Chapter 4. Morning has broken - Osho

Osho – Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 5)

Chapter 4. Morning has broken

Question 1:

Beloved Master,

When I am dead, am I really dead? I want to be really convinced that death is eternal sleep.

Ram Jethmalani, death is the greatest illusion. It has never happened, it can't happen in the very nature of things. Yes, there is something which creates the illusion: death is a disconnection between the body and the soul but only a disconnection; neither the body dies nor the soul. The body cannot die because it is already dead; it belongs to the world of matter. How can a dead thing die? And the soul cannot die because it belongs to the world of eternity, God - it is life itself. How can life die?

Both are together in us. This connection becomes disconnected; the soul becomes unplugged from the body - that's all that death is, what we call death. The body moves back to matter, to the earth; and the soul, if it still has desires, longings, starts seeking another womb, another opportunity to fulfill them. Or if the soul is finished with all desires, with all longings, then there is no longer any possibility of its coming back into a bodily form - then it moves into eternal consciousness.

Moving into eternal consciousness is a very paradoxical phenomenon: one is not and yet one is. A dewdrop slipping into the ocean is no more, in a sense - as a dewdrop it is no more; the boundary that made it a dewdrop has disappeared. But in another sense it is more than it has ever been: it has become the very ocean, its boundary has expanded to infinity, its boundary has exploded into the unbounded.

A man like Buddha becomes the universal consciousness, yet - and this is the paradox - his individuality is not lost, his consciousness is not lost.

So, Ram, I cannot say that death is eternal sleep - on the contrary, it is eternal awakening. Poets have been telling you down the ages: Death is eternal sleep - don't be afraid. They themselves know not, they are simply giving you consolation. But what can the difference be between real death and eternal sleep? Have you ever thought about it? If sleep is eternal it is death. If it is never going to be broken then where is the difference? A corpse and an eternally asleep man are exactly the same. If the sleep is going to be forever and forever, it is death.

The primitive people are far closer to the truth: they say that sleep is a small death. They are right, because for a few hours you become completely oblivious to the world, to others, to yourself, to your body. You become completely disconnected for a few hours, then you are reconnected again. It is a small death. Sleep is a small death but not vice versa: death is not eternal sleep; if it were then what would the difference be, Ram?

If you simply want to console yourself that, "I will be eternally asleep in death," that's another matter. But the truth is not to console you; truth is as it is. The truth is that death has two possibilities. If you die with longing, desiring, then it brings you back into another body, because without a body you cannot make any effort to fulfill your desires. Without the body you cannot eat food, you cannot make love; without the body you cannot become the prime minister of a country - without the body it is impossible to do anything. The body is the vehicle for doing things; gaining, journeying, reaching, arriving. Without the body you simply are; it is a state of being. With the body you are always becoming: becoming this, becoming that, richer, more famous, more successful.

Without the body all becoming ceases. Becoming is another name for desiring, so if a person dies with a deep, deep desire to become something he will be born again into another body. That is one alternative.

The second is: if you have understood the futility of desire, the utter stupidity of desire, if you have seen it through and through - that no desire can ever be fulfilled, that it promises and it promises greatly but it never delivers the goods, that all desires are deceptive, that it is because of our unintelligence that we go on being victims of desires; if you have seen it through and through and you die with no projection in the mind, with no seed of desire, then all seeds are burned. It is because of this that Patanjali has called the ultimate state of samadhi, nirbeej samadhi, seedless samadhi - if you can die with all the seeds burned, there will be no sprout anymore, there will be no other births.

Then where do you go? You don't fall asleep. In fact to attain to a state of seedless samadhi one has to be absolutely awake, one has to be a buddha, because the seeds of desire are burned only in the fire of awakening. So if you die without any desire, you die in utter awareness, you see death happening. And remember again, by "death" I mean you see the disconnection happening - slowly slowly, the soul is becoming separate from the body. Slowly slowly, it is becoming uprooted from the body, it is becoming freer from the prison. And one moment comes when you are totally free from the prison, outside the prison cell called the bodymind mechanism.

Then you remain eternally awake. Then you remain in the universe, diffused in the ocean of life, but eternally awake. It is not a state of sleep.

You ask me, "When I am dead, am I really dead?" Ram Jethmalani, the real YOU will not be dead, but Ram Jethmalani is going to be dead, because Ram Jethmalani is nothing but the name of the combination of soul and body; it is the name of the identity.

