in the dark. Westerners are crazy; they make love in broad daylight. In America especially, love-making has shifted from night to morning. The bad result will be that you will be bored quickly; you will become fully familiar with your wife’s body.

Wives are more clever: whenever they make love, they close their eyes. Hence wives tire less of their husbands; remember, men tire of wives faster. They don’t even look at who the gentleman is; their eyes are closed.

There are many reasons they close their eyes. The knowing say the big reason is they cannot bear to see their husband in a state of pleasure, so they close their eyes: “Take whatever enjoyment you want, but I should not see it. It is unbearable.”

But there is a deeper psychological reason: close the eyes and even day becomes night. Women never like there to be light when you make love; because if a woman is fully revealed, your attraction will finish sooner.

Notice this: a naked woman will not arouse you as much as a woman undressing will. Even if she is crude and awkward, her undressing will be more exciting than seeing the most beautiful woman already naked. When she is already naked, your imagination has no work to do. But when a woman slowly removes her clothes, one by one—this is the method of striptease and cabaret everywhere—your curiosity deepens: just one more, one more, one more...

Nasruddin’s beloved bought a miniskirt. Modern, but a little shy. She said, “Look, Nasruddin, this skirt is so short, what if my underwear shows? Please check—can you see my underwear? Otherwise, if people see it, it will be vulgar.”

Nasruddin looked. “No, it doesn’t show.”

She bent a little more. “Now look. Now it doesn’t show?”

“It doesn’t show.”

She bent more.

Nasruddin said, “Nothing shows.”

She bent even more.

Nasruddin said, “Absolutely nothing shows. Something has to show to be seen—you’re not wearing any underwear at all. You’re making a fool of me.”

Women are hidden in layer upon layer of clothing. They look attractive. Then even falsehood can pass.

One of my sannyasins—Madhuri. Her mother is also a sannyasin. The mother told me she had to lose both breasts in an operation. The doctors said, “Don’t worry—no new marriage now, you’re of advanced age. There are false rubber breasts; wear them inside, and from the outside they’ll look the same. Whether rubber or skin—what difference does it make? From the outside they’ll look the same. In fact, rubber ones will be more shapely.”

So she began wearing rubber breasts. She lived in Mexico. Driving somewhere, she got stuck in a traffic jam. A police inspector came over; she was driving herself. He stared fixedly at her breasts. She felt like joking—she’s a brave woman. She said, “Do you like them?”

For a moment the inspector was scared there might be trouble.

She said, “Don’t worry. Do you like them?”

He said, “Of course—why wouldn’t I? They’re beautiful, well-shaped.”

So she said, “Here—take them.” She took both off and gave them to him. Imagine what he went through! He will never forget. Now even when he sees a real-breasted woman, he won’t stare. Who knows what’s real? He probably keeps those rubber breasts and bangs his head—what a fool I was!

I liked her act. I told her, “You did right. Buy more and keep distributing. Whoever you meet, hand them over. Let as many be freed as possible. People are foolish, childish—free them. You’ll find such men everywhere.”

Naturally you will tire of your wife. Wives tire too. But we have suppressed women for centuries so they cannot even say they are bored. We told them “Husband is God,” taught them to be devoted to one man. Centuries of conditioning have crippled them; their juice is gone. In truth, if you ask, many women have no interest in any man at all. Men themselves have killed their juice.

Understand this: if a woman has taste for one man, she will have taste for other men as well. Having taste for man means having taste for man—regardless of which man. If one man attracts her, why wouldn’t a more beautiful man attract her?

For centuries we have told her that attraction to another man is a great sin. Women are more emotional, heartful—they take this to heart. Men’s conditionings stay in the head; women’s reach deeper. Since she must have no interest in any man, the final result is: she has no interest in her own man either.

Understand the arithmetic: if you remove taste for all men, taste for your own man will also vanish. Then she will make love as a burden. The man will not be satisfied—that is the obstacle. How can he be? The woman takes no relish; she just lets it happen mechanically: “I am a wife, your servant, my life is for your service; do whatever you like, this body is yours”—like a corpse. If you make love to a corpse, what taste will you get? There is no response from her side—no dancing, no singing, no humming, no sway of joy, no thankfulness.

