Sumiran Mera Hari Kare #4

Siddharth! Storms and tempests both shake the roots and also set them more firmly. If you look only at the shaking, you will become sad. If you can also see the firming, you will be filled with joy. It is a matter of perspective.

A storm comes; right now the roots seem to tremble. They will settle tomorrow, the day after. It takes time to set. But trees that never pass through storms keep a weak spine forever. It is good that storms come. It is good that tempests arise. Because if you can pass through storms and tempests, maturity is born; the soul takes birth.

There is a very ancient Jewish tale. A farmer became weary—after years of failure. Sometimes there was too much rain, sometimes too little. Sometimes frost, sometimes pests. Sometimes drought, sometimes flood. However he hoped, the crop never matched his hopes. One day he prayed to God and said, “Looking at all this, it seems you don’t know anything about farming. You may know everything else, you may be omniscient, omnipresent; but this much I can tell you—I am a farmer, a hereditary farmer, a farmer through generations—you don’t understand farming. Still, nothing is lost yet; you can learn. And the infinite future lies ahead; if you learn, it will be useful.”

He spoke from the heart; it was not a formality. Formal words are not like that. Formal words are hollow—“We are fallen, you are the redeemer of the fallen!” Formal words are scriptural. He spoke plainly, directly, in two clear sentences. It is said God appeared and said, “What do you want?”

He said, “Give me one chance. This year let things be as I want them to be. And then let’s see. Then I will teach you a lesson, so that such mistakes won’t be made again. Your weather has troubled us farmers greatly. Your lack of knowledge has come at the cost of our lives.”

God smiled and said, “All right. This year things will be as you want.” And things happened exactly as the farmer wanted. His wishes blossomed. Exactly as much rain as needed—so many inches—neither half an inch more nor less. Exactly as much sunshine as needed—not a bit less or more. He measured everything out. Just what the plants required—nothing in excess. And the farmer was happy day after day. His wheat plants grew and grew—perhaps never on earth had wheat grown like that. You could lose a man in them, they became so tall. Seven, eight feet high. He was delighted within. Huge heads formed—such heads as had never been seen. He thought, “Now I’ll show God—such wheat will come, unique.” His joy knew no bounds. He danced, he sang, he was intoxicated with happiness. He could hardly sleep, he was so exhilarated. He would get up at dawn and reach the fields early. Seeing his fields, a lifetime of frustration melted away. Not only were the fields green, his very life turned green.

Then harvest time came, the crop was cut—and the farmer was left beating his head. The heads were very big, but empty—there was no wheat in them. Tears streamed from his eyes. God appeared and said, “Why are you crying? What happened to your joy?”

The farmer said, “I cannot understand what happened. Why wasn’t wheat produced? Such large plants, such big heads—I thought a new history would be written.”

God said, “You fool! You did not let hail fall, you did not let storms come. You did not allow such torrential rains as would shake the plants. The plants grew tall, but pull one up and see—the roots are very small. You gave the plants no challenge. When challenged, roots grow deep. When the plant is shaken, in order to face that challenge, roots are produced in its life.”

God pulled some plants up to show him. The plants were eight feet tall, but their roots were not even eight inches. God said, “Such small roots, such big plants—beautiful to look at, only for show! Display. The grain never had a chance to ripen, never had a chance to be born. Only body, just body; the soul never took birth.”

That is why it often happens that in the homes of the wealthy, truly bright and insightful people are rarely born. All comforts are there; hence no storm, no wind, no hail, no sun, no rain—no chance to endure any pain. They remain hollow—mere “gobar Ganesh,” dullards. There is no life in them.

The farmer understood. He said, “Forgive me. I was mistaken. I thought you did not know farming. Now I understand the secret.”

Life grows amidst opposites. Life is dialectical. Siddharth, remember this: life is dialectical. If there is no dialectic in life, life becomes impotent, it dries up. Then only show remains. The body will lie there, but the bird of life will fly away. The cage will remain.

This is why it has often happened that in countries with easy natural abundance—as in ours, where nature’s bounty was perhaps unmatched by any other country—that very abundance devoured us. Because of it we were slaves for two thousand years. Because of that ease our soul died, we rotted. Where there was no such ease...look at history; turn its pages. The Huns came, the Mughals came, the Turks came. They all came from harsh places—from deserts where even grass doesn’t grow, where a drop of water is hard to find, where life is always in danger. They came and conquered this land. They looted it.

People came from the West. England kept this country enslaved for so long. England is a small country—about the size of one of our large districts. Yet they could keep such a vast country enslaved. And the reason? England has neither such a climate nor land nor weather where people can live easily, effortlessly. There is struggle, there is dialectic. To live, they had to fight. So they crossed seven seas. Who takes on the struggle of the seas! If everything is comfortable at home, only a madman goes on distant journeys and takes foolish risks! Those struggles made them capable. If they could battle seven seas, you could not have defeated them. You had not even crossed seven rivers, let alone seven seas.

Here there are hundreds of thousands who have never left their village. Don’t go far—just see that from those who live in the country’s center, soldiers are rarely born. Soldiers arise on the frontiers. Those who live in central India—you cannot expect them to be able to fight. If you can expect fighting spirit, expect it from a Punjabi. He has lived on the frontier. Who knows how many collisions he has faced. Those collisions kept his sword sharp. One who lives in the middle is so far from enemies, from struggles, from storms and tempests, that he has forgotten where his sword is. It has rusted.

