...: N.A. BELOVED OSHO, DO NOT GRASP ANOTHER'S BOW. ACTIVELY TRY TO CLEAR OUT YOUR MIND, THEN YOU WON'T GO WRONG; SINCE YOU DON'T GO WRONG, CORRECT MINDFULNESS STANDS OUT ALONE. WHEN CORRECT MINDFULNESS STANDS OUT ALONE, INNER TRUTH ADAPTS TO PHENOMENA; WHEN INNER TRUTH ADAPTS TO EVENTS AND THINGS, EVENTS AND THINGS COME TO FUSE IN INNER TRUTH. WHEN PHENOMENA FUSE WITH THEIR INNER TRUTH, YOU SAVE POWER...

...; WHEN YOU FEEL THE SAVING, THIS IS THE EMPOWERMENT OF STUDYING THE PATH. IN GAINING POWER YOU SAVE UNLIMITED POWER; IN SAVING POWER YOU GAIN UNLIMITED POWER. THIS MATTER MAY BE TAKEN UP BY BRILLIANT, QUICK-WITTED FOLKS, BUT IF YOU DEPEND ON YOUR BRILLIANCE AND QUICK WITS, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO BEAR UP. IT IS EASY FOR KEEN AND BRIGHT PEOPLE TO ENTER, BUT HARD FOR THEM TO PRESERVE IT. THAT'S BECAUSE...

... GENERALLY THEIR ENTRY IS NOT VERY DEEP AND THE POWER IS MEAGER. WITH THE INTELLIGENT AND QUICK-WITTED, AS SOON AS THEY HEAR A SPIRITUAL FRIEND MENTION THIS MATTER THEIR EYES STIR IMMEDIATELY, AND THEY ARE ALREADY TRYING TO GAIN UNDERSTANDING THROUGH THEIR MIND'S DISCRIMINATING INTELLECT. PEOPLE LIKE THIS ARE CREATING THEIR OWN HINDRANCES, AND WILL NEVER HAVE A MOMENT OF AWAKENING. "WHEN DEVILS FROM...

... as the sky itself. But Ta Hui has no understanding yet. He is still talking like a thinker. WHEN CORRECT MINDFULNESS STANDS OUT ALONE, INNER TRUTH ADAPTS TO PHENOMENA; WHEN INNER TRUTH ADAPTS TO EVENTS AND THINGS, EVENTS AND THINGS COME TO FUSE IN INNER TRUTH. WHEN PHENOMENA FUSE WITH THEIR INNER TRUTH, YOU SAVE POWER. That too has to be understood. Power from the lips of Ta Hui is not the same...

... power about which a Gautam Buddha may talk. Power -- according to the mind -- is always power over others. Mind is continuously trying to dominate, to enslave, to be powerful over others, because mind has no power of its own. All its power is borrowed. What does the prime minister of any country have as his power? Just the votes that he has begged. He is really the greatest beggar in the country. All...

... his power belongs to the people; he does not have any power of his own. So when the mind talks about power, it talks about politics, it talks about domination, it talks about possessiveness; it talks about increasing your empire of riches, of power, of prestige, in whatever way, so you can become a dominant figure. But the power that the awakened one talks about is not power over others. He talks...

... about it as an intrinsic explosion, just like the atomic explosion. It is not the power that is coming from outside; it is the power that was deep inside the atomic cell. Because the atom has exploded, the power is all over the place. A very strange piece of information has come to me just the other day ... a Japanese scientist had been continuously watching, studying the effects of atomic energy and...

... younger. The power of the atomic bomb is not power coming from outside; it is the power of the atom which was dormant, sleeping, and has been awakened. If this is possible through the atom -- which is part of electricity, just a small particle -- what is possible if we can explode the living being of a man? A small particle of his consciousness, if it explodes, is going to bring so much light and so...

... much power. Perhaps the mystics who have always been talking about power were talking about the power that they were feeling inside themselves. It has nothing to do with dominating anybody. Their power has been used as compassion, their power has been used for showering flowers over others. Their power has not ever been used for any destructive purpose, in the service of death. But the word 'power...

...' itself is dangerous, because ordinarily its association is with politics. When Ta Hui uses the word power he does not understand that the mystics have used it in a different way, totally opposite. He says, WHEN PHENOMENA FUSE WITH THEIR INNER TRUTH, YOU SAVE POWER; WHEN YOU FEEL THE SAVING THIS IS THE EMPOWERMENT OF STUDYING THE PATH. IN GAINING POWER YOU SAVE UNLIMITED POWER; IN SAVING POWER YOU GAIN...

... UNLIMITED POWER. The way he is saying it is clear: unlimited power -- over whom? Why this emphasis on power? The power that comes out of meditation does not come as power. It comes as if flowers are showering on you; it comes as fragrance, it comes as love, it comes as compassion. It brings all the great qualities and all the great values of life suddenly to their blossoming. It is the spring of your...

... consciousness. Everything suddenly becomes green, everything becomes cool; the breeze becomes full of fragrance, because you are bursting forth into flowers which cannot be seen by the eye. But those who have the heart and the courage to open to it will certainly feel it. They will feel its song, they will feel its dance. But the word power is not to be used. It has been associated with wrong people -- they...

... have contaminated it. THIS MATTER MAY BE TAKEN UP BY BRILLIANT, QUICK-WITTED FOLKS ... and he himself is nothing but a brilliant, quick-witted folk ... BUT IF YOU DEPEND ON YOUR BRILLIANCE AND QUICK WITS, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO BEAR UP. IT IS EASY FOR KEEN AND BRIGHT PEOPLE TO ENTER, BUT HARD FOR THEM TO PRESERVE IT. THAT'S BECAUSE GENERALLY THEIR ENTRY IS NOT VERY DEEP AND THE POWER IS MEAGER. WITH...

... THE INTELLIGENT AND QUICK-WITTED, AS SOON AS THEY HEAR A SPIRITUAL FRIEND MENTION THIS MATTER, THEIR EYES STIR IMMEDIATELY AND THEY ARE ALREADY TRYING TO GAIN UNDERSTANDING THROUGH THEIR MIND'S DISCRIMINATING INTELLECT. Ta Hui has a misunderstanding. Mind has only one power and that is the discriminating intellect; it has no other power. Because of its discriminating intellect, mind is so useful in...

... consciousness he has, the whole credit goes to religion. Politics has been a curse, a calamity; and whatever is ugly in humanity, politics is responsible for. But the problem is that politics has power; religion has only love, peace and the experience of the divine. Politics can easily interfere with religion; and it has been interfering all along, to such an extent that it has destroyed many religious values...

... which are absolutely necessary for the survival of humanity and life on this earth. Religion has no mundane power like nuclear weapons and atom bombs and guns; its dimension is totally different. Religion is not a will to power; religion is a search for truth, for God. And the very search makes the religious man humble, simple, innocent. Politics has all the destructive weapons -- religion is...

... interfere with politics. Politics should have the whole monopoly to enslave humanity, to reduce men to slaves, to destroy their freedom, to destroy their consciousness; to convert them into robots so that the politicians can enjoy the power and the domination. Religion is the only problem for the politicians. It is beyond their reach and beyond their understanding. Religion is the only area where politics...

...? Ronald Reagan? -- these are all criminals. Rather than being in power, they should be behind bars; they are inhuman. And they are spiritually sick people. The will to power and to dominate arises only in the sick mind. It arises out of the inferiority complex. People who are not suffering from an inferiority complex do not care about power; their whole endeavor is for peace, because the meaning of life...

... can be known only in peace -- power is not the way. Peace, silence, gratitude, meditation -- these are the basic constituents of religion. Religion cannot be allowed to be dominated by stupid politicians. The situation is as if sick people are trying to dominate the physicians, directing what they should do and what they should not do. Accept it -- the sick people are in the majority, but that does...

