... THEN ASKED, "I WONDER WHETHER THE OPINION YOU HAVE JUST EXPRESSED IS REALLY YOUR OWN." "OF COURSE NOT!" SAID OBAKU. NANSEN THEN SAID, "SETTING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE DRINKING WATER FOR THE MOMENT, LET ME ASK WHOM YOU INTEND TO HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE STRAW SANDALS RETURNED TO?" TO THIS QUESTION, OBAKU MADE NO REPLY. Maneesha, although this anecdote seems to...

... up. To us it may look a little strange that he was asking a price for water. He says, "SETTING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE DRINKING WATER, FOR THE MOMENT, LET ME ASK WHOM YOU INTEND TO HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE STRAW SANDALS RETURNED TO?" Zen monks use straw sandals, the same shape as my sandals, but they are made of straw, very beautiful, very aesthetic and very cheap. Nansen is...

... QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE DRINKING WATER, because I have to carry the drinking water for miles, LET ME ASK WHOM YOU INTEND TO HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE STRAW SANDALS RETURNED TO?.Who has paid the money for your straw sandals? Return the money. You are just a teacher; don't pretend to be a master. TO THIS QUESTION, OBAKU MADE NO REPLY. Sekiso wrote: A SINGLE TRUE MAN APPEARS IN THE WORLD AND ALL FALSEHOOD...

...; Madame goes over to talk with Sally and then returns saying, "Okay, but she wants two hundred dollars." "But it was only fifty dollars yesterday!" protests Finger. "Take it or leave it," shrugs the Madame. So the priest pays the money, and follows Sleazy Sally upstairs. Afterwards, Father Finger is pulling up his pants and asks the girl, "Well, how was I?" Sally...

..., "You can come to my shop and get your money." Naturally - Narendra was very small, his other brothers were even smaller - even the smallest children were watching him, that he does not steal the money. But whether they watched or not, he would go on distributing fruits and sweets to people and saying to them, "Rejoice! Why are you sitting so sad?" Naturally, they had to pay money...

... to all kinds of people. It was a very strange situation. Children steal money, and fathers, grandfathers, prevent them. In Narendra's house, the situation was just the opposite: the father used to steal money, and the small children would shout for the mother: "He is taking money again!" And by the time the mother was there, he was gone - gone to the market to purchase sweets, fruits, or...

... rich that even the king had to borrow money from him. He had everything that was possible, but he was always very sad and miserable, always a long face. A young man used to come every day to give him massage, who was always happy. He had nothing to be happy about - and that was the problem for the rich man. The poor fellow got one rupee per day. In those days, a rupee was really a rupee. The word...

.... Now he started to think, "How can I save some money and make it at least a hundred?" He had never bothered - one rupee per day was enough to live as richly as he wanted. But now he had more than he could use for the day; he had to save. When it became one hundred, the desire jumped up, flared up. If he went on collecting, soon he would have two hundred, three hundred, four hundred. And as...

... more and more money started accumulating, he became more and more miserable, continuously thinking of money. The song disappeared, the dance disappeared; the flute was heard no more. One day when the rich man was being massaged, he asked him, "What has happened to you? You don't look happy any more. Has some calamity happened?" He said, "Yes, a calamity has happened. Somebody threw...

... ninety-nine rupees into my house, and since that day I have not slept well, because the desire to have more and more has been aroused." Once you have the desire for more of anything, life is misery. It may be knowledge, it may be money, it may be power; you may start desiring anything, but you will become more and more sad. It is such a difficult world .... The prime minister of the country was...

..., wow!" After a while, Nutzo turns to Goonski and says, "You know, for a show like this, these guys must have spent plenty of money; but they won't even give us three dollars to go and see the gorillas in the zoo!" Henry and Morris are partners in a tailors shop in New York. One summer, Henry goes on his first hunting trip. When he gets back to the shop afterwards, Morris cannot wait to...