We feel identified with our bodies; we think we are our bodies, our minds. Remember, mind is only a part of the body, the subtle part, the invisible part. If we are identified with the bodymind mechanism, then certainly this identification is going to die.

Ram Jethmalani is bound to die, but there is something in Ram Jethmalani which is not going to die. You have to become aware of it. And the only way to become aware of it is to be more meditative, to be more of a witness. Start watching your body, start watching your mind; don't get involved, remain aloof, distant, cool. Just as one sits on the bank of a river and watches the river flow by. You don't say, "I am the river." So it is with the body, watch it. Become more and more of a witness. And as witnessing grows and becomes integrated, you will be able to see Ram Jethmalani disappearing even before death.

In meditation the ego dies, the ego disappears. Once the ego has disappeared, once you have seen yourself as an egoless entity, then there is no death for you.

We can say it in another way: it is the ego that creates the illusion of death. And ego itself is false, hence death too is false. We cling to the false, that's why we have to suffer from death.

Sannyas means to become disidentified from the bodymind mechanism - becoming a witness, a seer, a watcher on the hill. And as you become a seer, a watcher, the hill rises higher and higher, and the dark, dark valley is left behind. You go on seeing the valley for the time being; then, slowly slowly, it becomes so distant you can't see it, you can't hear any noise from the valley, and a moment comes at the ultimate peak of the hill when the valley no longer exists for you. Then although alive, in a sense you are dead.

Ashtavakra, one of the greatest seers of this country, says: The sannyasin is one who is dead even while he is alive. But the person who is dead while he is alive will be alive when he is dead.

You also ask me, "I want to be really convinced that death is eternal sleep."

Ram, convictions can't help much, because conviction means somebody else silencing your doubts, repressing your doubts, somebody else becoming an authority for you.

Maybe logically he is more argumentative, maybe he has a great rational mind and he can convince you that there is no death, and you may be silenced and your doubts may be silenced. But even the doubts that have been silenced will come back again, sooner or later, because they have not disappeared - they have only been repressed by logical arguments.

Convictions don't help much; doubts persist as an undercurrent. One is a convinced Christian, another is a convinced Hindu. And I have seen all kinds of people - they are all full of doubts, all of them - Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans. In fact the more full of doubt a person is, the more stubborn he is, the more he tries to believe, because those doubts are painful. He says, "I strongly believe in the Gita, in the Koran, in the Bible. I am a staunch Catholic."

Why do you need to be a staunch Catholic? For what? You must be suffering from great doubts. If you don't have any doubts you don't have any beliefs either. Doubts are the diseases and beliefs are the medicines, but all beliefs are allopathic medicines - they repress, they are all poisons. All beliefs are poisonous. Yes, for the time being they can give you a feeling that now there is no problem, but soon the doubts will assert themselves; they will wait for the right time. They will explode with great urgency one day. They will erupt like a volcano; they will take revenge. Because you have repressed them they have gathered too much energy. One day, in some weak moment, when you are off guard, they will take revenge. Your so-called saints are all suffering from great doubts.

No, I cannot give you any conviction; I don't trust convictions, beliefs. But, Ram, I can invite you to come along with me, I can help you to see. Why be convinced? There is no need.

I have seen and I can help you to see, and only your own seeing is going to be of any value. I have realized: I can help you to realize. I have traveled the path: I can take your hand in my hand, I can take you, slowly slowly, to the highest peak of meditative experience. Your own experience will be a real transformation; then doubts can never come back again. And when you have known, you will be surprised that all the poets who have been telling you that death is sleep, deep sleep, eternal sleep, have been telling you lies - consoling lies, beautiful lies, helpful lies, but lies are lies, and the help can only be momentary.

It is like when you are too worried, too tense and you take to alcohol. Yes, for a few hours you will forget all your worries and all your tensions, but the alcohol cannot take your worries away forever; it cannot solve them. And while you are drowned in alcohol those worries are growing, becoming stronger; you are giving them time to grow. And when you are back the next morning with a hangover and a headache added to the worries, you will be surprised; they are bigger than when you had left them.

Then it becomes a pattern of life: become again and again intoxicated so you can forget - but again and again you have to face your life. This is not an intelligent way to live.

I am against all intoxicants, against all drugs. They don't help; they only help you to postpone problems. I would like to really solve your problems. I have solved mine, and the problems are the same, more or less. I can bring you closer to me so you can feel my heart and you can see through my eyes and you can feel what has happened. And that feeling, that taste, will become a magnetic pull on you.

