Preetam Chhabi Nainan Basee #12

Ramshankar Agnihotri,
It is true that Mahavira, Buddha, Einstein, Kabir, Nanak were not born through planned procreation. But how many Mahaviras have there been? How many Buddhas? It is like shooting arrows in the dark, and out of millions upon millions of arrows, one happens to hit the target. That does not mean shooting in the dark has any merit—because one arrow struck the mark, it does not prove that there is no need for light. If someone keeps loosing arrows in the dark by the millions, one or two will hit by chance. If it hits, it’s an arrow; if not, it’s a fluke. These are all arrows shot in the dark.

If a gardener sows a hundred thousand seeds and one sprout emerges, would you call him a gardener? Even if those seeds had been tossed around carelessly, one or two might still have sprouted. A gardener is one who, if he plants a hundred thousand seeds, a hundred thousand sprout. Well, if a few don’t, that’s acceptable.

But so far we have had the reverse. Millions are born, and among them perhaps one Buddha. That is accidental. From this you cannot conclude that what I have said does not seem right.

They were not born of an organized social order, but in spite of us. Not through our system, not through our plan—rather, through our mistakes and blunders. And because of that, we took our revenge on them; we did not forgive them easily. Why crucify Jesus? Why insist on poisoning Socrates? How much did you torment Mahavira—driving nails into his ears, hounding him from village to village, setting mad dogs upon him! How many attempts were made to kill Buddha—rolling boulders down upon him, unleashing a mad elephant! You did not forgive them. You could not forgive them. In a society of the blind, if someone with eyes is born, it gnaws at the blind. The seeing one is offensive because, in his presence, they are continuously reminded that they are blind; the one with eyes is a reminder. Then arises the urge to put out his eyes: no bamboo, no flute.

That is why you did not treat them well. You might say, “But we have worshiped them for centuries.” That worship itself is proof that you behaved very badly with them. Out of remorse and guilt you worship. While they lived, you mistreated them—so grievously that centuries later, a pang is still there inside you. From that guilt you worship. You do not worship out of joy, out of gratitude. Because if you had worshiped Buddha in gratitude, you would not have crucified Jesus. By then you would have understood—five hundred years had passed. And if you had worshiped Jesus in gratitude, you would not have killed Mansoor, for by then you would have understood. But the attitude is the same even now. Not the slightest change. Man still does the same—and, it seems, will continue to do the same.

Psychologists say that when a person’s father or mother dies, the reason you cry, scream, wail, and break down is not that you loved them greatly. While they were alive you scarcely gave them the time of day. Did you treat them well? Perhaps they lay neglected in some corner of the house and died, decaying. And now that they are dead, you beat your chest.

This is remorse; it has little to do with death itself. Now a jolt has come to you; now a sliver of awareness arises. Death shakes you—What did I do with my father! And now I will never have the chance to ask forgiveness. Even the possibility of holding his feet and begging to be forgiven is gone—the chapter is closed. Now your sins will follow you like a shadow.

I have heard of a wealthy man who never gave a penny in charity. A temple was being built in the village. Funds were needed. All efforts failed; there seemed to be no way to raise the money, so in desperation they went to the miser. Five or seven prominent villagers gathered. They had no hope; but a drowning man clutches at a straw. Perhaps he would take pity! Every day he passed the half-built temple—perhaps he had noticed it. They went.

He received them warmly, heard them out with great courtesy. They were astonished. “We thought this man was a fiend!” He offered tea and snacks and said, “I’m glad you came!” When they had finished, having poured out their troubles, and he had listened sympathetically, he said, “Now hear me out. My old father has a heart ailment. My mother is blind. My son is lame. My wife’s father died, and her mother, her daughters, that whole family… Among all my relatives, I am the only one with anything at all. I may look one way from the outside, but I too have great suffering, great troubles.”

They said, “We had no idea you were under such strain; had we known, we would never have come.”

The miser said, “Then never come again. And let me tell you: I haven’t gone to see my old father with the heart disease in three years. My mother is blind; I haven’t had her darshan in seven years. My girls sit unmarried, and because of dowry I refuse to marry them off. Now, if a man doesn’t care for his own, will he pay to complete half your temple? Don’t ever come this way again.”

When his wife dies, when his father dies, he will be very distressed. He will beat his chest, create a great commotion. A great clamor will rage within him.

Naturally, there is a simple psychological truth: death puts you in a place where transformation is now impossible; nothing can be done, not even an apology. Death abruptly closes a chapter. And then you are gnawed by the thought of what you did.

Therefore for centuries you keep worshiping. You observe ancestral rites. You hang your father’s photograph. I have seen people garland a father’s photo in many homes—but no one garlands a living father. What a joke! I have yet to see anyone place two flowers at a living father’s feet every morning. To give a living father even two rotis is considered a great favor. People cannot even bear to look at a living father. As long as he is alive, the feeling is, “When will we be rid of him? O God, take him away! How long will he keep dogging us!” And the moment he dies, they have a photograph made, a statue made, build a memorial, raise a shrine—what don’t they do!

This is remorse, an inner pain being covered up. It is not respect for the father; it is merely hiding one’s wounds beneath flowers.

You mistreated Buddha and Mahavira; that is why you honor them for centuries. Honor for the dead, abuse for the living!

And the reason for the abuse was that they were not like you. Among your crowd they were strangers—of a different kind. Their note was different, their ecstasy different, their song different, their gait different, their way different, their gaze upon life different. There was no way to match them.

Ramshankar Agnihotri, you ask: such gifted people were born without any arrangement of planned procreation. So to say that only through planned procreation can talent be born does not seem entirely correct.

It is entirely correct. These few were born only by accident. They are arrows that happened to hit in the dark. Out of millions, one or two—so few that they can be counted on the fingers—have attained the fragrance. The rest merely live and die. In fact, they never truly live and yet they die. Whereas each person can arrive at this same dignity and splendor—indeed, should!

Every seed has the capacity to reach flowers and release fragrance. And when a seed becomes a tree, and birds sing upon it, and flowers open, and the winds dance with it, and it converses with the moon and stars—then it knows joy; then it knows fulfillment. In that completeness, in that moment of spring, there is bliss—call it God-realization, nirvana, moksha.