Those who live on the borders become strong, become brave. They have to.

All invaders came through Punjab. Whoever came had to clash with Punjab. Alexander came and struggled with Punjab. Whoever came had to come through Punjab. So a certain strength arose in the Punjabi. That strength cannot be in those who live in the country’s center. It is not possible. Even the storm does not reach this far. If it comes this far at all, by the time it arrives its breath is gone.

So, Siddharth, do not see only one side. It is true you were jolted. But it is good that you were jolted. When you are startled, you wake up. Your roots trembled—that too is good. Otherwise the illusion begins that I will be here forever; that I will always be with you. Then you postpone: tomorrow we will meditate, someday we will attain samadhi—what’s the hurry! But that man was compassionate toward you. By throwing the knife, he said to you: hurry up. Don’t postpone to tomorrow. If something is to be done, do it now.

And keep in mind another point: whenever such a storm comes, it will bring you together, make you one. This event will suddenly string my roughly one hundred fifty thousand sannyasins around the world onto a single thread, a single sutra—as if someone has strung flowers on a thread and a garland has formed.

Always look at life along its white, shining lines. Even in the darkest clouds, the blackest clouds, there is a hidden silver lining. In the deepest new-moon night, the dawn is already hidden. Do not stop at the night. The night is a womb; from it the morning will be born. More such storms will come. This is only a beginning. And every storm will make you stronger. Every storm will make you more alert. Every storm will set your roots deeper. Every storm will bring you closer to me.

This is how the ignorant, unknowingly, serve truth. Those who crucified Jesus served him as no one else did. Had they not crucified him, Jesus’ roots would not have gone so deep. Mahavira’s roots did not go that deep. Why? Because no fool crucified Mahavira. Mahavira’s plant did not grow into a banyan tree. His words were precious indeed, very deep—higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the Pacific. But some miss happened: a storm as great as the one that came upon Jesus did not come upon Mahavira. If you stood Jesus and Mahavira side by side, Mahavira’s dignity and glory were of another order. Yet Jesus surpassed them all. Today half the world stands with Jesus. And the reason? The cross.

There have been many thinkers, many philosophers; but no one has surpassed Socrates. The only reason is that the madmen of Athens made Socrates drink poison and killed him. Socrates died in ecstasy, in joy. He died saying, “Take care: those who kill me—I will remain alive even after they have killed me.” And it proved true. Today, can anyone even list the names of those who killed Socrates? Of the priests who conspired to kill Jesus, how many names do you know? Not a single one. By drinking poison, Socrates became immortal.

This is a quality of truth: you cannot harm it. Try as you may, you cannot harm it. Every move you make benefits truth. And the opposite is the case with untruth: try as you may, you cannot benefit it. Every move you make pushes it into loss. Because for one lie, you must tell ten more. For those ten, then a thousand. A crowd of lies gathers. And the more lies there are, the weaker untruth becomes.

Truth cannot be killed. Truth is immortal. But when is truth’s immortality proven? When truth is placed face to face with death, then its immortality is proven. To see anything clearly, you need an opposite background. In school there is a black blackboard, and on it you write with white chalk. You could write on a white wall, but who will read it, how will it be read? Even writing will be difficult; if somehow you write, reading will be hard. The one who wrote it could not read it himself. But on a black blackboard, white chalk stands out.

You see, stars are not visible in the sky by day. The stars are there by day too—just as many as at night. It is not that the stars run away and return at night, or that by day they hide behind a veil and at night lift the veil. The stars are where they are; but the darkness of night becomes the background, and in it the stars shine forth.

Socrates shone forth. That event of death proved his immortality. When Jesus mounted the cross, he mounted a throne. He left everyone behind. Jesus outshone all prophets, all tirthankaras, all buddhas. The reason was—the cross. If only someone had crucified Buddha, the world today would be Buddhist! Nothing would have been lost. What would have been lost for Buddha? A man must die anyway. But Buddha died in the ordinary way; death left no mark.

The death of Jesus left such a mark that history was split in two. Even those who are not Christians measure history by Jesus—B.C. and A.D. A line was drawn because of Jesus. History was divided: the history before was one, the history after another. This wondrous play happened because of the cross. If only those who gave him the cross had known what they were doing, they would not have crucified him even by mistake. If they had known that they were serving Jesus—serving him more than even his devotees could—then they would never have given him the cross.

So, Siddharth, do not worry over such small matters. They are only the harbingers of great things to come. These are moments of your preparation.

That your roots shook is good. It will startle you and wake you. It will make it clear: make use of me as much as you have to. Drink this nectar as deeply as you can. Do not postpone to tomorrow. Do not look at me as if, “It’s fine, he is here today and will be here tomorrow too. If we don’t listen today, we’ll listen tomorrow—what’s the hurry!”

This event will fill you with urgency, with quickening, with intensity. It will give you a density. And your roots will be strengthened by it, not weakened.

As I see it, that unknown, unfamiliar man has done my work. Others will do it too. They are doing my work. This is the magic of truth—that people serve it in many ways. Those who do not even know, also serve. Those who think they have come to harm it, end up benefitting it.

And as I said to you, this is Poona! The name is lovely—“the city of merit”! But people born here are very strange. Often it happens like this: a homely girl is born in the family, and people name her Sundarbai—“beautiful lady”!