It is not a conviction, it is not a belief - it creates trust. And once trust is created the journey has started. I know, Ram, you need great help. I have looked into your eyes - just once you have been here and just once I have looked into your eyes - they look very sad. You must be carrying great anguish inside yourself.

On the outside you are a successful man, the topmost criminal advocate in this country.

On the outside you are successful in every way - a member of the parliament, president of the lawyers association of India - but deep down I have seen, just a passing glimpse, that you are sitting on a volcano. I have seen great anguish in your eyes, great tears just waiting to flow from your eyes. You are not in any way blissful.

I can make you blissful - why ask for convictions? - I can give you the real experience.

My whole effort here is not to give beliefs to people but experiences, not to help them superficially but really to transform them. I am absolutely available to you. And you cannot escape me for long.

Ram is also my advocate and he enjoys telling people that "I am God's advocate." But to be my advocate is to be in danger; sooner or later you will be trapped. Maybe that's why I have chosen you as my advocate, so that you can come closer to me. My ways are devious.

A great love has arisen in you for me. Now, that love is the first flower of the spring; much more is on the way.

But remember, my whole approach is that of existential experience. I don't want you to be believers, I would like you to experience on your own; I don't want to convince you.

What I am saying is my experience: there is no death. I am not saying to you, "Believe that there is no death." I am simply expressing, sharing my experience that there is no death. It is a challenge! It is not an effort to convince you, it is a challenge to come and explore. You are welcome. Think of me as your home!

Question 2:

Beloved Master,

I have felt a deep sadness all day long stemming from your remarks today about psychoanalysis and recalling your jokes over the years about psychiatrists. In my own life I have been blessed with encountering a few rare and wise psychiatrists, psychologists - one of whom led me to you.

These people provided - and continue to provide - an oasis for me in an otherwise barren desert in the west. It is not so much their profession as the level of their being that attracts me.

Why do you hit this profession so hard? And how can I trust myself and my experience when it conflicts with what you say? I feel caught in a paradox.

Prem Sarjana, I hit people only when I love them, I don't waste my hits on unnecessary people, on unworthy people. Psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, are my targets. I am throwing my net to catch hold of as many as possible.

It is said of Jesus:

One day, early in the morning, he came to the lake; two brothers, both fishermen, were throwing their net into the lake to catch fish.

Jesus puts his hand on one of the brothers; he looks back, looks into those eyes of Jesus which are far deeper than the lake, far more silent than the lake and far more beautiful... He understands only the lake; his whole life he has been working on the lake, fishing. Looking into the eyes of Jesus, for the first time he becomes aware that this is possible, that eyes can be so beautiful and can have such depth and such clarity and such blueness and such vastness. He is immensely attracted - he is a simple fisherman - and Jesus says to him, "Enough is enough, you have been catching fish your whole life, now come and follow me: I will teach you the art of how to catch men."

And the fisherman followed Jesus, became one of his apostles.

I am interested, immensely interested, in catching all kinds of psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, for the simple reason that they have the greatest potential. They can become the right soil for the new man to arrive; they are free of all religious nonsense, they are free from all political stupidity. They are the freest men in a way. Now there is only one thing left with them, a thin barrier: they have made psychoanalysis their religion, they have created their own trinity - Freud, Adler, Jung.

They have created their own Bible, their own theology, now they are caught in it... it happens.

When you have lived for centuries in prisons, even if you are allowed freedom you will soon enter into another prison because that has become your habit. You cannot live without chains. They have broken all the chains but they have now created new chains of their own making, and when you make your own chains, handmade, homemade, you are more attached to them.

Who bothers about what Buddha said? Twenty-five centuries have passed. Who cares what Jesus said or did not say? In fact they have receded so far that nobody is really obsessed with them, except a few people - who are not contemporaries, who are still living twenty centuries back.

But when you create your own chains and your own prisons... and psychoanalysis is the latest religion - it is very much easier to fall a victim to psychoanalysis, to Sigmund Freud than to Jesus Christ; it is easier to believe in Marx than in Mohammed, than in Mahavira, than in Manu, than in Moses, because he is so close to us, he speaks such a contemporary language. And that's what has happened to the communists. The Kremlin has become their Kaaba, their Kashi, their Kailash; they also have their own trinity - Marx, Engels, Lenin; they have their own Bible - Das Kapital. They have their own apostles - Stalin, Mao, Castro, Tito. And the same is happening to psychoanalysis, it has become a new religion.