.... Allah's work comes first." After this he cut Junnaid's hair with great love and devotion, then respectfully bade him farewell. A few days later when someone had given Junnaid money, he went to give some to the barber. But the barber wouldn't take any money, saying, "Have you no shame? You had said to cut your hair in the name of Allah, not for money!" And his whole life Junnaid used to...

... go! But if you say so I will go." He has been forced to go and live with the mother at least for a few days. And he has been living with many families, with many couples. Wherever he goes he makes friendships, and there are so many friends that he is never out of money - he asks everybody! Sattva was once Neerja's lover. Now that love relationship is broken, but the love that has grown between...

... Sattva and Siddhartha has continued. They are still friends - Sattva still has to give him money! He comes every day: "Today I need five rupees, ten rupees." One day Sattva said, "I don't have any money." Then he said "You can ask me!" And he brought five rupees from somewhere and gave it to Sattva! "Why don't you ask me? I have so many friends, I can bring as much...

... money as you want!" Now, this child will be a totally different child! He has lived with Jews and with Christians and with Hindus. He will not be conditioned by anything, he will not have any conditioning. He will have a vast territory of being available to him. That's my idea how all children should grow. then there will be no ugly religious conflicts, wars, bloodshed, no ugly fanaticism, no...

.... He had made his own gravestone, a beautiful, artistic thing, because he did not rely on his wife - she was such a miser that she might put up some ordinary stone. So he had purchased the most costly marble, asked the best artist to make rose flowers on it, and he had written on it: "Rest in peace." When he died his wife discovered that he had not left any money for her. When the will was...

... separate they are inseparable. The very idea of dividing them has been a great calamity. Jews are more interested in money than in meditation. Now, thinking that you have become a meditator they will be afraid. "What are you doing? This is the time to earn money. This is the time to get rooted in the world. Don't waste this precious time!" According to them, when you are young you can do...

... something; as you become old you will be less and less able to make money, to have power, prestige, to make a name in the world. You are wasting your time here. Even with those who are here, if they are Jewish, the hangover continues. One of the sannyasins went to the office a few days ago, in a euphoria - must have touched something intangible in meditation, may have been silent here in the discourse...

... doing nothing? Is this a way a Jew is supposed to behave? Time is money - don't waste it! And, moreover, whether your parents are Jewish or not, parents are parents; they feel offended - they feel offended by the very idea that you think you know more than they know, that you are trying new ways, that you are trying to be wiser than your parents. A Jew arrives in heaven and God, in a very...

... DON'T CARE A BIT ABOUT NIRVANA ANYMORE. PLEASE ACCEPT ME, ALTHOUGH I'M NOT WORTHY OF IT. Aruna Bharti, IT IS ONE OF THE MOST significant things to understand that the very desire for NIRVANA is the only hindrance. You can desire money, you can desire power, you can desire prestige, but you cannot desire nirvana; that is a contradiction in terms. NIRVANA simply means the understanding that all desires...

..., one is so totally finished that one forgets all about it; one does not move to the opposite extreme. The opposite extreme is also part of the same desire. First you are too much attached, then you start becoming too much detached - another extreme. A man is running after money, then one day he gets tired, then he starts running away from money. He says, "I don't want even to see money, I don't...

... want even to touch money." But this is the same man. The greatest disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, does not look at money. If you take money in front of him he immediately closes his eyes. What does it mean? It simply means that still somewhere the attachment goes on lingering. Now, behind all this detachment it is the same attachment. Now attachment is standing on its head, it is doing...

... lose. You cannot lose anything because, in the first place, to lose you have to have it. I know you are absolutely poor. By "poor" I don't mean that you don't have money; by "poor" I mean you don't have any inner richness. Deep down, every politician suffers from inferiority complex, he suffers from inner poverty. He suffers from such inner emptiness, meaninglessness, that he...

