... and the same God -- declares that she was a saint. Her bones were taken out of the grave and worshiped, and a beautiful cathedral now stands in her memory. Now, nobody calls her just "Joan of Arc" -- her name is "Saint Joan of Arc." The pope goes on traveling around the world preaching that birth control is against God, that any method of preventing the birth of a child is anti...

...-God -- particularly in the countries of the East where people are so poor, and they are going to become poorer and poorer every day. But the pope's interest is not that man should live comfortably without hunger. People should not die just because they cannot even get water, cannot get food. And you will be surprised to know that on one hand, the pope goes on talking against birth control methods...

..., and on the other, the Vatican has a hidden factory where they create birth control pills -- because it is good business; it brings millions of dollars. You call such people religious? He goes around the world saying that Christian priests and bishops and cardinals should not get involved in politics -- because he wants politicians to be in favor of him. And it has been found that the same man sent...

... one hundred million dollars to Poland, to a political party, to fight against the Communists. Is this not politics? And his interest in birth control is really to increase the population. Whatever consequences happen to people is not the problem. If people are poor and hungry, they can be easily converted to Christianity, and particularly the Catholic church. Their schools, their hospitals, their...

... every year. These are your religious institutions. The Vatican bank itself, which is under the pope, is nothing but the greatest Mafia organization. Hundreds of millions of dollars of heroin money... They go on talking and preaching against drugs, while behind the curtain they are dealing in drugs themselves. He also ordered a meeting to announce that the church supported birth control. He was really...

... the morning the embalmers would be needed, so every arrangement was made beforehand. It was not an accidental death. He was followed by Pope John Paul the Second, the Polack who prohibited all birth control methods except the rhythm method -- even though the Vatican actually owned a company which made birth control pills. He also dropped the church law forbidding membership in the Freemasons. And he...

... -- rebellious against the past, rebellious against organized religions, rebellious against all those people who want to dominate you. And they have found subtle ways to dominate you: "Our religion is the most ancient!" So what? That means your religion is the most rotten! But they are trying to make it "most ancient" so that you feel an awe; if for ten thousand years nobody has disobeyed...

... responsible for it. I started saying in 1950 that India needs birth control, and I was condemned: "You are talking against religion. God sends the children -- how can we prevent them?" I argued with them: "When you fall sick, God sends the sickness -- why do you call the doctor? If God wants you to be well, he will send the medicine too." They argued with me. The shankaracharya of Puri...

... himself argued with me: "Birth control methods are artificial." I asked him, "What do you mean by artificial?" He said, "They are not created by God." I said, "Do you think railway trains are created by God, airplanes are created by God? The medicines you are using are all artificial." And he was wearing heavy glasses on his nose. I said, "What about this...

... -- have you come from God's house? Have you brought these glasses with your birth? God has given you eyes and you should remain with your eyes -- what is the need of having these heavy glasses? These are artificial. Everything else artificial is okay, but birth control methods cannot be used because they are artificial." He became so angry with me that he refused to speak from the same stage, in a...

... going to die, what do you think about those who will be left living amongst corpses? Their situation will be worse than being dead. The dead will at least be at rest. But to talk about birth control or the birth control pill goes against the memory, against the system, against the mind that has been told something for centuries but is not aware that a totally new situation has arisen. India has never...

... OF THE HERETICS. THE PATRIARCH SAID, "THOSE WHO SET THEIR MINDS ON LOOKING INTO QUIETNESS, APPLY THEM ON CONTEMPLATING EXTERNALS, AND KEEP THEM UNDER CONTROL TO QUIET AND FREEZE THEM IN ORDER TO ENTER SAMADHI, ARE ALL IN THE STATE OF MENTAL ACTIVITY." Maneesha, there are three words to be understood perfectly well before you can understand what Rinzai is saying. He is talking about the...

..., being the ancientmost buddha here, leads the laughter. He's a rare man in the world, because I have never heard of anybody laughing before the joke is told! He's the most unique person. He trusts me - why wait for the joke? THE PATRIARCH SAID, "THOSE WHO SET THEIR MINDS ON LOOKING INTO QUIETNESS, APPLY THEM ON CONTEMPLATING EXTERNALS, AND KEEP THEM UNDER CONTROL TO QUIET AND FREEZE THEM IN ORDER...

... drunk with my own inner sources, I stumble here and there. But when I'm drunk, I SHOW MOST DISCRETION. SOBER THIS EVENING, SOMEWHERE ON THE RIVER BANK I FIND DAWN'S MOON." Question 1: Maneesha has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, IT SEEMS THAT THE MIND GIVES US THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL OVER LIFE, WHILE AWARENESS MAKES US RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR LIVES. IS NOT THE TURNING POINT RECOGNIZING THE DIFFERENCE...