I hit psychoanalysts, Sarjana, because I love them. I am really interested in them. I would like them to come and experience me, and to come and to know what is happening here. And many have heard the call; out of all the professions, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, have received me the most deeply, the most profoundly. Hundreds of them have come and become sannyasins.

And certainly I go on joking about them; those jokes are also my love affair. That's how I show my love, my interest.

You say, "I have felt a deep sadness all day long stemming from your remarks today about psychoanalysis and recalling your jokes over the years about psychiatrists."

You seem to have made a religion out of psychoanalysis yourself, that's why you feel sad; otherwise you would have enjoyed the jokes, you would have loved them. They are so true.

Psychiatrists are crazy people, I mean beautiful people. Whenever I say that somebody is crazy, I am appreciating them. You have to learn my language. Whenever I say that somebody is crazy I mean that somebody is valuable. To be normal is not a very great thing; to be normal is to be average. That is a condemnation, that somebody is just normal; that means he has nothing in him, he is just hollow.

Don't feel sad, I am not against psychoanalysis - although I would like psychoanalysts to go beyond it. It has to be a stepping-stone. And whenever I see somebody clinging to a stepping-stone I hit him hard to show him that there is something beyond.

And you say, "In my own life I have been blessed with encountering a few rare and wise psychiatrists, psychologists - one of whom led me to you."

You may have - there are a few people who are really intelligent, knowledgeable. But you don't understand the meaning of the word 'wisdom'. It is impossible to find a wise psychoanalyst; if he were wise he would have already become a sannyasin, he would not be a psychoanalyst any longer. And they can be of great help; and particularly in the West where masters don't exist, a psychoanalyst is the only possibility of gaining any help, a pure substitute for a master - because the master means one who is enlightened, one who has arrived, one who no longer has any problems to solve, any desires to be fulfilled - one who is already fulfilled.

It is very difficult to find a master in the West. The next best is the psychiatrist, the psychoanalyst. But remember, he is only the next best. And when I say it is difficult to find masters in the West I mean that the Western tradition has fallen into the hands of the priests. For two thousand years the priests have not allowed masters to survive, to exist; or even if, in spite of them, a person became enlightened, he had to go into hiding.

He could not declare his enlightenment, he could not share his enlightenment, or he had to share it in such a way that the priests didn't become aware of what he was doing.

So two things Western enlightened people have been doing: one was pretending to be part of the church, using the language of the church and pouring their enlightenment into it, because that was one of the ways not to get into conflict with the church and the state; that's what was done by Meister Eckhart, Saint Francis, Jacob Bohme and others.

They remained part of the church. It was just a device to survive and to share something. And they used the language of the church which is very unfitting. They could not be so free as Zen masters or Sufi masters; they could not express themselves totally; they had to force their experience into Christian jargon, which was dull, dead.

Or those who were not ready to compromise had to go into hiding, they had to go underground; that's how alchemy was born. Alchemists were not chemists; alchemists were not really trying to transform base metals into gold, that was just a device to hide behind.

The alchemists were real masters but they pretended to be alchemists, and if you had seen them from the outside you would have seen them concerned with base metals and gold and silver. And many experiments were going on, but deep inside the real experiment was going on. Transforming unconsciousness into consciousness - that is the real transformation of base metal into gold. Gold represents consciousness, enlightenment.

So this happened in the West. The priests were so powerful and the priests were in such a conspiracy with the state that either they burned people like Joan of Arc, who was a mystic - they killed many mystics - or forced mystics to go underground, or forced them to speak the language of the church.

Hence in the West masters almost disappeared, and now from the East, particularly from India, there are many many so-called masters roaming all over the West - Mahesh Yogi, Muktananda, etcetera, etcetera. I call them "etceteranandas." These are all pseudo people, because a master waits for the disciple to come to him; there is no need for the master to go anywhere. If he has real magnetism he will attract people from the farthest corners of the world. If you don't have any magnetism in you then you will have to go and sell whatsoever you can to foolish people. So now the whole West is full of these pseudo masters.

It is better, Sarjana, to be with a psychiatrist than to be with a Muktananda, because the psychiatrist is at least moving in the right direction. He has not arrived yet but he is moving in the right direction. You can find a few very intelligent people in that profession. But wisdom is totally different: wisdom means enlightenment, wisdom means one who has known himself.

But I can understand your difficulty: being in the desert of the West, an oasis becomes of tremendous importance, and that's why you become very sad if I hit psychoanalysts.

