Osho –
Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 11)
Chapter 10. Laugh
your way to God
Question 1
Beloved Master,
To become enlightened, do you need to be
jewish or does it just help?
Amitabh, religion has been
missing one very fundamental quality: the sense of humor. It has been very
unfortunate because it has made religion sick.
The sense of humor is part, an
essential part, of the wholeness of man. It keeps him healthy, it keeps him
young, it keeps him fresh. And for centuries the sad people have dominated
religion. They have expelled laughter - from the churches, from the mosques,
from the temples. The day laughter enters back into the holy places they will
be really holy, because they will be whole. Laughter is the only quality that
distinguishes man from other animals. Only man can see the ridiculous, the
absurd. Only he has the capacity and the consciousness to be aware of the
cosmic joke that existence is. It is a cosmic joke; it is not a serious affair.
Seriousness is a disease, but seriousness
has been praised, respected, honored. It was absolutely essential to be serious
to be a saint; hence only pathological people became interested in religion,
people who were incapable of laughter. And people who are incapable of laughter
are subhuman, they are not human yet - what to say about their being divine?
That is impossible - they have not yet become human. And to be human is the
bridge between the animal and the divine. Hence I have tremendous respect for
the sense of humor, for laughter.
Laughter is far more sacred
than prayer, because prayer can be done by any stupid person; it does not
require much intelligence. Laughter requires intelligence, it requires presence
of mind, a quickness of seeing into things. A joke cannot be explained: either
you understand it or you miss it. If it is explained it loses the whole point;
hence no joke can be explained. Either immediately you get it... If you don't
get it immediately then you can try to find out the meaning of it; you will
find out the meaning, but the joke will not be there. It was in the immediacy.
Humor needs presence, utter
presence. It is not a question of analysis, it is a question of insight.
Amitabh, as far as humor is
concerned, to be a little bit Jewish is very good - everybody should be a
little bit Jewish! For enlightenment it will prepare the ground, it will make
you more alive. Enlightenment is becoming totally alive. Laughter brings life
to you.
And if you can laugh totally
there are a few more things to be understood. In deep laughter the ego
disappears, it is not found at all. You can't have both laughter and the ego.
If the ego is there it will keep you serious. All egoists are serious people,
and all serious people are egoists.
To be able to laugh, you need
to be like a child - egoless. And when you laugh, suddenly laughter is there,
you are not. You come back when the laughter is gone. When the laughter is
disappearing far away, when it is subsiding, you come back, the ego comes back.
But in the very moment of laughter you have a glimpse of egolessness.
There are only two activities
in which you can feel egolessness easily. One is laughter, another is dancing.
Dancing is a physiological method, a bodily method to feel egolessness. When
the dancer is lost in his dance he is no more - there is only dance. Laughter
is a little more subtle than dance, it is a little more inner, but it has also
the same fragrance. When you laugh... It has to be a belly laughter. It should
not be just superficial, it should not be just polite, it should not be just a
mannerism.
I have heard:
One typist was leaving her job.
This was her last day in the office, and the boss was telling the old jokes
that he had always been telling. Everybody was laughing, except the typist. The
boss asked, "What is the matter with you? Can't you get the jokes?"
She said, "I got them long
ago. You've been repeating them a thousand and one times, but I need not laugh
anymore. Anyway tomorrow I am leaving. These fools are laughing because they
have to laugh - you are the boss. So whether the joke is worth laughing at or
not doesn't matter. They have to laugh, it is part of their duty. But I'm
leaving, what can you do to me? I'm not laughing, you cannot make me laugh at
all those rotten jokes."
If you laugh out of duty or out
of a sense of mannerism, out of politeness, then it is not a belly laughter,
then it is just superficial; on the circumference, you are managing it. You
will not understand what I am saying about laughter then.
Laugh so that your whole body,
your whole being becomes involved, and suddenly there will be a glimpse. For
the moment the past disappears, the future disappears, the ego disappears,
everything disappears - there is only laughter. And in that moment of laughter
you will be able to see the whole existence laughing.
