... is the false self, and if the false self is there it is very difficult to know what is real; the false has to be discarded before the real can be known. And kim means ruler, so your full name will mean self-rule, self-ruler, one who rules oneself... and that is the true kingdom - to be a master of one-self. But the ego never allows that kingdom to be yours. The ego is a pretender and keeps your...

... eyes clouded. It has to be completely dispersed. Sannyas means surrendering the ego, but by surrendering it, one conquers oneself, one becomes a ruler of oneself. And to rule the whole world is nothing compared to that beauty of ruling oneself. Anand Atul. Anand means bliss; atul means immeasurable, incomparable, unique. Bliss is always immeasurable, it is infinite - all measures are finite - there...

... completely at ease if everything goes ritualistically. The mind is very ritualistic and all the religions have become ritualistic because of the mind, the domination of the mind. True religion is not a ritual. It is a feeling, it is love. Prayer is not something that you can do; it is something that you can be. Prayer is not an act but a state of being. It simply means to be so utterly silent that God can...

... of love - but it is not love, it cannot be love. Unless meditation has happened in your heart, love cannot be true. It may be a disguised lust or just a way to avoid your aloneness, or just a method to keep yourself occupied, or a power trip to dominate the other, or an ego fulfillment, that "I am loved," that "I am needed," that "I am not useless," that "I am...

... moment when we can prove that the East has known heights which the West has not even dreamed about. It can become a glorious moment of victory for the East, which could erase all the slavery of the past two thousand years. To me, it is immensely significant. But the Eastern mind is still under the impact of the rule by the Western empire. Officially they have become free, but deep down they still feel...

... whether I am going to be here or not. My people are looking for places all over the world where I can be absolutely independent, without any government, without any power to prevent me or dictate to me - what I have to say and what I have not to say. I am here just temporarily. If I decide to be here permanently, then I am going to speak in Hindi. But for this temporary period, I will not change; I will...

... into the funeral pyre - whether it is man or woman does not matter, if it comes out of love - then I have tremendous respect for it. But it was not coming out of love, it was being forced. If a woman did not commit suicide, she had to live her whole life without getting married again. The rule does not apply to men. Once their wife dies, they immediately start looking around for someone else to...

... FINISHED SPEAKING, SUIGAN WAS ENLIGHTENED. Enlightenment is pure silence, the silence of no-mind. Your mind is continuously going on and on, yakkety-yak, yakkety-yak. Do you see it in the meditation? Do you think it is coming from somewhere outside? It is within you and you are hiding it. And my effort is to persuade you not to hide it, not to suppress it, to throw it out. Perhaps tears may come to your...

.... Because it will, according to its principles, do everything to suppress and wipe out man's soul if it is there. The questioner wants to know what connection there is between self-realization and my criticism of socialism. The connection is deep. In the history of man, socialism has emerged as the most formidable ideology in opposition to what you call self, soul or God. Never in the past had atheism...

... society will remain a dream. The people who will control power and property will become a new class per se. In my vision, however, class is better than caste. Because caste is rigid, fixed, it has no fluidity. Class is better because it has mobility: a poor man can become rich and a rich man can become poor. The poor and the rich are classes, not castes, and the Russian system is giving rise to castes...

... not accept that the capacity to produce wealth is as much inborn as the capacity to produce poetry, mathematics, philosophy and religion. The capacity to produce wealth also comes with birth. A Ford is not made, he is born. Some people are born with the talent to produce wealth and many others are not born with this talent. This is a fact, not a theory. And if we thwart and suppress people born with...

... you ask the socialists why, they will simply say, "Because we are engaged in building a socialist society, we cannot allow debates, discussions and oppositions; we cannot tolerate any revolt and rebellion." They also say "Right now we don't have any space for free thinking, we cannot afford it. So we will suppress freedom of thought for the present, but we will certainly allow it when...

... all power -- political and economic -- in the hands of the state, and thereby, he is going to capture and control man's mind and soul. So it is imperative that we think it over, debate it, and raise our voices against it. When the socialists attack freedom they do it with cunning and tact. Their tactics are appealing. They say they want equality and therefore curbs on freedom become necessary. With...

... cannot leave. And this single rule has turned sannyas into a prison. Even heaven will turn into hell if there is no exit. You can say that sannyas has no hard and fast rule like this. That is true, but the fact that society looks down upon one who leaves sannyas is a stronger prohibition than any rule. We have an ingenious device to prevent a sannyasin from going back to the world again. When someone...

... will think himself a pious person and call all those who sleep long hours idlers and good-for-nothings. He will sermonize that three o'clock is the best time to get out of bed, and say that those who don't conform to this rule will go to hell. Beware of such people There can be no hard and fast rule for things like this. We cannot have set laws about what to wear, about what to eat and how much to...