I was once traveling on a bus. The conductor was very troubled. Twenty-nine passengers had tickets, and there were thirty people. He kept saying, “Whichever one of you hasn’t bought a ticket, please pay and take one.” But people kept looking at each other. Which one was the thirtieth man—he couldn’t be caught. At last there was no alternative: he had to check everyone’s ticket one by one. Finally the thirtieth man was found. The conductor asked him, “Brother, are you in your senses or drunk? How many times did I shout—why didn’t you speak up? What’s your name?” The man said, “Achchelal.” The conductor said, “What a remarkable ‘Good Fellow’ you are! Which fool gave you that name?” I said, “You’re mistaken. Whoever gave it, gave it rightly. Names are given with thought. This man should indeed be called Achchelal—‘good boy.’ It is easiest to hide evil behind a good name. We give good-sounding names, and behind them evil hides.”

Our holiest places are often the biggest dens of sin. Pilgrimage spots, where merit should be earned, become hubs of sin. Man is peculiar. He is deranged to the extreme, foolish. The name of this city is ‘the city of merit’—Poona. But strange people are born here. It is this city’s fortune to have produced Nathuram Godse! And now these gentlemen have thought of defending religion!

Two thieves were caught and brought to the police station. The clerk was recording their names. On being asked, one said, “Vimal Kumar Banerjee.” The other said, “Chandulal Chatterjee.” The S.P., Mr. M.K. Dwivedi—newly transferred from Poona to Calcutta—was strolling nearby. When he heard the thieves’ names, he lost his temper. In anger he said, “You scoundrels, you commit theft, and on top of that you add ‘jee-jee’ to your names! Aren’t you ashamed? Clerk, write their names like this—Vimal Kumar Banar and Chandulal Chattar!”

Across the country people felt what you felt, Siddharth. Thousands of telegrams and thousands of phone calls began to arrive. People began coming. The news spread across the world—on television, radio, and in newspapers in different countries. But it was as if not even a louse crawled on Poona’s ears. From Poona only one phone call came, and that too from a gentleman who supported the man who threw the knife. He said that if religion is not defended, it will be destroyed. So that man did nothing wrong in defending religion. “I want to know,” he said, “why attempts are being made to destroy our religion.”

He was asked, “Your good name?” He said, “I don’t want to tell my name.” So it was said to him, “If you don’t even have the courage to tell your name, how will you defend religion! If you are a man, come here. We will explain to you—and hear from you—what religion is. And if you don’t even have that courage, if you are completely unmanly, at least give your home address—then we will come there.” He panicked and hung up. That was the only stir in Poona.

I have seen many dead towns, but Poona is matchless. I will remember it. People are here from all over the world, but how many are from Poona? A few, very few—counted on the fingers. Consider only those few to be alive here; the rest is a heap of corpses.

Poona has revealed its way.

So, Siddharth, do not worry, do not fall into dejection. Let these knives come. Let these measures be tried. If it is truth, it will survive; if it is not truth, it should not survive.

Yog Pritam has sent a song—

Since I found Rajneesh, I have found my goal;
now even midstream I have found the shore.
This scattering moonlight of love—what more could I need?
A melody began in the heart—and I found the whole celebration.

No longer will the darkness of desolations torment me;
the veil fell from my eyes, and I beheld the shimmer.

The one who, by dissolving the seed in the soil, makes the flower bloom—
that god of new creation—such a “killer” I have found.

That I may lay the flowers of worship at his feet—
at last I feel worthy to gather them in the temple of my heart.

Here there will be friends and enemies. To some I will be dear; to others I will seem dangerous. Amidst these very opposites, the revolution of my sannyas, the fire of my sannyas, will spread. Someone will build a temple for me; someone will try to end my life. In this very dialectic, this fragrance will spread far and wide. All this is auspicious.

As I see it, the inauspicious does not happen at all. So whenever you feel something inauspicious has happened, understand this: you have not yet learned how to see. The inauspicious does not happen; only the auspicious happens. If this existence is permeated by the divine, then whatever happens, happens by his indication. How can the inauspicious happen? Therefore, whatever happens, offer thanks for it and awaken gratitude and worship in the heart. Light the lamps of love and prayer in your heart.

Amrit Priya! Man does want to be free of his torments—but on his conditions. He wants freedom on those conditions; he does not want unconditional freedom. And the difficulty is that his very conditions are what create the torment. So a vicious circle arises.

You want to be free of suffering, yet you keep watering the roots of that very suffering. You want freedom from the bitter fruit, but you keep watering the neem tree. You fail to see the inescapable, causal connection between watering the neem and getting bitter fruit. Because you do not see this cause-and-effect chain, the calamity continues. And to see cause and effect clearly requires insight.

Everyone wants to be rid of sorrow, but they balk at cutting the roots of sorrow. For example: you don’t want to be insulted—who does?—but are you ready to drop the desire for respect? There the hitch appears. If you want to avoid insult there is only one way: give up the craving for respect, because it is in the craving for respect that insult finds its opportunity. And the greater the craving for respect, the greater the possibility of insult. You want the impossible: “May no one ever insult me; may I receive only respect.” Impossible—because insult and respect are two sides of the same coin. You want to keep one side; what about the other? It comes with it, inseparable. You cannot separate them.

You want day but not night. You want rest but not labor. Have you noticed? If you do not work, you cannot rest. That is why the wealthy cannot sleep. One of the great miseries of the wealthy is insomnia. Only the wealthy are plagued by it, never the laborer. Have you ever seen a laborer, a farmer, someone who has worked all day, suffering from sleeplessness? He sleeps like a log. He has earned his rest in the same measure as his labor. The rich man’s trouble is that he rests all day and wants to rest at night too. He has not worked, so he has not earned rest; he will have to lie awake. The one who stays awake by day can sleep by night; but the one who dozes through the day—how will he sleep at night?