Indians don't have the sense of
laughter. In India we don't have any Indian jokes. All the jokes that are told
in India are borrowed, there is no such thing as an Indian joke. Indians are
serious people, very religious people, holy people. How can they descend to
such low things as joking? They talk about God, they talk about moksha, they
talk about nirvana... they can't laugh. These are not laughing matters! You
cannot laugh about God. But if you can't laugh about God you will never understand
God.
The Indian statues of Buddha
are totally different from the Chinese or the Japanese statues of Buddha. You
must have noted the difference; the difference is great. The Indian Buddha has
a very athletic body. His belly is very small, almost nonexistent. He never had
a belly laugh. If there is no belly how can you have a belly laugh? But the
Chinese Buddha has a big belly, and not only a belly - even on the statue you
can see ripples of laughter on the belly. Even in marble you can see he is laughing,
the belly is laughing.
No Indian will agree with the
Chinese statue. He will say, "This is not right, Buddha was not like this,
with such a big belly..." The Chinese Buddha looks like a clown - but I
have great respect for the Chinese Buddha. The Chinese Buddha has absorbed Lao
Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu. He is pregnant with Lao Tzu, that's why that big
belly. Inside his belly there is Lao Tzu. And you cannot keep Lao Tzu quiet. He
must be laughing and kicking and doing things; hence the ripples on the belly.
Lao Tzu has the sense of humor.
Maybe because of that Lao Tzu could not become the founder of a great religion.
There exists no religion in his name. Yes, a few rare people have followed his
path, but there is no organized church, for the simple reason that Lao Tzu
seems so nonserious. He used to ride on a buffalo. Now, can't you find a horse?
Anybody could have afforded at least a donkey - but a buffalo...? And that too,
not in the right position, but sitting backwards! The buffalo is going one way
and Lao Tzu is looking the other way. He must have created laughter wherever he
passed. People must have gathered to see the scene, what is happening.
And Chuang Tzu far surpassed
his master. There has never been such a beautiful man as Chuang Tzu. All that
he has said is utterly absurd, ridiculous! - but with profound meaning. First
you will laugh and then slowly you will see the point that he is indicating, in
a very joyful way, towards certain truths which can only be indicated in a
joyful way. If you are serious you cannot make people understand the beauty of
existence, the celebration of existence.
Life is not a tragedy, it is a
comedy. It is not tragic. But religious people have depended on the very idea
of life being tragic: it is misery, utter misery - what is there to laugh at?
Hence they attracted the people who are incapable of laughter, of living, of
loving.
My effort here, Amitabh, is
just the opposite. I want you to learn as much from Buddha, as much from Lao
Tzu, as much from Krishna, as much from Chuang Tzu as possible. I would like
you to absorb all the great experiences that have happened in the past, so that
a higher synthesis becomes possible. In that higher synthesis laughter is going
to be one of the most essential qualities. With truth, courage and virtue,
laughter also has its own place.
In that sense Jews are
beautiful people. They have the greatest sense of laughter in the whole world.
They are on the one extreme; on the other extreme are the British people. So
many letters I have received, angry: "Beloved Master, you don't understand
the British." Who cares to understand? And why should I understand the
British, for what? Is nothing else left to understand?
I have been telling so many
jokes about the Italians, but not a single angry letter. They understand that
jokes are jokes! If you understand too much you cannot joke. A little bit of
misunderstanding is needed.
Now, one of the most British of
all the British sannyasins, Prembodhi, has written, "You don't understand
the British at all." You simply prove my point!
Somebody else has written,
"This is not right. You say that no British woman is a woman; they are all
ladies." I was simply paying respect!
And I think it is a well-known
fact that nothing should be said against the dead. For the dead you should
always show respect. That's what I was doing! Why are you angry about it?
I repeat again: it is very
difficult, almost impossible, to find a British woman - only ladies are there.