... millions that could not get into the mother's egg? This has been used as one of the arguments in India by Hindu scholars, pandits, shankaracharyas, against birth control. India is clever about argumentation. The pope goes on talking against birth control but has not produced a single argument. At least the Indian counterpart has produced a few very valid - looking arguments. One of their arguments is: At...

... what point to stop producing children? - two children, three children? They say that Rabindranath was the thirteenth child of his parents; if birth control had been practiced there would have been no Rabindranath Tagore. The argument seems to be valid because birth control means stopping at two children, at the most three: don't take any chance, one may die or something may happen. You can reproduce...

... wrestler who was so courageous in every way he had been fighting his whole life.... But coming to the brink, the sudden break - because the slope was such, at least fifty feet down, and the river was thirty feet deep, and the rocks were such that it was beyond your control where you would land, what would hit you. And standing on the top of the hill... the wind was so strong that you could be simply...

... poet; the others are approaching Zen from their intellect, their mind. Thomas Merton is approaching Zen through his heart. He feels it, but he could not live the direct experience he is talking about. He would have been the first Zen master in the West, but he was prevented by the Catholic church. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk under the control of the Vatican. The Trappist monks are the most self...

.... The greater the number of followers you have, the greater the power to dominate. And they are always afraid that anybody who leaves their fold is betraying. But it is absolutely certain that Thomas Merton had already felt in his heart the immense need for Zen. Christianity was no longer satisfying. His whole life he had been a monk in the monastery, but slowly slowly, as he became aware of Zen, he...

...; Because he was following an ascetic way of perfection, he could see that Zen is different; it gives no discipline. The Trappist monk lives under such a strict discipline, it is unbelievable. I have told you the story.... A man entered into one of the most prominent Trappist monasteries, and the abbot said, "Do you know our rule? For seven years you have not to say a single word. Only after seven...

... IN CHARGE OF THE BRIDGE, CAME OUT AND WARNED TANKA THAT HE HAD BETTER MOVE, BUT TANKA DIDN'T GET UP. Nobody can order a man of Zen. You can kill him, but you cannot order him. You can murder him, but you cannot command him. The man of Zen does not bother about death, because he knows his deathlessness. He does not care about who you are; lord or governor or emperor, it does not matter. You are just...

... both these experiences - the experience of Zen and the experience of a Christian mystic - can be compared, they are just the same, only their language differs, then there is a possibility for Christianity and God to dominate still. But they cannot be compared. They are not only different, they are opposite to each other. One is a lie, another is a truth. God is a fiction. Shunyata is the ultimate...

.... My foot! It is the most unspiritual country in the world. Gone are those days when it used to be spiritual - twenty-five centuries have passed - but the old fog remains around the mind. India is more attached to things, attached to money, attached to power, is more ambitious to have domination, prestige, respectability, than any other country. You are the proof. Whenever I say anything, I have the...

... in paradise." And they were saying, "This is just the reception. Before you enter the permanent paradise, you have to tell everything about your life. This is the rule. Everything will be written, recorded, and then you will enter permanent paradise." They wanted him to confess all the sins that he and his father had been committing, all the thefts, murders, and things for which they...

... RABBI STOOD ON ONE FOOT AND SAID, "DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU. THAT IS THE LAW -- THE REST IS COMMENTARY." IF I WERE TO BE MET BY A TORMENTOR AND ASKED TO STAND ON ONE FOOT AND EXPLAIN IN ONE SENTENCE WHAT YOUR TEACHING IS, WOULD I BE CORRECT IN SAYING THAT IT IS FREEDOM FROM SUPPRESSION? It will not be so easy. First, you don't know the name of the rabbi. His name was...

... rule, not the exception -- he was immediately caught, and brought before the caliph because "This is against our religion; there is only one God, and he is in the heavens. You are just a mortal being. Even Mohammed has not said, `I am God.' He simply says, `I am the messenger of God.' And you are saying that you are God. Are you mad? Either stop it, or death is the only punishment for it."...

... and have not been able to produce any evidence. There is no evidence that Jesus is the only son of God. When God is doubtful, Jesus becomes doubtful. And claiming to be the only begotten son of God is a really egoistic attitude, a megalomania. And that too, two thousand years ago, when there was no birth control! Why is Jesus the only begotten son of God? Has he got birth control? As far as the pill...

... HUSBANDS. WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND? German people are fortunate that their population is decreasing. The problem is not with decreasing population, the problem is with increasing population. Thirty years ago when I started teaching about birth control and abortion in India I was stoned, attempts on my life were made because I was teaching something immoral, against God. But at that time India's population...