... OF ALL. WHO ARE THEY TO CURE OTHER PEOPLE'S ABNORMALITY? YOU HAD BETTER GO STRAIGHT HOME INSTEAD OF WASTING YOUR MONEY.' Tao is a unique vision. It is a vision, mind you, a DARSHANA, it is not a philosophy. It is a clarity, a transparency, but not an ideology. It does not propose any system of thought - it does not propose anything at all. It neither proposes anything, nor supposes anything. It is...

... is normal, because whatsoever you call the growing-up process is the process of turning people abnormal. For example: a man is obsessed with money; he is abnormal. Why should one be obsessed with money? You cannot eat it, you cannot love it, you cannot be loved by it. It cannot give you life, it cannot give you beauty, it cannot give you joy. But there are millions of people who are madly in love...

... with money - money is their God, their only God. Now these are abnormal people. Once this abnormality settles then there arises another abnormality: a few people renounce money and become great mahatmas. First these mad people are obsessed with money, then a new obsession arises from that obsession - they become obsessed with the fear of money. If you take money to Vinoba Bhave he will not touch it...

.... Now what is wrong in touching money? A poor currency note is just paper - why are you so afraid of touching it? There is some deep fear. And fear is nothing but lust standing on its head; deep down there is still some desire. The fear is that, 'If I touch the money I may again become interested in it.' A man who is free of money will use the money and he will not be obsessed either way, for or...

... against. He will live in the world, he will not renounce the world there is 11o need. You cannot drop out of one madness by creating another - you are simply changing your madness. Your so-called money-mad people are mad and your mahatmas are just at the other extreme of the same madness. They are not different. Somebody who is mad after prestige, power, pull, is abnormal. Sitting on a very high chair...

... with yourself? Everything has become upside down. You are living for the non-essential and you have forgotten the essential. You are living for things, and things will be taken away when death comes. Money, power, prestige - nothing is going to be with you when death comes. Only that person lives who lives in such a way that death cannot destroy anything; who creates his inner being in such a way...

... he was mad while he ruled Germany. Politicians, power-addicted people, money-mad people - nobody thinks that they are mad. But if somebody sitting under a tree starts laughing for no reason at all you think he is mad. He is not doing any harm to anybody. And he may have some reason to laugh which may not be apparent to you. And, finally, what is WRONG if somebody laughs without any reason? Why is a...

... inner, both. WHO ARE THEY TO CURE OTHER PEOPLE'S ABNORMALITY? YOU HAD BETTER GO STRAIGHT HOME INSTEAD OF WASTING YOUR MONEY. Look at this advice. You may not be able to understand immediately, but the message is very simple. The message is: don't interfere. The message is: don't judge. The message is: you are nobody to change somebody else. That is not your responsibility. You are not meant to do that...

..., the chancellor of the university left. The woman who had collected thirty-three million dollars -- the initial money that started the commune, she had to leave, she forced her to leave because she took all power from her hands. It was so insulting that she has to leave. Slowly slowly she has dropped all the people who could be suspected to go against her. So naturally the people who had left were...

... HER. A:* No. It is the same Sheela. What happened was just whatever she was carrying in her unconscious -- she may not have been aware, when she got the opportunity.... She was just a waitress, and now she got millions of dollars in her hands. Her old secretary's letter yesterday has come that she had opened a private account in Switzerland in her own name. The money that was to come here slowly she...

... that she started saving little bits in Switzerland, money that was coming from Europe, so she started accumulating her own account there. Her old secretary's letter yesterday informed me that she has accumulated forty-three million dollars. Q:* FORTY-THREE MILLION DOLLARS SHE HAS? A:* Yes. Q:* -- OF MONEY THAT BELONGS TO THE COMMUNE? A:* That belongs to the commune, that should have come here. Q...

... stories that it seems just unbelievable. They have bugged even my room. And they have bugged the whole hotel. They have bugged every house they suspected that there are people who may be one day not be with them. Q:* BHAGWAN, WAS THE REASON FOR THIS TO STEAL MONEY? IS THAT AT THE BASE OF IT? DID THEY WANT TO TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN? A:* No, not only that because money was already there and nobody knows...

..., and nobody knew. This letter has come yesterday... (Interruption for tape change) The money they had already got there in their own name, and here they were doing all these crimes to keep the whole commune under their control. And because I started speaking, two things happened. One, Sheela lost her big ego that she has accumulated in three and a half years, she lost her face on the television...