...! Not only man, but the innocent birds and their songs, the silent trees and their flowers -- everything that is alive. Politicians have managed to create enough destructive power to destroy life from the earth; and they are continuously piling up more and more nuclear weapons. In fact, three years ago there were enough nuclear weapons to destroy every man seven times, to destroy this whole earth...

... seven times, or to destroy seven earths. A man dies only once; there is no need to accumulate so much destructive power. The whole of politics depends on lies. Just the other day -- I could not believe that any man who is sane can make such a statement -- Ronald Reagan made a statement. He was denying before the Senate, continually, that any weapons were being given to a few countries. And now...

... unqualified people in the world. Their only quality is that they can manage to befool the poor masses -- or, in poor countries, they can purchase their votes. And Only fools choose to be somebody once they are in power, they forget completely that they are servants of the people; they start behaving as if they are the masters of the people. What do they know about the inner world of man? What do they know...

... vastness of religious experience. There is no need for any separation. But the politician, as he is in power, becomes so egoistic that he cannot think of going to those humble, simple, but wise people. The problems go on increasing; the politicians have proved impotent to solve them. But they will not go to the people who can give them direction, who can give them advice because they have the clarity. I...

...; in China, they go on insisting that India is preparing nuclear weapons. In the parliaments, they go on saying, "We are not creating anything" -- but that is an absolute lie. The Chinese leader has to keep the people of China afraid. The Indian leader has to keep the Indian people afraid. The Pakistani leaders have to keep the Pakistani people afraid. In your fear is their power. The more...

... they make you afraid, the more powerful they are. Outside the country they go on creating fictions, and inside the country they also continue: Hindu and Mohammedan riots, riots between Hindi-speaking and non-Hindi-speaking people. They want you to continue fighting for anything -- any trivial thing. If you are engaged in fighting, they are in power. If you stop fighting, their power disappears. This...

..., he forgot all the promises that he had been talking about and the power game started again in the old style. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a brahmin; he was not a woman and he was not a sudra. Again, the brahmin becomes the power, and for forty years, one family of brahmins have been dominating India. They have made it almost their personal dynasty. It is no longer a democracy. Just look at the facts...

...: What was the hold of Mahatma Gandhi over the Indian people? He was pretending to be religious -- he was not a religious man -- pretending to be a Hindu saint, because Hindus were in the majority and they were going to rule the country. That's why he was insistent that India should remain undivided, because in an undivided India, Hindus will be in power; nobody can take the power from the hands of the...

... juice to break his fast. This is using religion in the service of politics. No religious man can do that. Only fools choose to be somebody The idea of India remaining whole and one was also nothing but politics being used in the service of Hindus, so that Mohammedans or Christians or Jainas or Sikhs will never be able to be in power. Hindus will remain in power -- they are in the majority. Jinnah, the...

... man who created Pakistan, was not a religious man at all; but he also used religion. He created the movement for Mohammedans to have a separate country; otherwise they could not be in power, ever. Suddenly he became a great Mohammedan, a great religious man. And in the name of religion, it was all politics: neither Mahatma Gandhi was religious nor Muhammadali Jinnah was religious. But both wanted...

... power. Since then, forty years have passed -- what have the politicians done to this country? When it became independent, the population was only four hundred million. They have not even been able to prevent the population explosion -- which is going to kill the country without any nuclear weapons. Now the population is more than double: nine hundred million people! And by the end of this century...

.... Politicians can only say beautiful lies, consoling lies, just to get your votes. The religious man has nothing to get from you; on the contrary, speaking the truth can be dangerous to his life -- it has always been so. Whenever truth is spoken, the man who has spoken it has been crucified. Politicians need power, not crucifixion. The world needs more religious people who are ready to say the truth even if...

... be humble -- their power should not make them blind. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; and all politicians are corrupted by their power. And what power do they have? They can kill you -- their power is the power of a butcher; nothing glorious, respectable. The religious man has a totally different quality of power. It is in his presence; it is in his great love and reverence...

... for life; it is in his gratitude to existence. We should not forget that the lower should remain within its own limits. And the wise people of the country should be asked to address the parliament as often as possible on problems which politicians cannot solve -- don't have even the brains to solve. But Rajiv Gandhi's intentions are totally different. He wants politics to be the only power...

... only talks about solving them because his power is dependent on how many problems you have. The more problems you have, the more miserable you are, the more powerful he is. To the religious consciousness, the more joyful you are, the more loving, the more rejoicing... He wants your life to be songs and to be a dance. Because that is the only way we should worship the source of life -- with our joy...

... anything that seems to be humanitarian. Just now we have been collecting the street people. These senators can become street people any day. Politicians are either in power or on the streets; there is no midway. Even a powerful politician like Indira Gandhi sent me a message: "I am persuading Rajiv to come to you because he is not willing to leave, to resign from his service as a pilot in the Indian...

... airlines." And Rajiv's argument is solid. He says, "The day you are not in power, then how are we going to run the family? We don't have our own house to live in. I am the only earning member - and in your old age, have I to see you on the streets?" She could not persuade him to resign. And his argument was absolutely clear, "Where will you be?" In the three years when she was...

... not in power and Morarji became the prime minister, it was Rajiv who pulled her through. At least she did not have to beg. Politics is a strange career. A few things are worth understanding about it, because they will throw light on the human mind. First: only a certain type of man becomes attracted towards politics, just as a certain kind of man becomes attracted towards science, poetry, painting...

... a pull, it is a magnet. It simply pulls you forcibly; you are not able to manage, or do anything about it. It is not in your hands to come down slowly or to come down fast. Everything falling towards the earth is absolutely helpless - the earth's gravitation will decide its rate of fall. And the earth is so vast, its power of gravitation is so vast, and we are not even light like a leaf. Even...

... criminal. The criminal is one who could not succeed in being a politician. Both are power-seekers, both are dominated by the will-to-power. The politician moves legally, constitutionally towards power, and once he has the power in his hands, then he can manipulate the law, the constitution and everything, in a thousand and one ways. He can corrupt and prostitute everything once he has power. But until he...

... has power he moves very legally, constitutionally, morally. The criminal is also after power, but he does not know how to move legally, constitutionally, morally. He is more wild, not so tamed as the politician. He is less cultured, not so cultured as the politician who uses culture as a steppingstone. He is not so articulate as the politician. The politician's basic art is to be articulate, to be...

... able to express your hopes, transforming them into his promises. He is so articulate that he goes on finding your conscious, your unconscious dreams and hopes, and translates them into promises for the future: that if you give him power, he is going to fulfill all these things.... It is a bargain: you give him power, and he will give you the promised land. Once you have given him power, who cares...

... about you? The man who had promised you was powerless. This is a totally different man; he is powerful. Lord Acton's saying I have been quoting again and again in my life: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." And Lord Acton is saying it through his own experience; he is not just philosophizing. He has known power, he has known its corruption, and because of its...

... corrupting influence he dropped out of it. Once you have power then all the corrupting forces that have been hidden in your unconscious start raising their heads. Who cares about others? Those promises were not given with an honest mind, they were given by you knowing perfectly well that they are not going to be fulfilled. It was just a policy to gain power, and you have gained power. Now you have your own...

... unconscious desires to be fulfilled. The politician can turn at any time into a criminal. We see it happening throughout history, and still we don't become aware. Joseph Stalin before he came to power was not a criminal. He had not killed a single human being, he was not a murderer. But what happened when he came to power? The first thing he did was to destroy the whole twelve-member committee, the...

... communist presidium which ruled over the whole communist party - the topmost leaders. He started killing them one by one. He killed Kamenev, then he killed Zinovyev, then he killed Trotsky. He went on killing them one by one, and while he was killing one, he took the support of all the others. And they all were happy that there was one less; the power was coming into fewer and fewer hands, and that was...