We are bound to remain miserable as long as we fail to reach our full destiny. The blind, the maimed, the lame, the leprous, the mentally disordered—these are the ones begetting children. Then the fools die, leaving their progeny. And their progeny, not to be outdone by their forefathers, beget more. Gradually the circulation of counterfeit coins increases. And often the best people perhaps do not marry at all; while the basest marry not once but two, three, four times. The baser a man is, the more trouble he creates.

Even Buddha had only one child. Mahavira too had only one daughter. But ordinary people form queues—competing over how many they can produce! Jesus had no child; he did not marry. Shankaracharya had no child. Ramakrishna had no child. Ramana had no child.

Those who scale the highest peaks are often unmarried. They have the capacity and understanding not to get entangled in the net of futility. Life is short, and only if the entire energy is directed in one line does attainment become possible; if you fragment it, it will not. If all your energy is gathered, perhaps a flight is possible, perhaps even reaching God. The journey is long, difficult, arduous. Only in totality can one be dedicated—then and only then!

So marriage, family, the hassles of family—such people rarely take them on. And this is not only true of the religious. Many poets have remained unmarried; many painters, many scientists.

In truth, one wife is enough; two make things difficult. And that second “wife” might be poetry, literature, religion, science, art—enough! Otherwise there is nothing but conflict.

Socrates had a wife, Xanthippe. He was in trouble all his life. Had he been born in India, perhaps he would not have married at all. In Greece there was no ethos of remaining unmarried; Greece is a very worldly land. Socrates’ marriage happened, perhaps in childhood, as was the custom then—arranged by his parents. Buddha’s was arranged, Mahavira’s was arranged. He may not have been conscious at all when it happened. But his wife gave him trouble all his life.

And why? She was not a bad woman. The trouble was that Socrates was so absorbed in philosophy he neglected her. What the wife could not bear was that he took more interest in something than he did in her. Whatever you take too much interest in, the wife becomes jealous of that. It makes no difference whether it is another woman. Take interest in gardening, and she will uproot your plants. Take interest in painting, and she will throw water on your canvases. Take interest in sculpture, and she will break your statues. The point is not what your interest is in; the point is that competition has begun. You seem to be neglecting the wife.

And certainly Socrates was neglecting her—not deliberately; he too was compelled. His whole being was soaring into another realm. He was journeying in an inner sky. The wife wanted him to be an ordinary man: earn a living, build a nice house, have more jewelry and saris than the neighbors. There is nothing unnatural in the wife’s longing; what was unnatural was Socrates.

And he was forever in satsang. Morning satsang, afternoon, evening, night… After all, the wife needs some time too! One day she became so angry that, while a discourse was on, she came and poured a kettle of boiling water over him. His face was scarred forever; half his face remained burned, blackened for life.

But Socrates said nothing. His companions cried out, but he said, “No, it is not her fault; it is mine. She demands attention, and I cannot give it. This is merely a way of asking for attention, a way to attract notice. I too am compelled; my attention is elsewhere. She too is compelled; she has no husband—she is without a husband. I understand her pain. Married, yet truly a widow; my presence or absence is the same. Worse, I demand care; she must cook for me—and I am of no use to her!”

So the highest have often had no children; they did not marry. And the basest have no other occupation. Their only entertainment is producing children. That is why the poorer a country, the more children it produces. Poor countries have few other amusements—no TV, no money for world travel, no expensive alternatives. Only one cheap option: produce children. Keep yourself entangled, surrounded by toddlers. Let them squeal and keep you occupied. Thus life passes in entanglement, and at least the emptiness doesn’t sting. At least you are doing something. You are leaving something in the world; you did not come and go leaving no mark! People will remember that you were here!

You ask, Ramshankar Agnihotri, that Mahavira, Einstein, Buddha were not born through planned procreation.

I agree. But if only a system of planned procreation were put in place, many Einsteins could be born, many Buddhas, many Mahaviras. Heaps of talent could arise. Each person could offer something unique to this world.

But what we produce is mostly trash. The reason: we do not think. Even when you arrange a match between husband and wife, who do you consult? An astrologer! Just look at his own home. He couldn’t get along with his own wife, yet for a few coins he matches the stars of others!

Science is not yet fully born; it is in the making. Now the time has come when harmony can be created. Now we hold many keys in our hands, which should be used. If we don’t, we are fools. In the time of Mahavira and Buddha these keys did not exist; but we have them. Now we know what kind of child will be born from the union of what kind of man with what kind of woman—how high his potential, how long his lifespan, how great his talent, what his IQ will be. These things can now be determined. We even know what his features will look like, what the color of his hair will be, what the color of his eyes will be. All this can be decided.

We also know that with ordinary intercourse you cannot be very certain, because that is shooting in the dark. In one act of intercourse, about ten million sperm cells rush toward the woman’s ovum. Politics begins right there—Delhi is not far! All politics is born there. Ten million cells! The struggle begins; the competition of life begins. They race. Their lifespan is only about two hours. If they do not reach the ovum within two hours, they die. You might think the distance is not long—but for them it is. They are so small you cannot see them. For them the path is miles long! And the struggle is arduous; the competition is with ten million others. In this sprint, the one who reaches the ovum first will enter.

The ovum has this peculiarity: the very first sperm cell that touches it is taken in, and then the ovum closes. That is why sometimes two, three, or four children are born together—twins, triplets, quadruplets—because sometimes, by chance, two or more sperm reach at exactly the same moment. While the door is still open, if they arrive together, they all enter. Once any one has entered, the ovum closes, hardens; no further entry is possible, and the rest perish.

So only one out of millions will make it. A ferocious competition—life and death. Whoever survives will live seventy years, see the world, see the sun and moon and stars, and who knows what he will become—Buddha, Mahavira, Albert Einstein, Picasso, Michelangelo, Kalidasa, or who knows who! All the rest, except that one, will die within two hours. They are defeated there; their life ends there.