... more now getting nourishment for your ego.'" Q:* BHAGWAN, DID, DID SHE AND HER GANG STEAL SO MUCH MONEY FROM THE COMMUNE THAT THE COMMUNE COULD BE IN FINANCIAL DIFFICULTY? A:* No, the commune can never be in financial difficulty. We have one million sannyasins around the world. And my sannyasins are all rich, all intelligent, all professional people. There is no problem: just a word from me and...

... your safety, if in any case you have to leave America, then we should keep some money there." But I said, "If it was for my sake, at least I should be made aware of it. And how much money is there? I should be made aware of it. What is the number of your bank account? What bank it is? I don't know anything; you have never told me." She said, "Tomorrow I will be bringing every...

... telling me. I was silent. I had no idea. Sheela has simply informed me only one thing: that they have surplus money out of the annual festival, so they want to do some humanitarian job, that's why she is bringing these people. I said, "If it is a humanitarian job, perfectly good, do it." Now, as I have started speaking, people have revealed to me that it was not humanitarian, it was just the...

... NARCOTICS AMONG YOUR SANNYASINS, DRUGS, SPECIFICALLY THE DRUG ECSTASY. AND SHE GOES ON TO CHARGE THAT WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE, SANNYASINS WERE INDUCED TO SIGN OVER MONEY AND BELONGINGS WHILE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF DRUGS. A:* I know ecstasy, but ecstasy can be a drug I am hearing for the first time. I have never heard before even the name, and I was in silence and isolation for three-and-a-half years. I was...

... people have been drugged to take money from them, then it must be she. Because all the money that the commune has received has come from donations far away -- from Europe, Asia, Australia. And she has stolen forty- three million dollars out of that money. Perhaps she has been drugging people and taking the money to Switzerland. Q:* SHE SAYS THAT YOU THREW TEMPER TANTRUMS AND WOULD THREATEN TO COMMIT...

... impossible to decide so he asked a very old aged man, his old advisor, what to do. The old advisor said, 'I will do a sort of a test.' He called all the three boys and gave to each a palace and a certain amount of money, a very small amount of money, and told them, 'With this amount of money you have to fill your palace completely; it should not be empty.' It was difficult. The palaces were very big and...

... the money was only a very small amount. The first young man thought and thought and brooded. It was impossible to fill that empty palace with such a small amount of money! He could not get any furniture; even curtains were not possible. Paintings, chandeliers, impossible; so what to do? He could only think of one thing - that rubbish could be used with that amount of money. So he filled the whole...

... palace with rubbish, because the man had not said with what to fill it but just that it should be full. So he said, 'Perfectly logical.' The second boy thought very much but could not find a way. Up to the last moment he thought and contemplated but it was impossible. He was not ready to fill it with rubbish and there was no other thing that could be purchased with that amount of money, so the palace...

... because the condition was fulfilled - the man had filled his house - but with rubbish. The second was a failure because the house was empty and full of darkness because the boy had not been able to decide what to do. The third was chosen as the successor because with such a small amount of money he managed to fill the house - and not only to fill it; it was overfull, flowing. Light was going outside on...

... fool! So much money, and it was so easily available, and there was nobody in the house, and the whole neighborhood was fast asleep, and there was not a single chance of your being caught - you are just an utter fool! Why have you come back? There is still time - go again!" If you follow one part, the other part makes you feel guilty. And vice versa. This is anxiety. And this anxiety is very...

... is the way to hide this anxiety. You rush into earning money, madly. You become so absorbed in earning money that you forget all existential anxiety. Then there is no point, no time to think about real problems. Then you put aside everything and you just go into the search for money, more money. And as you get money, more and more desire arises. This desiring for money or political power is nothing...

...? Why? Because the anxiety that he has been repressing through his job asserts itself. He was running after money, chasing after political power; there was no time to give to anxiety. Now there is all the time and nothing to do. Sitting in his armchair he does only one thing - anxieting. Nothing else to do! Now ALL the repressed anxieties of his whole life - that denied existential part takes revenge...

... earning money you will have a few anxieties: the market and the share market, and things like that, and prices. And you have put so much money - are you going to earn out of it or are you going to lose? These small anxieties. These are nothing compared to the real anxiety - these are tricks to avoid the real. Of course, when you are ambitious for politician power, you will have anxieties, a thousand and...