You do not want anyone to insult you, but you do want to be honored. The danger lies in honor itself. If you crave honor, you become touch-me-not; then even the slightest slight will hurt you. The stronger the craving for honor, the deeper the hurt of insult.

Jesus said: Blessed are those who can stand in the last place. Why? Because you cannot push them any further down; no one can insult them. But standing last is no small matter. You want to stand first and not be jostled. But others too want to stand first—how will they not jostle? You are not alone; there are millions, all wanting to be first. The more you strive to be first, the more you will be shoved, booted, abused, tangled in wrestling.

Don’t be surprised at shoes flying in your parliament, chairs hurled, fistfights breaking out. It is perfectly natural. It will happen—because gathered there are precisely those who are mad to come first. All want to be prime minister. There is one chair and everyone wants to sit on it. They don’t even make a long bench to seat everyone—though even then the fun would go. There too the quarrel would be: who sits first, who second? In some places they have made benches, like the Presidium in Russia—not one president but a series: first president, second president, third. But what difference does it make? The “first” remains the cause of conflict.

Politicians chase each other, switch parties, weave intrigues and traps—not without cause. The cause is ambition for position.

Kicks and punches fly,
slippers and shoes;
chairs get smashed—
this is called
the leaders’ freestyle wrestling.

If these parliamentary bouts
were ticketed,
in a single swoop
the deficit budget
would be met.

They really should sell tickets. And the parliament building should be made like a stadium—so the public can watch, clap, while the leaders wrestle. The public watches anyway, but only by reading newspapers. The joy of seeing it with your own eyes—who pinned whom, who flattened whom, who sat on whose chest; someone ran off with someone’s leg, someone with someone’s arm; someone’s got someone’s neck, someone is clutching someone’s hair—and all the while “talks” are going on! These are political talks, new alliances in the making. People have a foot in two or three boats at once—holding one, foot in another, stretching to the third—who knows where support will come from, where they’ll land!

If you want honor, be ready to endure insult. If you are greedy, then accept the risk: one day there will be loss. If you gamble, you won’t always win—sometimes you will lose. In fact, you will lose more and win less. You may rarely win; mostly you will lose. But man wants only to win, never to lose.

Lao Tzu said: No one can defeat me, because I do not wish to win. You cannot defeat Lao Tzu. How can you defeat one who does not wish to win? This is the way to cut at the root. But to cut the root you need courage first to recognize it.

At the root of all your suffering is ego: “I am special, unique, incomparable! All are below me, I am above! Others are nothing, I am everything! I am supreme!” This illusion of yours will land you in trouble—yet you do not wish to be in trouble.

A politician used to come to me. He would say, “Teach me some meditation so my mind remains at peace.” I told him, “You go on creating disturbance, and I should give you meditation to make peace? Why don’t you break the causes of disturbance?”

He asked, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Why is there disturbance? Because you want to become prime minister. So you don’t sleep at night, you keep running around, plotting day and night. And now you have come to ask me for meditation! You want to remain peaceful and also continue all this running and mischief. That won’t do. You will have to cut at the root. Meditation is a fruit; it is easy. But you are complicated.”

He said, “That I cannot do now. Let me become prime minister once—then I will come to you later. For now, whatever it takes, I will stake everything.”

Then the disturbance is only natural.

You ask, Amrit Priya: “On the one hand human life is full of great sorrow, and to be rid of these sorrows man waits for ages for an avatar.”

Man can wait for an avatar. When Jesus was crucified, the Jews had been waiting three thousand years for the Messiah. When Jesus declared, “I have come. The one you were waiting for has arrived; the one your prophets foretold is present—now hear me,” they crucified him. Waiting is easy—because waiting is for the future. When the avatar stands before you, there is trouble—two kinds of trouble. First, he will not let you wait, and you have become habituated to waiting—three thousand years of habit. You say, “We will wait. Our forefathers waited, their forefathers waited—we too will wait.”

Secondly, in three thousand years of waiting you have set up such and such criteria, imagined so many things, that no one can fulfill them. Who has taken a contract to fulfill your fantasies? They had concocted that the Messiah would be like this and that. If Jesus matched those exact traits, they would accept him. Those traits were set over three thousand years by millions of people—not by any one person. Poets have colored them, painters have brushed them, visionaries have dreamt them. How can any Jesus walk in step with those dreams? He will refuse to be squeezed into them. He cannot—impossible.

Here too you are waiting for Krishna. People keep asking me: “Krishna said that when there is decline of dharma and the virtuous are oppressed, I will come. Why doesn’t he come?” He does not come because he’s afraid of you—of the fantasies you have made in his name. Who can fulfill them? Only an actor playing Krishna in a pageant can fulfill them—on the stage, not in the reality of life.

You say Krishna had sixteen thousand queens. If someone tries to fulfill that—sixteen thousand queens—first thing, he’ll land in jail. In our times who can have sixteen thousand queens? Not even sixteen—forget sixteen thousand. And if he does not fulfill it and arrives alone, you’ll ask, “Where are the sixteen thousand queens? If there are no queens, how are you Krishna? Where will the raas-leela be?” If he performs the raas-leela, he is in trouble; if he does not, he is in trouble. You’ll ask, “Why no peacock feather?” In the twentieth century if someone dons a peacock plume, he’ll be taken for mad; if he doesn’t, he’s not Krishna. Would a modern Krishna stand there in a peacock crown? Would it suit him? But your expectations must be met!