... where education was possible, so his father had left him there; he was a poor man. The monks at the monastery, out of compassion, accepted the boy, trained him, educated him - and this is what he turned out to be. After gaining power he must have killed millions of people. There is no way to count them; he simply went on killing. Anybody who was not for him was to be killed. There was no other...

... punishment. He made it very simple: "Either you are for me, or you are no more." The politician is basically a criminal. He is trying to find power through legal methods, that is the difference. The criminal does not bother about the legal methods, and gets caught. The politician never gets caught - or only once in a while like Nixon got caught in Watergate. And do you know what Mao Tse-tung said...

... when Nixon was caught? "What is this? So much fuss about nothing. Every politician is doing it!" In fact every politician is doing it. Watergate was not something exceptional that Nixon was doing. All over the world, all the politicians who are in power are doing the same kinds of things; they are just not getting caught. It was a misfortune that he got caught, and couldn't manage.... In...

... White House with such condemnation. But he accepted the condemnation, the worldwide notoriety, and did not drag the world into a war. He proved more a man than a politician, more human than any other politician would have proved. The criminal mind wants power because without power you cannot do anything. Just as the painter needs paints, and the poet needs a great vocabulary, language, the feel of...

... different words and their nuances, the subtle undercurrents that run through words, so the politician knows perfectly well, deep inside, why he is after power. If you are not going to paint and you go on collecting paints, then you are crazy. If you are not going to play music and you go on collecting all kinds of musical instruments, you are mad. Why power? Just the other day I told you that Jawaharlal...

.... Nobody else is going to do it for you, only you can do it. I can understand your ideas, but who is going to implement them? Join!" I said, "No, because I don't have any interest in gaining power. Whatever I have said to you was just exposing my heart because you have the capacity, the power to do things, the understanding to do things. I simply exposed my heart. I am finished! I am not going...

... to run after power. And I am not asking anybody else, I am asking you. If you feel I am right, then prove it by doing something." He said, "You are right, but I cannot do these things, because the people on whose support I am standing will not support any of the ideas which you are giving to me. If they come to know that I am going to implement these ideas, I will be simply thrown out...

... you have the power which you have got from so many people's support you have to fulfill all those people's desires. Somebody has supported you in order to get licenses, somebody has supported you to have an industry started, somebody has supported you for something else - now you have to fulfill their desires. Otherwise, as you are standing on their shoulders, they can move away. The topmost man is...

... a very weak person in a way; he has nothing above him to hold on to. Underneath are people who would not miss a single chance to throw this man out, because if they can throw out this man, then one of those three who are under him will come to the top. So he has to fulfill all kinds of criminal things. I know, because that's how Indira came to power: because she was living with her father. She was...

... weakness, his crimes against the society, his exploitation of others, his corruption... and yet on the outside he would go on keeping a pure white Gandhian face. She was collecting a file - she showed me the file - against every leader, and that was her power. When Jawaharlal died all these politicians were afraid of Indira because she had the key. She could expose anybody before the public, before the...

... court. She had all the evidence, she had all the letters. They were afraid of her for the simple reason that only she could save them; otherwise they would be exposed. That file was her power. I have looked into the file. All these people have been exploiting that poor country. They all have bank balances in foreign countries, in Switzerland, in America. They all have connections outside India, from...

... became free. He had never thought about it. He was just a soldier of the freedom movement, as were many thousands of others. He may have been shot, he may have been killed, he may have been sentenced to death - anything could have happened. There was no question of power. When the fight for freedom was over, then the question arose of who is to be in power? Till then there was no question of power at...

... could commit any crime. He did commit them when he became deputy prime minister. Even Jawaharlal could not stop him. And there were others, because in the freedom fight there were thousands of people of caliber. Jawaharlal was the only one who was not interested in politics, not interested in power. That's why Gandhi chose him, because to choose those people who were really interested in power.... In...

... fact their fight for freedom was not a fight for freedom but just a step to reach power. It was a shock to all the politicians because none of them had been chosen by Gandhi to be the prime minister; and Gandhi had total control of the Indian mind. Sardar Patel was shocked because he was very close to Gandhi and he was also a Gujarati - Gandhi was a Gujarati - and he had served Gandhi his whole life...

... with total trust. And at the last moment Gandhi simply said to Sardar, "You step down. Don't fight with Jawaharlal. I will make you deputy prime minister but let Jawaharlal be the prime minister. "Why?" Patel asked. And the reason that Gandhi gave was right. He said, "He is the only one who is not interested in power. You will all be fighting with each other; he is the only one...

... of choice; I belong to politics, and I am going into politics." From her father she learned one thing: that no politician can pull you down if you are incorruptible. Let all of them be corruptible, but you keep an eye out and go on collecting all data about them. And that was her whole power; they could not discredit her because she had never done anything wrong, and she could discredit all of...

... ANY SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE? A: They are not different people. They are the same type of people, with the same desire, the same lust for power. But they have chosen different areas. The politician has chosen the mundane world. It has been an unspoken contract that he will not interfere in the religious realm and he hopes that religion will not interfere in his world. The contract has...

... religious masses. But the poor people don't have any idea what kind of contract has been going on down the ages, that this contract is possible because both priest and politician are desirous of power. Lust for power is their common ground, and it is easier to divide so that they don't conflict, since that conflict may destroy the possibility of being in power for both. For example, in India, things have...

... category of people, the warriors, the kshatriyas. They have all the power, all the money, but they accept the priest as higher than themselves. They go and touch the feet of the priest because this way the masses who are following the priests and the religion are for the king. What humility, what humbleness! -- and it is sheer politics. The third class is that of the businessman. The brahmin is poor...

.... He does every kind of work that is needed by all these three classes. The businessman is the mediator. He exploits, he accumulates money. He is happy, although he is third in the position. He can purchase the king, he can purchase the brahmin; who bothers that he is third grade? He knows perfectly well that money is the highest power. The king is indebted to him and the priest has to depend on him...

... pays it; no king has ever paid back. There is no need. You cannot ask -- he has all power in his sword. For centuries he has been taking money and never paying it back, so whatever interest you want, he is willing to give. He is going to give neither the original money nor the interest. Nobody has ever done that; it is just not done. But the businessman can enjoy the idea that the king is indebted to...

... him. Without him he cannot rule the empire. It is his money and his power, and naturally he takes advantage of it. Licenses will be given to him, he will have first chance in every opportunity, because the king depends on him for money. It is a beautiful and very psychological arrangement that all feel great, all feel on the top. The sudra, who is the fourth, also feels deep down that without him...

..., but he understands that this is all just formality. It makes no difference. He is the real power. So everybody is deep down satisfied and that's why revolution never happened in India and cannot happen. In every country where revolution happens, it is the intelligentsia of the country which provokes it. They don't do the revolution, but they give the ideology. But in India, the brahmin is the...

... in India. The Communist party is one of the oldest parties in India, but it has no power because to the Indian mind it has no appeal. The brahmin is not going to listen, because the communists don't believe in God; they are irreligious people, immoral people. The warriors are not going to listen because they have power of their own; anybody who has power is not going to listen to the communists...

... because they want to distribute power and everything equally. Now if you have power, you would not like it to be distributed equally. The only joy in having power is that you are on the top and everybody else is below you; that you have succeeded in reaching to Everest and others are far below. You cannot accept the idea of distribution of power. The businessman cannot be for communists because his...

... only making shoes. They have never done anything else. They are not allowed to do anything else; the system is so strict that no movement is possible. A shoemaker's son, whatsoever he wants, cannot move into another profession. He will not be accepted anywhere. These politicians and priests are ambitious for power. There is another ambition - - the ambition for money, because that is also a power. So...