... neither meditation nor transcendental. It is just a strategy to be fool people. And America needs such people to be fool them. America needs something to cover its anxiety. Because money is there now, so money, and the search for money, cannot become a cover-up for long now. Society is affluent. People have all that you can desire. Now what? Now the anxiety is knocking on the doors, and the anxiety is...

... them. You can have an idea of how to purchase a beautiful house or how to have this woman as your wife or this man as your husband or how to have more money, more power, more prestige - you can choose these things. How can you choose God? You have not even had a glimpse, not even in your dreams. How can you choose something so utterly unknown to you? But you are not unknown to God. He can choose you...

... person is not egoless. He carries a new kind of ego - of being humble. He thinks he is humble, 'Nobody is as humble as I am. I am the topmost in humility.' But he goes on comparing. The ego has not changed, the ego has only taken a new posture, a new gesture, more subtle. First the ego was very gross. When you go on bragging about your money. It is very gross. One day you renounce your money and then...

... parables go. A man, a rich man, called a few labourers to work in his garden. By the afternoon it was felt that they were not enough, that the work would not be completed by the evening. So a few more labourers were called. But by the evening it was felt that even those were not enough so a few more labourers were called. At sunset the rich man gave them money for all that they had done. But he gave them...

.... Can't I give my money? It is my money. You have received. For whatsoever you have done you have received. Can't I throw my money away? What protest is there? Shy should you be worried?' And Jesus used to say, 'This man is the man of charity. He gives out of his abundance.' This is what Sufis call karamat. And the third is truthfulness. It does not mean saying the truth, it means being the truth...

... street one block, turn right and go one block.... Truth is mister, I don't think you can get to the post office from here at all.' People are living in that fog. And it is not only that when you drink you become foggy - you are drinking a thousand and one kinds of alcohol every moment. Somebody is money-mad - then money is his alcohol. Somebody is power-mad - then he is drinking power and will become a...

... drunkard. And there are different kinds of mad people. But everybody has his own particular kind of alcohol which makes him drunk. Have you seen the eyes of a miser looking at his money? He looks at the money as if he is looking at his beloved. He touches money with such tenderness. He feels one hundred rupee notes with such love and care. And when the money is there he forgets the whole world. Watch a...

... house has thousands of small earthen lamps decorating all the walls, balconies. The whole town becomes a fairyland, the whole country turns into a fairyland, with firecrackers and great rejoicing. That day they worship money. The goddess of money is Laxmi. Laxmi is the wife of the Hindu god, Narayana, and of course a god's wife should be the goddess of wealth. In fact one of the Indian words for god...

..., iswar, means "one who has all the wealth of the world." His wife is the goddess of wealth. And on the night of the festival of lights they worship money. Before paper currency came into being they used to make a pile of silver rupees and worship them. Now they put paper money and worship it. Before silver rupees there were golden rupees. The word rupee simply means gold; it comes from...

... Sanskrit. It is an Indian word ... because in the beginning the coin was gold, pure gold, so the word rupia, which became in English, rupee, was meaningful. They used to worship gold, then came silver, then came paper currency. And they went on ... the question is of worshiping money. I never participated in their worship. I simply hated the whole idea and I told them, "This is one of the ugliest...

... things you can do. Money is something to be used, not worshipped. On the one hand your religions teach that money is nothing but dust. On the one hand it is dust, on the other hand it becomes a goddess. And you cannot see your split mind? "On the one hand you praise a man as a sage if he renounces money; then he becomes synonymous with God because he renounced money and everything. And on the...

... other hand you worship money. Can you in some way help me to understand? Is there not a clear-cut contradiction? "If money is God's wife then in the first place the person who renounces God's wife is a criminal. In the first place why did he possess God's wife? - that seems to be absolutely illegal. He should be caught and imprisoned. In the first place was he pretending to be God's wife's...

.... You are sitting on that stool." I said, "No, I want my answers. I see so much stupidity in it, because I have seen you touching people's feet who have renounced money. Then you tell me that this man is great, a sage: he has kicked all that is thought to be valuable and that needs courage and guts. But what are you doing? If that man is right to renounce all this money, at least stop...

..., just to enjoy, useless, fun; sitting silently at the side of a friend. Much could be done in these moments. You could go to the shop, to the market, you could earn something. You could change time into money. You could get a bigger bank balance because these moments will not come back. And foolish people say that time is money. They know only one use for time: how to convert it into more money and...