Now who will arrive first? It is not necessary that the sperm cell that could become a Buddha will be the one to reach. Among those ten million are all kinds. There are tricksters, scoundrels, politicians—Morarji Desai, Charan Singh—every type! They will use every stratagem. Often the likelihood is that the gentlemanly types fall behind—“Why get into such a scramble? Why all this hustle?” The gentleman thinks humility becomes him and stands aside: “Brother, after you.” And there are bullies who push and shove and get in somehow—“Even if we get beaten black and blue, we’ll barge in and watch the show!” Once they decide to get there, they create an uproar, climb over one another. You have no idea—the scientists say such a commotion breaks out…so subtle you cannot see it, but what turmoil!

Selection can be made from among them. Now we have methods. They can be examined and assessed. That is why even the children of the same parents are not all alike. Mahavira was not his father’s only son; there were others—what became of them? Einstein was not an only child—where did the others go? They were born of the same mother and father. Yet among ten brothers and sisters there are vast differences—worlds apart. Where do the differences come from? They come from the fact that the sperm cells racing toward the ovum are all different; their talents, capacities, and possibilities differ. Now we have methods to assess those capacities; we can peek a little into their futures.

That is why, just as we now make blood banks in hospitals, in Western countries sperm banks have begun. It is a good beginning, an important one. Much of the future depends on it. The sperm of the best individuals can be collected, and from these the best can be selected.

Nor are all women’s ova the same. They differ as well. Those ova can be selected too. And if the best ovum meets the best sperm, I tell you a time may come when we will make the past pale; we will no longer need to count Buddhas and Mahaviras on our fingers. We can give birth to great talent. But this requires a highly planned system. It cannot happen without design.

Yes, the few who have appeared so far have appeared in spite of us. Remember that, Ramshankar Agnihotri. There is no error in what I have said; it is entirely right. These were arrows that happened to hit. You too can try shooting in the dark—one may strike. But that will not make you an archer. Archers are not made so easily. Sometimes chance brings things about. It was by chance that a superior ovum and a superior sperm met. Once in millions of cases, such an event will occur.

Jesus said, Scatter seed—just scatter it. Some will fall on the path; they will never sprout, they will die on the path. Can a seed sprout on a road? And the road in Jesus’ time—he had no idea of today’s roads. Can a seed sprout on concrete or asphalt? Some will fall on the roadside; they might sprout, but they will die. Because people walk along the edges too; they will be trampled. Some may fall on the field’s embankment; they might grow a little taller, but they too won’t survive. Farmers and shepherds also walk those ridges. Only those that fall right in the middle of the field, in proper soil, will sprout. And even they need protection.

We are more careful with seeds in a field than with human seeds. Fools like us are hard to find! In the field we build fences, water the crop; we make sure no animals enter, we hire a watchman. What arrangements have we made for human beings? Until now we could not; we did not know how. Now we can. If now we still do not, then we are utter bumpkins.

But old beliefs are hindering us. Old beliefs are making it very difficult.

And what of individual freedom in other matters? If a man wants to murder someone, you don’t say his freedom is being obstructed—let him murder! Since he wants to do it, let him do it! Why interfere with his freedom? Someone wants to light a Holi bonfire by setting someone’s house on fire. When you stop him and the police take him away, doesn’t that obstruct his personal freedom? Someone wants to commit suicide—you don’t let him do that either. This is the limit! Not letting him kill another—alright, the other is involved in that. But a man wants to kill himself; even he, if caught, will have to serve a sentence.

One doesn’t even have the freedom to kill oneself, and yet you should have the freedom to produce children! Which is more dangerous than killing. Because you may bring into being a child who will suffer his whole life. And then he will produce children. You may start a chain that perhaps will never end. And you want freedom for this! Kill one or two people—there’s no great danger in that. There is already a crowd of such people. But bringing a child into the world is a more dangerous act. And for that you want personal freedom: “We will have a child whenever we want.”

No, that won’t do. That is not what personal freedom means. This is a mistaken meaning of personal freedom.

There was an American thinker, Henry Thoreau. Mahatma Gandhi was very influenced by him. In the American constitution it is written that a person has freedom of movement. Do you know how he interpreted it? Traveling on trains without a ticket! Freedom of movement! Nobody can stop me. Every person has the freedom to move. If there is freedom of movement, I’ll sit in the train, I’ll get on the airplane! He was caught many times, served sentences too, but he kept saying this is a basic human freedom; again and again he traveled without a ticket.

Gandhi got the idea of non-cooperation from that very madman. Reading his book—Unto This Last—Gandhi got the notion that this is a tremendous thing! Non-cooperation can be done in this way. Gandhi translated his book. The name he gave to Unto This Last was “Sarvodaya”—the book. From that arose the word “Sarvodaya.”

What does personal freedom mean? Do you have the right to produce any kind of child? And what about that child? Who are you to ruin that child’s future? If he turns out a fool, you are responsible. If he is disabled, you are responsible. If he is blind, you are responsible. If he is without intelligence, who is responsible? If he is harried and troubled his whole life, who is responsible?

We will have to change these notions. This talk of personal freedom is foolish. This very thing is sucking the life out of our country. In Buddha’s time the population of this land was about twenty million; now it is seven hundred million. And if we include Pakistan and Bangladesh, it comes close to nine hundred million. From twenty million to nine hundred million! If you are poor, destitute—who is responsible? And then you talk of personal freedom! So you have the personal freedom to be destitute. You have the personal freedom to starve to death. Then why the hue and cry? Why shout that we are hungry, that we are poor, that the world should care for us! You produce the children and the world should worry about them? You are angry at the whole world. And what is the cause of your anger? The responsibility is yours. There is no other reason.

This cannot continue any longer. We must change the notion of personal freedom. Where are the individuals, anyway? Call those who have awareness “individuals.” You call these machines individuals? Those who have no awareness—why are they producing children? For what? What need is there? Is there any need at all? Why increase the burden on the earth? There is already such a crowd—now, please have compassion! But they say, “No, this is an obstacle to personal freedom.”

We cling to words. If we want to stay alive, we will have to act with some intelligence; and if we want to make life beautiful, we will have to act with a great deal of intelligence. There is no need to get trapped in a web of words. Decisions should now be in the hands of experts—who can have children, and with whom they can have children.

And now we have the means. There is no need that you father a child only with your own wife, or that your wife conceive only from you. Drop these old, foolish notions. Your child should be beautiful. Your child should be intelligent. Your child should be such that a lotus blossoms. Care about that.