... there are three power lines. One is that of the priest, that he has a direct relationship with God; that he knows and you don't know; that he is wise and you are ignorant; that he is virtuous, and that is why he is born a brahmin, and you have committed sins in the past, that's why you are not in the first class. Everybody according to his actions. The second power line is the political power which in...

... the past in India -- and everywhere else, too -- was the power of the sword. And third is the power of money. These are the only three powers; and these three kinds of people, rather than fighting with each other, have divided their areas, which is simply intelligent. They have divided their areas and they don't interfere in each other's area. The great mass which is exploited by all the three in...

... different ways remains enslaved, goes on working for others, lives poor, dies poor, never knows anything of beauty, of music, of poetry. These things are not for the poor masses. My effort is to make it absolutely clear to the intelligent people of the world that these three are criminals. Anybody who has a will to power is a criminal. That is my definition of a criminal, anyone with the will to power...

.... And why do I say the will to power is criminal? Because will to power simply means power over others. The others have to be enslaved and exploited. The others have to be reduced into subhuman species. The others had the same potential but they are not allowed to actualize their potential. Will to power means that you want to become the master and reduce others into slaves. This can be done in...

... assassinated: "Hey, Rama! Oh, Rama!" The last word is addressed to that man who was not non-violent, who was not even human. There is no question of his being divine. This is something that the movement of sannyas has to do: to expose that these three groups, lusty for power, have been conspiring against the whole of humanity. It is time that we should understand and destroy their contract. And...

... that can be easily done: you just have to create more and more communes where there is no lust for power, where we are not against money, we are not against clothes, we are not against anything; where we want our sannyasins to live luxuriously, comfortably -- nobody is to exploit their labor and nobody is to dominate them -- and where the plumber is as much respected as the professor, there is no...

... easily experienced. In Russia you can see that the people's individuality has been destroyed completely. Rather than giving them freedom, they are completely enslaved; and classes have not disappeared -- just their names have changed. Now there are the people who are in power, the power elite, and the people who have no power. Russia has two classes, and movement between those two classes is as...

... difficult as it was in India. For sixty or seventy years after the revolution, most of the same group has remained in power. People went on dying, new people went on taking their places, but those new people were not from the masses. For example, when Stalin died, Khrushchev had been waiting just behind him for all those forty years, knowing that the moment Stalin died he would become the most powerful...

..., managing to put his own people in all strategic positions; because once Lenin died then his second man, Trotsky, would take over. That's why Lenin was kept alive; otherwise there was no need to give him small doses, just one dose would have been enough. He was kept alive so Trotsky could not come into power. And Stalin was only a secretary, he functioned on behalf of Lenin. He saw the moment it was time...

..., to Trotsky, to Kamenev, to Zinoviev, to all the people who were important, more important than him. And Stalin put his own people in, and the distance between him and those people was great. He always kept the distance the same. Nobody could think that he was a friend. Friends are dangerous in power politics because they are too intimate, too close, and dangerous. Khrushchev was just a worshipper...

... had spoken a single word against Stalin." But the same did happen to him. There is a company of power elites who have been running the whole show and they have all the power. They have the power of the priest because they have destroyed religion completely, there is no question of anybody being a priest. They have taken that role, also. Every book is published only by the government. Every...

... newspaper, every magazine, any information that is published is published by the government. The government is doing now what the priests had been doing before. The politician has taken over the area of the priest completely; now he is doubly powerful. He decides what is right and what is wrong, and he has taken the third power also in his hands, because everything is nationalized. And what does it...

... concentration camp. We have to create communes around the world as models where people can come and see that power is not a need at all, that you can rejoice without being powerful, that you need not enslave anybody. What you try to do by enslaving somebody can be done more easily just by being friendly, just by being more loving. There is no need of creating somebody as higher and somebody as lower...

.... It leaves you unique, and yet all inequality disappears. Here nobody is a priest, or everybody is a priest. Here nobody is for power, or everybody has power, there is no problem. If somebody wants to hang around his neck, "I am the president of this universe," nobody is going to object. People will really enjoy. Nobody is going to say to him, "This is not possible, you don't belong...

... YOUR TWIN BROTHER IN THAT PICTURE? A:* That's great! Now you can ask your questions! Q:* FOR THE AUDIENCE, I THINK THE CARTOON SAYS, THE MAN IS SAYING TO HIS WIFE, "YES, IT'S TRUE. THERE'S NO BOTTOM TO MY BAG OF TRICKS." WELL, IT'S AN AUSPICIOUS DAY, WHAT WITH OUR DISCOURSE THIS MORNING ABOUT POWER AND SHEELA. I'VE BEEN INVOLVED IN MANY ORGANIZATIONS, NONE OF THEM AS FASCINATING TO ME OR AS...

... COMPLEX AND AS PERHAPS FULL OF HEART AND LOVE AS THIS RANCH. I'VE BEEN IN GROUP PRACTICE, THE SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE FOR TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS WHERE WE TRY TO DEAL WITH POWER AND EQUALITY AND CREATIVITY, WITH SOME SUCCESS -- WE'VE SURVIVED. I'VE BEEN IN A FAMILY, I'VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH GROWTH CENTERS -- ESALEN SOMEWHAT IN ITS EARLY YEARS AND OTHERS -- AND STILL RETAINED THAT PERHAPS NAIVE CONCEPT OF...

... DEMOCRACY OF THIS DISTRIBUTION OF POWER, CHECKS AND BALANCES, INTERNAL CORRECTIVE PROCESSES, TO PREVENT POWER FROM BEING FOCUSSED, CAPTURED FOR TOO LONG BY ANY ONE PERSON OR GROUP OF PEOPLE. WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE RANCH AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT WOULD IN THE FUTURE PERHAPS MORE RAPIDLY DEAL WITH NON- PRODUCTIVE POWER CONSOLIDATION, THAT WOULD MORE RAPIDLY CONFRONT THE OVERCONCENTRATION OF POWER OR THE...

... MISUSE OF POWER, THE PROCESSES WITHIN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES THAT WOULD CORRECT THAT BEFORE AN INDIVIDUAL LEFT THE RANCH OR BEFORE YOU HAD TO INTERVENE? A:* The human mind is so old... its conditioning is of thousands of years. It takes a tremendous effort to detach yourself from the conditionings of the past. They are not only your past -- that is a very small fraction; beyond your past is the...

... collective past of humanity, which is almost infinite. And in this whole past you have been programmed -- programmed in such a way that lust for power has become almost natural. If you get the power, then you want more. And there is no end to more. And the more power you want, the more people are going to lose their freedom. Your power is their loss of freedom. If you become ultimately powerful, they will...

... become just slaves. So the real struggle is between the instinct of power and the value of freedom. It is possible to prevent it happening in a small commune like this. Simple methods can change it. What you are suggesting is a ultimate change -- change of their awareness: they become so conscious that no lust for power can raise its head in their psyche. That is a goal of all spiritual growth, but it...

... will happen when it will happen. Meanwhile, we have to take temporary steps. For example, decentralization of power; it should not be in one hand, it should be in many hands. It should not be concentrated, but diluted. There should be no hierarchy. Whatever one is doing -- he may be a doctor, a professor, a president of a corporation, a farmer, a gardener -- these are functions, they are not...

... years, and I was not in contact with the day to day activities of the commune, that Sheela could get into a power trip. But that too has been of immense significance, for the whole commune to learn something -- that how people can go on becoming more and more attached to power and how power goes on corrupting them... and it is a vicious circle. Power corrupts you, then corruption needs more power...