But without hitting them it is impossible to wake them up. I can understand your difficulty. But now that you are here, part of a buddhafield, you should get rid of your psychoanalysts and psychiatrists. Say goodbye to them; thank them for all that they have done for you, but say goodbye to them. In the West you were helpless and that was the only possibility of getting any help.

"It was deep in the woods back yonder," began old Herbie, the guide. "I was plodding along minding my own business when suddenly a huge bear sneaked up behind me.

He pinned my arms to my sides and started to squeeze the breath out of me. My gun fell out of my hands. First thing you know, the bear had stooped down, picked up the gun, and was pressing it against my back."

"What did you do?" gasped the tenderfoot.

Old Herbie sighed, "What could I do? I married his daughter!"

In the West what else could you do? Helpless... But now that you are here don't feel sad if I hit psychoanalysts.

You say, "It is not so much their profession as the level of their being that attracts me."

You don't know what you are saying. What level of being are you talking about? I have seen hundreds of psychoanalysts - the commune is full of them, we have more psychiatrists than psychiatric patients. What level of being? There are not many levels of being in the first place.

There are only two planes: either you are enlightened, or you are unenlightened. Do you think there are many many planes so that one man is ten percent enlightened, another is twenty percent enlightened, another is thirty percent enlightened? No, either it is one hundred percent or it is zero - zero percent or one hundred percent.

You must have been attracted - that much I can understand - but your attraction is more because of you than because of the level of the person to whom you became attracted.

The West is suffering from many mental illnesses; it is better to suffer from mental illnesses than to suffer from physical ones, it is at least something higher. It is better to be rich and frustrated than to be poor and starving. I have known both poverty and richness, and to be frank with you I must say, to be rich is better, because the rich person suffers from rich illnesses; the poor person suffers from poor illnesses. The poor person is concerned with the body, the rich person is concerned with the mind.

And the psychiatrist, the psychoanalyst, can provide you with many consolations, many adjustments. And, certainly, when you are disturbed anybody who looks undisturbed, who looks very wise in his advice, who goes on analyzing your dreams, looks as if he has a different level of being. It is not so.

All that psychoanalysis is doing is helping people to become adjusted. The Western modern mind has become very maladjusted - it is a good sign, it is the sign of a crisis, an identity crisis. All the old values have become invalid, new values are needed. The past has become irrelevant; we have succeeded so much in the West that we cannot live with the values which were created when people were poor, remember it.

A poor society needs different values, a rich society needs different values. When a poor society succeeds in becoming rich it becomes maladjusted, because it goes on teaching the old values which are no longer relevant, and it lives in the new society which is rich.

So people's minds are in a mess. What has been told to them by the priest, by the school, by the college and the university, belongs to the past. And the society has moved from there. It is as if you are taught the mechanism of a bullock cart and you have a car; you will be maladjusted, because you know the mechanism of a bullock cart and you have a Mercedes Benz. You are at a loss; your knowledge is irrelevant, but you cling to your knowledge because that is all that you know. That's what is happening.

People were told for centuries to be ambitious, to have all kinds of riches, to succeed in the world. Now it has all happened! Now to tell people to be rich, to be successful, is utterly futile. They will laugh at you, they will say, "What nonsense are you talking about!"

Hence the hippies. In the East they cannot happen; old values are still relevant - people know about bullock carts and people have bullock carts. They fit perfectly well. But Western technology, Western science, Western affluence, has gone far ahead of the Western mind and attitudes. So everybody is at a loss. A person's knowledge does not fit with the situation he lives in. He cannot drop the knowledge because by dropping the knowledge he becomes almost ignorant. And there is no other knowledge available.

The function of the psychiatrist is to help these maladjusted people to become adjusted again. This is not very revolutionary work; it is antirevolutionary, it is reactionary.

That's why I hit psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has to herald the new age! And on the contrary, what it is doing is helping people to become adjusted to the old, rotten society, which is dying. Psychoanalysis has to help people towards the new man who is soon to arrive on the horizon. That's my effort here.

My work is multidimensional. It is not only religious, it is not only educational, it is not only psychological, it is not only artistic - it has all the dimensions; because the new man will be a multidimensional man. And psychoanalysis is helping the old, rotten society to survive better than it would survive without the help of psychoanalysis.

