..., but not their extremism. First Krishna created a destructiveness in the country, then they created a kind of impotence in the name of nonviolence. For two thousand years you have been slaves -- who is responsible? Such a big country, yet small tribes came and ruled over you because nonviolence became your cherished goal. The man of wisdom remains in the middle. He does not do violence to anybody...

... - - but he does not allow anybody to do violence to him either. Because in both ways he is supporting violence. Seeing this happening, Sikhism was born, which is exactly in the middle. There is no question of violence as a goal, or nonviolence as a goal; but giving man an insight that to be destructive is bad, to destroy life is bad, yet to allow anybody to destroy you is the same. So don't be violent...

... is done it is a violence. If in transforming you, changing you, I do something, it is going to be aggressive, it is going to be violence. Every effort is violent. But if just by my presence, just by your being around me, something starts happening in you and I am not doing anything, only then is it love, it is not violence. And a very peculiar phenomenon happens: if someone tries to change you, you...

... will resist him - because instinctively you become aware of the violence, instinctively you will start defending yourself. If someone tries to change you and make you good, religious, moral, and all that nonsense, you will resist. Your ego will be hurt, and you will start defying him. You will start doing things which you never meant to do, just to defy him. Good fathers are the cause of bad...

... there going to be a destruction. There is no god who created, there is no ultimate being who managed to run the world in a dialectical way. Existence is autonomous and it is eternal. But the problem with theologians, with philosophers, is that they simply invent a name and they forget that their beginning is only invention, imagination. Then they go on questioning and then they go on answering, making...

.... You can find any axe-shaped marble stone, put it under any tree and it becomes a temple of Shiva. Who cares about death, destruction? But people are afraid. So once in a while, placing a few flowers is perfectly understandable. But no great temples have been raised for Shiva. He lives under trees in the hot sun, in the rain, in the cold. People worship him just out of fear. Fear can never become...

... worship; neither can business ever become worship. Vishnu is people's business; Shiva is the god of death, god of destruction. He has to be kept friendly - he is dangerous. Another example you will find - you can look in the books of all the businessmen in India. I don't know, it must be the same in Nepal - every businessman starts his books with Shri Ganeshaya Namah - Ganesh is Shiva's son. Why is it...

... Ganeshaya Namah. It was not out of respect, it was a bribery because he was a great destroyer. He was the son of the ultimate god of destruction and he used to play mischief all around. He would disturb people's marriages, people's businesses, so everything that has to be started has first to remember Ganesh. This is not religion. This is simply persuading Ganesh: "Don't disturb us - we are on your...

... do not be violent. Our teeth are very violent because of our animal heritage. Animals have no other weapons; nails and teeth are their only weapons of violence. Your teeth are basically a weapon, so people go on killing with their teeth - they kill their food. That is why, the more violent you are, the more you will need food. But there is a limit to food, so one goes on smoking or one goes on...

... chewing gum. That is violence. You enjoy it because you are killing something with your teeth, grinding something with your teeth, so one goes on chewing gum or pan. This is a part of violence. Do whatsoever you are doing, but do it lovingly. Do not be indifferent. Then your heart center will start functioning, and you will come down deep into the heart. First: try headlessness. Secondly: try love...

... of letting go. When you are in love you cannot let go completely because you are afraid. If you let go completely the anger, the violence, the hate that is hidden and suppressed may come out. Then you have to force it down continuously. Deep down you have to fight it continuously. And in fighting it you cannot be natural and spontaneous. Then you just pose that you are loving. You pretend, and...

... righteous, not a sinner. Sometimes the people who call themselves righteous think that even if they sin sometimes, it is just to protect their virtue, to protect their righteousness. It happened: India and Pakistan were at war and everybody was in a war mood. Even Jain saints were in a war mood. At least THEY shouldn't have been - they have been preaching non-violence for centuries. But I came across the...

... news that Acharya Tulsi, one of the greatest Jain MUNIS, had given his blessings to the war. What did he say? He said it was to protect 'the country of non-violence'. "Even if violence has to be done, it has to be done - to protect the country of Buddha, Mahavir, Gandhi." Do you see the trick? Non-violence has to be protected by violence. One has to go to war so that peace reigns. I have to...

... ENGAGED IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ATOMIC WAR, ATOMIC POWER, DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT, THE DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS, ETCETERA, CALLED ME AN ESCAPIST. SOMETIMES I WONDER IF THEY ARE RIGHT. ARE THEY? Satyananda, they are right, but they are right in a totally different sense of which they are not aware. Once can escape from reality, one can also escape to reality. And the second is the case...

.... When you move into meditation or into sannyas it is escaping to reality, not from reality. Because the most real thing in you is your own center. The farther away you are from your center, the farther away you are from reality. And the struggle that they are continuing AGAINST ATOMIC POWER, DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT, THE DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS, ETCETERA is not going to succeed in...