... more money and more money. In the end you die with a big bank balance but inside totally poor, because the inner richness arises only when you can enjoy the useless. What is meditation? People come to me and say, "What is the use of it? What will we gain out of it? What is the benefit of it?" Meditation...and you ask about the benefit? You cannot understand it because meditation is just...

... into hospitals, into primary schools. But the uselessness of God is the very basis of all the utility that goes on. If you can play, your work will become pleasure. If you can enjoy simple fun, if you can become like children playing, your work will not be a burden to you. But it is difficult. Your mind keeps thinking in terms of money. I have heard that once Mulla Nasruddin came home and he found...

... game of cards, and let the wife be the stake. If I win, you simply leave; if you win, I will never see your wife again." Nasruddin said, "All right, it's settled." But then he said, "Let's have some cash stakes, one rupee for each point, otherwise the whole thing is useless. Just for a wife the whole thing is useless. Don't waste my time, have some money stakes too." Then the...

... thing becomes useful. Money seems to be the only useful thing. All those who are utilitarians will be money-mad, because money can purchase. Money is the essence of all utility. So if Buddha and people like Buddha renounced, it was not because they were against money, it was because they were against utility, against the useful. So they said: Keep all your money. I am moving into the forest. This...

... question: IN REPLY TO MY QUESTION, YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY TO LIVE AND ENJOY LIFE TOTALLY. BUT WHAT IS LIFE THEN? - TO GO IN SEX, TO MAKE MONEY, TO FULFIL WORLDLY DESIRES, AND ALL THAT? IF SO, THEN ONE HAS TO DEPEND ON OTHERS, AND THE WORLDLY THINGS WHICH ARE SURE TO BECOME A BONDAGE IN THE LONG RUN. AND ALSO, WILL IT NOT MAKE THE SEARCH OF THE SEEKER VERY, VERY LONG? Yes, life is all that you can imagine...

... and desire. Sex is included, money is included; everything that the human mind can desire is included. But you live in a sort of hang-over. Even in the formulation of a question, your condemnations are absolutely clear, emphatically clear. You say, "In reply to my question, you said the other day to live and enjoy life totally. But what is life then - to go in sex, to make money, to fulfil...

... worldly desires, and all that?" The condemnation is clear. You seem to know the answer before you have asked the question. Your learning is absolutely clear: cut sex, cut love, cut money, cut people. Then what sort of life would be left there? This has to be understood: the word 'life' has no meaning in it if you go on cutting everything. And everything can be condemned. Enjoying food is life...

... negating, and they have created a certain mind in you which goes on working from the inside and goes on poisoning your life. Now you ask me, "What is life - to go in sex? to make money? to fulfil worldly desires, and all that?" And what is wrong in worldly desires? In fact, all desires are worldly. Have you come across any desire which is not worldly? What do you desire God for? - and you will...

... the world; not to desire is to be out of the world. So don't condemn the worldly desire; try to understand it, because all desires are worldly. This is the fear: that if you condemn the worldly desires, you will start creating new desires for yourself which you will call unworldly, or other-worldly. You will say, "I am not an ordinary man. I am not after money. What is it, after all? You die...

... - you cannot take the money with you. I'm seeking, searching for some eternal wealth." So are you unworldly, or more worldly? People who are satisfied with the wealth of this world - which is momentary, and death will take it away - they are worldly. And you are searching for some wealth which is permanent, which is forever and ever; and you are unworldly? You seem to be more cunning and clever...

...... the very idea of long run arises because others say so. This is not your own experience. And always remember to accept your own experience; nothing else is of worth. It happened in a court: "I notice," said the judge to the tramp in the dock, "that in addition to stealing this money, you also took a lot of very valuable jewellery." "Yes, Your Honor," remarked the tramp...

... cheerfully. "You see, me mother taught me from childhood that money alone does not bring happiness." Teachings from others are not going to help. You will change their whole meaning according to you. It will happen unconsciously, not consciously. You read the Dhammapada: you don't read Buddha's words, you read your own interpretations. You read Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: you don't read Patanjali...

..., they become very hurried and go on finding more ways to gain more speed. They are continuously on the run because they think that life is running out. These greedy people say, "Time is money." Time is money? Money is very limited; time is unlimited. Time is not money; time is eternity. It has always been there and will be there, and, you have been always here and you will always be here. So...