..., otherwise you will be exposed, more power needs more corruption.... Q:* WHAT PREVENTED THE SANNYASINS ON THEIR OWN FROM DEALING WITH THAT EARLIER? A:* There were many problems. First, the sannyasins here have not gathered for any political reason. They have come to me to be just in my presence, in my silence, and to learn ways how to be silent and more conscious. Q:* BUT MEANWHILE THEY ARE LIVING IN A...

... people are not any way power oriented, and they were thinking that whatever Sheela is doing she is doing on my instructions. That's what she was telling them. Certainly she was receiving few instructions from me, but it was at her discretion what instruction to use, what not to use, and it was in her hands to manage any instruction that I have not given. Just today I have come to know that she was...

..., because these people and their conversations on telephone are either simple gossips or some loving words to a friend.... Taping them is simply stupid. They are not plotting any conspiracy. But people who are power oriented are paranoid; they are always afraid that somebody is going to take over their place. Otherwise, bugging my room was absolutely stupid, because she was the only one who used to come...

... not be political, but that they should be aware that they are not being politically cheated, that somebody does not become -- on their account -- and takes advantage. This will not happen now. I will prepare them for that too, that they should keep an eye. Decentralization of power into many peoples hands will be one of the basic things. Second, the people should be taught that they do their...

... PEOPLE DO THAT, WE KNOW THEY DO THAT. WERE YOU SURPRISED? A:* No. I am not surprised. I am never surprised.... Q:* UH HUH. A:* Because I know human mind so clearly, that it can do any stupid thing -- there is no need to surprise. Q:* I GUESS MY HOPE IS THAT BY KNOWING THAT PEOPLE WILL DO ANY STUPID, EGO-ORIENTED, POWER TRIP OR PARANOID TRIP THAT THEN WE CAN SOMETIMES DESIGN STRATEGIES IN ADVANCE TO...

... PREVENT THAT FROM HAPPENING. A:* I will be doing it. It will be prevented -- it won't happen again. Q:* DECENTRALIZATION OF POWER IS ONE WAY -- OTHERS WAYS OF? A:* People have to... I am now going to constantly make them aware and alert. I am going to help them not to ignore what people who are in power are doing and I am putting in power people who have simply no ambition, who have been connected with...

... me and I know them -- they have no ambition of any kind. In fact, unwillingly they are taking the post. And my third idea is that we will be rotating. There is no need for power to remain in one hand for a long period. That the person starts taking it for granted -- that it is his. So rotate power, change people -- and it is good: we are doing that rotation in other fields. The professors are doing...

... gardening, some gardener who has been a professor is back in the university, some therapist is in the carpenter's workshop and some carpenter -- my own carpenter who has made this chair -- he is a Ph.D.: he can any day go to the university and be the vice-chancellor. So we are doing that in every field, just we were not touching the power elite for the simple reason that there were so many complications...

... they will not allow anybody to do anything in the same way. And I am telling them that now power should be a rotation thing. Whenever you feel somebody is getting too much interested in power, change immediately. Q:* I HOPE IT WORKS. A:* Yes, we can only hope -- what works, nobody knows. Q:* SOMEONE, PERHAPS IT WAS EZRA POUND, ONCE DEFINED A SLAVE AS SOMEONE WHO WAITS FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO SET THEM...

... FREE, AND THAT SOUNDS A LITTLE BIT LIKE THE SANNYASINS HAD TO WAIT FOR YOU TO GRANT THEM THE AUTHORITY, PERMISSION, TO EXERCISE MORE SELF-GOVERNING POWER. A:* No. It is not permission, neither authority, just a little awareness which they were missing. And the moment I said, they immediately understood: they danced in the streets as if they have come out of a concentration camp. All that they needed...

... was just a little awareness that that too is your work, to keep alert, that nobody becomes dictatorial, that your freedom is not interfered. And Sheela seems to be really insane; in fact all power-oriented people are a little insane. A sane person would not like to enslave anybody. Just today I have come to know that Sheela and her group tried even to poison my physician. They wanted to poison to...

... understand these things can happen to power-oriented people. Q:* WE COULD LOOK AT THIS EVENT IN TERMS OF WHAT SOME PEOPLE CALL SYSTEMS THEORY AND ASK IN WHAT WAY IS SHEELA A PRODUCT OF ALL OF US, HOW ARE WE ALL -- INCLUDING YOURSELF.... A:* That's true. Q:*... RESPONSIBLE FOR SHEELA? A:* In a way we are all responsible for everybody, not only for Sheela, but for Adolf Hitler, for Ronald Reagan, for Joseph...

... Stalin. We are responsible for our whole humanity, because we are part of it and in some way or other we contribute to it. Q:* AND MY SADNESS ALSO AND MY CONCERN IS THAT WE NEVER SEEM TO LEARN FAST ENOUGH TO ANTICIPATE AND HEAL THE PARANOIA OR POWER DRIVES THAT ARE EVERYWHERE AND SO WHEN SOMEONE AS YOURSELF TRIES TO COME INTO THE WORLD WITH LOVE OR CREATIVITY, THEN THROUGHOUT HISTORY IT BUMPS UP...

... are doing is doing for Oregon.... We don't have any hostility at all, no hate against anybody. But the people who are in power in Oregon, if they think that just by being power they can misuse laws, take advantage of their power, go against the constitution -- we are not going to tolerate it. We love them, still we will love them, but we will fight them. Q:* WHAT ARE SOME, PERHAPS... THERE'S SO MANY...

.... WE SHOW IT ON VIDEO TAPES." A:* That's perfectly right. Hm mm. Q:* "WE PUBLISH ARTICLES ABOUT IT -- COME AND WATCH." A:* That can be done. That can be done very easily -- there is no difficulty. Q:* BACK FOR A MOMENT TO THE ISSUE OF BUILDING THE COMMUNITY IN WAYS THAT POWER CAN BE SHARED AND DECENTRALIZED. ANOTHER METHOD THAT I AM FOND OF -- I WONDER IF IT'S BEING DONE -- IS TO HAVE...

... NOT JUST INFORMAL DISCUSSIONS AMONGST THE PEOPLE, BUT EVEN SOME FORMALIZED PROCESSES FOR REVIEWING DECISION-MAKING, TASK FULFILLMENT, POWER USAGE AND MISUSAGE, SOME WAY OF SELF-REVIEW. I'VE BEEN INVOLVED IN MANY SUCH GROUPS MYSELF. THE GROUP PRACTICE THAT I'M IN, WE MEET FOR EIGHT HOURS ONCE A MONTH AND FOR ONE HOUR EVERY WEEK TO KIND OF LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENING AMONG US. A:* Yes. That can be easily...

... done. That's perfectly good and helpful. Q:* AGAIN, IT DISTRIBUTES THE POWER AND IT BUILDS A SKILL INTO PEOPLE.... A:* Hm mm. Q:*... TO LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENED IN TERMS OF AWARENESS REALLY. A:* It can be... it can be of immense help. Thank you for the suggestion! Q:* IN ABOUT TWO WEEKS I'LL BE MAKING MY THIRD TRIP TO THE SOVIET UNION TO TALK WITH PSYCHOLOGISTS AND OTHERS THERE AND JUST AS YOU...

... NEXT? WHAT NEW FORM DO YOU ENVISION? -- JUST DECENTRALIZATION OF POWER, CERTAINLY IS ONE. A:* Just I never think of tomorrow. Just after talking to you, I go to sleep and forget everything, and if tomorrow comes, then I will have it, but it will be today again. So I have managed only for today. Tomorrow has no place in my life, in my thinking, in my visions. One day is enough! Q:* TODAY WAS A PRETTY...

... because it believes in equality between man and man. It is not true that every man thinks the other as his equal. The basic cause of its hold is the innate jealousy of man. He is jealous of those who have succeeded, who have prospered, who have sought and found a place in life. A major part of mankind has always lived in inertia; they have never produced wealth or power or knowledge. But they have...