You don’t care about that at all; your only concern is that the child be from “my woman,” from “my husband.” And now there is so much facility. A child can even be conceived by injection. There is no need anymore...

An amazing fact: in the course of a lifetime a man produces so many sperm that from a single man we could fill the whole earth with children. In a single act of intercourse there are a crore—ten million—potential children. In thirty or forty years of sexual life, one man could produce enough to populate the entire earth. If we use the best sperm, there is no need for you to insist on producing children from your own scrap-heap semen—“we will have a child only from this!” Whatever it is—lumpy, crude, half-baked—it will do, so long as it’s ours!

By “ours” you mean only this: that you yourself went and bought the sperm injection. You spent the money—no one else! Not somebody else’s father’s! You made the choice. You yourself went to the chemist’s shop, you didn’t send a servant. There you inspected, you inquired; you even took your wife along. The two of you thought it over, consulted a specialist. Then you decided what kind of child you would like—how much talent, what height, what color, what features, what kind of body, what level of health.

Otherwise we go on passing on diseases. From generation to generation they descend; we go on increasing the same ailments.

There can be healthy children who never fall ill, or if they do, it becomes very rare. And gradually the human race can touch the superhuman, the Superman. Nietzsche’s vision could one day be fulfilled; the day for its fulfillment has drawn near.

So I will repeat: procreation should be planned. And the whole responsibility for children should be the commune’s, so that the commune decides how many children there are, and whose children. And now there is no obstacle, because the link between sex and children has been broken. In olden days there was this obstacle—that if you wanted to prevent children, you had to practice something as arduous as celibacy, which perhaps hardly anyone could truly achieve. Now the link between children and sex is broken.

In the history of humankind, the pill invented for birth control is the most revolutionary invention. There is no greater revolutionary invention, because it will change the entire shape of the future. It has brought about a great revolution; it has severed the connection between sex and children. You can enjoy the pleasure of sex as long as you wish. Until intelligence dawns to rise beyond sex, you can enjoy sex and avoid children. Children are no longer inevitable. Now let children be organized.

And with a little understanding there is no difficulty in this; it is not something forcibly imposed. Look here in my commune: there are three thousand sannyasins and only two hundred and fifty children. Among fifteen hundred couples, two hundred and fifty children. If these fifteen hundred couples were taught the Indian style, what a racket would break out here—what a “satsang” this would be!... Ten or fifteen thousand children, and all our work would go just into managing them. But out of their own understanding the young men have had operations, the young women have had operations; whomever the doctors advised has had the operation.

And as soon as this commune is fully established, what I am saying will be experimented with. Because when I say something, I do not like to talk in the air. If anywhere in the world, for the first time, a commune can be truly experimented with, the children will belong wholly to the commune... We have set up a separate building for the children; the children live there, because children do not want the hassles of parents—and why should parents be hassled either! So the children have their own residence. Children a little older than them manage that residence—and they manage it in a marvelous way. Everything is running in an orderly fashion.

In the new commune, as soon as our entire setup becomes our own—when our own city is ready and ten thousand sannyasins have settled—I would like us to make full use of experts, and that children be born in the way science now says they should be born. We want to set an example. We want to show how children can be born. And the more distant the parents are, or the farther apart the male and female germ cells that meet, the more extraordinary the children that are born; the more excellent the children, the greater the distance.

Among my sannyasins there are sannyasins from some fifty countries—far-flung lands. From them we can initiate a new humanity.

Satyanand,
Whatever is born in time is bound to be transformed. Life-values too are products of time. What was right in the days of the Vedic seers is not right today. What is right today may not be right tomorrow. It is essential to keep watching with awareness every day so that when the current of time changes, we change too. But we live in yesterday, while existence is always now. We live in the past, and existence is in the present; the harmony breaks. From this, great suffering arises; from this, hell is created—because we go on missing.

If there is no relationship with the present, there cannot be a relationship with God either, because the present is God. And we live in the past. Our notions belong to the past. However foolish they may have become, we go on repeating them; we go on being beaten by them. We say they have come down from our forefathers. Perhaps they had meaning once; certainly they did. They were born because the demand of that time was such. But now? Now they have no value.

For example, the Vedic rishis would bless newlyweds: “May you have many children!” Today, if someone gives that blessing it would be wrong. Today the blessing should be: “May you have no children at all!” Today “May you have many children” is not a blessing—it would be a curse.

Time has changed; circumstances have changed. In the time of the Vedic seers there was more earth and fewer people. Today there is less earth and more people. The earth is being pressed down by people, being eroded by people. So the same life-values cannot remain.

People ask me about contraception: then what will happen to the souls that are stopped, that don’t get born? And is contraception not violent—because you did not let someone be born, you killed them, murdered them even before they existed?

The soul that does not take birth will knock at some other door; is your door the only door? Have you alone taken the contract? There are many fools like you. And is this the only earth? Scientists say that on at least fifty thousand earth-like planets there is life. At least fifty thousand! Likely more—but at least fifty thousand for sure. So why are you worried? What contract have you taken to produce souls? The one who runs this universe will run them too. It is his responsibility; he understands his problems. Why are you sitting to solve God’s problems? Solve your own—that is more than enough.

But people ask all kinds of questions only so that the old notion somehow survives, so that we can cling to the old. And everything has changed.

Mulla Nasruddin was telling me yesterday. He said:

Last night,
suddenly,
a “beauty girl” stopped us.
We thought we had mistaken her identity!
With poet-like modesty,
eyes lowered, we passed by.
The maiden’s tresses flew loose in anger;
she began to shout loudly—
“O young men of the city, come,
save me from this gentleman!
I keep the evening of Awadh in my curls,
the morning of Banaras on my lips,
and the waters of Kashmir on my face,
yet even then this loafer didn’t tease me—
do I look like his mother?”

Life changes every day. Old values are swept away; new values come. Old notions break; new notions arrive.

Seth Kishori Raman is perplexed,
because bandits
have kidnapped his wife.
Now a letter has come to him:
“Please place one kilo of gold
on the dirty drain,
which will be
by us
collected personally;
and if
you do not do so,
your wife will be sent back to you.”