Priests, rabbis, and ministers often face anxieties, fears, and frustrations. This was the case with Father Flannagan. The demands of his parish overwhelmed him. He feared lest he might face a complete mental breakdown. So he consulted a psychiatrist. The doctor encouraged him to lay aside his ecclesiastical vestments, then don civilian clothes, red tie, striped shirt, overalls, go out to a tavern and mingle with common people who frequent such places. There, incognito, he might readily overcome his frustrations. He accepted the prescription, changed his garments , and made his first trip to the tavern.

As he sat at a table a go-go girl came tripping up to him to take his order.

Said she, "Have I not seen you before? Your face looks familiar."

A bit embarrassed he answered, "No, indeed, you have never seen me before. This is the first time I have ever been in this tavern."

Finding the treatment encouraging, he returned to the tavern a second time. The same go-go girl rushed over to him to take his order. This time she said, "I am sure that I have seen you some place."

More embarrassed, but still convinced that he was unrecognized, he exclaimed, "Of course you have never seen me before. This is only the second time I have ever come to this tavern."

Some time later he visited the tavern for a third time. Immediately the little go-go girl ran to him with a big smile saying, "Now I know who you are! You are Father Flannagan from the church on Dublin Street!"

The shock of this recognition almost floored him, but the little girl tapped him on the shoulder with these sympathetic assurances: "Don't fret, Father Flannagan! I am Sister Elizabeth from Saint Theresa Convent. I go to the same psychiatrist!"

The old ideas about life, the old morality, the old ideas of sin and repentance, all have become irrelevant. The old priesthood is absolutely maladjusted, and the people who live according to old religious ideas are feeling out of place. And the new people are also feeling out of place, hence the gap between the generations - it has never been so big as it is today.

Parents can't understand children, children can't understand parents. They speak different languages, there is no communication; a China Wall has come between parents and children.

All the old cherished values, cherished for centuries and centuries, look stupid. Things that we thought were spiritual are no longer spiritual. The world needs a new spirituality and a new kind of religiousness.

I hit psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, more than any other profession for the simple reason that they are the ones who can understand what I am doing here. And if they understand rightly they will serve the future and not the past. They will help you to become more harmonious with yourself rather than become adjusted to an ill society which is just on its deathbed.

That is where my work differs: I don't help you to become adjusted to society. This society is bound to die, it is doomed to die, and the sooner it happens, the better, because it has become ugly. To go on carrying this rotten corpse does not allow people to live rightly. They have to take care of the corpse which stinks, and there are so many corpses in your house that there is no space for you to live.

We have to get rid of the past. Up to now neither Freudian nor Adlerian nor Jungian psychology has been of any help; it has become part of the establishment. As priests have been doing in the past, psychoanalysts are now doing the same: helping people to compromise with society, helping people to be normal. Normality is not health! Health is very rebellious, and psychoanalysis is not yet courageous enough to be rebellious.

Hence I hit it - because I know the potential; it can become rebellious.

Once psychoanalysis becomes rebellious it will help the new man to arrive sooner, it will help the first real revolution in the world. Up to now all the revolutions were very tiny, pseudo, superficial, because the real revolution can happen only in the psyche of man, not in the social structure or the economic structure. A real revolution has nothing to do with politics; it has something to do with the spirituality of man.

We have to create a new spirituality, a new vision.

You say, Sarjana, "In my own life I have been blessed with encountering a few rare and wise psychiatrists, psychologists - one of whom led me to you."

But where is he? Now it is your duty to lead him to me. Pay him in the same coin! What is he doing there? He should be here! He must have read, he must have heard about me, but that is not the way to know me. The only way to know me is to be a sannyasin, is to be part of my energy field, to vibrate with me, to pulsate with me, to synchronize with me. Now this is your duty, you owe this to him. Help him to come here; he may be afraid to come himself.

Just the other day I received a letter from Hari Chetana in Germany saying that on the radio a very famous psychologist was asked by a woman, "It is now six years since my son went to Poona and there seems to be no possibility that he will ever come back.

What do you say about it?"

And the famous doctor said, "I have heard much about Poona, I have read also. You need not be worried - your son is in the right place."

But hearing about me and reading about me while I am alive here... And the distance between Berlin and Poona is nothing. Within hours you can be here - he has never come here.

These people know only one way of becoming acquainted with anything - and that is reading, studying. These people are knowledgeable people, but not wise.