And what all you would demand! “Krishna, if you are the real one, grant us divine vision, show us the cosmic form.” You don’t even have eyes to see yourself and you want eyes to see the universe! You have not seen your own self, but Krishna must do this for you. You would heap impossible expectations on him.

The same happened with Jesus. For three thousand years the Jews had set such expectations. Jesus could not fulfill them; no one can. Why should anyone? Why should anyone fulfill poets’ fantasies? Hence the blockage. And the habit of waiting has become your hope; this man stands there to break your hope. You cannot drop a three-thousand-year-old habit. You say, “We will wait. We will live in our hope.” People live in hopes, not in reality. People live in dreams. And this man stands to shatter the dream.

If Mahavira were to stand before you today, the first to oppose him would be Jain scholars. If Buddha came and stood before you, Buddhists would be the first to deny him; for he would not be able to fulfill their expectations. What fantasies you have spun around Mahavira! “In twelve years he ate only for one year”—that is, once in twelve days. If a man eats only once in twelve days, will he have such a robust body as Mahavira’s statue shows? He would be a skeleton. If you become a skeleton, people will say, “How can you be Mahavira?” If you eat properly, your body can be strong—but then people will say, “What happened to the fasting?” Seeing Mahavira’s powerful physique, either the “once in twelve days” story is false, or the statue is fanciful—both cannot be true.

Just look at Mahavira’s idols—what a physique! Even a great wrestler would envy it. What arms, what limbs, what an immaculate body! Is that the body of someone who fasted so much? Then why doesn’t a single Jain monk today look like that? Something is off. Either the statue is false—which is likely, for the statues were made much later, from imagination. Go to a Jain temple: the twenty-four Tirthankaras’ statues all look identical. Even Jains cannot tell them apart; they had to put symbols below each idol—like ballot symbols in elections: an umbrella for one, a hand for another, a plow for another. If you cover the symbols, even a Jain cannot say whether it is Mahavira, Neminath, or Adinath. All the same.

No two people in the world are exactly alike; twenty-four alike—impossible. And they lived at different times, thousands of years apart. Yet they look like carbon copies. And each has “traits”: all have ears touching their shoulders, because Jains fancy that a Tirthankara’s ears must touch his shoulders. Perhaps one Tirthankara’s did, and from that the notion spread. But ears have nothing to do with wisdom. Pull your ears long enough, massage them daily, and slowly yours too will touch your shoulders. You won’t become a Tirthankara—only a donkey. All donkeys have ears like Tirthankaras; that does not make donkeys enlightened. But if your ears don’t touch your shoulders, Jains will say, “How can he be a Tirthankara? The ears don’t touch.”

These statues came later; they are all poetic, sculptural imagination.

Buddha’s statue is certainly constructed on Greek models. It is not Indian; it is Greek. Three hundred years after Buddha’s death, Alexander came to India. When India saw Alexander’s beauty, the beauty of his generals and Greek soldiers, then Buddha’s statue began to be made on that basis. Look closely: the Buddha’s face in sculptures is not Indian; the features are Greek. The style was borrowed from Greek sculptors. Until then, no Buddha statues existed. Likely Buddha looked Nepali—he was born on the India–Nepal border, and Kapilvastu was more in Nepal than India. He may have looked Nepali, with a touch of Mongol. Where is Greece in that? But once the statue was fixed…

Buddhists too say the Buddha announced he would return. Everyone had to announce—competition with Krishna! Now if someone claims to be Buddha, people first will ask that he look like the statue—face, features, beauty like the idol. Great trouble. On top of that there are the accreted legends: for instance, Buddha’s mother died at his birth—so scriptures declare that whenever a Buddha is born, his mother dies immediately. If your mother is alive, you cannot be a Buddha! Meaning: kill your mother first, then you can be enlightened? What nonsense! What has a mother’s death to do with enlightenment?

Mahavira’s mother did not die—but that is a Jain tradition; Buddhists don’t care. Hence Buddhists cannot accept Mahavira as a Buddha. They respect him as a great saint—but not as fully accomplished. The Jains feel the same about Buddha: they respect him as a saint, but not as a Jina, not yet in the supreme state. Their criterion? A Tirthankara is omniscient, knower of the three times—past, present, future. And Jain scriptures say Buddha would ask people, “Your name?”—proof that he didn’t even know a name! How can he be tri-temporal? Buddha’s habit was to ask, when someone came, “Ayushman, what is your name?”—mere courtesy. But Jains say: “He didn’t know even a name—what will he know of three times? Mahavira is tri-temporal!”

Buddhist texts mock Mahavira: “The Jains say he knows the three times, yet in the dark morning he steps on a dog’s tail; only when the dog barks does he realize it. Is this tri-temporal knowledge? He begs in front of a house where no one lives—shouldn’t he at least know that? Why beg there? Move on!” And so on.

If you read each other’s scriptures, you’ll be amazed, shocked. The reason is simple: each has set his own criteria, which do not match the others’. Nor need they.

I accept Mahavira reached the supreme knowing—so did Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, and Moses. Although they are very different kinds of people—no alignment among them. As different as can be. Jesus has no objection to drinking wine. When he gathers with friends, dinners go late into the night. He has no objection to eating at night; in fact, after walking all day, he eats at night. A little drink before sleep—it was the etiquette of the time. But how will Jains accept that someone drinks and yet is of Tirthankara stature? Impossible.