Those days are gone when bandits would say, “If you don’t send the money, we won’t release your wife.” Those days are gone! Now they say, “We will send your wife back home safely.”

You ask, Satyanand: “Do life-values also transform with time?”
Certainly! Everything changes. They must change. Change is the order of life. And change is auspicious too. Because things change, life remains new, fresh, jubilant. In this country they don’t change; that is exactly our obstruction. Here everything has rotted; everything has become foul. Here there is no today at all—only yesterday upon yesterday. Rama-rajya has already happened, the golden age has already happened, Satyug has already happened—everything has already happened! Then what are we doing here now? No one asks, What are you doing now? If everything has already happened, then you may as well be finished too! Why suffer unnecessarily now? There is nothing left to do. Now it is only Kaliyug, only bad days; now there is only sorrow. Then what is the point of living?

Two hippies were walking along a road in California—mega-hippies! They walked a mile in silence, each absorbed in his own trip. Finally one said to the other, “Now it’s beyond endurance. Did you shit in your pants? Such a terrible stench is coming! And for a mile I’ve been noticing that if this stink were coming from somewhere else, it would have been left behind—but this is walking along with us.”

The other said, “No, no, absolutely not.”

But the first wasn’t the sort to accept it. He said, “Take off your pants!” So his friend took them off. The moment he did, the other shouted, “See? What was I saying! And you say, no, no. You have shat! What is this!”

The second said, “I thought, brother, you were asking about today. Not today.”

This is the condition of this country. Here there is no today at all—nothing! Everything has already happened yesterday. We just go on carrying it—dead corpses. They have rotted; they stink. But they are very dear; they’re our own. And for centuries they have been worshiped, honored, revered. So keep decorating them, adorning them. The forefathers did the same; you keep doing the same.

We don’t want to change anything. Mahavira told his monks to walk barefoot. The reason was that the shoes made then were only of leather; and leather means violence—animals would be killed. So it was right—why kill animals for your shoes!

Secondly, there were no tarred or cement roads then. There was open earth, earthen paths. There is nothing unhealthy about walking on earth. On the contrary, it is healthy. We too are made of earth. When earth meets earth, it finds life. If you walk barefoot on the soil a little while each day, it is beneficial, health-giving. There is not the slightest harm.

But now Jain monks still keep walking—on tar roads, on cement roads! They don’t think that poor Mahavira could not have known roads would be like this. Burning tar in the heat, blisters forming on the feet—yet he keeps walking. And now shoes are made of cloth, of canvas, of rubber. Are we still stuck only on leather? Now there need be no violence in shoes. If Mahavira were to return, I tell you with certainty, whether he wore anything else or not, he would definitely wear shoes.

One day a man and his wife knocked at Mulla Nasruddin’s door. Mulla opened it and peeped out. Husband and wife were standing there. They hesitated greatly, because Mulla was completely naked—wearing shoes and a hat! He had even tied a tie! Now they couldn’t just turn back; they had come. And Mulla couldn’t say, Go. They were old acquaintances. He said, “Come, come, be seated! What good fortune!”

The husband stepped in; the wife slipped in shyly behind. The husband looked here and there—what to say, what not to say! He had come with some purpose, but forgot it at once. This stark-naked man… and had he been completely naked, even that would have been okay—but he’s wearing a hat, shoes, a tie, and all the real things are missing! The essentials are absent! The wife couldn’t restrain herself. She said, “Mulla-ji, may I ask why you are sitting naked?”

Mulla said, “Madam, at this hour no one ever comes to see me. This is my leisure time, my rest time. There is no one at home, so I sit alone, happily naked. I relax. All day long one is strapped and bound—belt tight, pants fastened, jacket on, coat over it—life gets squeezed out of you. So I was just resting a bit.”

She said, “That I can understand. But then why these shoes, this tie, this hat?”

Mulla said, “These are in case someone, by mistake, happens to drop in. Just as you have come. Now and then someone wanders in by mistake.”

I tell you for sure, if Mahavira were to come again he would definitely wear shoes. About a tie and a hat I cannot say. Though a mat hat would be good—under the sun it would give protection, and there is no violence in a mat. A Japanese-style straw hat would look beautiful.

But the Jain monk is a literalist—stuck to the line. How can he wear them! Blisters form on the feet of Jain nuns and monks. They bind cloth on them. Once Jain nuns came to see me—their feet had blisters, wounds. They had wrapped cloth on them, and in such a way that it was almost doing the work of shoes.

I said, “What does this mean? Then what harm is there in shoes? You have tied so many rags that they are almost doing the work of shoes. Instead of carrying such filthy rags, what harm is there in cloth shoes?”

They said, “If you say it, we understand too; but it is not written in the scriptures.”

So I said, “Write it in the scriptures. What can a scripture do to prevent it? Are the scriptures ours, or are we of the scriptures?”

When time changes, all values change. And only that people remain alive who change with time. Only those individuals are alive who change with time.

This country is dead; it is a graveyard, a cremation ground—a great cremation ground on which mahatmas sit tending their sacred fires. Just tending the fire—that alone remains; there is no other work left. All work has already been done. Now, desirelessly, sit on the cremation ground, tend the fire, chant Ram-Ram. As if nothing remains in our hands to do. The whole earth is engaged in tremendous works! Perhaps never before have such great works happened as are happening today; because there was never so much science, so much technology, so many means in our hands, so much understanding. Today all means are available, all understanding is there. Today we can make this earth a paradise. But these old values and old notions have bound us to hell.

Swadesh,
Yes, brother—place matters? Why wouldn’t it!

Chandulal was telling me, “I’m ruined—ever since I got married, I’m ruined.”
I asked him, “Where did you meet your wife?”
He said, “On Chowpatty beach.”
I said, “Then of course you’re ‘chopat’—kaput! Place! At least think where you meet. Meeting your future wife for the first time is risky anyway—and that too on Chowpatty!”

But I told him, “Your wife says something else. She goes around saying, ‘Since I married him, Chandulal has become a lakhpati.’ And you say you’re ruined.”
Chandulal slapped his forehead. “She’s right too.”
I said, “This is quite a riddle! You say you’re ruined, and your wife says you’ve become a lakhpati.”
He said, “Yes, she’s right. Earlier I was a crorepati.”