... more there. You have succeeded: you have the money, you have the power, you have name, you have fame, and the inner emptiness is still there, intact. Nothing has changed there. If you ask me, Jaganath Prasad, then it is time to take the jump. It is enough - ten years you have been thinking. How long one is going to think about it? Either take the jump and become a sannyasin or forget all about it...

... he was making rings of the smoke. I went to my father and I said, "I need some money to purchase cigarettes." He said, "I know children sometimes smoke, but not like you - asking your own father. They hide, they lie - and you are asking me for money!" I said, "Certainly, because I don't want to hide anything, and I don't want to feel guilty. And the desire has arisen; it is...

... better to have a taste. If it is not worthwhile, it is finished forever. And if it is worthwhile, then you have to supply me." He knew me perfectly well.... I said, "You remember, that if you don't give me the money, I will steal, and for that stealing you will be responsible. I could have stolen money, there was no problem. I have not done that. I always go through the proper channels."...

...; He looked at me, and he said, "Okay." He sent a servant to bring a packet of cigarettes, and he said, "You smoke." Certainly the experience was not worthwhile. I started coughing. And it looked silly - taking the smoke in and out when you can have fresh air, dirtying, polluting the air with the smoke. And for that you have to pay money too! I said to my father, "Now, you...

... rest assured; this is my first and last cigarette. But if you had prohibited me, things would have been different. Your prohibition would have given me a challenge; I would have stolen money. You would be responsible for my being a thief. I would be smoking, hiding behind the house. For that kind of secrecy you would have been responsible. "I want to remain an open book. I don't want anything...

... problem. Three hundred years ago, every scientist had his own lab; Edison could work on the electric bulb in his own house. But you cannot make atomic energy in your own house. So much money is needed that no individual can afford it - only governments. Naturally, all the scientists have become slaves of certain political systems. You must have heard about the Russian scientist, Sakharov. He was the...

... being creative. Just look at the stupidity of going to the moon, how much money is wasted. For what? The first man who stood there must have felt silly, because there is nothing - no water, no trees, no life. It is a dead planet. But a political race between the Soviet Union and America.... Both were wasting their energy, their scientists, their money to reach to the moon - nobody bothering to ask...

... his paradise a certainty; all hajjis go to paradise. So even poor Mohammedans.... In my village I have seen such poor Mohammedans collecting money, eating only one time a day so that at least once in their whole life... because it will need their life's savings. And I have seen people selling their houses, their land, borrowing money and remaining always in debt because they could not even pay the...

... interest - there was no question of paying the original money. And they have taken it at such high interest; nobody is going to give it to them at a low interest because everybody knows the money is never coming back. And there is every possibility that this man may die because hajj, in the old days, was almost a suicidal pilgrimage. Now it is a little better, but not much better. So at such a high...

... everything. He created chaos in the great temple of the Jews by throwing the money-changers out of the temple, upturning their tables. This is not the way of a man who says, "god is love," who says, "love your neighbor as yourself," who says, "love your enemy as yourself" but I don't think he loved his enemies as himself And he was not only throwing out these people, who were...

... been able to pay back the original money because the interest was so much; they would have been slaves for their whole lives without being slaves. And this was a great institution. I don't think it was wrong. It was perfectly right that the temple provided the poor people with money at the minimum rate. And the temple had so much money. It was perfectly right, in every way ethical to help the poor...

... people because the money was also coming from the same people. But the way the Christians present it is wrong, it is not right. The institution was perfectly right, and Jesus was just creating a nuisance there. He should have gone to the high priest, argued about it, told him, "This institution of taking interest from the poor is not right," convinced him, "give it to them without...

... split. You lose your center. You forget completely who you are. Watch. When you are greedy for money, who are you? You are just a greed for money and nothing else. When you are angry, your ego is hurt, who are you? You are just anger, a wounded ego, nothing else. When you are full of sexual passion, who are you? You are just sexuality, nothing else - libido. When you are ambitious and you want power...

