..., how to destroy the commune? The commune was a far superior version of communism. No dictatorship, no money -- in the commune there was no need for money. People donated to the commune, but as far as their needs were concerned, the commune was responsible to fulfill their needs. And the commune was living at a far better, higher standard than any American. The richest American was jealous of the...

... with such joy, such laughter, and they were working hard. All their needs were fulfilled. They had the whole commune centrally air-conditioned; they had everything that they wanted, and there was no exchange of money in the commune. This made the American government completely mad. They arrested me without any arrest warrant, and without showing me any reason for arresting me. Just a piece of paper...

... nuclear weapons. And Ronald Reagan has left the post of president, but he has given a budget of one and half trillion dollars to create more weapons. Now George Bush is at a loss -- from where to get this money? My criticism of American politicians is based not on my personal hurts -- they don't matter. At least to me they don't matter. But I am certainly hurt because of America's anti-human attitude...

... known anything like revolution against the social structure. And India is one of the poorest countries, but the poor are given the opium continuously, that "You are poor because of your past evil acts. It has nothing to do with the capitalist people; they have money because they did good deeds in the past." Now do you want shankaracharyas from India to be imported to the Soviet Union? They...

..., because who will ask him to make a portrait? Just look at his paintings! He said, "I have never done any portrait." The woman said, "I am willing to pay any amount of money. Don't bother about money, money does not matter." She was a widow of a super-rich American. Just to avoid the woman, Picasso said, "It will cost one million dollars." She said, "Agreed, start!"...

..., dissolving your separation from existence. The ocean of consciousness is without any waves, without any ripples. It is utterly calm and quiet. This moment you are the most blessed people on the earth, because everybody is concerned only with the trivia -- money, prestige, power. Nobody seems to be concerned to know themselves, and nobody seems to be concerned to know their eternity. This moment, now and...

... forests on reservations. And they are given pensions, because America is using their land - the whole country belongs to them... and they are very few so it is not much of a problem. It is better to give them money than to create the possibility of any revolt from them. Money is very destructive, when no work is given. Work makes you feel that you are doing something, you are worthy, you are...

... contributing to life, to existence, you are taking care of people whom you love. But no work is given to the Red Indians. That gives a feeling that they are not needed at all. If they die, the government will be happy, the nation will be happy, because that much pension will be saved. And what is he going to do with the money if he has no work? He will drink alcohol, he will gamble, he will go to the...

.... It is natural, there is nothing wrong in it. The rich man can afford it, the poor man is unnecessarily wasting his time. And not only time, but the poor man may start asking that medicine also should be given to him because he has no money. The rich man has to be kept. If he gets tired of one sickness, give him another sickness. Just put the idea in his mind - "I feel you are going to have a...

..., they become sick, the doctor's money has to be cut. He is not taking care well. Just the opposite of now: he will be paid to keep people healthy and if somebody falls sick, his pay will be cut. That will bring to the whole medical profession a totally different perspective." And that's how enlightened people have been giving new perspectives to people, which the people don't understand in the...

... beginning. People would not understand that you have to pay for health. Health is yours, what has the doctor to do with it? And the doctor has to lose money if you fall sick? That was absolutely right, though it looked strange. The same is the situation with the priests. If everybody was without guilt... That's what they think about me - that I am a dangerous man, because my whole effort is to make you...

... the legs, rising over people's heads, making them as if they are steps for you to climb higher. Your life is violent, and a violent life cannot be beautiful. You are merciless; only then can you become super-rich. You don't have any compassion; otherwise how can you exploit millions of people to such a stage that they are starving, and you are simply accumulating money which you cannot use? There is...

... same old problem: they cannot accept a lion; they are sheep, they are poor little men, hungry for money, power, prestige. They cannot tolerate a man who lives according to his own insight, according to his own awareness, who does not follow anybody, who has no scriptures and no religion. Such a man creates a great inferiority complex in millions of people. Otherwise, what harm am I doing to anybody...

... man's energies could rise higher and higher." He is coming very close to the point of meditation. Your energies are going outward to objects, to money, to power - and finally, if you become religious, to paradise, to God, but they are all out. So your energies are leaking out and the ultimate result is a feeling of utter emptiness, hollowness, unworthiness, failure. He is only thinking that the...

... ACTS WITHOUT IMPEDIMENT, HARMS NO OTHER BEING BY HIS ACTIONS, YET HE DOES NOT KNOW HIMSELF TO BE KIND AND GENTLE. HE DOES NOT STRUGGLE TO MAKE MONEY, AND HE DOES NOT MAKE A VIRTUE OF POVERTY. HE GOES HIS WAY WITHOUT RELYING ON OTHERS, AND DOES NOT PRIDE HIMSELF ON WALKING ALONE. THE MAN OF TAO REMAINS UNKNOWN. PERFECT VIRTUE PRODUCES NOTHING. NO SELF IS TRUE SELF. AND THE GREATEST MAN IS NOBODY. The...

... dying without food, and half of humanity is interested in the absolutely nonessential. To reach the moon is absolutely nonessential. If we were a little wiser we would not even think about it. It is absolutely foolish wasting as much money as could feed the whole earth. Wars are nonessential, but humanity is mad, and it needs wars more than food. It needs to go to the moon more than food, more than...