Now you ask, Swadesh, whether a place has any value or not?
What mad questions! The whole earth is one. What Kaaba, what Kashi! Wherever you bow down in love of the Divine—there is Kaaba, there is Kashi. And if you sit even in the Kaaba and don’t bow, what on earth can the Kaaba do for you? And what can Kashi do! So many sit there like corpses—do you think they gain anything?

Kabir, at the time of his death, said, “I will not die in Kashi—take me away from Kashi.”
People said, “You’ve gone mad! People come to Kashi to die, to take their last turn here. It has always been believed that whoever takes his last breath in Kashi goes to heaven. And you’ve lost your mind! You lived in Kashi all your life, and now at death you say you won’t stay?”
Kabir said, “If I die in Kashi and go to heaven, that will be Kashi’s favor. What merit of mine? No—I will not die in Kashi. If I go to heaven, I will go on my own strength, not on Kashi’s.”
He moved away from Kashi; he did not die there. That’s what is called courage.

Kabir is saying only this: places have no intrinsic value. What is this business of dying in Kashi! The whole earth is His. The whole sky is His. It depends on how you die. Where you die—what will that change? With what joy you embrace death—dancing, singing—then even death becomes a doorway to the Divine.

And you are worried about place! Strange notions clutter our heads. Some worry about place, some about time, some about the day—this day is auspicious, that day inauspicious; this place good, that place bad. Anything to avoid worrying about oneself, and to unload everything onto place, date, day. Leave just one thing undone: do not search within yourself.

I’ve heard of four girlfriends. They studied together, grew up together. The first was married in Bajrangbalipur. A child was on the way. If a child isn’t born within a year of marriage, people start raising eyebrows—so it must happen within a year! The husband, his chest puffed out, was waiting outside. Nurses were coming and going. Every time one passed, he’d jump up—“Is it done or not?” One nurse said, “Yes, it’s done; don’t panic, sit quietly.” He asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?” She said, “We’re not quite sure yet.” Then he panicked even more. “Not sure yet? Such a small thing—that’s known right away! Boy or girl—do they come out wearing clothes? What’s there to find out? Will you need a microscope?”
Another nurse came, also sweating. He stopped her: “Boy or girl?” She said, “Brother, don’t babble now—we don’t know yet. It’s done.”
Now he was drenched in sweat too. “What kind of case is this!” Then the doctor came out, very flustered. The would-be father grabbed his hand: “You’ll have to tell me.”
The doctor said, “What can we tell you! The moment it was born, it leapt up and climbed onto the chandelier. Let it come down, then we’ll see whether it’s a boy or a girl. It won’t come down from the chandelier. We’re all sweating trying to bring it down. And you’re worried whether it’s a boy or a girl! What will you do knowing that? For now, just know it’s perched on the chandelier.”

The other three friends were terrified: place really matters—Bajrangbalipur! A manifestation of Bajrangbali has been born!
The second friend thought long and hard about where to marry. She nailed down the village and didn’t bother about the groom at all. All her focus was on the name of the place: Advaitpuram—Nonduality Town.
They married—and the husband died. She was left alone. Advaita!
The remaining two were even more alarmed. “Now we must proceed very carefully—this is dangerous.” They researched villages, studied geography. They found Dvaitpuram—Duality Town. The third married there. Two children were born at once.
The fourth beat her head. Just then she fell in love with a young man—right in her own village. “Good,” she thought, “no more geography hassles.” Love progressed; talks reached marriage. When everything was settled, it occurred to her to ask, “By the way, where are you from?” He said, “Sahasrapur—Thousand Town.” She said, “Forgive me—let’s end this! If in Dvaitpuram two children were born, what will happen in Sahasrapur!”

Swadesh, why get lost in such nonsense! Places have no value—neither Kaaba nor Kashi; neither Girnar nor Kailash. What has value is your awakening. Wherever you awaken, that is a place of pilgrimage. Wherever you fall asleep, that is hell.

Krishnaraj,
Laughing and making others laugh is a good thing—good for health, good for well-being. Laughter is pure exercise, it is pranayama. Laugh and make others laugh; there is no harm in it. But remember, there are two ways of laughing. One laughs in order to hide one’s tears—that is the wrong way, the wrong dimension. Or one laughs because fountains of laughter are bursting within, because joy has awakened within; he shares that joy. Then there is spirituality in laughter. Then laughter is liberation. Then laughter becomes a door to freedom.

People laugh to forget their sorrow; then laughter is a sleeping pill, a way to lessen the pain. You laugh a little, you delude yourself for a while, you trick yourself. That is why there is a flood of comic poets—people are so unhappy that they want to laugh on any pretext, by any excuse. “Let me forget for a while,” they feel—forget life’s problems, life’s entanglements, life’s melancholy, life’s anguish, if only for a little while.

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “I laugh so that I do not begin to cry.”

Your humorous poems aren’t just a device to hide your tears, are they, Krishnaraj? If they are, then I would say it is better to cry—because tears will be authentic, true, and they will lighten you, wash the dust from your eyes. False laughter cannot be more valuable than true crying. Falsehood is never valuable. True crying has value; false laughter is still false.

Do not wear a mask. Yes—if within you rasa is flowing, songs are arising, if a festival of life has appeared within you, if you are tasting life’s rapture—then laugh, then play the flute. Then whatever you do will be poetry. Flowers will shower from the very way you move, sit, and stand.

Mulla Nasruddin also writes humorous poems. Just yesterday he went to an office for a job. He came back and told me—

Yesterday was my interview.
Question—
“Have you read geography?”
I said, “Yes sir, very well.”
“All right, then tell me,
Where it rains more,
what is found there in greater quantity?”
Answer—
“Raincoats and umbrellas.”

Second question—
“So you’ve studied literature?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Tell us, which ‘isms’ are dear to you,
and how many rasas are there?”
Answer—
“Sir, only two ‘isms’ are dear to me:
Uproot-ism and Knockdown-ism.
And as for the question of rasas—
if you mean in the field of literature—
only one remains now:
sugarcane juice.
As for the rest of the world,
sir! it all feels juiceless to me.”