... sure, have a big house, but not through jealousy. It happens through creativity. Yes, Jealousy can reduce a big house into a small one, hut it cannot turn the small house into a big house. Jealousy has no creative power, it is the companion of death. not of life. Jealousy is at the root of the influence that socialism has in the world. Jealousy is its very foundation. What is interesting is that this...

... the peddler in the street, is more intelligent than the state. And we think of entrusting the entire wealth of the country and all its means of production to this state. One wonders if India has decided to commit hara-kiri! It will be dangerous. Men who hold power are already mad -- mad with power. They now want to take over the power of wealth as well. They cannot tolerate that wealth should remain...

... in the hands of others. In fact, power-drunk people all over the world are anxious to grab economic power for themselves. Then they will have total power, absolute power in their hands. Political power plus economic power makes for what is called totalitarianism. Political power alone was enough to turn their heads; if economic power also passes into their hands, they will become dictators. And...

... then nothing can be done to remove them . After all, nothing could be done to remove Stalin and Hitler from power. Do you know that Hitler was a socialist? The name of his party was the National Socialist Party. He was also a socialist. Now Mao cannot be removed from power. And also remember, governments in the world already hold enormous power, political power. If economic power also passes into...

... their hands, the individual will become quite impotent. The whole nation will become impotent. Then the individual is left with no power, nothing. You may not be aware that individual freedom, freedom of thought, can only exist if there is political freedom, if there is economic freedom. If economic and political power are in the hands of a single group, then the individual is deprived of his freedom...

... withers away, because his capacity to be an individual, to be himself, has withered away. The individual will die if the state has absolute power. Currently, the greatest problem facing the whole world, and even this country, is how to save the individual. The state is out to grab everything, but it grabs with cunning. There is a method in its madness. It grabs power in the name of the people themselves...

.... It says this iS being done in their interest; it is in their interest that wealth and means of production are being taken over. So the politicians not only usurp power, they also win the applause of the people, the very people who are being dispossessed. The people who applaud them do not know that they are applauding their hangmen, who are tighening the noose around their necks. Soon they will be...

... hanged. Once property and the means of production pass into the hands of the state, that state becomes absolute, despotic. And in the same measure the individual becomes helpless and impotent before it. The individual becomes faceless, even soulless. For the last fifty years a small group of fifty persons is ruling Russia. Power has constantly remained in the hands of this group; it is not allowed to...

... go elsewhere. Whether Stalin dies or Khrushchev comes in; whether Kosygin, Breshnev or whosoever is there, this caucus of fifty, tightly entrenched in power, has been keeping Russia under its jackboot. This group has been the Frankenstein of Russia. No opposition is possible, no dissent is possible. Before a man thinks of dissenting, his tongue may be cut; before he thinks of opposing, he himself...

... may disappear from the world. What can the individual do if the entire power is in the hands of the state? So remember, the power of the state has to be increasingly reduced; in no case should it increase. For, ultimately, we need a society in which the state will be just a functional unit, nothing more. I don't think a food minister of a country should have much importance. How is he important? The...

... family cook has a place in the family -- the same place a food minister has in relation to the country. He is a big cook. If he serves us good food, he should be praised sometimes, but only as much as a cook is praised. Sometimes you may tip him, but only in the way you tip a cook. But the present food minister is not a cook, he is a man of power. He has much power. But he is aware that his power lacks...

... something. It lacks something because people have personal, private property. And private property can rebel. Private property can dissent, resist and fight. The man of property can think, and think freely. The man in power wants to deprive him of it. The politician is very ambitious. He wants to have all the power in his hands. But when the state usurps both political and economic power, revolution...

... comes to wipe out the individual. It is not socialism, it is pure and simple murder of the individual. Behind socialism is the state -- behind socialism is the power-hungry politician. They are afraid of decentralized power, and so they want to have all the power for themselves. And the last thing that I'd like to say today is that never has the state had as much power as it has now. And it is so...

... mixed with the water of your city's reservoir -- from which the whole population gets its water supply -- and without their knowing, they will lose their rebellious spirit, their power to say "No". It is exceedingly dangerous to allow the state to take over absolute power, because it has at its disposal such superior technology that it can wipe out the individual completely New techniques of...

... who he was and what his ideology was. He will be like a small child and will have to learn his alphabet once again. He will have to begin from the beginning. If science is going to put so much power in the hands of the state, and then economic power is also taken over by the same agency, it means that we are preparing our own funeral. The politician does not deserve power. The politician is not...

... worth the salt. The truth is that throughout history he has failed to prove his worthiness; he has only shown his unworthiness, utter unworthiness. In fact, the power of the politician should be taken away; there is no need whatsoever to add to it. The politician also knows that if he says that all power, all property, should belong to the state, people will say no to it. Therefore he wears a...

... different mask and says that all power, all property, should belong to the society. But the society is an abstraction, and so the state appropriates everything in the name of the society. Whatever, today, goes on in the name of socialism is really state capitalism. And I hold that private capitalism is far superior to state capitalism. Why? Private capitalism is superior because the individual in private...

... capitalism is free. It is superior because every individual has the incentive to produce wealth. It is superior because power is distributed and decentralized. And it is superior because if someday wealth is produced in abundance, socialism will come by itself. Not that it will be forced to come, it will come by itself. It will come, not be made to come. Forced socialism will be dangerous. Let it come on...

... scared by the slogans and the flags and the noise raised by the power-hungry politicians. And in panic he says. "Then socialism is right." I see even the biggest capitalist is terrified; he is trembling. He thinks he has committed a sin; he feels guilty. And it is amazing. Capitalism has provided ways and means to keep such a huge society of men alive. It is thanks to capitalism that, today...

... clean - as clean, as pure, as innocent as you were when you were born. You were not born a Christian, you were not born Jewish; you were born just an innocent potentiality of growth which has been stopped by the vested interests. And those vested interests are still in power. They are doing their best to destroy any possibility for human evolution. My people have to fight for their own sake and for...

... will go through a revolution. All the revolutions that have happened before - French revolution, Russian revolution, Chinese revolution - are not revolutions, just changes of power gangs, changes from one mafia to another mafia. The real revolution is only one, and that happens within you, within each individual. And it has to be done really fast, because the idiotic politicians of the world are...

... become vast. He has become oceanic. Awareness is the method to first wake up your intelligence, then to wake up your being, then to help you become mature, give you the realization of immortality, and ultimately to make you one with the whole. Question 3: BELOVED MASTER, YOU HAVE OFTEN REFERRED TO THE QUOTE, "POWER CORRUPTS, AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY." HOW CAN THIS BE PREVENTED...

... FROM HAPPENING AGAIN? IS A HORIZONTAL HIERARCHY REALLY POSSIBLE? ALLELUIA FOR THIS NEW DAY. That sentence is not mine. I have quoted Lord Acton, so a few things have to be clarified. I agree with him to a certain extent, but basically I disagree with him. His quotation is, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is a factual experience of the whole history of man...

.... Whoever comes to power, goes through a great change. A man you have never thought would do such criminal acts starts doing them on a large scale. When Adolf Hitler was chosen by Germany to be the chancellor - and remember, Germany is one of the most intelligent countries in the world, seriously intelligent. They are so serious that they cannot understand any jokes. But there are no two opinions about...

... man in the beginning. In fact, the whole country felt that he was capable of bringing the chaos in the country to an end, he could make the country strong. And he did that, but once he was in power then his own personality started going into a change. Now it was not a question of making Germany strong, financially rich. Now it became a question of conquering the whole world. What happened? - and...

... this has been happening always. So, factually, Lord Acton is right, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But Lord Acton himself was a politician. He cannot go very deep into the psychology of the matter. Power does not corrupt; it simply gives you an opportunity to bring all your unconscious into the conscious. You always wanted to do these things, but there was no opportunity...