Ramakrishna ate fish—how will Jains accept him as Paramhansa? He eats fish! If he doesn’t even know not to eat fish, what else can he know? He ate at night too—how can he be a Paramhansa?

Remember: your fantasies are your fantasies; no person comes to fulfill them. Avatar means: whenever someone attains the ultimate knowing, he is unique. He will not fit your patterns. He will tear all your nets of imagination. Hence it is hard for you to accept. You could accept him if he walked exactly along your line. But “men of the line” can exist in pageants, not in reality.

So people wait for ages for an avatar, hoping someone will save them. That hope is wrong too—because no one else can save you. You create the trouble; someone else should deliver you? You fall ill—you must undergo treatment, the operation, drink the medicine. You are ill and I drink the medicine? You are sick and I get treated? It won’t work.

But people are strange. They always hope someone else will do it. They never pass off to others what they themselves want to do. They don’t say, “Jesus will come and run our shop.” They run the shop themselves. They don’t say, “Krishna will come and earn our money.” They earn it themselves. They don’t say, “Mahavira will come and contest our election.” They fight it themselves. But Mahavira, Jesus, Buddha will come—and grant us liberation. You don’t even want liberation; if someone handed it to you free on the way, you’d still have to think it over. You’d still deliberate.

If I ask you, “Right now, are you ready for liberation? This very moment?” you’ll say, “Give me a little time to think—at least let me ask my wife. There are children at home—I must ask them. Otherwise she’ll be pointlessly angry: ‘How could you get liberated without asking me?’ She will ruin the whole liberation; chaos will ensue.”

A Buddhist monk was dying. He had thousands of disciples. On his last day he announced it, and ten thousand gathered. He asked, “All my life I have taught about nirvana. If anyone is ready to attain nirvana with me now, stand up—I am willing to take you along today.”

Not one stood from the ten thousand. People looked at each other: “Why don’t you stand? What are you waiting for? Your wife is already dead, your shop is bankrupt—why sit?” Someone nudged another, “You’ve already lost three elections—stand up! Why miss this chance?” They all looked at each other. No one stood up—only one man raised his hand. The monk said, “At least someone raised his hand.” The man said, “Forgive me, I’m not standing—just raising my hand. I want to know the method for attaining nirvana. Please tell me that. Someday, when I want to go, I will. Right now I don’t want to go—my household is still unsettled. There are a thousand other tasks besides nirvana. You go—gladly go. I too will come sometime, in my own time—but kindly tell me the path.”

The old monk laughed. He said, “I have been telling the path for fifty years.”

People only ask for the path; they don’t walk it. Even if a giver arrives, you will not take. Truthfully, you do not want to take—because it will go against all your vested interests. You want liberation too, but you also want to remain exactly as you are—Hindu as Hindu, Muslim as Muslim, Jain as Jain; thief as thief, dishonest as dishonest—let me remain as I am, and if liberation is also available along with it, what’s the harm? Take it while you’re at it! The Ganges is flowing—wash your hands! But let there be no change in you. Let there be no altering of your life. That cannot be.

Deliverance means revolution. And you will have to pass through that revolution. Deliverance means passing through fire. As gold is purified by fire, so must you pass through it. You will have to change your old patterns, your way of life. You will have to transform your whole being. Where there was anger, you will have to engender compassion. Where there was lust, you must grow love. Where there was greed, learn the art of giving. Where there was enmity, let flowers of friendship bloom.

There is no readiness for any of this. People want someone to come, wave a magic wand, say abracadabra—and everything becomes fine! It cannot be. You want the avatar to act like a street conjurer—“Jamura, do you want to go to heaven, to liberation?” And you say, “Yes.” “Jamura, do you want to go right now?” You say, “Yes.” He throws a rope up into the sky: “Climb, Jamura!” And Jamura climbs—taking along all his mess as well: wife, children, all entanglements; not leaving anything behind—“Keep this too, and this too—keep everything. Pots and pans, all the junk! Who knows what might be needed? After all, you have to set up house there too, don’t you? What will you do in liberation—just sit there? You won’t be able to sit quietly; you’ll start some commotion, hoist some flag, plant some pole.” You won’t be able to just sit. Imagine, if you were granted liberation—what would you do? Sit on the Siddha-rock—how long? Soon you’d be thinking: “What now? Any newspaper around? Where’s the tea stall? If only some fritters were available… A little snack is needed, no?” You’d be in mischief at once—you would do exactly what you did here.

Chandulal died and reached heaven. How he got there—that is the real marvel. A miracle! But Chandulal is a miraculous man. He must have found a trick, bribed the angels, flattered someone. Chandulal is an old hand at buttering up—accomplished! All his life he practiced laying it on thick. The messengers of death who came to fetch him—he massaged them, pressed their feet, praised them to the skies. He is not stingy with flattery.

They led him heavenwards; he reached heaven’s gate, knocked. The gatekeeper opened and asked, “Who are you?”

“Chandulal.”

“What did you do?”

“I dealt in scrap iron—bought and sold old iron. So my full name—Chandulal, the iron-man.”

Such people don’t come here; junk dealers don’t belong here. They belong in Bombay’s Chor Bazaar—Chandulal the iron-man! That’s how people are called in Bombay: Lohawala, Daruwala, Batliwala—one better than the next.