Third question—
“Do you have some general knowledge?”
“Yes sir, yes sir.”
“Then tell us, who received the Padmashri this year?”
Answer—
“Sir, only I did.”
“You?”
“Yes sir, this very year!
I got married,
and the wife I received—
her name is Padmashri.”

The officer flared up in anger
and asked the final question—
“Qualifications?”
In reply I handed over a card.
It read:
Lord Girgitanand
M.A.B.F., I.C.S.
The officer said—
“These degrees make no sense.
What do they mean?”
Very humbly I replied—
“Sir, earlier we were landlords,
but since that wretched law was passed,
all the landlord’s land became government property.
Since then we’ve been only ‘lords.’
M.A.B.F. means—
Matric Appeared But Failed.
I.C.S. means—
Ice Cream Seller, sir.”

The officer roared—“You are a big donkey!”
I said—“No, no, sir!
You are the patron, the ‘mother-father.’
I am small; you are the big one.”

Krishnaraj, go ahead wholeheartedly. If you are to write in the comic rasa, write poems of comic rasa. Laugh and make others laugh.

Just keep in mind that people have become very fed up with such poets, very frightened. In any village where a kavi-sammelan is held, all the rotten bananas and rotten eggs are sold out at once. Tomatoes too! People come ready. Now even the comic poets have grown wise; they go beforehand and buy up the lot—the rotten eggs, the rotten bananas, the rotten tomatoes—sweeping the village clean. Otherwise the public throws these things.

And once a comic poet grabs the mic he won’t let it go. The audience hoots, stamps their feet, raises a ruckus—he doesn’t care. He sits tight! He will make them listen, whether anyone is listening or not. He roams about looking for listeners, hoping to find someone, anyone, anywhere.

Do not be such a humor poet. People are already harassed; do not harass them more.

In one village there was a kavi-sammelan. Everyone got up and left, but the very first poet who had settled on the stage stayed put. Three people remained seated. When he finished his poems, he asked those three, “You seem to be great connoisseurs of poetry.”

They said, “Connoisseurs, my foot! We also have poems to recite. Now you sit! So far you’ve tormented us; now we’ll torment you. We’ll make you remember your mother’s milk. It’s night, and we are here, and you are here! The true connoisseur is that man sitting at the door.”

A man was sitting at the door, nodding his head. He said, “No, forgive me. I’m just dozing off. I have nothing to do with poetry. I’m sitting here to lock the hall when the kavi-sammelan ends so I can go home. I’m the servant here; I have to lock this hall. And if you people intend to stick around all night, I’ll leave the key with you. In the morning, lock the door and drop the key at my house on your way out.”

Let bliss awaken within you—then fine. Otherwise, what is the point?

I have heard this: a humor poet died. One of his friends went out to collect donations. What he experienced, he wrote in verse. He wrote—

A humor poet died.
I went to raise funds for him.
People said—“What a strange clown!
When he didn’t have money for a shroud,
why did he die?”
I said—“Why are you making fun?”
They said—“And what did he do to us!
He made fools of us too,
recited for an hour and a half.
His prose was good,
but in poetry he was a child.
Since you too are of the comic rasa,
promise to die tomorrow—
the donation is ready today.
Even if you die later, this man is ready.”

I said—“Have you forgotten those days
when you came in gleaming cars,
dressed in bright colors and sat in rows,
and that ragged man,
with his absurd antics, made you laugh?
To entertain you
he himself became laughable.
Now that he has gone,
you avert your eyes,
you hesitate to give even five rupees?”

A merchant said—“What can we say?
Some artist or other keeps dying all the time.
Bring the list of all the poets here,
and tell us the number, with names!”
I said, “Ten.”
He said, “That’s all?
Take this hundred-rupee note,
settle them all at once,
and don’t come again.”

People are tired, Krishnaraj. Do not write such poetry.

In my view there are two kinds of poetry. One rises within you the way fragrance rises from flowers. And the other you cobble together by force—dragging and yoking words until something sits. When people can do nothing else, at least they can do this much. Getting a rhyme to fit isn’t hard. And if by saying a few nonsensical things you can make people laugh for a little while—there is no real purpose in that either.

Remember, the more unhappy a person becomes, the more means of entertainment he needs. The reason is simply that the unhappy man seeks some way to forget himself. What we should want is that people be happy—and if in happiness they celebrate, sing, dance, relish poetry and music, that is another matter. But if people are unhappy and use entertainment merely as a bandage, it is harmful. It is opium. Do not give opium to people. Give awakening—do not put them to sleep.

Ordinarily, our poems are nothing but lullabies. Just as we sing lullabies to small children and put them to sleep, so big children are being sung poems, stories, Puranas, scriptures. All lullabies—“Somehow, sleep on.”

And you too are in search of lullabies. You want consolation, not truth. Rarely does one find a seeker of truth. People look for consolation. They want relief somehow, some way—just a little respite from life’s problems. But problems stand where they are. You cannot escape them that way. Problems dissolve only in samadhi. There never was, there is not, and there never will be any other way.

Be free of the mind and you will be free of suffering. Be free of the mind and you will be free of problems.

What I teach is precisely the art of being free of the mind. This is all I mean by sannyas: be free of the mind. Experience the state of no-mind. Be a witness to this mind—where sorrow is and where happiness is; where there is laughter and there are tears; where all kinds of dualities exist. Be the witness of both. When laughter comes, watch it alertly. When crying comes, watch that too. And keep remembering continuously: I am the one who is awake and watching—I am neither the tears nor the smile; I am the witness of both.

If you settle in this witnessing, if you become steady in it, if you delight in it, then your life is a grand festival. Then your life is Diwali upon Diwali, Holi upon Holi. Then your life is the monsoon month of Sawan. Then hang the swings, then sing the songs. Then your songs will have a different color, a different manner, a different grace, a different beauty.

But before that, what songs will you sing? Where is the space from which singing arises? Where are the feet that dance, the heart, the soul? Otherwise you will keep whitewashing from the outside, Krishnaraj, and nothing of real benefit will come of it.