... BETWEEN BEING IN CONTROL AND BEING RESPONSIBLE? Maneesha, even the word 'responsible' is a different name for control. A man of consciousness drops both control and responsibility. That does not mean that he is irresponsible; it simply means he becomes spontaneous. The word 'responsibility' is contaminated by the missionaries of all the religions; hence, I would like not to use the word 'responsible'. I...

... can't get the hairy bastard off the ceiling!" There is a fire at the Pig and Whistle Pub, and it is beginning to get out of control. Suddenly, Paddy's old Ford car comes speeding around the corner, crosses the street, and drives straight into the middle of the flames. The car nearly puts out the fire, and then the doors burst open. Paddy and Seamus jump out, and start beating wildly at the flames...

... conflict. The part that has become manifest will always be in conflict with the part that has not yet become manifest; the actual will always be in conflict with the potential. The potential will push itself to be manifested, and the actual will suppress it. To use psychological terms, the unconscious is always in conflict with the conscious. The conscious will try to dominate it, because it is always in...

... danger of the unconscious manifesting itself. The conscious is under control and the potential, the unconscious, is not. You can manage the conscious, but with an explosion of the unconscious you will be in insecurity. You will not be able to manage it. That is the fear of the conscious. So this is the other conflict, greater and deeper than the first: the conflict between the conscious and the...

... possible only if there is no suppression. Otherwise the movement, the harmony, is destroyed and your energy becomes an enemy to you. You become a house divided against itself; you become a crowd. Then you are not one; you are many. This is the situation that exists as far as human beings are concerned. But this should not be. This is why there is ugliness and misery. Bliss and beauty can come only when...

..., you are ordinarily only partially alive. The part of your energy that has become actualized is your life. The remaining part is so asleep that it is as if it were not. But it can be awakened. There are so many methods through which kundalini yoga tries to make the potential actual. For example, pranayama, breath control, is one of the methods to hammer the sleeping energy. Through breath, the...

... are two poles of one energy. The body is gross and the mind is subtle, but the energy is the same. One has to work from both polarities. For the body there is hatha yoga: asanas, pranayama, etcetera; and for the mind there is raga yoga and other yogas that are basically concerned with your mental attitudes. Body and mind are one energy. For example, if you can control your breath when you are angry...

..., the anger will die. If you can go on breathing rhythmically, anger cannot overpower you. In the same way, if you go on breathing rhythmically, sexual passion cannot overpower you. It will be there, but it will not become manifest. No one will know it is there. Not even you will be able to know it. So sex can be suppressed; anger can be suppressed. Through rhythmic breathing you can suppress them so...

... of the mind. If the mind can control the flow of this sexual energy it can also control his sexual desires accordingly. If he allows it to flow more, it will increase and vice versa. During the last twenty years in America, the maturity age of boys and girls has gone down by two years. Where earlier the girls used to be mature at the age of 13, now it happens at the age of 11. This is because the...

... giving out those orders two years earlier which it should have given two years later. This is a premature order and its results are bound to be dangerous. Earlier something quiet contrary to this used to happen In this country, we had been successful to keep young boys and girls aloof from the world of sex till the age of twenty -five. The whole framework was different. The mind had the will to control...

... remain on that place. If you again throw water on that floor there is a 99 per cent chance that the water will flow on that dried up track. It is natural to follow the path of least resistance. There is desire to flow in that direction where there is the least amount of difficulty. When an immature mind enters the World of sex, the life energy, according to the rule of least resistance, show eagerness...

... mountain, it can also be sent to the height of the mountain, because the water can be lifted up by performing contrary experiments of the rule by which it flows downwards. The sex energy goes down. It is natural. If any person wants to take it upwards, it will not be easy or natural. This will not be done naturally, it will be done by firm resolve. It will be done by man's efforts, his keen desire, his...

... level. Muladhar is contracted inwards. The energy created in it tries to find a way out. Now we should direct our mind to the higher direction or upper direction, because that path is open. The energy of the body starts flowing towards that direction in which the mind is directed. This is a small process in the transformation. If you experiment with this, celibacy will be achieved without suppression...

.... This is not suppression, it is sublimation. Suppression means that the upward path - door is not opened and the door at the lower level is being guarded by you - is being kept under check. Then the result would be troubled madness. If the path is there for the energy to flow out, there will no suppression, but only sublimation. The energy will begin to flow above from below. Perform the experiment...

... musician stopped playing. Mussolini declared that he had no idea that music would produce such an effect within him that he could not stop his head movements. He has said in his autobiography, 'My body was out of my control, I could not control my head, and I felt I would die now. The greater the effort on my part, the greater was the dashing of my head on the table.' Omkar Nath said it was nothing. It...