In fact the opposite: whenever you ask, “What do you think—tonight?” she says, “I have a headache.” Or backache. “I’m tired today, forgive me. The baby’s teeth are coming; he’s been crying all day. And the elder one isn’t back yet—who knows where he went; it’s past midnight, and you think of this! The cook has left; the servant has stolen; I’ve been dying of work all day; guests are staying—and you think of this!”

I have heard: an eighty-year-old man married a seventy-five-year-old woman. It happened in America—how would it happen here! At seventy-five it is time for sannyas. If someone married at seventy-five, shoes would rain on him. He would be cursed wherever he went. In America it’s possible.

Their wedding happened. Many attended, enjoying the spectacle: a seventy-five-year-old bride, an eighty-year-old groom. Even strangers came to watch. The church was packed. Everyone offered flowers and gifts: “May your married life be happy.” Brave people! What a spirit! A man begins to break down by thirty-five or forty, but these warriors refuse to retire.

But what could the two do? They did all the formalities—went to Miami Beach for the honeymoon, as one should. Stayed in the best hotel, took the most beautiful room. The seventy-five-year-old bride prepared and lay on the bed. The groom prepared—removed his teeth, cleaned them, adjusted his wig, curled his dyed mustache. He lay down too. He held the old lady’s hand and pressed it lovingly for two or three minutes and then said, “Now let’s sleep.” So they slept. That was the first honeymoon night. The second night he pressed her hand again, not as long. On the third night, when he began to press her hand, the old lady turned and said, “I have a headache tonight.”

Women in this country can’t even say that; we have snatched even their voice. Hence men invented prostitutes—but women did not invent male prostitutes. Although in London and New York, male prostitutes are now available. They should be called “veshya” in the masculine: those who sell their bodies. It is a result of the women’s liberation movement there: if men can go to prostitutes, why can’t women go to male prostitutes?

I don’t mean “Vaishya” as in caste—Brahmin, Vaishya, Kshatriya, Shudra—but “veshya,” one who sells the body. Just as a female prostitute sells her body, male prostitutes stand on certain streets, in certain red-light districts, dolled up. Women stop their cars, look them over, choose them, settle the price, make the deal.

In India this is beyond imagination. Women cannot even think it; we have killed their very thinking. But the man’s thinking has not died! And since men did the killing of women’s thinking, why would they kill their own? They are the masters; they kept themselves free. This created a dilemma and a hindrance.

That is why I said Shri Modi’s question is a bit complex. The dilemma is: all men tire of their wives—some say it, some don’t. Some manage, some can’t. Some find backdoor ways, some don’t.

But when you take the backdoor, guilt arises because the voices of priests and pundits are inside you. They say, “You are sinning.” Then anxiety, restlessness follow. As for women, they can’t even think. Even if they do, they feel guilt. Even if another man seems beautiful, they feel uneasy: “How did this happen!” So they have made themselves numb, killed their sensitivity.

Thus Indian women have become, in a sense, selfless to the point of losing selfhood. Better to be numb than be a sinner. Men are not numb, but guilt catches them.

The fault is of the arrangement, not of the person. We must change the arrangement. We need an arrangement in which men and women live together, but not under as many fetters as we impose now.

And the experience of psychologists over the last fifty years—and my experience in my ashram where hundreds of couples live—is that if sometimes a man spends a day or two with another woman, or a woman spends a day or two with another man, their mutual relationship does not get worse—it deepens.

This will sound inverted, and to the orthodox it will sound like a great sin. But I am compelled to say the truth—let it sound as it may. I have sworn to say the truth as it is; I will say it naked, without even clothing it. The truth is: if the husband-wife bond is to be deepened—if it is not to be merely formal—then we must allow such freedom that if a man sometimes goes with another woman, the wife is not disturbed; and if the wife sometimes goes with another man, the husband is not disturbed. This will not destroy their marriage; it will give it new life.

If that Nawab had been given two or four days of other vegetables, and then okra again, okra would have regained its juice. Depth will not be hindered; it will increase. There is no need for guilt in this.

Shri Modi, I would say: drop the guilt. If you feel your wife cannot satisfy your sexual desire—whose wife can? Whose husband can? And if you sometimes feel drawn to another woman, do not fill yourself with guilt; otherwise you will be in double trouble.

If filled with guilt you form a relationship with another woman, even then you will not be satisfied—because guilt will stand in between, a wall. Even while making love you will know you are sinning, committing a crime, going to hell; you are deceiving your wife.

