... emperor of the whole world. And he laughed at our foolishness - that we had come with naked swords, and he was not afraid at all. And he said, 'You can kill my body but you cannot kill me."' Alexander became intrigued; he went to see this naked sannyasin. He was impressed, greatly impressed, and he said, "You will have to come with me. This is my order!" But the sannyasin said, "The...

... day I became a sannyasin I stopped receiving any orders from anybody. I am a free man, I am not a slave. Nobody can order me. You can kill me but you cannot order me." Alexander was angry. He took his sword out and he said, "I will immediately cut off your head!" And the sannyasin started laughing again. And he said, "You can cut it off, because in fact I have cut it off long ago...

... myself I am a dead man." Now this is the meaning of real sannyas: a dead man. And the man said, "How can you kill a dead man? It would be utter foolishness. How can you kill a dead man? A dead man is dead, he cannot die anymore. All is already finished. You came a little late; I exist no more. Yes, you can cut off the head - you will see the head falling on the sands. I will also watch the...

... the people are joyous: "Great austerity is being done." The man is simply a perverted psychopath. He needs electro-shocks; nothing less will do. There is a certain kind of madness in which people start pulling their hair. And you know, if you are a husband your wife sometimes tries it when she is in a rage, mad. Women try it more because they have been taught not to hit their husbands...

.... Then what to do? They want to hit and the husband cannot be hit. The scriptures say your husband is your god, and she knows it is all bullshit but the scriptures are the scriptures. She knows the husband perfectly well - that if he is a god, then who will the devil be? But it is not to be said; she has to touch his feet. When she writes love letters to the husband she has to sign 'your slave', and...

... she knows who the slave is! Everybody knows in fact, but it is a formality. And if she hits the husband guilt arises that she has done something irreligious, something like a sin, so she cannot hit the husband. But she WANTS to hit! Now what to do? Either she breaks plates - and that is costly, and she herself suffers that way, that is not of any use - or the easiest way, the cheapest way...

..., economical, is to beat oneself, pull one's hair, throw oneself against the wall, hit the head against the wall; this is the cheapest. She wanted to hit the husband's head but she could not do it, it is not allowed; it is immoral. Who has taught her this idea? - the husbands and their priests and their politicians. If you go into a madhouse you will find many people pulling their hair. There is a certain...

... other commune members. She has attempted to kill the whole city of Dalles. Naturally she must be in a paranoia, that she will be killed. Anybody who commits crime like murder, dosing people with poison, throwing poison into water systems, is bound to have the fear that she is going to be killed. But we are not to going to do anything to her. Nobody here is a murderer. She is the murderer; and after...

.... When things became too much, she became afraid of three other persons who were also capable of approaching me -- my physician, my dentist, my caretaker. She became afraid that these people may start informing me that, "Sheela is doing something not according to Your wish, that the meditation commune is turning into a concentration camp." At that point she started to think how to kill these...

..., but they could not figure it out -- from where it came, who the man was, who killed him. And it remained a mystery and died out. Only just now, when people started revealing... when Sheela left and their fear disappeared that they will not be punished and they will not be thrown away, or perhaps they may not be even killed.... Because she killed that man and then she tried to kill three other people...

... sick, she vomited the whole night, for three days she has to rest; but still we did not think of poison -- for the simple reason because if I come at your home and you give me a cup of tea, there is no reason to believe that she will kill me. For what reason? But then the same thing happened with my physician. Because he is a physician, he became aware that there is poison in the coffee. So he...

... WERE USING? A:* They have been using the book. When Sheela left, in her room a whole literature on poisons, whole literature on how to murder people so that you cannot be caught, in what doses you have to give the poison, and particularly that poison which were -- medical people were suspecting, that page was underlined. So it seems they have been using that poison, no way to detect it. Q:* IF THEY...

... WERE USING IT AND THEY UNDERSTOOD HOW TO USE IT, WHY DIDN'T THEY USE ENOUGH TO KILL? WHY JUST USE ENOUGH TO MAKE SOMEONE SICK? A:* Yes. The reason was that if suddenly you kill somebody who was not sick, then there will be suspicion. You have to give the poison slowly so he becomes weaker. And slowly, within three, four months he dies almost like a natural death. That was the reason. And that is...

... retarded people, not for intelligent people who can do better things. We don't want it. And those guns look so ugly. We want the whole place to be full of roses, not full of guns. But, the problem is that if we remove those guns.... Just one day we experimented, yesterday. In the morning discourse, two security people stand by the podium where I speak. We removed them. It doesn't look right. I'm talking...