... to find it, you will have to make efforts. If you have to know whether he is gentle or not, that is going to be your discovery. HE DOES NOT STRUGGLE TO MAKE MONEY, AND HE DOES NOT MAKE A VIRTUE OUT OF POVERTY. Remember this. It is very easy to make money and it is also very easy to make a virtue of poverty. But these two types are not different. A man keeps on making money, and then suddenly he...

... gets frustrated. He has achieved, and nothing is gained - so he renounces. Then poverty becomes the virtue, then he lives the life of a poor man and then he says: This is the only real life, this is religious life. This man is the same, nothing has changed. The pendulum moved to the left but now has gone to the other extreme. HE DOES NOT STRUGGLE TO MAKE MONEY.... This you will understand; the other...

... part is more difficult. ...HE DOES NOT MAKE A VIRTUE OUT OF POVERTY. He is neither poor nor rich. He is not making any effort to make money, he is not making any effort to be poor - whatever happens he allows it to happen. If a palace happens, he will be in the palace; if the palace disappears, he will not look for it. Whatever is happening, he will be with it, his bliss cannot be disturbed. He is...

... not struggling for money, he is not struggling for poverty. HE GOES HIS WAY WITHOUT RELYING ON OTHERS.... This you can understand easily. HE GOES HIS WAY WITHOUT RELYING ON OTHERS, AND DOES NOT PRIDE HIMSELF ON WALKING ALONE. You depend on others, your wife, your children, your father, mother, friends, society; then suddenly you drop everything and escape to the Himalayas. Then you start priding...

... poor if there was no money to be left? Your poverty depends on your riches. No, a perfect man, a man who is really a sage, the man of Tao, goes his way without relying on others. If you rely on others you will suffer, if you rely on others, you will always be in bondage, you will become dependent and weak. But that doesn't mean that you should pride yourself that you walk alone. Walk alone, but don't...

... unawareness illusions are a must, because through illusions we create pseudo meanings in life, and naturally until the real has happened we have to go on creating pseudo meaning. When a person becomes fed up with one pseudo meaning he creates another. He becomes fed up with money, he moves into politics; he gets fed up with politics, he starts moving into something else. Even the so-called religion is...

... of welcome, a gesture of let-go, a gesture of surrendering to reality. It is the beginning of non-aggressiveness. The mind is aggressive: aggressive for money, aggressive for power and even aggressive for god. Aggressiveness can be forgiven as far as money and power are concerned because they are worthless things. But as far as higher things are concerned - love, prayer, meditation, god - one...

... beyond our control. And there are other-worldly people - the monks, the saints - they are also afraid of love. They escape from the world just to escape from situations where love is possible. So the worldly and the otherworldly are not very different. If you look deep down their orientation is the same: both are afraid of love. The worldly runs after money, power, prestige; these are his substitutes...

... for love. The greedy person loves money and the power-hungry loves power; these are the strategies of the mind to avoid the beyond. And the otherworldly person escapes from the world. He wants to escape from any situation where love may happen. My sannyasin has to open himself up for love to come. He is not to escape into the search for money, power, prestige, and he is not to escape to the...

... one day." And it lasted only one day. The first case was about a thief who had stolen money from the richest man in China. The man was so rich that even the emperor used to borrow money from him. Lao Tzu listened to the whole case and gave his judgment: "Six months jail for both the rich man and the thief." The rich man said, "What?! My money is stolen and you are sending me to...

... jail?" Lao Tzu said, "I am looking at the whole thing as deeply as possible. This thief is a secondary criminal, you are the primary criminal. You have collected all the money of the capital, you have deprived millions of people of money. Even if he had not stolen from you, you needed punishment. And I will not call this poor man a thief; he was simply distributing wealth to those to whom...

... he is telling me that 'You have been exploiting the money of the poor. Where will they get money? Except by stealing there seems to be no way!' So he calls me a primary criminal, and the thief only a by-product. "I warn you, if I go to jail, it will not be long before you will be coming to jail too, because you have been committing murders, you have been raping women, you have been collecting...

... not medicine. If you are fighting with somebody it will not help, it is not an atom bomb. Of what use is laughter? That's why the people who look at life with the eyes of a utilitarian don't laugh. They don't love, because what use is love? To them it is wastage, a wastage of energy, time, life. To them it is stupid because it is useless. They earn money rather than falling in love, because money is...

...? And I say to them, "You are not going to get anything out of it." Meditation is not a means to some end, it is an end unto itself - that's why it has no utility. What utility is there in poetry? That's why in the countries where people become too money-minded poetry starts disappearing. Have you watched it happening in America? Politicians, rich people, businessmen - they live long; poets...

.... He becomes part of the junk. Slowly, slowly he starts shrinking. He starts feeling, "Now only death can relieve me of this uselessness." That's why in America poets and novelists die young. Poetry is not respected. Where money is respected, poetry can't be respected. Money is useful; of what use is poetry? When somebody becomes a poet his family feels very sad. A man was saying to me...