All men may not be gentlemen; men after all are men, boys are boys! And old
boys more so! But as far as women are concerned, they carry the culture, the
religion, they are the foundation stones. The British woman has a certain face.
No other woman has that kind of nose... they all need plastic surgery!
Amitabh, the only problem with
the Jews is when it comes to the question of price. Then they will go on
haggling for centuries. Enlightenment will be just in front of them, but they
will haggle for the price.
So that is the problem,
Amitabh; there you have to be aware.
A Scot went into a tailor's and
asked to see a suit.
The Jewish proprietor came back
with a nice Harris tweed. "Look at this," he said, "and it's not
fifty pounds, not even forty. Thirty pounds and it's yours."
The Scot examined it carefully.
"I wouldn't give you twenty-five pounds for it, not even twenty. My price
is eighteen pounds."
"Right," said the
Jew. "That's the way I like to do business - no haggling."
Then there were the two Jews
who bumped into each other after forty years, and rushed to the nearest pub to
celebrate.
"It will be magic to have
a drink together after all these years," said one.
"Yeah," said the
other, "but don't forget, it's your round."
The rich widow needed a blood
transfusion, so a Jew donor saved her life. She was so grateful, she gave him a
hundred pounds, but after a relapse she needed another one and this time gave
the donor fifty pounds.
The third time he saved her
life she had so much Jewish blood in her that she just thanked him very much.
Question 2
Beloved Master,
I am utterly miserable. How can I get out
of my misery?
Vandan, I have never come
across a person who is utterly miserable. You are tolerating it, you are
existing with it, you are living with it. If it is so bad one should stop breathing!
Why should one go on living?
It can't be so bad. Maybe you
love to exaggerate. There are people who always like superlatives, who magnify
everything. Small miseries of course there are, but what big misery can you
have? Where will you have it? I cannot conceive of any misery that can be so
bad that you can call it absolute; otherwise one will simply die, immediately.
So one thing, remember, stop
exaggerating. That is also a way of the ego. The ego is so strange that it
wants to exaggerate everything. Even if it is misery it will magnify it, it
will make a big fuss about it. There may be nothing much in it: if you go to
the roots you may find a mouse, but you are talking about elephants.
And I know you, Vandan. I have
never seen you utterly miserable. You look perfectly normal. Unless all normal
people are utterly miserable... just the ego has the habit of magnifying.
A boy came running home from
school. He was breathing hard, puffing, perspiring. He told his mother,
"Somehow God saved me. A tiger is following me, a very dangerous tiger, a
very ferocious tiger."
The mother said, "You stop
exaggerating! I have told you a million times not to exaggerate, and again you
are doing it. Where is that tiger?"
The boy showed her from the
window. A very small dog, thin, lean, hungry, was standing outside. And the
mother said, "This is the tiger? You go upstairs, pray to God and ask his
forgiveness. And never exaggerate again. Enough is enough!"
So the boy went upstairs. After
five minutes he went back to the mother, and the mother said, "Did you
pray?"
He said, "Yes, I prayed,
and do you know what God said? He said, 'You don't be worried. When for the
first time I saw that dog I myself thought that it was a ferocious tiger. So
nothing to be worried about. I myself was deceived, so what about you? And I am
so big, still I thought it is a very dangerous tiger. I was just getting ready
to run away, then I had another look and found: oh no, it is just a dog. And
you are a small child, so if you got frightened it is natural.'"
Misery is not so big as you
make out. So the first thing is to reduce it to the right proportions. Before
you can get out of it let the tiger disappear. Be very factual. If you really
want to transform your life, be factual. You cannot get out of fictions. You
can get out of facts; facts can be tackled, but fictions cannot be tackled.
But this is the way of the
mind, the way of the ego, to magnify everything. It makes everything look big.
And then of course you start suffering in a big way. The cause is not so big,
but the effect can be very big - it depends on you.