There is no need for guilt. But guilt will follow you until you give your wife the same freedom. She too is human, as you are. Neither of you is in samadhi. You are not a Buddha, nor is she. You have not known meditation, nor has she. Yes—know meditation, and one is freed from sex. Until then, allow yourself freedom to satisfy your senses—and allow your wife the same freedom.

But this hurts a man. He thinks, “I should be free—but my wife!” He cannot bear to hear that his wife was seen with another man. His ego is hurt.

If your ego is hurt, then guilt will remain—because you are cheating. You will have to pretend: to wear one face before your wife—“I love only you, only you”—and another behind her back. You will become a two-faced man. Between the two faces you will be torn, in dilemma. Your life will be a conflict.

And if only two faces it would be fine—but there will be many.

Nasruddin’s wife said, “Look, I tolerate as long as I can; but if one day you’re caught, it won’t be good. Who was that woman just now on the street who smiled at you, and you got scared and looked down—who was she?”

Nasruddin said, “Woman, you ask me who she was! I am scared she will ask me who you were, the woman with me!”

There will be messes.

One day Nasruddin’s wife said to her maid, “Listen, I am getting solid proof that Nasruddin has wrong relations with his typist.”

The maid said, “Stop it! Don’t speak such nonsense! You are saying this only to make me jealous. I am not one to burn with jealousy. Nasruddin’s love for me is eternal—he himself told me his love is immortal.”

The wife didn’t know that.

Two faces won’t do; many masks will be needed. And then troubles will come. The more lies you tell, the more disturbances.

My advice: live simply, naturally. Even if the social arrangement is unnatural, you need not be. Be honest with your wife. Tell her she too is free.

And this does not mean you do not love your wife. Another delusion has been created—that if there is love, it must be for one alone. Nonsense. If there is love, it will surely be for many—this I tell you. Love is not something that gets exhausted on one. One who loves flowers—will he love only roses? Will champa not please him? Jasmine? The lotus? If someone says so, he is either insane or lying. One who loves flowers will love many kinds. The jasmine has its joy and the rose has its own; each has its qualities.

It may be that a woman’s body pleases you and nothing more. It may be that another woman’s feeling pleases you, but not her body. It may be that a third woman’s intelligence pleases you—neither her body nor her feeling. With one woman your connection may be intellectual, philosophical—you can discuss depths, art, religion, spirituality. With another, it may be purely physical because her body is beautiful, proportionate. With yet another, the connection may be mysterious—you can’t say why, but something inexplicable binds you. And the same is true of women with men.

The day humanity becomes natural, and society is freed from past taboos, superstitions, dead chains—we will accept these truths.

It may be that your wife is indispensable in your life—she has given you comforts, order, health, care and concern in ways no one else has. But that does not mean she can satisfy your sexual desire. And it may be that the woman who satisfies your sexual desire gives you none of that; you may have to make her tea in the morning! More likely she will have you wash the dishes and clothes.

A person has many dimensions, and each seeks fulfillment. Guilt is an imposed feeling. Become free of it entirely. It arises from the system. But the most essential step in freeing yourself is to free your wife as well. How will you be free of guilt if you remain free while keeping the one closest to you unfree? Free her too. Tell her she is free.

Do not lie, do not wear masks—reveal the truths. And I tell you: truths may raise a storm at first, but those storms come and go. Storms brought by truth do not harm; they strengthen the roots. It may seem easier to lie—to never tell your wife you have a connection with another woman. But someday she will find out. And the day it comes out, everything will break. Better than her finding out is that you tell her. If you have loved someone, at least have the integrity to acknowledge your truth. And give as much truth and freedom to her as you want for yourself. Then guilt will not arise.

Remember: if both of you can give each other truth, and both grant each other freedom, your relationship will deepen continuously; new flowers will keep blooming. You will be amazed how false the past notions were, which say that one must relate only to one; if not, the relationship will be perverted, destroyed, ruined—irreparable. That is what you have been taught.

It is completely wrong. The psychological truth is different: man has a taste for various flavors. Nothing wrong in that. It is merely a sign of human intelligence. But we do not give this intelligence a chance. Priests sit on our chest. We carry the foolishnesses of ages.

But let me say this finally: the other woman who today seems to satisfy your sexual desire—tomorrow she will not. The day after, you will need a third; then a fourth; then a fifth—because desire knows no satisfaction. No desire knows satisfaction. Desire is insatiable. Remember Buddha’s saying forever: desire is insatiable. However much you fill it, it remains empty.