.... So you had repressed all those desires, because they were making you miserable. But any desire repressed remains alive and, whenever there is an opportunity, the desire rises to the conscious mind. Power does not corrupt you; you are already corrupted. Power gives you an opportunity to realize whatever your desires are. In fact, the people who have been in power are themselves amazed. They had...

... never consciously thought about it. It was all in the dark corners of their minds, hiding. But now there is opportunity; there is no need to keep those desires repressed. They start surfacing. So to me, basically, psychologically, power simply gives you an opportunity to show your real face; otherwise, you are wearing a mask, a nice, smiling Jimmy Carter smile. Power gives you the chance not to wear...

... the mask. You can show your real intentions and nobody can prevent you. And if it is absolute power, then certainly you are going to do every animal act that is part of your collective unconscious. I have to remind you there are three layers of your consciousness: the conscious - the first, very thin layer. You can scratch just a little bit and the unconscious will erupt. Then there is this...

... collective unconscious has all the memories. You may have been a lion, you may have been a tiger, you may have been a fox. In your past lives you may have taken all these forms. That means, if you get absolute power, all these forms will start arising. If you have power - not absolute power - then only your unconsciousness will affect your actions. But if you have absolute power, then your collective...

... unconscious will start affecting your actions. So it is not power that corrupts; it is that power simply reveals your reality. You are asking me, what can be done to prevent it? The only way to prevent it is that you should enter as a witness, first of your conscious mind, thoughts, imaginations, etcetera - just be a witness to them without any judgment. And you will be surprised. As your witnessing becomes...

... virtue, that he has to remain celibate until he has come from the university and he gets married, you are simply asking the impossible. At the age of eighteen man has the most sexual power. After eighteen he starts declining. It is at the age of eighteen that he comes to the peak of his sexual energy, and he can have tremendously significant orgasms. And he is capable of having three, four, five...

... will be in the university, he is in every way repressed. In the unconscious he will find all these repressions. But if he remains just a witness, those repressions will surface to the conscious and disappear. That is the miracle of witnessing. When the whole unconscious is empty, then ordinary power cannot corrupt you. The third step has to be taken now: to enter into the collective unconscious. And...

... consciousness with witnessing, disappears. And if you can clean, give a spring-cleaning to your whole consciousness, to the very bottom, then no power can corrupt you - not even absolute power can corrupt you. In fact, on the contrary, power will make you more humble, more creative. Absolute power will make you a great servant of humanity, a great blessing to existence. This is the only way. You cannot...

... prevent others, but you can transform yourself. And the new humanity will choose such people to be the presidents, to be the prime ministers, to be vice-chancellors, chancellors - people who have a completely pure consciousness. I call it enlightenment. All darkness has disappeared and everything has become light. The enlightened person will have power, but his power will be used for sharing love, for...

... creating more opportunities for love. His absolute power will make him absolutely humble. Sannyasins have to cleanse themselves. We have one million sannyasins around the world at least. If we can cleanse just a few thousand sannyasins, then those will be the people who will be holding power in the coming days. And they will transform the whole humanity and its course. Okay? Generated by PreciseInfo...

.... Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. BELOVED OSHO, OF THE THREE EVIL THINGS ... I WILL NOW PLACE THE THREE MOST EVIL THINGS UPON THE SCALES AND WEIGH THEM WELL AND HUMANLY.... SENSUAL PLEASURE, LUST FOR POWER, SELFISHNESS: THESE THREE HAVE HITHERTO BEEN CURSED THE MOST AND HELD IN THE WORST AND MOST UNJUST REPUTE - THESE THREE WILL I WEIGH WELL AND HUMANLY...

....... SENSUAL PLEASURE: A SWEET POISON ONLY TO THE WITHERED, BUT TO THE LION- WILLED THE GREAT RESTORATIVE AND REVERENTLY-PRESERVED WINE OF WINES. SENSUAL PLEASURE: THE GREAT SYMBOLIC HAPPINESS OF A HIGHER HAPPINESS AND HIGHEST HOPE.... TO MANY THAT ARE STRANGER TO ONE ANOTHER THAN MAN AND WOMAN: AND WHO HAS FULLY CONCEIVED HOW STRANGE MAN AND WOMAN ARE TO ONE ANOTHER!... LUST FOR POWER: THE SCOURGE OF FIRE...

... OF THE HARDEST-HEARTED; THE CRUEL TORMENT RESERVED BY THE CRUELEST FOR HIMSELF; THE DARK FLAME OF LIVING BONFIRES.... LUST FOR POWER: BEFORE ITS GLANCE MAN CRAWLS AND BENDS AND TOILS AND BECOMES LOWER THAN THE SWINE OR THE SNAKE - UNTIL AT LAST THE CRY OF THE GREAT CONTEMPT BURST FROM HIM.... LUST FOR POWER: WHICH, HOWEVER, RISES ENTICINGLY EVEN TO THE PURE AND THE SOLITARY AND UP TO SELF...

...-SUFFICIENT HEIGHTS, GLOWING LIKE A LOVE THAT PAINTS PURPLE DELIGHTS ENTICINGLY ON EARTHLY HEAVENS. LUST FOR POWER: BUT WHO SHALL CALL IT LUST, WHEN THE HEIGHT LONGS TO STOOP DOWN AFTER POWER! TRULY, THERE IS NO SICKNESS AND LUST IN SUCH A LONGING AND DESCENT! THAT THE LONELY HEIGHT MAY NOT ALWAYS BE SOLITARY AND SUFFICIENT TO ITSELF; THAT THE MOUNTAIN MAY DESCEND TO THE VALLEY AND THE WIND OF THE HEIGHTS...

... living paradise... not a dream, but a reality. Sensual pleasure, lust for power, selfishness: THESE THREE HAVE HITHERTO BEEN CURSED THE MOST AND HELD IN THE WORST AND MOST UNJUST REPUTE - THESE THREE WILL I WEIGH WELL AND HUMANLY. That he never forgets: don't try to impose upon yourself inhuman standards which are only going to cripple you, which are only going to cut your wings, which are only going...

... restorative power, all rejuvenating power. You will lose the contact with existence - because it is through the senses that you are connected with existence. If you close your senses you have already prepared your grave. Zarathustra will say just the opposite. If sensual pleasure destroys you, that means you need to be more strong. And discipline should be given to you so that you can become more strong...

... shadow. Why, after marriage, does a woman have to take her husband's name? These are subtle ways to make it clear to her that now she is secondary. She does not any longer have her own identity; her husband is her identity. Naturally, marriage can never be peaceful. Wherever there is an effort of domination there is going to be conflict and struggle. And all marriages create only hell. LUST FOR POWER...

...: THE SCOURGE OF FIRE OF THE HARDEST-HEARTED; THE CRUEL TORMENT RESERVED BY THE CRUELEST FOR HIMSELF; THE DARK FLAME OF LIVING BONFIRES. LUST FOR POWER, BEFORE ITS GLANCE MAN CRAWLS AND BENDS AND TOILS AND BECOMES LOWER THAN THE SWINE OR THE SNAKE - UNTIL AT LAST THE CRY OF THE GREAT CONTEMPT BURSTS FROM HIM. LUST FOR POWER: WHICH, HOWEVER, RISES ENTICINGLY EVEN TO THE PURE AND THE SOLITARY AND UP TO...

... SELF-SUFFICIENT HEIGHTS, GLOWING LIKE A LOVE THAT PAINTS PURPLE DELIGHTS ENTICINGLY ON EARTHLY HEAVENS. LUST FOR POWER: BUT WHO SHALL CALL IT LUST, WHEN THE HEIGHT LONGS TO STOOP DOWN AFTER POWER! TRULY, THERE IS NO SICKNESS AND LUST IN SUCH A LONGING AND DESCENT! One has to look at the whole thing. Lust for power has created slavery, has destroyed humanity in many ways. Lust for power is burning in...