... stupid... that I should commit suicide for a Rolls Royce? Q:* SHEELA SAYS THAT SHE'S AFRAID FOR HER LIFE RIGHT NOW. SHE'S AFRAID FOR HER LIFE BECAUSE SHE FEARS THAT YOU WILL HAVE HER KILLED. AND SHE BELIEVES THAT YOU'LL HAVE HER KILLED. HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO THAT? A:* She must be afraid, because every murderer is always afraid of his life. She has killed one man here. She has attempted to kill three...

... books on murdering, how to murder people without getting caught. And we have found an underground tunnel in her room, that she was prepared completely to murder somebody or in any case if police comes she can escape. So her fear has reason, and the reason is her own crimes are following her like a shadow. Every murderer is followed by his own guilt. Q:* HOW LONG AGO DID SHEELA'S FIRST HUSBAND DIE? A...

... kill their animals, so he does not send those lightning thunderbolts to their villages. It is out of fear that all gods are born, out of fear and out of ignorance. So first, something about lightning.... IN ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS, THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE CHRIST, SOME PEOPLE BELIEVED THAT THUNDER AND LIGHTNING WERE DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE POWER AND WRATH OF THE GODS. IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY, LIGHTNING WAS...

... keeping you here. Some immense possibility of finding the truth, of experiencing the beauty, of knowing the meaning of life. Question 1: Maneesha has asked a question: BELOVED OSHO, HAS ONE ONLY RECEIVED A HIT IF IT HURTS? Maneesha, a master hits not to hurt but to heal. And a disciple receives the hit with tremendous gratitude, not with anger. Unless a hit is received with gratitude it cannot do its...

... from all the wounds is absolutely necessary. Those wounds have to be brought into the open. You are asking, "Has one only received a hit if it hurts?" No, Maneesha. If it hurts you have missed. If it does not hurt but creates a gratitude, a love, it heals. LAST NIGHT I DID NOT FEEL HURT. You are an old sinner, Maneesha. You have been with this strange man long enough. But you don't know...

... saying: I SAW THE TRUTH OF WHAT YOU SAID BUT DID NOT HATE MYSELF OR STOP LOVING YOU. DID I MISS? No, Maneesha, fortunately you did not miss. I KNOW YOU WILL HIT ME AGAIN IF I NEED IT - AND THIS TIME I DON'T HAVE THE EXCUSE OF A MIGRAINE. Look where your migraine has gone! Now, when everybody is in meditation, Zareen has to throw it as far away as possible. Whoever deserves it will get it! And I promise...

... you, Maneesha, whether you need it or not I will hit. Just for sheer joy! Now today's time is devoted to Zareen.... Little Ernie swaggers into the bar and shouts to the shapely barmaid, "Gimme a triple scotch on the rocks!" "Hey, kid," says the barmaid. "You don't look to be more than seven years old. Do you want to get me into trouble or something?" "Maybe later...

..., "It is strange -- monkeys have never visited this house..." The whole night he tried, but he could not repeat this simple mantra Om mani padme hum without monkeys jumping in. By the morning he was so tired. He said, "This old saint, I will kill him! What kind of key...?" In the morning he rushed to the old saint and said, "Please take away your key. I am almost mad!" The...

... informed, and they said, "We can send our man. But his fee is ten thousand dollars plus all traveling expenses." The industrialist was losing thousands of dollars every day. He agreed; he said, "Send him immediately, right now." The man came from the airport and without wasting a single moment, he took from his handbag a small hammer and hit the machine at a certain point and it...

... started working. The owner of the factory said, "But this is too much! Ten thousand dollars just for hitting it with this little hammer?" The expert said, "No, for hitting with the hammer just one dollar will do. The real thing is knowing where to hit." It is true, ZEN IS NOT SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS. IT IS JUST HITTING AND PIERCING THROUGH. But don't believe in Bukko. The point is where...

... to hit. It is not mysterious, but the problem is where to hit. Once you hit at the right time, at the right place, it is really very simple; there is nothing mysterious about it. That's what I have been continuously trying to get you to experience, because there is no way to tell you where to hit. Everybody has to find the place by going deeper into himself, seeing where the light is coming from...

... no need, when the police is present, it should be a police case. But still the man was freed by the court. There has been no attempt of murder. That made it clear that single man who has tried to kill me was not alone; that the whole society, the politics, the religions, were behind him. If they can deny seven thousand eye witnesses, if they can deny twenty police officers, their own top-ranking...