There is a Sufi story. A fakir begged at a king’s door. By chance, the king was stepping out at dawn to stroll in his garden. The beggar said, “Master, may I ask for something?”

The king said, “Yes, what do you want?”

He said, “But I have one condition. I can ask only of one who fulfills my condition.”

“What is your condition? I have seen many beggars, but a conditional beggar—first time!”

The king was curious.

The beggar said, “My condition is: whatever you give, I will accept, but my begging bowl must be filled.”

The king laughed. “Have you taken me for a beggar?”

Just to show the beggar who he was, he told his minister, “Fill his bowl with gold coins!”

The fakir said, “Think again. Remember my condition. I will not move until it is fulfilled. My bowl must be filled.”

The king said, “Madman! Keep quiet. Your bowl? This little bowl? We can’t fill it?”

Gold coins were poured in—and the king was astonished. As soon as the coins fell in, they vanished somewhere! The bowl remained empty!

But the king was stubborn—he had never lost, only known victory. “Today it is me and this beggar. Empty the entire treasury!”

The treasures were vast, yet by evening they were empty. Diamonds, pearls, gold, silver—everything poured in and vanished. By evening the king was like a beggar, and the whole capital gathered to see. News spread like wildfire that a beggar has some magic bowl! Finally the king fell at his feet: “Forgive me. I did not recognize you. I did not recognize the magic of your bowl. Pardon my arrogance. I should not have accepted your condition. From the condition itself I should have known something was amiss. May I ask—since this curiosity will remain all my life—what is the magic of this bowl?”

The beggar said, “There is no magic. I made it from human desires. Its warp and weft are woven of human desires. This is the human heart, the human mind. There is no specialty in the bowl; only in the weave—the same weave your heart is made of. Has your bowl been filled?”

Like lightning, the king saw: surely his bowl too remained empty. Life had been lived; the race still continued. Death approached; the race continued. Hands remained empty. Such a vast empire—but where is satisfaction?

So, Shri Modi, remember: no woman will satisfy your sexual desire. Desires are never satisfied. Therefore do not remain under the delusion that I am saying your desire will be satisfied this way. Only this much will happen: you will gain the awareness that no woman can satisfy your desire.

Marriage creates a deception. Its biggest deception is this...

I want marriage to be bid farewell from the world. And the reason will surprise you: if marriage disappears, a path opens for this world to become religious. Because marriage maintains the illusion: “It is because I am entangled with this woman that my desire is not fulfilled. If only I had the chance—so many beautiful women around—my desire would have been satisfied long ago.”

That is the delusion. But marriage sustains it. Another’s wife looks beautiful; the grass in the other’s garden looks greener. When the other’s wife steps out, she is decked up; you only see the outer packaging. Your own wife also looks beautiful to others.

One day Nasruddin came home and saw Chandulal Marwari embracing his wife. He froze. Chandulal panicked, thinking Nasruddin would explode, grab a gun. But he neither grabbed a gun nor got angry. He gently patted Chandulal on the shoulder and said, “Come with me.” He took him into the next room and said, “Brother, I have to do it; why are you doing it? What has happened to you? Has your intelligence died? My compulsion is that she is my wife. So I must embrace her daily and say I love only you, only you; all my life. But what’s wrong with you, fool? And we had heard Marwaris are smart—but no, you are a donkey! Leaving your beautiful wife, what are you doing here? Idiot, I have just come from your wife.”

Chandulal said, “Brother, you have outdone me. I run wherever I can to escape that woman! I drink, I sit uselessly at the office, I play cards and chess just to avoid that witch as long as possible! You are coming from her! What are you saying, Nasruddin? I always thought you were an intelligent man. What do you see in her? When she stood on the weighing machine at the station, a voice came out: ‘One at a time—no two together!’ What do you see in that fat, blubbery woman?”

This is how it is. Marriage has created an illusion, a grand deception. There is no more irreligious act than marriage—yet it runs in the name of religion! If people were free, they would quickly realize through experience that no man can satisfy any woman’s desire, and no woman can satisfy any man’s desire. But this can be known only by experience. If you are tied to one, how will you know?