... every heart. Zarathustra is not in favor of this kind of lust for power - it is destructive and ugly. But there can be a creative way, and that creative thing he calls will to power, not lust for power. Will to power is a totally different phenomenon, but the religions have not made the distinction. For them lust for power is all - there is nothing in it which can have something to contribute. But...

... Zarathustra feels there is so much potential in it that it can become the greatest creative force in the world. But it has not to be lust. And it cannot be called even lust. LUST FOR POWER: BUT WHO SHALL CALL IT LUST, WHEN THE HEIGHT LONGS TO STOOP DOWN AFTER POWER! TRULY, THERE IS NO SICKNESS AND LUST IN SUCH A LONGING AND DESCENT! Will to power makes a great change. Will to power simply means not power...

... over others. Lust for power means power over others. Will to power means becoming in oneself more and more powerful, more and more radiant, more and more strong, more and more integrated, more and more a lion, an individual. Will to power has nothing to do with the other. It is your own exercise of rising to the heights. It is your own discipline to reach to the highest peak of your being. It is not...

... power is simply will to be oneself - will to freedom, will to create, will to attain immortality, will to proclaim to the world, "I have always been here and I will be always here." It is will to eternity. But the religions have taken only the negative side, and they have never talked about the positive side. And with the negative side they have condemned the positive side also. They...

... up to a point, but if it becomes a question of life and death, then there is a sudden outburst of intelligence in ordinary people. You would never have expected it. The people who are in power are not going to the people of wisdom, ever. Power corrupts so deeply and gives such a big ego that even to ask advice becomes impossible. The revolution is going to happen not through the powerful people but...

... of beauty, and nature has been destroyed very deeply. All these things together come to one point, the central point; and that is that the people have depended too much on people who have power. It has been almost a kind of slavery. It is time to revolt and throw out these people who have power, and to destroy the whole system of power. There is no need for them, because they are not doing anything...

... the children free of parental power. And they could have more fresh food, fresh water, fresh air. There were all running to the city for one thing - because it gives money, and the villages cannot give money. Why have villages been disappearing, and big, monstrous cities coming up? The reason is that everybody is after money, not understanding a simple thing, that money cannot buy anything that...

... makes life a beautiful, blissful pilgrimage. It can buy many things, but they are useless if the man himself loses his soul. If the cities disappear into villages, much of the pollution will also disappear. The cities are almost like a canceric growth, that goes on growing bigger and bigger. The people in power cannot do anything because their power needs money - not love, not blissfulness, not joy...

... - just money. And your so-called wise people are nothing but politicians in another garb of religious heads; their whole interest is also in power. It is a different kind of power, more subtle, but all the same it is power. They would not like the cities to disappear. Their power depends on the boredom of man, his loveless life, his meaningless life, his anguish, because these are the things which...

... should be on human relationship. Machines can be used if they are not against human relationship, if they are not against ecology. If they are against ecology, if they are against human relationship, then they are not to exist at all. Neither the people in power are going to do it, nor are the so-called saints and wise people going to do it. They are both conspirators. They both depend on your pain...

... away from the cities, deserting them, they will cut the people of power off from their money sources - because who is going to run their industries and factories? They will cut the power of the religious heads - because who is going to gather in their cathedrals and synagogues? And my understanding of religion is that it needs no synagogues, no temples, no churches. It is a simple heart-to-heart...

... adjective, they are the same. It is absolutely unnecessary to call them Christian or Hindu. The common person has a tremendous power in his hands. If he moves into small communes, deserts the cities which are dying, which are nothing but citadels of crime.... If he moves away, he takes the power of the powerful and the wisdom of the so-called wise. And it is beautiful to have a small commune where...

... inhuman. But the revolution that has to come, has to come from the common people themselves. The powerful people - whether in wisdom or in political power - are too involved in this system. They cannot change it; they will go on making it grow. And the common man will be crushed - he is being crushed. Houses have become just boxes - boxes upon boxes. They don't have the beauty of a house. They are no...

... keeping a secret. But to the world at large it is not needed to open your secrets. Nobody is asking, nobody is bothered; and why should you open your secrets? And your secrets will give them power over you. The Catholic church has a tradition of confession: every Catholic has to confess to the priest what sins he has committed. This is a very cunning strategy, because the priest knows all your secrets...

..., all your sins. You cannot leave the fold, otherwise he can expose you. You have given your power into his hands. Just a few months ago, the pope announced to the Catholics that one of the greatest sins is to confess to God directly. You have to confess through the priest, otherwise it is a sin. Why should it be a sin if somebody confesses to God directly? But the pope's concern is that if people...

... start confessing directly to God, then who is going to confess to the priest? It is embarrassing. And then the priest's power over people will be lost. So you have committed one sin; you are committing a greater sin if you confess to God directly. A mediator, a priest is an absolute necessity. In politics it is an everyday affair. In India, the first prime minister remained in power long enough to...

... know everybody's weaknesses, everybody's crimes; and he had maintained a file. That file was power: You cannot betray him, you cannot go against him; otherwise you will be in very great difficulty. He knows some secret that he can expose about you. When he died, the file went into the hands of his daughter. That was her power; otherwise she had no power. She was not a politician; but even without...

... being a politician she maintained a tremendous power - more than her father. And the file went on growing bigger and bigger. About every politician in India they had every secret. Whatever they had been forgiven for had been reported; it could be exposed any moment, and the man would be finished. They may have been chief ministers, they may have been governors, they may have been cabinet ministers...

... carrying?" The son has died - can you think of a mother asking about two keys that he was carrying? And first she got hold of those two keys; only then she did make other enquiries. I have been told, those two keys were the keys to all the secret files against the politicians of India - because that was her power. If those two keys are lost then it will be a difficult job - first those two keys...

... I feel physical sensations.] Yes, you can create them because imagination is a great power. The guru has no power but imagination is powerful. The power of the guru is nothing but the power of your imagination, and the real guru will make you alert about and aware of your own power. The pseudo guru will pretend that it is his power; it is your imagination, and you are free to give as much power to...

... your guru as you decide to do. If you want to you can give him all power; it is your projection. But imagination is a powerful faculty, the most powerful: reason is just impotent in comparison to imagination. All that happens through imagination; nothing happens through reason. First it happens through imagination; then reason comes in and figures it out, that's okay. Reason comes only secondary: it...

... to find words and language and mathematical formulae to put it in order.' All that happens is intuitive. It is your power; please don't bring that guru in! Nobody has power over you except yourself. You can give this power to somebody, then he has power over you, but my work here is really to make you free of all kinds of gurus. I am not a guru, at the most a friend, and I would like you to be...

... unburdened of all the gurus... and I am included! If you start giving power to me, I don't like it. It is your power. Because if I accept - and it is very flattering... When you go and give some power to somebody it is very flattering to him, he will not be able to reject it. He will accept it with a smile. You are falling into his trap on your own. Why should he say 'This is your power'? Gurus have...

... is your imagination and that very imagination is telling you to go away, to do this and that. That imagination will create many troubles for you because the imagination is there, the power is there, but you are not yet in a state of meditation. Imagination becomes very destructive if there is no meditative quality around it - then it can go berserk. The same imagination can become madness. Madness...

... never allow you to go beyond the limit and it will use your power of imagination in a creative way. [The sannyasin says he has done nine groups but no meditation, except everyday living.] That's very good, but for a later stage. That's very good, mm? but just wait a little. Become first a paramahansa, then...! Just do a few meditations - you need meditation, you need it urgently, because this...