... kinds of difficulties. And it was easy; because I was teaching my people against all religions, all politics, all theologies. Naturally, they all joined hands - against me, against the commune. They tried even to kill me. And there is a strange parallel, that can show you that howsoever India and America may differ, that the basic animality is the same. They made an attempt on my life, seven thousand...

... were fighting the case, and we would have won the case. And they were afraid of it, that if we won the case then there is no way to destroy us. So they went on postponing the dates, and meanwhile they were thinking somehow either to throw me out of America, or to kill me, so that the whole problem is solved. If I am not there, the people who love me will leave, and will go wherever I am. And that's...

.... The greatest power of the world - they are the fighters; but unconsciously, truth came out of it. That's what was in their mind. Unknowingly they put it on the paper, and exposed themselves, that their whole effort was to destroy me. They could not arrest me in the commune; they knew that to arrest me in the commune will mean bloodshed. Not that my people were going to kill them, but my five...

... U.S. Marshall has forced. What can be the cause behind forcing? This has never been done. The cause can be only one; that you can kill me and no trace may be found. Because on the register it is David Washington, on the board it is David Washington, on my cell it is David Washington. And you could have released David Washington. I asked the U.S. Marshall, "Can I contact my attorney?" He...

... become drunkards. They have nothing else to do. So gamble, fight, murder, rape, and drink. Now this is a more psychological strategy than barbed wires, which you can cross very easily. But this you cannot cross very easily. Now to fight for freedom, who is going to fight for freedom. They are all drunk. "America has destroyed the natives of America as profoundly as nobody has done ever. And nobody...

... my body... just to remove her, so that she could put in somebody who would only report what Sheela wanted - her own person. She poisoned Devaraj, my personal physician, to kill him, so that another doctor could be put in his place who would report to me only things which Sheela wanted. Man's mind is such. And when she found that I had become aware that she had bugged at least two hundred houses in...

... things that she was doing should not be done. If you cannot trust your own people and you have to bug two hundred houses, then whom are you going to trust? If you have to tap everybody's phone, then it has become almost a fascist state. I was going to tell her to remove all these bugs, all these tappings; I was not going to replace her. She was capable, and there was nobody else who was more capable...

... be violent you need to be powerful. To fulfill your greed you need to be powerful. To satisfy your passions you need to be powerful. So when power happens into your hands, all your sleeping dogs start barking. Power becomes a nourishment to you, an opportunity. It is not that power corrupts, you are corrupted. Power only brings your corruption into the open. You wanted to kill somebody, but you had...

... not the power to kill; but if you have the power, you will kill. It is not power that corrupts you, corruption you carry within yourself; power simply gives you the opportunity to do whatever you want to do. Power in the hands of a man like Gautam Buddha will not corrupt; on the contrary, it will help humanity to raise its consciousness. Power in the hands of Genghis Khan destroys people, rapes...

... over the country. Just the other day I was reading a report that there are cases found... but the government goes on hiding those facts. For the first time it has been accepted, because it has become too much, that teachers have hit the children so hard that they have become deaf for their whole lives. One boy... his own father chained him; almost for ten years he remained chained, tied to a pillar...

... interest, the liar has to go on preaching morality. 'Speak the truth, never steal, do this, do that' - and from the back door he goes on doing just the opposite. This has to be understood. If somebody's pocket is picked right now - somebody steals - then many will be there shouting 'Catch the thief! Kill the thief! Who is there?' And many will shout. Remember, the shouters are just showing one thing...

... each breath you kill many many small cells living around you in the air. They are true. That's why the doctor has to use a mask, so that he does not go on inhaling things which are moving around - infections. That Jain sect is afraid to breathe. Breathing becomes immoral. Walking becomes immoral - there are Jains who don't walk in the night because they may kill something, an ant or something, in the...

... fast, is it moral or immoral? There are people who say to fast is moral, and there are people who say to fast is immoral. Why? - because when you fast you kill many cells inside, because they die of starvation. If you fast, then one kilo in weight disappears every day. You are killing many things inside you. One kilo in weight disappears every day. Within a month you will be just a structure of bones...

... his own urine. That is a far worse case! But he wants to bring prohibition on the country. He wants to put it through force. Maybe because he has not been drinking... He wants to take revenge on others, on what? Puritans are always ugly people. They don't live, but then they don't allow anybody else to live. Their only joy is how to kill other people's joys, how to kill everybody's celebration. Now...