Look again, consider again,
reconsider the whole situation. What is it that you are calling "utterly
miserable"? And then you will find ordinary facts of life. But we don't
want to be ordinary. The ego hankers to be extraordinary. Even if it is misery
we would like to be extraordinary.
Somebody asked George Bernard
Shaw, "Where would you like to go when you die, to heaven or to
hell?"
He said, "Wherever it is,
that does not matter. What matters is: I want to be the first. Even if it is
hell, I want to be the first. I don't want to be second to anybody. Hence I
think hell will be better, because in heaven Buddha and Jesus and
Zarathustra... and there are so many competitors. And I will have to stand in a
queue, and that I hate! I am ready to go to hell, I am ready to suffer in hell,
but I want to be the first."
The ego is always hankering to
be the first. It says, "My misery is bigger than anybody else's.
Whatsoever I am, I am bigger, I am special, I am extraordinary."
Once a high court judge came to
me. His wife used to come to me. I was surprised, because the wife always used
to say that he is very much against me and he does not want her to listen to me
or read my books or to go and see me. But whenever I visited that city she was
always coming.
So I was surprised. I asked
him, "Your wife always says you are very much against me."
He said, "Not that I am
very much against you - I am simply afraid that... My wife is already crazy,
and what you are saying, if it gets into her mind, she exaggerates everything.
You will create more trouble for me."
I asked him, "Why have you
come?"
He said, "I have just come
to say to you that if she says that she has cancer, reduce it to a headache.
Don't be bothered about her cancer. I have suffered my whole life. Then I have
learned this lesson: she exaggerates."
And in fact that was the case.
Every time she used to come she was talking about cancer. She was telling that
she has cancer of the heart and this and that - and the husband said she had
nothing! Just a hypochondriac... she goes on exaggerating.
A hypochondriac died. Before he
was dying his wife asked, "Have you some last words?"
He said, "Yes. On my
gravestone write in big letters: Now do you believe me or not?"
The first thing for you is to
bring things down to the level of reality. It is difficult, Vandan,
particularly so for a woman. They live in fancy. When you fall in love you
think you have fallen in love with a Greek god, and by the time the honeymoon
is finished you know he is nothing but a goddamned Greek! Within seven days the
Greek god is nothing but a goddamned Greek.
And again it will happen. Again
you will fall in love, and again you will create a great fancy, you will create
projections. And all your projections are going to be shattered sooner or
later, because reality has no obligation to fulfill your projections.
So first bring down your idea
of misery to the fact, to the real. And then it is not difficult to get out of
it. Then the second thing is to be aware of it. Just be aware of it, and you
are out of it - because you can be aware only if you are not it.
That is the miracle of
awareness. When you observe something one thing is certain, absolutely certain:
that you are not it. The observer is never the observed. The observed is there
as an object confronting you. You are the observer, you are the subject.
So misery is there, pain is
there or pleasure, or whatsoever experience is there - you are not it. You are
out of it!
Two ham actors were moaning
about how tough things were in the motion picture business.
"I haven't had a part for
over ten years," one of the thespians sighed.
"That's nothing," the
other ham said. "I've not worked since sound pictures came in."
"That's really tough."
"You bet it is. I wish to
hell I could figure some way to get out of this business."
For forty years you are not in
the business, and you are still figuring out how to get out of it!
Just watch. These two steps,
Vandan: first, bring your misery to the level of reality, and then watch it -
because only reality can be observed; fictions cannot be observed, you become
identified with them. Once the reality is there, it is objective; watch it, and
suddenly a great realization happens. You are the watcher, you are out of it.
You ask me, "How can I get
out of it?" Vandan, you ARE out of it. Right now you are out of it! It is
only an illusion that you are in it. If you want to believe you can go on
believing that you are in it. Otherwise you can snap out of it any moment. Try.
Try to snap out of it. Snap your fingers and slap your face and wake up!
Question 3
Beloved Master,
Are you against garlic? I have been eating
it since my childhood and I don't think that it stinks.
Virago, meditate over this
story...
Forster sat in the posh offices
of Park Avenue's most famous physician.