... yourself, you become weak. And when you are weak you surrender, you submit to the priest, the priesthood. And all kinds of exploiters are around you. In fear you start clinging to the churches, to the mosques, to the temples; in fear you start praying. But a prayer that comes out of fear is false. Prayer is true only when it is a fragrance of love. Ann, JESUS TAUGHT HIS FOLLOWERS TO LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS...

... INTERESTED IN IT. WHY? That's why. It is so simple, so obvious. You have remained obsessed with it - otherwise why control it? Why repress it? What is control except repression? You became too attached to it; it was an attachment. And as time has passed, the attachment has deepened. Of course your attachment is negative, hence the question. Because you have been against it, you thin, "Why am I still...

..., now there is no way for it to evaporate. Attachment is the sine wave of 'submission - resistance'. When you submit to something or resist something, or hate something, or identify with something, you are attached to it. Remember, saying yes is an attachment: submission. Saying no is an attachment: resistance. And the second attachment is far deeper. That's why friendships are not as great as...

... spread from your toes to your head. Please don't control, because all control means control by the ego. I teach you uncontrol: remain natural. Control makes you unnatural, artificial, arbitrary. Remain natural. Control makes you unnatural, artificial, arbitrary. Remain natural, relax. Whatsoever God has given to you - sex, love, whatsoever - accept it as a gift. And go into it, go into it meditatively...

..., go into it very consciously, so that you can see what it is, so that you can learn something from it. And one day sex disappears. And that day is of great importance, because that day you are biologically free. That freedom is not attained through control; that freedom is attained through understanding, awareness, witnessing. The third question: BELOVED MASTER, Question 3: ARE YOU AGAINST ALL OTHER...

... gravestone. This kind of biased religion can never bring life to our lives. What is the cause of all this ? During these few days, I shall discuss the religion of life, the religion of the living faith - and a certain elemental principle the common man is never encouraged to discover, nor even told about. In the past, the utmost was done to throw a blanket over this primary rule of life, to suppress this...

... is necessary that he rise above it. All our efforts to date have borne wrong results because we have not befriended sex but have declared war on it; we have used suppression and lack of understanding as ways of dealing with sex problems. The deeper a man's understanding, the higher he can rise above sex; the less his understanding, the greater his attempts to suppress sex will be. And the results...

... known to be enumerated here. Ninety-eight per cent of mental illness, of neurosis, is because of the suppression of sex. Ninety-nine per cent of the women suffering from hysteria and related illnesses suffer from sexual disorders. The major cause of fear, of doubt, of anxiety, of the stress and strain on contemporary man, is the pressure of passion. Man has turned his back on an inherent and powerful...

... to comprehend this elemental urge. Only then can we strive to transcend it, to sublimate it, so we can reach the stage of celibacy. Without understanding this basic life-force in all its forms and facets, all man's efforts to restrain and suppress it will only help him degenerate into a sick and incoherent lunatic. But we do not concentrate on the basic illness, we spout the high ideal of celibacy...

... that a lot of poison has accumulated in man. Perhaps it is because of his quack doctors, but the foremost reason is his refusal to accept what is natural in him, his refusal to accept his fundamental being. We have tried to curb and annihilate our inborn urges in vain; no attempts are made to transform them, to elevate them. We have forced ourselves to control that energy in a wrong way. That energy...

... this burning fire rages inside him, so long as he sits tightly on it. He has to strive to suppress it every moment of every day. The fire is burning us. It is scorching us. But even so, we are not prepared to face it, not prepared to look into it. What is this fire? It is not an enemy, it is a friend. What is the nature of this fire? I want to tell you that once you know this fire it will no longer...

.... What has happened to man? Who is responsible for this ugliness and debauchery? Those who have taught man to repress sex instead of understanding it are responsible. Because of this suppression, man's sex energy is leaking from the wrong pores. Man's whole society is sick and wretched, and if this cancerous society is to be changed, it is essential to accept that the energy of sex is divine, that the...

... certain their minds were free of it, they might go inside. Only then could they face God inside. But in the name of religion we have destroyed any possibility of understanding sex. We have declared war on sex, on our basic instinct itself. The standard rule is not to see sex at all, but to shut your eyes and blindly barge into the temple of God. But can anyone reach anywhere with his eyes closed? Even...

.... You are only allowed to live at starvation level. You are not allowed to be too much, because once you are too much you cannot be controlled, and society wants to control you. It is a domination, very subtle. Every child is born overflowing. Then we have to cut the energy source, we have to prune the child from here and there so that he becomes controllable. And the basis of all control is to divide...