..., but if you don't commit it to action, no court can punish you because it never becomes a crime. And only crime is within the jurisdiction of the court, not sin. Then what is sin? Sin is if you think 'I would like to murder this man.' No court can do anything. You can say 'Yes, I have been thinking of it my whole life' - but thinking is beyond the court's jurisdiction. You are allowed to think. No...

..., enjoying this murder. Not that they were interested in punishing somebody who had committed a sin; that was just an excuse. They could not leave this opportunity of murdering this woman. And now Moses can be used. There are a thousand and one things said by Moses. They are not worried about them. They are not interested in all those sayings and all those statements. They are interested in this: that...

... Moses says you can stone a woman if you catch hold of her in adultery. They can't miss this great opportunity of murder, of violence. And when violence can be committed according to the law, who would like to miss it? Not only will they enjoy the violence, they will enjoy that they are very very legal people, virtuous followers of Moses. But they have all forgotten about it. Just a little turning by...

... says 'Look into yourself. If you have never committed a sin, then... then you are allowed, then you can kill this woman.' WHEN JESUS HAD LIFTED UP HIMSELF... he saw they had all gone ... EVEN UNTO THE LAST: AND JESUS WAS LEFT ALONE, AND THE WOMAN STANDING IN THE MIDST. WHEN JESUS HAD LIFTED UP HIMSELF, AND SAW NONE BUT THE WOMAN, HE SAID UNTO HER, WOMAN, WHERE ARE THOSE THINE ACCUSERS? Now he is not...

..., those accusers disappeared. This man did a miracle! Not only that they didn't kill her, they simply became ashamed and escaped like thieves into the darkness of the night. This man is a magician. And now, he is saying 'I don't condemn you. If you feel you have been doing something wrong, don't do it again. That's enough.' He has converted the woman. This is what acid people call a 'contact high...

... immediately hushed him. That's what fathers have been doing down the ages. The fifth question: Question 5: WHY DON'T YOU HIT ME? I FEEL READY. I DON'T accept your recommendation. If you feel ready it means you are not ready. This is your ego assertion that you are ready. One who is ready will never assert because readiness comes through non-ego. One who is ready will be humble and meek, one who is ready...

... will stand at the back of the queue. He will not try to come first. Remember, those who are the last will be the first and those who are trying hard to be the first will be the last. There is no need to come and propagate that you are ready. If you are ready I will know first, you will not know first. So leave it to me. In fact, this is greed - and a very strange human mind. When I hit, people don't...

... feel good. Ananda Prem felt terrible, so was the case with fat Veena - so-called fat Veena, she is not so fat. She cried the whole morning. And so was the case with Amida. When I was talking here she was feeling terrible. When I hit, you feel terrible. But when I don't hit, you ask for it... because sometimes the mind is so cunning that it starts thinking that by being hit you will become special...

.... That will be a proof that you are ready, ripe. That will be a proof that now you deserve to be hit. This is ego. And ego is the only barrier. And it is the ego that doesn't allow you to change. I am not interested in little changes here, I am not interested in reforming you - I am interested in destroying you utterly so that something utterly new is born. Less than that won't do. What you want is for...

... your ego to be decorated with a few medals so that you can go out and you can say, 'See, Osho has hit me - and harder than anybody has ever been hit before. I am special.' This desire to be special is a disease. And sometimes it happens that this desire to be special can lead you to become humble too. Because I say that those who are the last will be the first, you can start competing for the last...

... is who is so meek, so humble, who it is who is standing at the back of the queue. If even that much desire is there the ego is completely alive, thriving. Nothing has changed. Only a total change is a change. And you need not suggest to me what I should do. You leave it to me. When the time is ripe and I feel you need a hit on the head I will do it. I will never do it because you ask, I will do it...

... when it is needed. You cannot understand what is needed. Again and again you misunderstand your want as a need. Your want is not a need. I understand that you want it but you want it for wrong reasons. I will give the hit when you need it, not because you want it. And when all your wanting has disappeared you will need it - when you are not at all aware about it then it comes suddenly, it comes...

... abruptly. Only then is it meaningful. You have asked a question.... If you are waiting and I come there and hit you on your head it will be meaningless. You were waiting for it, you were expecting it, you will be thrilled, your ego will become a big balloon. You will go around with a big chest saying, 'See what happened? I am ready.' God comes to you only when you are not expecting him at all. He comes...