... poor. He made all those relatives rich - gave them factories, gave them shops, gave them as much money as possible because he had so much. He said to me, "The problem is nobody loves me. I have been giving to everybody - my friends, my family, even strangers have come to me and I have never said no to anything. But nobody loves me. I don't see in their eyes any respect towards me and I am...

... them money. There is no need for you, but once in a while you can just phone them and say, 'I need your car; can you send the car?' You have your own guest houses, you don't need any help from anybody, but once in while you can ask a friend: 'If your guest house is available, one of my friends is coming and I would like you to take care of him - just do this much kindness for me.' And you can change...

... lives like a king. He has a certain knack that anybody becomes his friend; he just has to look at you and you are his friend - and you feel as if you have been his friend forever. He has lived on borrowed money - which he never returns because he cannot, there is no way to return it, but nobody feels hurt about it. Even though he has borrowed money from you and he has never returned it, he has the...

... nerve to ask you again - and you will give it! The man is so lovely, so beautiful, that to ask money from him simply doesn't seem right. And he never feels embarrassed, he never avoids people he owes money to. I have asked him many times, "How long will you continue in this way?" He said, "How long? The population goes on growing - even if I live a million years, I will always have...

... people to give me money." And the beauty is that you give him money and you feel honored that he asked you, not anybody else. Now what will you call it? - art? science? It is simply a knack. He travels without a ticket, he has never purchased a ticket. I have been traveling with him many times. And he will say, "Why are you wasting money on tickets? Let the ticket checker come; after all, he...

... win against him, in cards you cannot win. And he is such a happy person that people like for him to come to them even if he is going to take their money, even if he is going to take their car and never return - still people like him, because he is simply likeable. It is not on any conditions that he is liked, it is just his whole personality. Once he was staying with me. And just next door used to...

... husband is ready...." I said, "Any husband will be ready! You are an idiot. It is not because of your charm, every husband will be ready. How many wives can you manage? You don't have any money. And remember, you cannot bring any woman into my house." He said, "That's not right, because that's what I was thinking - I will leave this woman here. Another woman ... I will get caught and...

... did it! Those four and a half years of creating a small commune of five thousand people are of tremendous importance. It was for the first time in the history that five thousand people living together were absolutely myself-sufficient; nobody was poor, nobody was rich, nobody was unemployed.Because we were not using money inside the commune in any way. There have been philosophers who have thought...

... of a society where money will not be used, but there have never been a society which has really not used it. And it is so significant - the moment you stop using money, the distance between the rich and the poor immediately disappears. There is no need of bringing a dictatorship of the proletariat, no need of forcing people to depart from their things. There is no need to force people to be equal...

.... As the money disappears, people are not equal but they all have equal opportunity to be unequal. Q: HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES CHANGED YOU, IF IT DID? A: It changed because it created a great jealousy amongst the politicians. What we had managed to do in four years, they have not been able to manage in three hundred years. We purchased the land which was a desert - for...

... stolen money from the commune, nearabout fifty million dollars... Q: SHE TOOK FIFTY MILLION WITH HER TO GERMANY? A: Those fifty million are somewhere in Switzerland, in her name. And she went and married a Swiss sannyasin - that too, a homosexual. She was married to an American. Without divorcing him, she married a Swiss sannyasin just to get the Swiss passport and Swiss citizenship to legalize her all...

... money that she has managed to put in Swiss banks. She went to Nepal with a false man to get the divorce, the false man pretending to be her American husband. Just we came to know from our sannyasins from Nepal that what Sheela is doing. So we sent her real husband there to prevent the whole process! Q: WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COLOR RED? A: No significance. Q: WHY DO THEY ALL WEAR IT? A: It was...

... moment. I can show you the method how to know it. Q: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE NOW? HOW MUCH MONEY IS LEFT? A: No. I never had any money. Q: YES, BUT THERE WAS MONEY... YOUR ORGANIZATION DID... A: Neither it is my organization, because I am not a member of any organization. Q: SO YOU KNOW THAT SHEELA TOOK FIFTY MILLION, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH IS LEFT AFTER WHAT SHE TOOK. A: No, the ranch...

... is two hundred fifty million worth, but who is going to purchase it in that desert? Nobody is going to purchase it, it is worth nothing. But five years of creating and five years of rejoicing in creation, I don't feel that there has been any loss. Who cares about money? Two hundred fifty million or three hundred million - we enjoyed those five years immensely. And I enjoyed those twelve days also...