"I've got this terrible
problem," he explained. "Everything I eat turns to gas. I just had
steak and potatoes and it turned to gas."
"That could be
serious," countered the doctor.
"But fortunately,"
said Forster, "my gas is noiseless and odorless. Can you cure it?"
"I'm sure that I'll be
able to help, but first I'm going to fit you with a hearing aid and then I'm
going to fix your nose."
Question 4
Beloved Master,
Recently you mentioned that the spiritual
ego is more dangerous than the normal ego. Can you explain?
Prem Unmado, all egos are
dangerous, because the ego is a false entity. It does not exist, in fact. It is
there because you are not aware of who you are.
The ego is just like darkness.
Darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is only the absence of light.
Hence you cannot do anything directly with darkness. If you want to remove
darkness you cannot remove it directly; you will have to bring light in. If you
want to bring darkness in you cannot bring it directly either; you will have to
put the light off. Whatsoever you want to do, you will have to do with the
light, because the light has existence. Darkness has no existence, and with the
nonexistential nothing can be done.
The ego is nonexistential, it
is a nonentity. It is the absence of awareness, of alertness. You are not
conscious; hence the ego prevails, hence the darkness remains.
All egos are dangerous, because
you are living in something which is not. You are living for something which is
not, you are sacrificing that which is for something that is not. This is the
danger. A real life is being sacrificed at the altar of the nonexistential ego.
You are running after money,
after power, after prestige, but in fact nobody is really interested in power,
money, prestige. They are just ways of the ego to exist. If you have more money
you can have more ego; if you have more power you can have more ego. The basic
desire is to expand the ego, but the more your ego becomes strengthened, the
more the darkness becomes dense, the less is the possibility of your becoming
aware. And without becoming aware you are missing the whole opportunity of
life, a golden opportunity, in which God can be realized, in which truth can be
lived. A life which can be a constant celebration, an eternal joy, is
sacrificed for something absolutely meaningless.
Hence, remember, all egos are
dangerous. But the spiritual ego is the most dangerous simply because all other
egos are gross. You can see that the politician is after his ego, you can see
even the politician in some moments can see it. It is very gross, how can you
avoid seeing it? You are bound to stumble on it, it is like a rock.
But the spiritual ego is very
subtle, it is like fragrance. You don't stumble, it does not hit you like a
rock. You cannot remove it so easily as you can remove a rock. It is a subtle
fragrance. The more spiritual you become, the more your ego becomes subtler and
subtler. Your ego becomes pious, and when the poison is pious, of course it is
more dangerous, because you think it is nectar. Now, the label is nectar;
inside the bottle is the same poison.
Hence your saints are more
egoistic than your sinners. There is every hope for the sinners, they can reach
to God far more easily than your so-called saints. Your saints are living with
such egoistic attitudes, they are full of holy cow dung, rubbish.
The man of the world claims
that he has so much money and the religious man claims he has so much virtue.
The worldly man claims he has so much power, so much prestige, and your
so-called holy man claims he also has power, spiritual power. He tries to show
his spiritual power.
Once such a so-called spiritual
man came to see Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was sitting on the bank of the Ganges
in Dakshineshwar, where he used to live. The spiritual man said to Ramakrishna,
"I have heard that you are a great saint. If you really are, then come
with me and walk on the water. If you can walk on the water then I can believe
that you are spiritual."
Ramakrishna laughed. He said,
"Can you walk...?"
The man said, "Yes, I can
walk."
Ramakrishna asked him,
"How long did it take you to learn to walk on the water?"
The man said, "It took me
eighteen years of tremendous effort, austerities, tapascharya, fasting, prayer. I lived in a cave in the Himalayas. I
sacrificed everything. Then this spiritual power has been given to me."
Ramakrishna said, "I am
not spiritual, I am a simple man, very ordinary. But one thing I would like to
tell you. When I want to go to the other shore, the ferryman takes me for just
one paisa. Your whole eighteen years' effort is not worth much more than that.