And the day this is understood, that day begins meditation. That day is revolution. That day you start rising beyond desire. What is meditation? It is the seeing that mind only makes you run, deludes you, chases mirages—just a little further, just a little more—like the horizon: it looks as if satisfaction is near, just a little more. The horizon never comes; death comes. Satisfaction does not come; the grave comes. Meditation is the insight that nothing will come from this running. One must stop, go beyond mind, become a witness to it.

Shri Modi, if you truly want satisfaction, liberation from desire, freedom from the net of sex—neither your wife can give it, nor anyone else’s, nor any prostitute. No one can give it. This great experience will happen within you only in stillness, silence, emptiness.

But until that happens, I am not in favor of repression. I say: live life, experience it. It has pains and fleeting pleasures; there are thorns and flowers; days and nights—live them all. Through that very experiencing a man ripens. From that ripening, that maturity, one day the jump into meditation happens.

Tell your wife the truth. Ask her for her truth. At least with those we are connected to, we must be authentic. And we must give them a chance to be authentic. The first mark of love is that with the one we love we are authentic; we speak the truth. And even if truth seems bitter at first, it is always sweet later.

Buddha has said: Falsehood is sweet first, poison later. Truth is bitter first, nectar later.

Do not waver from truth. Do not compromise on it. Live your truth, because this life is yours—not your wife’s. And your wife’s life is hers—not yours. Both live. Both experience. Both recognize. Both test. Slowly you will find that as long as there is desire, we are childish; there is no maturity in life.

But we remain childish because we are not allowed to experience. Without experience, no one ever matures. Age increases, but the mind remains childish. In the First World War, for the first time psychologists discovered that man’s average mental age is twelve. Large-scale studies showed that even an eighty-year-old’s mental age is twelve! The mental age hardly grows.

This is a great accident. Then our taste remains for toys. If we keep repressing it, it doesn’t vanish; it stays. Then we devise tricks: pornographic literature, obscene magazines. People hide Playboy inside the Gita and the Bible—so no one will know. Obscene films—people gather secretly at home to watch them. People travel in the name of business, but the matter is only prostitutes. Even without work they stay on “for business.”

A man came from Calcutta to Bombay for three days; three weeks passed. He kept wiring: “Buying, buying—still buying.”

After three months the wife, suspicious from the start—as wives are; no reason needed, marriage is enough reason; marriage is so unnatural that suspicion is natural—she wired back, “Fine, keep buying. What you’re buying there, I have started selling here.”

The man ran home. If she has started selling what he was buying—he’s finished.

The wife said, “How did you come so fast? No more buying? How long will you buy; then I too will sell. What you buy, I will sell here. Will you only buy and hoard? One must sell too!”

Suspicion is natural. Doubt is natural. Our so-called love is full of doubts.

At night Nasruddin muttered in his sleep, “Kamla! Kamla!” Wives stay awake, waiting to see what the husband blurts. She shook him, “Who is this Kamla?”

But husbands are clever; even in sleep they keep their wits. He said, “No one—don’t worry. It’s the name of a mare at the racecourse. I was thinking of betting on her—that was on my mind.”

The wife doesn’t trust so easily. “Fine.”

In the evening she telephoned Nasruddin’s office: “That racecourse mare Kamla has called, asking where you are. What message should I give?”

How long will you hide? How far? Better to say it. Better to be clear. Show at least that much love, that much trust. And remember to give the other the same freedom. Freedom’s fruit is sweet; truth’s fruit is sweet—but in the end. It is bitter in the beginning. Do not fear the initial bitterness. Ultimately all these experiences will lead you to meditation.

Here in my ashram I have arranged for all sorts of therapies—about a hundred therapeutic groups are working. Whatever the ailment, wherever the mind is stuck... If someone is stuck in sex, I send him to tantra therapy. Only after passing through tantra can he meditate; before that he cannot. Because what will he meditate on? How?

Indian friends come here and write to me: “You say meditate. We sit to meditate, but a beautiful woman is meditating beside us—our heart keeps going there.”

It will go there. That is the mark of pure Indian culture. And where else should it go? Repressed for centuries—where should it go? The Westerner sitting next to you—his mind does not go to the woman; he has had enough experience.

You will be surprised: my sannyasins from the West have no such obsession with sex as Indians have—not at all. Natural, normal. If someone thinks of food twenty-four hours a day, he is mad. Eating twice a day is not madness. If you have a love relationship with someone, that is not insanity. But if all day there is a parade of women in your mind, then it is pathology.