... like a pebble in the lake; when the child breathes the navel center is hit. The first pebble has been thrown in the silent lake, and the ripples go on spreading. Your whole life you go on spreading. Nearabout the age of thirty-five your aura is completed, at its peak. Then it starts subsiding. When a person dies it goes back to the navel. When it reaches the navel, it becomes a concentrated energy, a...

... master claims nothing. He cannot say, 'I am superior.' It is foolish. How can a wise man say, 'I am superior'? So a zen master even allows this -- a disciple to hit him -- and he can enjoy the whole thing. Nobody else in the world has done that; that's why zen masters are rare -- you cannot find rarer flowers than them. The master is so superior really that he allows you even to hit him; his...

... do proper things? And if you force proper things on an improper person, he will be crippled, his freedom will be cut. And a master is to help you to be free -- so hitting is allowed. In fact it is not irreverence; in fact the disciple also loves the master so much, so intimately, that he can come so close. Even hitting a person is a sort of intimacy -- you cannot hit just anybody. Sometimes it...

... the master going back to the monastery he said: 'BY GOD, IF YOU DON'T ANSWER MY QUESTION, WHY I'LL BEAT YOU!' 'ALL RIGHT,' SAID DOGO, 'BEAT AWAY.' Be finished with it! If you are angry, then be finished with it. A master is always ready to bring all that is in you out, even your negativity. Even if you are going to hit him he will allow you to. Who knows -- in hitting the master you may become aware...

.... The very line is the same: 'I'M NOT SAYING,' HE SAID, 'AND THAT'S FINAL.' He again created the same situation. It was easy to fight with a Dogo, it is not easy to fight with Sekiso. He is not Zengen's master. It was easy to hit Dogo, it will not be possible to hit Sekiso. It is enough that he answers. It is his compassion; he is not bound to answer. An intimacy was there between Dogo and this...

... in the story. With Dogo, Zengen became hot, but couldn't evaporate. It was not enough, he needed one more situation, or he may have been in need of many more situations. Then with Sekiso -- the same situation, and suddenly something is hit. Suddenly the focus changes, the gestalt. Up to this point he had been thinking that it was his question to which Dogo had not replied. He had been egocentric...

... it, now buddhas will become meaningful. Now if Zengen meets Dogo again he will not hit him, he will fall at his feet and ask for his forgiveness. Now he will weep millions of tears, because now he will say, 'What compassion Dogo had, that he allowed me to hit him; that he said, "Okay, you go ahead. Beat away!"' If he meets Dogo again, Zengen will not be the same. He has now tasted...

...." The idea of the ego is always to kill and destroy. Why? Because once a thing is destroyed you are in control. You can control only dead things. That's why people worship dead gods in the temples, and they worship dead masters. When Buddha is alive they will not worship him, they will worship Krishna. When Buddha is gone they will worship Buddha, they will not worship Christ. When Christ is gone...

... hit me? And I had not done anything!" And I asked him, "Now say "How cute!"" Then it doesn't look cute. Knowledge is cheap, you DON'T pay anything for it. Learning is hard, arduous; you have to pay for it. Inch by inch, you have to die into it. Knowledge is accumulation, learning is not really accumulation at all - on the contrary, it is just a reverse process. The master...

... and manufacture the child to your heart's desire. That is the only way you can take revenge on your mother; there is no other way. I have heard a story; it happened in the court of the great Akbar. He had a very wise man, Birbal, with him. They were standing and talking about something, and Birbal said something and Akbar became so angry that he hit him hard on the face, slapped him, before the...

... court. Birbal was red with rage, but to hit back would be too costly. But if you DON'T do anything, that looks too humiliating. So he hit somebody else who was standing by his side - he hit him back. And the man said, "But why are you hitting me?" Birbal said, "Hand it on to somebody else." That's how things happen. Now, your mother has hit you hard - you are still crying. You want...

... to hit somebody, you want to hand it all over; you will be relieved. Your parents are still alive in you. Your teachers, primary-school teachers - who knew nothing much, otherwise why should they have been primary-school teachers? - they are still alive and dominating you. Your college professors, they knew nothing, they were as borrowed as you are. It is very rare to find a man who knows himself...

... going to destroy a Mohammedan mosque you are ready to destroy it, because you are a Hindu and whatsoever the Hindu crowd is doing is right. If the Mohammedan crowd is going to kill Hindus you are ready to kill Hindus. Down the ages, the so-called religious people have been such great murderers. They talk about love and they create hate and nothing else. They talk about peace and they create war. Look...