You wasted your eighteen years. You may be spiritual, but you are a fool, you
are utterly stupid! I have never come across such an unintelligent person -
wasting eighteen years just to walk on water! Then what is the point? Okay, you
can walk on water, so what?"
This is the spiritual ego,
which will go sooner or later to exhibit its powers, to prove that "I am
holier than you." That man had come with that idea - to prove to
Ramakrishna that "I am holier than you, I am higher than you."
It is meaningless. Buddha is
not reported to have done any miracle. Mahavira is not reported to have done
any miracle. And my own understanding is that all the miracles that are talked
of in the name of Jesus are inventions.
(the sound fails...)
You see? Some Christian got
mad! They are all inventions of the Christians.
I have a totally different approach.
When Christians say Jesus turned water into wine it is not a literally factual
thing. It simply means that people like Jesus get drunk on simple water. I know
it from my own experience. I never mix my soda with whisky; I mix my soda with
soda, and I get drunk, so what is the point of mixing it with whisky? Just pure
air is enough to get drunk; water is enough. It all carries the essence of God,
what more do you need to get drunk? This existence is more than is needed.
But the spiritual man will try
to prove in some way that he is spiritual. He will prove it through miracles,
he will become an exhibitionist. That's why the spiritual ego is more
dangerous. He will not be able to see it, and others will not be able to see it
either. Because you cannot see it easily, Unmado, I called it more dangerous.
Drop the very idea that you are
separate from existence. And I am not telling you to fight with the ego, that
is nonsense. I am telling you to create more awareness in you, become more full
of light and consciousness and the ego will disappear on its own. And when it
disappears on its own it has a beauty, it has a benediction. When there is no
ego in you, no ego worldly or otherworldly - when there is no ego at all of any
kind, you are one with God. The barrier is removed, the last barrier has
fallen.
And to experience God is to
experience life in its utter simplicity, in its utter beauty. To experience God
is to experience truth in its eternity. Then you are beyond death and beyond
time.
Ego is the only barrier. But
don't fight with it - spiritual or worldly, it is the same. Create more
consciousness, be more meditative. Meditation is the only medicine. Both the
words come from the same root: 'meditation' and 'medicine' - because meditation
also is a medicine. It heals you, it cures you from the greatest disease, the
disease of the ego.
Question 5
Beloved Master,
Will you one day go in the middle of the
discourse to the kitchen to inquire what is being prepared for you?
Pantha, sorry, I cannot do that
- for many reasons. One is, I am not Ramakrishna; I am just myself, I am nobody
else.
Secondly, all my kitchen people
are here: Vivek is here, Astha is here, Nirgun is here, Pragya is here - there
is nobody to ask.
Thirdly, I eat the same food,
morning, evening, year in, year out. In fact, all my kitchen people are bored
with preparing it. Except me everybody is bored! This is a device to bore them.
Just think: the same thing they
have to prepare, morning, evening, every day. Unless they become enlightened
they are going to go crazy.
So there is nothing to ask, I
already know. There is no change ever in my food.
Thirdly, I don't know where my
kitchen is! So, Pantha, even if I want I cannot find it. I know only my room,
and the way from the room to Buddha Hall and back. I will get lost into Lao Tzu
House. And after many many lives somehow I have found the way. Please don't
make me get lost again.
Question 6
Beloved Master,
What is the dirtiest four-letter word in
the indian language?
Darshan, 'work'!
Question 7
Beloved Master,
You did not finish the story of the priest
and his Sunday sermon. Is it not so?
Chetan Hari, that is true.
Knowingly I did not finish it, but now that you have asked I have to finish it.
When the priest saw the hell,
so beautiful, with such ecstatic people, he certainly became infatuated. He
knew all the ways to reach to heaven, he had no idea how to go to hell. And
now, seeing hell, he wanted to go to hell, not to heaven.
So he inquired of a few people.
They said, "Better you ask the Buddha, he is there sitting under the
tree."