The gatekeeper said, “Wait—you seem like a Bombay fellow.”

“Yes, I lived in Bombay.”

“Worked in Chor Bazaar?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to check—wait.” He went inside to consult the ledgers. He searched long—no name there. Chandulal’s place was in hell. When he returned, Chandulal was gone. Not only Chandulal—heaven’s iron gate was also gone! Since then there has been no door at heaven’s gate. Chandulal the iron-man took it—old habits; the same trade here too: buying and selling iron. While the gatekeeper was inside, he thought, “To hell with heaven! Such a big iron gate—what a haul! Let’s take it to Bombay’s Chor Bazaar.”

What will you do in liberation!

Amrit Priya, people talk about deliverance. Fine talk—what harm in flowery words? But no one really wants deliverance—because deliverance demands you put your life at stake. People want everything free—nothing to do, and all to be done; remain as you are, and be liberated.

You ask: “But when that auspicious moment arrives he does everything possible to avoid it and hacks at his own foot.”

Why wouldn’t he—he never believed the moment would actually arrive. It comes suddenly, sometimes. When it arrives, he panics.

Rabindranath has a poem: I sought God—sought him for ages, life after life, with great fervor, in madness! I wept, sang with my ektara. I was famous as a devotee; I was being counted alongside Meera and Chaitanya. One day I reached his door. At first I rejoiced: there was a plaque—This is God’s house. I hurried up the steps; then I paused. “Fool, first think—what are you doing? What will happen to your devotion then? If God is found, what of devotion? What of your ektara? What of your prestige, your name counted among Meera and Chaitanya? If God is found, the game is over. The drop will merge into the ocean.” Startled, I thought, “What am I doing? Committing suicide with my own hands!” My hand had reached the knocker; I withdrew it gently. I slipped off my shoes so they wouldn’t make noise on the steps—lest God hear and suddenly open the door: “Son, come—where are you going now? Since you’re here, come in!”—and I fled with my shoes in my hand…!

Rabindranath says: I never looked back. To this day I sing with my ektara; I am counted among devotees. I weep bitterly. And I know where his house is—so I avoid that neighborhood. I take every other street but that one. I went once and saw—it is troublesome. If you reach there, it’s all over. You will be over. Who wants to be rid of the ego!

You want to keep the ego and be free. You want: “I” to be liberated. No “I” is liberated; there is liberation from “I.” There is no liberation for “I”; there is liberation from “I.” Lacking that courage, when someone opens the door to the divine, you are in difficulty—and you take revenge on those who open the door.

You want to be free of suffering, but you do not want to cut its roots. The root is you yourself. Your ego is the root. The one who is ready to dissolve his ego—his suffering will dissolve right now. Ego is bondage; freedom from ego is liberation.

Atal Bihari! You aren’t the same Atal Bihari, the tooth-flasher—meaning Atal Bihari Vajpayee, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. You couldn’t be, because why would such a tooth-flasher come here! You must be some other Atal Bihari. Brother, change your name. It isn’t right to keep yourself tied to such wrong names!

But your question is fine: you ask, “What is the difference between accident, misfortune, and a bad day?”

An example will make it clear. Three ministers were going for a drive in the hills. At a bend, the car skidded and was smashed to pieces. The skidding of the car will be called an accident. In the accident the driver died, but the three ministers survived. Consider that the country’s misfortune. Then the next morning the front pages of the newspapers will carry the photos of all three ministers, and people will have to look at them first thing. That is a bad day.

Satyapriya! You yourself are a Marwari. One should say—were. Not anymore.
Satyapriya is just a little girl. Now she is a sannyasin. In sannyas everything is lost—being a Marwari, being Indian, being Hindu, being Muslim, being Pakistani.
But your question is apt. Marwaris are indeed remarkable people. So that it makes sense to you, keep two stories in mind. One—

A Marwari went to a nearby village to find a bride for his son and stayed with an acquaintance. Being a Marwari, as is their habit, he was greedy about money. He asked his host to tell him the names of some wealthy men in the village. The acquaintance himself was wealthy and had a marriageable daughter, but it didn’t seem proper to declare himself rich—so after naming five or seven people he added: “There’s a slight suspicion people have that I, too, am counted among the wealthy.” A slight suspicion!

A man once slapped a Marwari merchant. The matter went to court. It could be, Satyapriya, that the court was your father’s—before taking sannyas your father was a judge. The magistrate fined the man half a rupee—eight annas—to be paid to the Marwari. The man took out a rupee and, extending it toward the Marwari, said, “Sethji, please give me eight annas back.” The Seth looked at the rupee with greedy eyes and, taking it in his hand, said, “Brother, I don’t have small change. Do this: give me one more slap.”

Preeti! It’s better not to ask about such things.

There was a man with a very odd face. No one liked to look at him. Eight or ten people from his neighborhood once came to see me. They all came to request that I find some way so they wouldn’t have to see that man’s face. We all started thinking of a solution. After much thought we found one. We worked hard with all our might and got that man elected. At least for five years there was relief.

That’s the meaning of elections: those you want to be rid of for five years—you won’t have to see them. Whoever ruins your day the moment you see them, put them up for election and labor to get them elected. Once they win, they vanish like the horns on a donkey’s head—gone for five years! And once they get intoxicated with the joy of vanishing, they’ll want to vanish again and again. Each time there’s an election you’ll have to endure one brief sight of them, but then if you elect them again... That’s why once someone has won even once, the public keeps electing him again and again: “Brother, somehow go—spare us!”