We are helpless. We cannot do anything about Buddha - we have to read him because he is no longer present. But how many times, reading Buddha and his beautiful sutras, has not the idea arisen in millions of hearts, "How fortunate it would have been if we had been alive in the time of Buddha." Or reading the beautiful words of Jesus has not the idea occurred to you that, "How tremendously blessed were those people who followed Jesus while he was alive, walked with him, talked with him, dined with him, wined with him"? Reading about Krishna have you not heard the distant, distant call of his flute? Have you not felt a little sad that now there is no possibility of encountering this beautiful man?

But when buddhas are alive you don't use that opportunity. You may have been alive when Jesus was there - he may have passed through your village and you may not have gone to see him. You may have been alive while Buddha walked on the earth and you may not have ever encountered him. You may have been alive while Krishna was playing on his flute and a few courageous people were dancing around him; you may have passed and you may have thought, "These people are crazy and this man has hypnotized them with his music" - and you would have thought yourself very sane.

But now you cry and weep and you feel sad.

Sarjana, help your psychiatrists, your psychoanalysts to come here. Tell them a buddha is alive, a christ is back on the earth - tell them!

And this is not only a message for Sarjana, this is for all of you. Jesus says: Go on the rooftops and shout so that people can hear. I say to you also: shout from the rooftops; help as many people as you can to come here, because right now the water is available, the water is flowing. It can quench the thirst of millions, but they will have to come to the river and they will have to bow down to the river; only then can they receive the gift.

Don't feel sad, feel happy that you are here. And I am going to hit again and again, so you have to become accustomed to my ways. I hit people only when I see great potential in them.

Question 3:

Beloved Master,

I am obsessed with food. I eat too much and have gained enormous weight. Can you help me to reduce my weight?

Sangito, this is strange, coming to me from California just to reduce your weight. In California there are far more facilities available to reduce weight. I know it because I had to send Mulla Nasruddin to California. The problem was the same.

When Mulla Nasruddin reached California, he was directed by our sannyasins there to this ultimate weight-losing program. It took four days and was guaranteed to take off fifty pounds or your money would be refunded.

He entered the building and was told to enter the first door to his left and to undress there. He did so and then from a second door in the room entered a beautiful blonde woman, naked but for a sign around her neck. It read, "If you catch me, you can make love to me!"

Nasruddin felt the passion rise within him. The room was fairly small, but the lady was agile, and it took him twenty minutes to catch her. After his love-making, Nasruddin showered and left, eagerly awaiting the next day.

On the second day, he was directed to another room, a bit larger than the first. There a beautiful redhead, naked except for the sign, greeted him. The chase lasted for almost forty minutes.

On the third day, it was another, larger room, and a beautiful brunette! After almost an hour, he caught her too.

Throughout the three days, Nasruddin had kept an account of his weight loss - twenty- eight pounds to date.

On the fourth day, he envisioned perhaps a bevy of beauties. He was directed to the top floor. He climbed the stairs, removed his clothes and waited. There was a click behind him as the door was locked, and out of his left eye he caught sight of a huge gorilla coming his way with a sign around its neck which read, "If I catch you I'm going to make love to you!"

Sangito, you need not come from California to Poona! But one thing is certain: people become obsessed with food only when they lose the capacity to love. It is an indication that you have forgotten the language of love. If you are in love you never become obsessed with food. Obsession with food is a symptom that you don't know how to love. How it happens has to be understood.

The first acquaintance of the child with the world is the mother's breast. That is his first introduction to the world, his entry into the world - his first relationship is with the breast of the mother. And the breast becomes the symbol for him of two things: food and love.

Whenever the mother is loving, the breast is available; and whenever the mother is unloving, the breast is not available. Food and love become associated; a deep conditioned reflex happens. It becomes so unconsciously rooted that you repeat it your whole life. If the child knows that the mother loves him he will not drink too much, because he KNOWS, he is secure; whenever he needs the mother her breast will be available.

If the child is insecure and feels that next time the mother may not be available, he will start drinking too much, eating too much.

Now, you can see the point: whenever love is there, there is security and a kind of fulfillment, and the child never becomes obsessed with food. If love is not there, there is insecurity, fear, and a kind of emptiness, and the child stuffs that emptiness with food.

In the West, weight is becoming more and more of a problem for the simple reason that mothers are not ready to give their breasts to their children. Of course the breast loses its shape; and the fear that the breasts will lose their shape and make the woman look old has gripped the mind of women in the West so deeply that they are afraid to give their breasts to their children. And they are creating an obsession about food in the child unknowingly, unconsciously. The child will become obsessed with food, he will eat too much. Eating will become his substitute for love.