But so-called culture, religion, and saints have bequeathed you exactly this. You are rotting in this inheritance. I want to free you from this rot; therefore I seem an enemy. People come to me and admit privately, “What you say is right—one hundred percent.” But not one of them speaks publicly in my favor.

Thousands write against me; hardly anyone writes for me. What is the matter? Those who write for me are my sannyasins. No one else writes in my favor. Others write letters: “What you say is perfectly true; but we cannot accept it publicly; our image would be tarnished.”

They don’t even dare to come here. They come in secret. Shri Modi I will call courageous. He is a respected man, owner of Modi Mills. I thank him for the courage to ask this question openly. Now gather a little more courage: be clear with your wife. Bring her here. If you cannot be clear, I will make it clear. Live in freedom, both of you. You will find your love grows in this freedom, flourishes, deepens. And soon both of you will be drawn toward meditation.

If one lives simply and naturally, meditation is the inevitable culmination, unavoidable. Just as every river flows to the ocean, so every desire flows to meditation—provided we do not dam it. If you dam it, it becomes a pond; then the connection with the ocean is broken. Then there is rotting, mud, filth, no movement, no flow.

I want you to be like rivers, not reservoirs—so that the ocean can be attained. In attaining the ocean lies the blessedness and fortune of life.

Krishna Vedant! Don’t get caught up in my words. Get married! Because some people cannot experience flowers without first passing through thorns. To understand from another’s experience requires a very deep intelligence, which is exceedingly rare. People don’t understand even from their own experience—what will they understand from another’s!

There is the story of Yayati in the Upanishads. Yayati turned a hundred—he was an emperor—and Death arrived. It’s a lovely story. I’ve told it many times, yet I never tire of it; it holds great flavor and meaning. Yayati is a hundred-year-old man. He has a hundred wives, a hundred sons. He falls at the feet of Death—the great emperor—and begins to plead, “Don’t take me so soon. None of my desires have yet been fulfilled.” A hundred wives, a hundred sons, a vast empire—everything a man could want or imagine—he has it all; and yet before Death he begs, “Not now, it’s too early! I never thought you would come. Have mercy on me.”

Death said, “I have no choice. I must take someone. Seeing you begging like this, I feel pity: if one of your sons agrees, I will take him in your place. But I must take someone.”

Yayati gathered his hundred sons and said, “My sons, you have always told me you would lay down your lives for me—now the moment has come. Death says I can be spared for now if one of my sons is ready to go in my stead. Let any one of you stand up to go.”

They all began to look at one another. The sons were not exactly young either—one was eighty, one seventy, one seventy-five, one sixty-five. They all looked around: “Brother, you were the one who boasted you’d give your life! For father you would sacrifice everything! Now the chance is here—get up.” But all kept casting sidelong glances; one looked down, one here and there; none stood up. The youngest son, only twenty years old, rose to his feet. He said to Death, “Take me.”

Death said, “I feel even more compassion for you than for your father. You are only twenty. Foolish boy, can you not see that your father, at a hundred, is still pleading, ‘Let me live a few more days’? And you are only twenty—neither have you known life nor recognized it. Childish, unknowing—you are ready to die! Do you realize what you’re doing? Think again! Consider once more!”

He said, “I have nothing to consider. I am not going so that my father may be saved; I am going because, seeing that even at a hundred my father has not found any fulfillment, what on earth will I get! I see that among my ninety-nine brothers too, none is fulfilled—one is eighty, one seventy-five, one seventy—so what will come to me! Just seeing their experience I have understood that this scramble is futile. Take me. I am ready.”

The story says: that very instant the son attained moksha, liberation—not through any practice, but through simple awakening. Death became liberation through that very understanding.

And do you know what happened to Yayati? A hundred years later when Death came again, he again began pleading, again fell at her feet: “None of my desires have yet been fulfilled. Take another of my sons.” Now he had also discovered the trick.

Thus, they say, Death came ten times, and each time took one son. Death too became obstinate: “Let’s see how long this goes on.” After a thousand years Yayati said, “Yes, now I agree to come. I was mad. My first son, who was ready to go at twenty, had an extraordinary intelligence, an extraordinary capacity. I understood after being knocked about for a thousand years. He steadied himself without being knocked about. He looked at us and understood.”