It was election season. The village leader had gone on horseback to get a party ticket. There was a long queue for tickets. A lot of time passed and his turn still didn’t come. Then a flunky-type fellow came and said, “Leaderji, it’ll take two hundred and fifty rupees. Come, I’ll get you a ticket in a minute—from whatever party you want.”

The leader said in amazement, “What are you saying, only two hundred and fifty rupees?”

The man said, “Yes, only two hundred and fifty.” The leader quickly took two hundred and fifty rupees from the pocket of his khadi vest and handed them over. But that flunky left and never returned. Finally, as the leader was about to give up and leave, his turn came. He said to the officer distributing tickets, “What kind of lawless farce is this! So-and-so took two hundred and fifty rupees from me on the pretext of getting me a ticket.”

The officer said, “Oh? So you give and take bribes?”

Seeing things about to go wrong, the leader said, “No, no, it was just like that. All right then, what do I have to do to get a ticket?”

The officer said, “You have to deposit two thousand rupees.”

The leader said, “Fine, let’s deposit two thousand.” He deposited the money and received the Janata Party ticket. Then he said, “Sir, it would be good if you could also give a ticket to my horse. He’s an excellent horse.”

The officer said, “No, no, that’s impossible. It can’t be done.”

The leader said, “What’s impossible? Take three thousand instead of two.”

The officer said, “No, no, it cannot be done. We only give tickets to donkeys, not to horses.”

All the donkeys are in the field right now. It’s not that elections are on our heads; it’s that all the donkeys are on our heads. Now let’s see which donkey carries off the prize!

The son of a famous leader was saying, “Father, fighting elections is beyond me. People insult you—cheap people insult you!”

The leader said, “What nonsense you talk! I’ve spent my life fighting elections; nothing like that ever happened to me, that someone insulted me. Yes, it’s true people hurled abuses, threw slippers at me, pelted rotten tomatoes, tossed banana peels, many times they shoved me out of their homes—but no one ever insulted me. What you’re saying is entirely new!”

If you want to become a leader, read the Gita: take pleasure and pain with the same mind, keep equanimity. Regard insult and honor as equal. If someone shoves you, hits you with a shoe, keep walking, grinning with all your teeth. Just go on thanking them. Soon all the toothy grins will come to your doors. There is only one door in this ashram at which no one ever shows up grinning. They can’t. Because coming here means trouble.

The famous leader, Shri Mulla Nasruddin, was telling his friend, “I lost the election because of my youth.” The friend said, “Because of your youth! But you’re seventy-three. Your youth passed long ago.” Nasruddin said, “Actually, people found out how my youth was spent.”

In elections, the one who wins is the one people know the least.

Two men fought an election: one lost, one won. Later they met. The one who lost asked the winner, “What’s the secret of your victory? You’re absolutely new to this area. I’ve worn myself out serving this place, yet you won and I lost!” The man laughed and said, “That’s exactly why. People know you; people don’t know me. When they get to know me, I’ll lose too.”

In elections the one who wins is the one people don’t know, don’t recognize. And by the time they do, it’s too late.

Preeti, you ask rightly: “Elections are upon us—say something about them.”

I’ll say only this much: politics will go on; it cannot end today all at once. It should exist, but as one of the necessary evils. It is one of those diseases that will take a long time to be eradicated; for which the right remedy has not yet been found. It ought to be eliminated, because for centuries man has been harassed by it. But the right treatment has not yet been discovered. The search for that treatment is sannyas. If the fire of the sannyasins spreads in the world, we will burn politics to ashes. There should be governance in the world, but there is no special need for politics. Administration—like the post office, like the railways—similar arrangements should exist. Arrangements will be needed. But there is no need for nations, no need for states, no need for politics, no need for politicians. One government for the whole world is enough—then we will be saved from wars. As it is, seventy percent of human energy is wasted on wars—the very energy that could turn this earth into a paradise is turning it into a hell.

So I am purely anti-politics. But for now politics will continue; it is not going to end today. It will take time. Until then, just keep this much in mind: whoever you choose, choose the least political person. Choose the one with the least politics in his life. That is enough. Do not choose because of politics; choose because of his humanity. Do not choose because of his tricks and dishonesties; choose because of his intelligence. Choose because of his special knowledge in some field. Choose because of his competence. If someone is a scientist, choose him. If someone is a poet, choose him. If someone is an artist, choose him. If someone is a musician, choose him. Otherwise your parliament becomes a herd of donkeys, and then these donkeys bray and bray the whole country into distress. Send a few musicians at least—so we have to hear less braying. Let someone play the flute, someone the shehnai. Send a few poets, so some songs will be composed, so that only shoes and slippers don’t fly. And if you insist so much on shoes and slippers, then send a few cobblers—let them make shoes and slippers, not fling them. Send experts. Send scientists. Send people of insight. Do not send fools.

But for now the method is something else. Thakurs will elect Thakurs; Brahmins will elect Brahmins; Hindus will elect Hindus; Muslims will elect Muslims. The human being has no value at all. Choose the human being! And the one with the most humanity—choose him. And remember: the more humanity there is, the less politics there will be. And the less politics there is, the more talent there is.

The politician is usually talentless. One becomes a politician because one suffers from an inferiority complex. It is a mental illness. It will take time to free the earth from it, but do whatever you can within your own small circles. You ask, Preeti, so I say only this much.

That’s all for today.