Sangito, you will have to learn love. There is no other way to reduce your weight. All other programs can help you a little bit, but sooner or later you will gain weight again because the basic root cause remains the same. You can diet, you can run, swim, exercise, but how long can you diet? Sooner or later you will be fed up with dieting and your mind will become more and more obsessed with eating. Now you will eat in your fantasy, in your dreams, and your mind will convince you that this is not the right way to live. You can't eat this, you can't eat that, and somehow if you ask the doctors, all the good things have to be avoided.

A child was talking to his mother, "You say God is very wise. I don't believe it."

The mother said, "But why don't you believe it?"

He said, "If he was wise, he would have put more vitamins in ice cream. He puts vitamins in things which are uneatable, and things which are really worth eating are dangerous."

How long will you avoid ice cream? The temptation will be such that it will be unavoidable. So you can lose weight for a few days and then you will eat too much, you will take revenge. And you may gain more weight than you had lost by dieting. This is the pattern of millions of people, particularly in the West.

In the East people are starving. You can see a few fat people in Bombay, in Delhi, in Calcutta, but that's all. If you go to the real India, eighty percent of the people in India are starving. There is no question of gaining more weight, they don't have enough weight. They are suffering from malnutrition. Yes, sometimes you will find villagers with big bellies and thin bodies, because they are eating food which is not nourishing, unbalanced, and they eat only when it is available. So when it is available they eat too much.

There are millions of people in India who eat only once a day because they can't afford to eat twice. So to keep their bodies together for twenty-four hours they eat anything, whatsoever is available; sometimes they have to eat the roots of trees.

So the problem is not in the East, the problem is in the West where enough food is available and people have completely forgotten that food grows on trees. Children know that food grows in the fridges. You go to the fridge any time and food is available.

I have heard about a woman who must have been suffering like Sangito. She went to her psychiatrist and asked him his advice - what to do? He pondered over the problem and gave her a picture, a picture of a naked woman, such an ugly fat woman, disgusting, nauseating, sickening - just to see it was enough to become afraid of food.

And he told the woman, "Stick it inside your fridge so that whenever you open it you will see this picture - this will remind you of what is going to happen to you."

So she sticks in the picture of the naked woman. The psychiatrist has also given her another picture of a beautiful young woman with a very proportionate body, a world beauty, and has told her, "Stick this in too, so you can compare. If you don't eat too much you will be like this woman, if you eat too much you will be like that one."

Immediately, from the next day, the woman starts losing weight. But a miracle happens: her husband starts gaining weight. The woman is puzzled. She says, "What is the matter?"

He says, "Since you have put that beautiful naked woman inside the fridge, I go again and again to see the picture. And when I see the picture I see the food too, and the flavor and the smell... and I say, 'Why not take a cake or some ice cream or something?'

I am eating too much because of your pictures."

In the West the child grows with the idea that food is somehow miraculously produced by the fridges and it is always available, twenty-four hours a day; any time he can go and eat. And mothers have taken their breasts away and mothers are not available much either. The husbands go to work and the mothers go to so many committees - they belong to the liberation movement, and consciousness-raising committees - and they have so many charity shows going on and they have to sell tickets and collect the charity funds... they are not available. The father is gone, the mother is gone; the child is left with the fridge and with no love.

Sangito, just understand the root cause of it: love is missing somewhere in your life. I will not take your obsession with food as a real problem, it is a symptom. Love is the real problem - love more. And if you love more, you will be loved more. And it is not yet too late; you can find a woman. And all women are mothers, and all men are always like children. So any woman will do, because she will function like a mother. And each man needs a mother his whole life, he needs mothering, and each woman needs children. Even the husband is only the oldest child, that's all. And if you cannot find one, you can come to me - I always have many applications with me; women searching for men, men searching for women. And I fix anybody with anybody! I don't believe in astrology, I believe only in accidents.

Mulla Nasruddin awoke one morning and looked at the clock. It was five minutes to five. Unable to go back to sleep, he went to the front door to get his newspaper. On the front page he saw the date: May 5th.

"Oh, fifth day, fifth month, five minutes before five," he thought. "Today will be my lucky day!"

He decided to go to the horse races, so he got dressed and went to the corner to wait for the bus. Soon it came - it had the number five, and Nasruddin noticed when he boarded that there were three other passengers, the driver and himself - five in all.

He arrived at the track and waited for the fifth race. He bet five hundred rupees on number five to win - his horse came in fifth!

Enough for today.

John Nguyen

Dhammapada Vol. 5

Saturday, August 19, 2017

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