... destruction. And there will be destruction, unless we change the very foundation of the human mind. Struggling against war is not going to help, because that is again another war. Have you not seen the pacifists and their processions, and how they howl and scream and how angry they are? And they are pacifists. And every pacifist procession ends in destruction: they start looting the shops and burning the...

... the past and they create misery. Now this is not the same bird. When you fell in love with the woman, she was free; you fell in love with freedom. When you bring her home you destroy all possibilities of being free, but in that very destruction you are destroying the beauty. Then one day suddenly you find that you don't love the woman at all - because she is beautiful no more. This happens every...

.... This is real expansion of consciousness. Drugs only give you a false idea of expansion; love is the basic ultimate drug that gives you the real idea of expansion. And there is a possibility.... Albert Schweitzer has said 'reverence for life' - all that lives has to be loved. Mahavira in India has said the same thing. His philosophy of AHIMSA, non-violence, says love all that lives. But one man, one...

... whole existence irrespective of what it is, that love becomes unconditional - it is turning into prayer, it is becoming a meditation. The first love is good in the sense that if you have lived a loveless life it is better than no love. But the second love is far better than the first and will have less anxiety, less anguish, less turmoil, conflict, aggression, violence. The second kind of love will be...

... than monkeys. Man goes on repeating the same mistakes again and again. What kind of dignity are you talking about? If you look at the history of man it is the same mistakes being repeated again and again. It is almost mechanical - the same wars, the same violence, the same rape on nature, the same destructiveness. Down the ages it is the same story. Only once in a while is there an oasis in this...

... will miss much? Yes, it will miss your poisoning, your pollution, your destruction, your wars, your blood. It will miss these things but it will be far more beautiful. Things will be far more silent and musical; in more harmony. And I am not saying that man has no dignity. I never agree with people like B. F. Skinner. Skinner has written a book, BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY, in which he says man is not...

... - because first I have to destroy you. Only through your utter destruction is the possibility of your awakening. And destruction is hard, painful. A great Hassidic saying says: God is not nice. God is not an uncle, God is an earthquake! So is it with a Master: a Master is not an uncle, a Master is not nice. A Master is an earthquake. Only those who are ready to risk all, in toto, who are ready to die as...

... that a snake, a very dangerous snake, attacked Mahavir, bit his foot; but instead of blood, milk started flowing. Now Jains take it literally, and then they become a laughing stock. It is not a literal message, it is a parable: red blood represents violence and milk represents love. The moment the child is born, the mother's breasts become full of milk - out of love, out of feeling for the newborn...

.... It is symbolic: blood is violence, milk is love. When a person reaches to this state, all violence disappears. He's all love, love and nothing else. THE FRAGILE BODY OF THE FLESH IS SHEER GOLD AND DIAMONDS. And those who can see, those who have eyes to see, will be able to see in the body of the Buddha not fragile flesh, but sheer gold and diamonds. That's why disciples are not believed by others...

... order, it works; you don't order, it remains still. It is just waiting. It cannot assert by itself. The assertion is lost; the violence is lost. It will not try to control you. Now just the reverse is the case. How to become masters? And how to put mind to its place, where you can use it; where, if you don't want to use it, you can put it aside and remain silent? So the whole mechanism of the mind...

... are happy, you can flow into others and you can allow others to flow in you: this is what celebration means. When you allow everybody to flow in and you flow into everybody, you are celebrating life. And celebration is the greatest prayer, the highest peak of meditation. In misery you start thinking of committing suicide; in misery, you start thinking of destruction. In misery, you are just on the...

... destroyed. Just imagination, just utopian imagination - that just by destroying the weak, just by destroying the ugly, just by destroying the physically crippled you will have a beautiful world. But the very destruction is the most ugly thing in the world possible - the very destruction. But he was working through imagination. He had an imagination, a utopian imagination - the most imaginative man! Hitler...

... imagine, who could imagine the impossible. Now we can fly into the air, now we can go to the moon. These are deep imaginations. Man has been imagining for centuries, millennia, how to fly, how to go to the moon. Every child is born with the desire to go to the moon, to catch the moon. But we reached. Through imagination creativity comes, but through imagination destruction also. Patanjali says...

... internally by the breath. So everything - sex, anger, violence, crying - has been repressed.] The second thing - whenever you can find time, go into the darkness. Go to the river bank alone, and just sit. If you feel afraid, feel afraid, but don't escape. Soon you will see when fear by and by settles down, that darkness is so cool... and so warm at the same time. It is a womb... it surrounds you. It...

... is part of it - be alert. Use that negative energy also in a positive way. You can go into a garden and dig a hole or you can chop wood, or clean the floor. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that if they are feeling angry, to chew their food as much as they can. That is violence, anger. Kill the food... destroy it completely. That is what chewing is - destroying. Energy cannot be just positive...

... beats his students. If you are aware, that energy can be used. It is beautiful energy. Negative energy is also beautiful energy. It just has to be used in a creative way. Destruction is also needed for creation. Use it, otherwise it starts spreading all over your being, and whenever you find an opportunity, it will start flowing there. Of course to fight and be angry with the one you love creates too...