..., prestige, respectability, who are you? You are simply ambition and nothing else. Watch, and you will find many passions in you, but you will not find who you are - all passions pulling you apart, and each passion goes in its own way. If you want money then you will have to sacrifice other passions for it. A man who is mad after money may forget all about sex. It is very easy for a miser to be celibate...

... then you can forget everything else. It is a well-known fact that scientists are very absent-minded people. Their whole mind goes into one direction, but then they become very very poor also. Their field, their vision goes on becoming narrower and narrower and narrower. That's what specialization is. A greedy person becomes narrower and narrower and narrower. He thinks, meditates, only about money...

...; he goes on counting money. His whole mind knows only one music and that is that of money; only one love, and that is that of money. In one way, the people who are possessed by one passion are in a way integrated. They are not rich, they don't have many dimensions to their being, they have only one taste - but they have a certain integration. They are not split. You will not find this type of person...

...? Desire for money, for power, prestige - these are gross desires. Desire to be free, desire to be calm, desire to attain to the last state of arhatship - these are subtle desires, but they are still desires. He will have to come back only once. NEXT IS THE SROTAPANNA. The word srotapanna means 'one who has entered into, the stream'. Srota means stream and apanna means 'one who has entered'. Srotapanna...

... royalties for all of Krishnmurti's books were going to Raj Gopal. And just five years ago, he simply betrayed J. Krishnamurti. He simply said, "You have nothing to do with the organization, the money, the books, the royalties." At the age of eighty-five, Krishnamurti had to begin again from ABC. This man, Raj Gopal, must have had a tremendous patience, because for sixty years he kept the...

... cheat you. And naturally, when a few people have cheated you, your trust in humanity disappears. That is very strange - five persons have cheated you, and five billion people on the earth lose your trust. You should just try to understand a little arithmetic. And the people who have cheated you, what can they gain? - perhaps some money... But if you can still trust them, you have gained something...

... which no money can buy. I used to travel in the trains continually. Once, from Indore to Khandva, I had arrived and there was a one-hour gap before the other train that I had to catch for Bombay. So I was sitting in the compartment alone - all the other passengers had left; that was the terminus for that train. One man came, tears in his eyes. I said, "Don't... just wipe your tears. Just tell me...

..., father died... Soon somebody will come and his wife has died, somebody will come and his child has died. There is one hour's time, and I have enough money for one hour. You just go, go fast! He said, "Why fast" I said, "You will have to change clothes! Just go... " He said, "My God, have you recognized me?" I said, "No, I have not recognized you. How can I recognize...

... on trusting. Do you really believe that my wife is dead?" I said, "I really believe it, because man is mortal, people die. Your wife is not immortal. Don't be afraid - she will die. If she has not died today, tomorrow she will die. Keep the rupee with you; perhaps you are telling the story a little ahead of time." He said, "I will not take any money from you, and from today I...

... have been cheating you may not be able to cheat you. Just your very being... I was asleep in the train, and there was only one other person. I was in the upper berth. In the middle of the night the person was getting out of the train. It was a beautiful chance, because all my luggage was on the floor and he saw that I was asleep. So he told his servants to take everything. Just my money was in a...

... pocketbook. So when he had taken everything out, I said, "Wait!" So he said, "Are you awake?" I said, "I have been awake all the time. You have taken everything; just this pocketbook is left with the money I have. Take this too. Always do everything totally." He said, "My God... " He said to his servants, "Bring his things back, he is dangerous." And the...

... station master came running - "What is the matter?" - and the driver and the conductor, and the man was trembling that I would tell them that he was stealing everything. I said, "It is nothing. Just by mistake he has taken everything out. His mistake was not complete, and I am against things which are not complete. So I was giving my money to him, telling him, 'Take this too, so...

... everything is complete.'" They said, "Should we catch hold of this man and give him to the police?" I said, "No, because he is a nice fellow. He didn't accept the money and he has brought all the things back." He was in such a nervous state that he left one of his bags also with me. I had to send his bag back from the next station telling them, "Find this man." At least...