Intelligence means this: that seeing another, you become filled with understanding. This is what happened to Buddha. On the road he saw a man sick—he himself had not yet fallen ill—and he asked, “What has happened to this man? Why is he coughing and hacking?”

Someone said, “He is sick.”

Buddha asked, “Can I too fall ill?”

The charioteer said, “You can. Anyone can fall ill. Where there is a body, there is disease.”

Buddha became sad.

The charioteer said, “You need not be sad. You are not ill.”

He said, “I am not, but if I can be, then it has already happened.” This is called intelligence.

Then Buddha saw an old man and asked, “Who is this? What has happened to him? Why is he walking with a staff? Why is his back bent?”

They said, “He has grown old. Everyone has to grow old.”

He asked, “Will I too grow old?”

The charioteer said, “Certainly. Whoever is born must grow old.”

Then Buddha said, “Turn the chariot back home!” He was on his way to attend a youth festival. He said, “What business have I at a youth festival where everyone must grow old? I am already old.”

The charioteer said, “What are you saying? What strange, topsy-turvy talk! How have you become old? Just now you were young—now suddenly old?”

Buddha said, “Having seen this old man, and since everyone has to become old, it is only a matter of sooner or later.”

And just then he saw a corpse. Buddha asked, “What happened to him?”

The charioteer said, “This is the stage after old age. This man has died.”

Buddha said, “Hurry, take me home. Before I die, I have something to do. I must know that which does not die. Before death comes, I must become acquainted with the deathless.”

That very night he left home. This is called intelligence.

Vedant, if there is such intelligence, then hearing my words you will understand and be transformed. But such intelligence is a difficult matter. If people learn even from their own experience, consider them quite intelligent. The inertia is so dense that people do not understand even from their own experience. Experiencing and experiencing, they fall into the same pits again and again—the same pits!

There is a saying in Arabic: even donkeys do not fall into the same pit twice—except man. Man is a strange donkey. He fell into that pit yesterday; the day before, too!

Look at yourself. How many times have you been angry, how many times have you fallen into that pit! And every time you repented, every time you said, “No more, I will not be angry again.” What sense is there in it! Lighting a fire inside yourself. Burning yourself, burning the other. You gain nothing; useless suffering happens, and you inflict useless suffering.

But today again, if someone offers a slight insult, gives a small hurt—not even insult or hurt; someone passes you on the road without saying “Jai Ramji,” even then anger will buzz within: “So, this is his status—to pass me by without a ‘Jai Ramji’! I will make him taste something he will remember all his life! Where did this swagger arise in him! What does he think of himself!” A storm will rise within.

People do not learn even from their own experience. If you learn even from your own experience, consider that sufficient intelligence.

Mulla Nasruddin would always tell me, “Bhagwan, you speak the truth: had I not married, life would have been all joy. Marriage has shackled my whole life in chains. If only I could be rid of this wife. But how to get rid of her? I can’t leave her, because I myself pursued her. I myself wooed her, persuaded her; she consented with great difficulty. Whenever I say anything to her, she says: You were the one after me. You rubbed your nose on my father’s threshold. I never said a word to you. For years my father and mother kept refusing—you stood there with folded hands. And I can’t even think of divorce; it’s also a matter of prestige. And then there are the children.”

Then it happened—as it usually does not—that the wife died. Usually husbands die first; that is why we see widows, and widowers are very few. Women are stronger. They live longer—five years longer than men. First, they live five years longer, and we marry girls five years younger—so ten years! Take it as certain: your wife will outlive you by ten years. She will live on after settling you properly. And rightly so: she makes the final arrangements—lays you down in the grave. Every day she used to lay you on the bed; now, laying you in the grave is the last arrangement, so that there will be no trouble about you afterward—otherwise who will make your grave, who will see that a proper stone is set!

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife died. He was beating his chest and wailing. I said, “Nasruddin, why are you crying now? What is the point of crying now? This is what you wanted; your inner wish was just this. God has heard your prayer. All your namaz have borne fruit. Now you are free of your wife. Now be happy, celebrate.”

But he wouldn’t agree. He kept beating his chest, kept on weeping. When I saw he wouldn’t relent, I said, “If loneliness hurts you so much, don’t worry; nothing is lost yet. You can marry again. In two or four months we’ll find another wife.”

He looked at me in anger and, still sobbing, said, “What you say is right, but I am crying because how will I pass tonight? And with whom will I pass it?”