... have planned it, be-cause you have been taught not to be spontaneous. You have been taught to manipulate yourself, to control, to manage, and not to be a natural flow. You have become rigid, frozen, dead. Life knows no planning. It is itself enough. Do the trees plan how to grow, how to mature, how to come to flower? They simply grow without even being conscious of the growth. There is no self...

... realize that you have failed. Your failure will be a failure, your success will also be a failure. Whatsoever you do, your life will be miserable. This division creates ugliness, you are not one, and beauty belongs to oneness, beauty belongs to a harmonious whole. All culture, all civilization, all societies, make you ugly. All morality makes you ugly because it is based on division, on control. I have...

... heard that once Baal Shem was traveling in a beautiful coach with three horses. But he was wondering continuously, because for three days he had been traveling and not even once had any of the horses neighed. What had happened to the horses? Then suddenly on the fourth day, a passing peasant shouted at him to relax control of the reins. He relaxed control and suddenly all the three horses started...

... enter the divine temple. Only when you dance, only when you are ecstatic, not condemning, only when you are overflowing with nobody sitting in control, nobody managing, does life become a let-go; it is not formal, it is natural. Then you enter, then everywhere is the door. Then you can reach the temple from anywhere. But right now, as you are, you are schizophrenic. You are not only schizophrenic when...

... the unknown the planning will come from the past. That means that the dead will control the living. The past is dead, and the past goes on controlling the future, hence you are so bored. It is natural, it has to happen. Boredom comes from the past, because the past is dead and the past is trying to control the future. The future is always an adventure, but you don't allow it to be an adventure. You...

... clean so that whatsoever comes in front of you is mirrored perfectly. And live out of that mirroring, live out of that fresh reflection. "I was doing sadhana under the guidance of some other teacher. At that time I had no problem of sex." You will not have if you are being taught how to suppress it. It can be suppressed so deeply that you will start feeling as if it is not there. "But...

... tensions existed there in my mind." Tensions will come up because no suppression can be without tensions. In fact the tense state of your mind is nothing but a reflection of subtle suppressions. You can relax only if you have no suppressions whatsoever. A man who has no repressions is relaxed. A man who has repressions cannot relax, because relaxation will go against his repressions. Try to...

... becomes more and more difficult for grown-up people to sleep, to relax, to love, to merge. So many repressions. And you are all carrying the load; you are loaded very much. And this load is very complex also; it is not simple. If you suppress sex - try to understand it - you will have to suppress many other things side by side, because everything is interrelated. Inside, it is a very complicated thing...

.... If you suppress sex, you will have to suppress your breathing also. You cannot breathe well, deep, because deep breathing goes on and massages the inner center of sex. If you really breathe well, you will feel sexual. You will have to suppress breathing; you cannot breathe deeply. If you suppress sex, you will have to suppress many things in your food because there are a few foods which give you...

... more sexual energy than others. Then you will have to change your foods. If you suppress sex, you cannot sleep well because if you sleep well and you relax perfectly, you will have sexual dreams. You can have ejaculations in your sleep. The fear will be there. You will not be able to sleep well. Now your whole life will become an entangled thing, a complexity, a knot. You can repress sex, but then...

... relationship so as not to be lonely and just to be with somebody. Sometimes one feels good because one feels powerful over the other. Then one uses sex as bait. Sometimes one feels very egoistic that one can conquer so many men or so many women, and one goes on conquering. Then love becomes like a domination. One enjoys the domination, not the love itself. That's why this problem is arising now. When such a...

... that is not going to help. Once you are separate you will again start playing your old games because again you are free to dominate, to try here and there, to win people over, to make somebody a partner. But this is self-defeating. Once you try these things and you pretend love, you pretend happiness, when you have achieved the goal, suddenly all happiness disappears. So it is not going to help to...

... they are needed only for sex, so that becomes like a commodity. And they give it very grudgingly because they know that if they give it to you they are used, and then they cannot dominate you. So they start dominating you through not giving it; they starve you. So you go around them with a wagging tail, and they enjoy. They think that it is something that they can withhold and can starve you of, and...

... small circle in it. The woman is just the opposite: sex is a big circle and the woman is a small circle in it. She enjoys it but she doesn't want to show it, because if she shows you that she enjoys it then how will she dominate you? She holds herself hard, stiff, rigid, and she tries to prove that she does not want it at all. She can give it to you if you ask, but then you have to be grateful to her...

... whether ... [A group member said the group was torture for him: I feel a total loss... I can't do anything without having to control it. I can't be an observer.] Mm, I understand. Two things.... One is, everybody one day or other comes to realise that one is at a total loss, because all efforts that a man can make are doomed to fail. And if you have really understood that you are at a total loss, then a...