... something useless, useless in worldly eyes. Because it can't be reduced into a commodity, that's why they call it useless. Now if you invent something, a gadget, you can patent it and you can earn money out of it. But if you write a beautiful poem you can't earn any money out of it; it is just wastage. People say, "What are you doing? Why are you wasting your life?" But writing poetry - if you...

... values in life. One is intrinsic value. You sing a song -- it has an intrinsic value, it is the means and it is the end also. Or you sing a song in the marketplace to earn a little money. That money is not intrinsic to the song, that money is an outside value. And if you are singing your song only for the money, the activity is no longer holy, it is profane. If you are singing your song for the...

... happiness that it brings to you.... Maybe as a by-product it brings money also, but that is irrelevant. If it brings, it is good, if it does not bring, that too is good -- but your activity has an inner glow to it, it is intrinsically valuable in itself. If you are happy that you could sing, you are happy that you had an opportunity to sing, then every day will become meditative, holy. If you are doing...

... Jacobs, I need fifty dollars to get out of debt,' sobbed Gottlieb. 'I keep praying to God for help but he doesn't send it!' 'Don't lose faith,' said the rabbi. 'Keep praying.' After Gottlieb left his house, the rabbi felt sorry for him. 'I don't make much money,' he thought, 'but that poor man needs it. I'll give him twenty-five dollars out of my own pocket.' A week later, the rabbi stopped Gottlieb...

... and said, 'Here, God sent this to you!' Back in his home, Gottlieb bowed his head. 'Thank you, Lord!' he said. 'But next time you send money, don't send it through Rabbi Jacobs -- that crook kept half of it.' So please be direct. Don't bring me in. Otherwise some day or other you are going to be angry with me. From the very beginning it is better to be clear. This man is going to take sannyas some...

... business and I want it done in my way or not at all." The broker went off in despair to talk with the girl. "I have got you a fine fellow," he said, "with lots of money. But strictly business he is, and he don't do nothing blind. He must have a sample." "Listen," said the girl. "I am as smart in business as he is. Samples I won't give him - references I will!"...

... virtuous things which you can afford. If you exploit people, you can always give a portion back to them. I have heard: In a church the priest was telling the people, "The building is getting very old and we need money." Nobody responded - all businessmen! Everybody was looking at each other; everybody was waiting and expecting that somebody would be foolish enough. And then a woman stood up...

... - the prostitute of the town! - and she said, "I donate ten thousand dollars to the church." The priest could not believe his ears, his eyes! For a moment he was in shock, and then he said, "But I cannot accept your money - I cannot accept any wrong money." One businessman stood up and said, "You don't worry, that is our money! It is only coming via her - you can accept it...

...!" You can donate a little bit to the church, to some charitable institution, you can give some money to the poor people. These are the consolations. And a place for you will be reserved in heaven. Don't be such a fool - heaven is not so cheap. In fact, there is no place like heaven anywhere; it is something inside you. No charity can lead you there, but if you reach there your whole life becomes...

... this cave be yours? I don't see - this is a natural cave. You don't claim it, you can't claim it - you have not made it. And you have renounced the world, your house, your wife, your children, your money, and everything, and now you are claiming, 'This is MY cave - you get out of it!' This is nobody's cave!" He was very angry. He said, "You don't know me - I am a dangerous man! I can't...

... where, what is our source and the cause of our journey into life, into body, in the world, and what we have attained up to now. And if a tidal wave comes - and it is going to come, it always comes; its name is death - all will be gone: children, family, name, fame, money, power, prestige. All will be gone in a single moment and you will be left alone, utterly alone. All that you had done will be...

... knowledge. And it is not that the ego does not claim knowledge; it claims. The ego is very knowledgeable, it collects information. It is a great collector: it collects money, it collects information, it collects every kind of thing. It believes in accumulation. It is greed and nothing but greed; ego is another name for greed. It wants to possess, but all that you possess will be gone. And all that you...

... can do for humanity? I have much money, no children, the wife has died, I am alone. I can do much." Buddha looked at him with very sad eyes and remained silent. The man said, "Why are you silent? Why don't you speak? You always talk about compassion, and I am here ready to do something. Whatsoever you say I will do. Don't be worried - I have enough money! Just give me any task and I will...

... do it." Buddha said, "I understand what you are saying, but I am feeling sad: you cannot do a thing because you still are not. Before one can do something, one has to be. It is not a question of money that you have - but that YOU are not!" That quality of compassion is a shadow of being, and the being is missing. The ego can never be compassionate. The ego is cruel; even in its games...

... the hit of the Master, th. disciple has become enlightened - in a single moment, in a single lightning experience. Buddha said, "You cannot do anything. I know about your money, I have heard about you, but when I look into you I feel very sad for you. You want to do something, but the element that can do something is missing. All that you can do is dream." That's why Vishnu says, "It...

... reason at all you suddenly feel yourself joyous. In ordinary life, if there is some reason you are joyful. You have met a beautiful woman and you are joyous, or you have got the money that you always wanted and you are joyous, or you have purchased the house with a beautiful garden and you are joyous - but these joys cannot last long. They are momentary, they cannot remain continuous and uninterrupted...