Veena Bharti,
I give you sannyas—and that means I have accepted you, embraced you! I have taken you into my heart! I have held your hand in mine! In this world, all relationships are on the surface; only the bond of Master and disciple is not. All relationships here are of the body; the Master–disciple bond alone is of the soul—it is not of the body.

Your hope is already fulfilled. You have already been accepted.

And what is this thirst for a drop! I will give you the ocean—why anything less? Even if you ask for a drop, I will give you the ocean. Only the ocean can quench this thirst; a drop will not. A drop will only awaken it more. A drop will only give the throat a taste; the longing in the very breath will grow more intense. Certainly, first there is a drizzle, and then the torrential rain. The drizzle has begun on you; the cloudburst will come too.

When I look into your eyes, I see you have begun to move. Many have set out. Whoever has set out is already half arrived. The real difficulty is to start! The greatest difficulty is in taking the first step. After that, everything becomes easy, because even a journey of a thousand miles is completed step by step. The one who has taken one step—no step remains difficult for them now. It is the same step to be taken again and again. Now the journey of a thousand miles will be completed.

And you have taken the first step. Whoever has taken sannyas has taken the first step.

Sannyas is a love–engagement with the Divine—with that ultimate truth! It is a search for the infinite. And sannyas is the coming of spring.

In the beginning, when spring comes, one or two flowers bloom. But even a single blossom announces spring’s arrival—spring has come! Now flowers upon flowers will bloom. So many will bloom that you will not be able to count them. There is no way to count. All counting is left behind. All calculations are left behind. All weighing scales are left behind. All measures and yardsticks are left behind. All measuring is left behind. For this is a journey into the immeasurable and the infinite.

Veena, the journey has begun. Give thanks to the Divine! Take it as grace that you could take the first step. The very first step… People hesitate a lot, they search for a thousand excuses. The ego places obstacles of every kind: “Don’t take the first step.” It argues in ways beyond reckoning. The ego brings clever arguments—but all those arguments are foolish, because the ego is stupidity. Therefore there is no real strength in its logic. Yet it displays a certain smartness. And as long as we know only the ego, we think that smartness is intelligence.

A policeman caught a thief red-handed. He had entered someone’s house; the policeman followed him in and caught him, brought him outside, started writing his name in his notebook, and said, “Come along with me!”
The thief said, “I’ll come right away—just let me go inside, make a phone call to inform my family and my lawyer.”
This sounded reasonable to the policeman. He said, “All right.” The thief went inside and jumped out the back window and fled. The policeman waited by the road for an hour, then went in. There was no one. The window was open. He understood he had been tricked.
Six months later—by sheer chance—the same man, the same thief, broke into a jewelry shop, and the same policeman caught him with the jewels. The policeman said, “Now, kid, you won’t escape.”
The thief again said, “But at least let me call my lawyer.”
The policeman said, “Now go fool someone else. You hold these jewels and stand right here; I’ll go call your lawyer.”
They were the very same pair of fools! By the time he returned, the thief had vanished with the jewels.

Ego is sheer stupidity, because ego is false. We are not separate from the Divine; we are part of it. Ego creates the illusion that we are separate. And that very ego obstructs our meeting—puts obstacles everywhere. It will say, “What will changing clothes do?” As if you are prepared to change the soul! You do not even have the courage to change clothes.

Zarin took sannyas. She is a lady from a noble Parsi family. A commotion arose among the Parsis. People began telling her, “What will changing clothes do?” But Zarin said to them, “Then you also try changing clothes! If changing clothes does nothing, why are you afraid? And if you don’t even have the courage to change clothes, what on earth will you change?”

“What will changing clothes do?”—that is said by those who cannot even change their clothes. And they talk as if they are going to change the soul! Man is very dishonest. Man keeps deceiving himself. People ask, “What will meditation do?” They have never done it. Yet they question! These are matters of taste, of experience. Only by doing will you know.

“What will sannyas do?” On the surface, nothing seems to happen. But this is not a matter of the surface; it is an inner matter—of the innermost. You will know only when you dive in, when you take the plunge. It is like wine: drink it, become intoxicated, and then you will know. This is a tavern, a winehouse, a house of intoxication.

Veena, you have had the courage—you have joined the drinkers. Seeing you sway makes me happy. Just last night so many sannyasins were dancing, swaying; but those who were not sannyasins could not even sway. They sit like stones, not moving, lest if they move there might be a little splashing, a bit of drizzle, some intoxication might catch hold. “Don’t move! Keep yourself controlled!” I was watching last night: a few non-sannyasins had come. I have no particular curiosity that many non-sannyasins should come; therefore we do not send them invitations. If out of curiosity they come, fine. But they neither move nor participate. They cannot even clap. Far from clapping—when I fold my hands and greet them, they cannot even return the greeting. Who knows, something might go wrong! Some hypnosis might happen! Who knows what secret lies in folding the hands! If they fold them, perhaps they might remain joined! Then opening them might become difficult! For they see that many have remained joined. So they sit very carefully.

What are you talking about! People don’t even return a simple namaskar. If they cannot even accept a namaskar, how will they be able to accept a blessing? For a blessing one has to hold out one’s bowl. Yes, for those whose bowl is open, even my namaskar is a blessing. In my namaskar they too are receiving a blessing—those whose bowl is open.

But people have become so miserly, so stingy! And sometimes it is astonishing that in this country, where joining the hands in namaskar has been a natural courtesy, you see people from fifty other countries—where there has never been any such tradition—folding their hands in namaskar, while our Indian friends, the non-sannyasins, sit all tied up, not budging. If they so much as move—who knows what might happen! They sit there as if to somehow escape and make it home. “Life saved, millions gained; and the fool returns home!”

Those fools who, at night, made it back home—empty-handed, empty as ever—must feel very relieved: “Well, we got back home; we didn’t get entangled; we didn’t get into any bother; saw it all, but saved ourselves and came away.” They have no idea what they have lost by coming away! If only they could sway, if only they could dance, if only they could join in—then they would have tasted a little flavor!

Veena, you have tasted it; you have danced; you have joined in this maha-raas! Now don’t worry—now the responsibility is mine. Whoever has set out with me, his responsibility is mine. You only start walking, and the rest of the responsibility is mine.

That is all for today.