What learning does a man take from his experience! He does not learn even from his own experience. If he learns from his own experience, he is intelligent. If he learns from the experiences of others, he is brilliant. And he who learns from neither is supremely foolish.

You say, “Without passing through this experience, how can I live! I cannot refrain.” Then do not refrain—go through it. Because if, obeying me, you forcibly hold back, you will curse me your whole life. And I do not want to be an obstacle in anyone’s life. Go through the experience. At least you will thank me. Passing through the experience you will remember me: “Bhagwan, you were right! If only I had listened!”

Your daughter’s wedding is upon your head, and you haven’t even had a threshold fitted on the house door! Troubled by his wife’s repeated complaint, the husband asked, “Why are you so set on this door-frame first of all? Will the wedding be stopped without it?”

The wife snapped, “Why don’t you understand! When the occasion arises our daughter will be able to tell her husband, ‘After all, you did go and rub your nose on my father’s threshold.’ Now how can there be a wedding without a threshold! The first thing is that a threshold must be set!”

After examining Jummanlal’s aching foot, the doctor said, “How long have you had this problem?”

Jummanlal said, “About two months.”

“Sir, there are three fractures in your foot, and you sat quiet for two months—amazing!”

Jummanlal said, “The thing is, whenever anything happens to me—headache, backache, pain in the hand, fever—whatever happens—my wife at once tells me to give up cigarettes. So I endured this pain in silence, thinking if I say my foot hurts, she will say—Quit cigarettes! How many times has she not told me, Quit cigarettes!”

So for two months he endured three fractures.

As you wish!

A father wanted to stop his son from marrying. Understandably—his own experience was enough for the poor fellow. He thought if the son could be saved, that would be much. Very few fathers in the world are so sensible. Explaining, he said, “Son, those who marry are good; and those who do not marry are even better.”

“All right,” the son said, “I’ll be good; let others be better.”

Now, as you wish! If this is what you want, then do it. Learn from the experience itself. Perhaps that way understanding will come to you. I can only pray to God that at least in that way understanding does come—so much is enough!

Saraladevi! I know your husband is also a party-hopper—an “aaya-ram, gaya-ram.” That’s why this question arose in your mind. He doesn’t come here. Whatever I say won’t reach his ears. Politicians are almost deaf and blind. If they weren’t blind and deaf, why would they be in politics? But if you want, you can do something.

I was reading this little poem. If you can draw some essence from it, good.

A leader returned home after switching parties.
He received a letter from his wife,
who had been at her parents’ place for several months.
It said:
Rammo’s uncle, living with you
has become boring.
I have now entered into a marital agreement
with Radhelal-ji.
This agreement is based on
shared views.
Pardon anything said in haste,
and please take our husband-switching action
just as lightly
as I have taken your party-switching.
In future, if you change parties, do inform me;
I too will keep you updated on the husband-changing process.
The safe’s key is kept in the niche
of the next room.
Take care of your health, and wire me the moment you become a minister.
We are going to Shimla for our honeymoon.

Netaji read the letter.
His head reeled.
He began to think,
Never imagined that party-hopping would one day yield
such a sweet fruit.
He sent a reply—
My dearest, I did not expect this of you.
You should not have taken party-switching
so seriously.
Now you come back home;
I too am returning to my old party.

The wife sent a four-line reply—
You keep changing parties moment to moment;
stay in one party for a while and then inform me,
I will consider it sympathetically.
The mango pickle is in the jar—
turn it over now and then.
As for me, I’m quite happy with this change;
life is rolling along in great joy.
Take care of your health.
Your former wife—
now Mrs. Radhelal.

Do something like that and perhaps your husband may come to his senses, Saraladevi; otherwise he won’t. Does a politician have any soul? Any loyalty? They are walking corpses. Wherever they see a post, they start wagging their tails. They have no value. Don’t even worry about them—they’re not worthy of worry. Take care of yourself. Don’t destroy your life entangling yourself in their mess. Let them switch parties; you change your life.

Don’t think I’m saying, “Become Mrs. Radhelal.” I’m saying—change your life. I’m saying—move from mind to peace; from thought to meditation; from problems to samadhi. You’ve lived like this long enough; now rise above, cross over, transcend.

And the divine is not far, it is very near. We take one step, and the divine takes a thousand toward us.

That’s all for today.