He went to the Buddha and he
asked, "Sir, can you show me the way to hell, because now I don't want to
see heaven again. Once is enough. I don't want to go there at all. I have lived
my whole life preparing for heaven. I know all the ways and all the methods and
means how to reach there. I don't know how to get to hell."
Buddha said, "You go back
to the station and buy a ticket to Poona and take sannyas. That is the best and
shortest way to go to hell."
The priest is here. Please
don't ask me his name, because priests are a little shy, and he will feel
embarrassed - and particularly a Catholic priest. But he is here. If you try a
little harder you will find him.
Question 8
Beloved Master,
Okay, give it to me straight. Can god
really exist in America? Leaving tomorrow, I get a little nervous realizing how
serious the world tends to be, and well, you know, god too. So would you give
me one of your fuddy-duddy jokes to share with him just in case we meet?
Toshen, you forget this word
'him'. God is not a he, God is a she. If you go with this idea that he is a he,
you will never find him. That's how people go on missing him. They go on
looking for him as if he is a man, and he has changed himself long ago.
Colonel Stanford, a staunch
segregationist, died and somehow made his way to heaven. A week later his
friend, Colonel Beauregard, departed and was also allowed to get past the
Pearly Gates. The two of them met.
"Never had any doubt we
would make it," said Colonel Beauregard, "but now that we did, tell
me, how are things up here?"
"Not bad," answered
Colonel Stanford, "but I would advise you to watch your step. I saw God
the other day and she is a Negress."
And not only that he is a she,
she is a Negress - a black woman. So if you are really in search of God in
America, remember this.
And then you will have to learn
a few things. If you meet a black woman you will have to learn some art, you will
have to learn to be a little like a black man, otherwise there will be no
communication, no communion.
God has changed. He was tired
of being male and white. Everybody gets tired of being the same. And people are
still thinking that he is the old. You are worshipping old photographs, you are
carrying old albums. No wonder very few people find him.
Now think of God as a woman.
And God can only be a woman; the very idea of God being a man is the male
chauvinist idea, it is the idea of man. The Christian trinity has not a single
woman in it. Look at the nonsense: they have made even a place for the Holy
Ghost. Now, who is this Holy Ghost? The trinity would not have missed much if
there was no Holy Ghost, but the trinity looks a little ugly without a woman. The
father is there, the son is there, and where is the mother? Do you think God is
gay?
This is man's egoistic
projection. Remember: the she contains he, but the he does not contain she. Man
is born out of a woman, but no man can give birth to a woman. It is natural to
think of God as woman - as mother, not as father. That is a fascist idea.
It is not accidental that
Germans call their country "fatherland." Nobody calls their country
"fatherland." Everybody calls his country "motherland" -
that seems to be right - except the Germans... they call it
"fatherland."
God is a mother, a motherly
phenomenon. This whole existence is motherly. And God is far softer than man
can ever be, far more vulnerable, far more open. God is the womb of existence.
The whole existence comes out of the womb.
So, Toshen, drop this idea of
"he" and "him"; think of "she" and
"her." And remember: he is tired of being white, he is no longer
white. He is black now, and he is enjoying being black, because very few people
are able to find him now. Even if you come across him, you think, "It is
just a nigger." Even if he knocks on your door you will not open the door.
And if you meet him, you are
asking me that you would like to tell him some joke. Tell him this joke:
"What makes you black men
such good lovers?" asked the white employer of Kinney, the chauffeur.
"The trouble with you
white folks is that you just go in there and rush, rush, rush, and before you
know it, it is all over," said Kinney. "Now the way us black folks do
it is get in there, take it easy, make long strokes, talk sweet a while, stop a
while, take our time, then some more slow long strokes, nice and
cool-like."
That night whitey climbed into
bed with his wife and began making love to her exactly as Kinney had suggested.
After twenty minutes of sheer
delight she gasped, "My God, where did you learn to screw like a black
man?"
Enough for today.
