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

... they will worship Christ, they will not worship Kabir - and so on and so forth. Once a master is gone, great shrines are raised in his name and people start worshipping him. But while he is alive they stone him to death, they crucify him, they reject him, they deny him. Why? Why are you so much interested in death? With death you become masters. With an alive master you cannot be in control, he will...

... be in control. With an alive flower the flower is in control, not you; once plucked, you are in control. Then you can go on doing any stupid nonsense - you can call it IKEBANA and you can go on arranging flowers and you can go on learning flower arrangement, and that is all nonsense. You have destroyed the flower, now you are feeling guilty. Hence IKEBANA - it is out of guilt. Now you are trying...

... at the hypocrisy! They come with Bibles in their hands, but soon those Bibles turn into swords. Those Bibles are just facades - behind is hiding the imperialist, the one who wants to dominate the whole world. In the name of God they are simply trying to impose their ego on the world. And then egos fight. It is not a question of the Hindu fighting the Mohammedan or the Christian fighting the...

... MARRING ITS BEAUTY OR PERFUME. SO LET THE MASTER SETTLE, AND WANDER. LOOK TO YOUR OWN FAULTS, WHAT YOU HAVE DONE OR LEFT UNDONE. OVERLOOK THE FAULTS OF OTHERS. LIKE A LOVELY FLOWER, BRIGHT BUT SCENTLESS, ARE THE FINE BUT EMPTY WORDS OF THE MAN WHO DOES NOT MEAN WHAT HE SAYS. LIKE A LOVELY FLOWER, BRIGHT AND FRAGRANT, ARE THE FINE AND TRUTHFUL WORDS OF THE MAN WHO MEANS WHAT HE SAYS. LIKE GARLANDS WOVEN...

... dies, so why be bothered? You seem to be the exceptional one, God has made a different rule for you. Remember, nobody is an exception. AES DHAMMO SANANTANO - only one law rules all, one eternal law. Whatsoever happens to the ant is going to happen to the elephant too, and whatsoever happens to the beggar is going to happen to the emperor too. Poor or rich, ignorant or knowledgeable, sinner or saint...

... - from one flower to another flower. Have all the experiences, because it is only through experiences that you become mature. But don't be possessive, don't get stuck anywhere. Remain flowing like a river - don't become stagnant. Settle inside, certainly, become crystallized inside, but on the outside remain a wanderer. LOOK TO YOUR OWN FAULTS, WHAT YOU HAVE DONE OR LEFT UNDONE. OVERLOOK THE FAULTS OF...

... OTHERS. The ordinary way of human beings is to overlook one's own faults and to emphasize, magnify, others' faults. This is the way of the ego. The ego feels very good when it sees, "Everybody has so many faults and I have none." And the trick is: overlook your faults, magnify others' faults, so certainly everybody looks like a monster and you look like a saint. Buddha says: Reverse the...

... process. If you really want to be transformed, overlook others' faults - that is none of your business. You are nobody, you are not asked to interfere, you have no right, so why bother? But don't overlook your own faults, because they have to be changed, overcome. When Buddha says, LOOK TO YOUR OWN FAULTS, WHAT YOU HAVE DONE OR LEFT UNDONE, he does not mean repent if you have done something wrong; he...

... teaching how to suppress sex. But still it cannot be suppressed. It seems it is impossible to suppress it. It is a natural phenomenon. It arises. It arises even when you are against it - see the truth of it. Even when you are against it, it arises in spite of you. It is bigger than you. You cannot control it. It is natural. Hasidism says that if a man starts living a natural life, one day, suddenly, love...

... the relationship of love; the mind wants to manipulate even the mysterious phenomenon of prayer. The mind is a great controller. The obsession of the mind is to control everything, not to allow anything beyond control - hence technique. The mind is always asking for techniques and the mind goes on planning for every possibility. If you plan for every possibility, if you manage for everything on your...

... own, you never give a chance to God to penetrate you, to take control onto his shoulders. You never allow Bod to help you. You think you have to be independent; you think there is no other way than self-help. You remain unnecessarily poor. A small child was playing around his father who was sitting in the garden. And the small child was trying to pull up a big rock. It was too big and he could not...

... state. Everybody has to pass out of it, more or less - the difference is of degrees, of quantity but not quality. So people are almost always found in the second category. From the second to the third, wherever you are, remember this rule.... Don't have a closed mind. Be like the old maid who caught a burglar in her room. He pleaded with her, 'Please, lady, let me go. I ain't never did anything wrong...

... like anything new to happen, because that will change the power balance. Those who are in power would not like any new thing to be released, because the new thing will make new people powerful. Each new knowledge brings new power into the world. And the older generation would not like to lose its grip, its domination. Education has to serve revolution. But ordinarily it serves the government and the...

... consciousness, then your conscience is ugly, dangerous, poisonous. Then your conscience is nothing but the policeman that the society has implanted in you. Then your conscience is nothing but your parental voice, the priests shouting inside you, "Don't do this - do that!" You are not free, you are not a free man: you are controlled from within - a very subtle strategy to control humanity. That's...

... - power-mad. Their only joy is to dominate. They talk about service only to dominate people. You will have to see deeply into all these things. If man is made aware of all these things, within these coming twenty-five years the earth can be a totally new phenomenon. e. e. cummings has said: "A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man." And that is true: the politician is...

... not yet man - barbarous. The desire to dominate others is ugly; it is violence, pure violence and nothing else. To reduce people to slaves is the greatest violence possible. And that is the desire of every politician: to dominate, to dominate absolutely. Once a politician is in power, he becomes a totalitarian, he becomes dictatorial. He talks about democracy, but behind the democracy is...

... door is already closed. This is why I am firmly against the traditional teachings of enmity for, and suppression of, sex. It is because of the old teachings that sexuality has not only grown in man but has also become perverted. What is the remedy? Is there no other alternative? Let us look at the situation carefully. The realization that comes in the moment of orgasm consists of two elements...

... course of meditative action. Hence, we have chosen the internal repression of sex. At the same time, we are unaware that nothing can be destroyed by suppression; on the contrary, it is strengthened as a reaction. We also forget that repressing something intensifies our attraction for it. That which we repress not only becomes the center of our consciousness but also sinks into the deeper layers of our...

... tried to suppress, shoots up throughout his life. It is an ever-active volcano. Have you ever observed that no animal is sexual all the time, but that man leans toward sex in each and every situation? Sexuality fumes inside man, as if sex were all and everything in life. How has this perversion come about? How has this disaster occurred? Why hasn't it happened to any animal? There is only one cause...

...: man has done his utmost to suppress sex. And it has erupted throughout his personality in equal measure. And think of what we have done to suppress sex! We have had to develop an insulting attitude toward it; we have had to degrade it; we have had to abuse it. We have had to call it sin; we have had to shout from the rooftops, "Sex is sin!" We have had to proclaim that those who indulge in...

... sex are contemptible, are to be despised. We have had to invent countless degrading names for sex in order to justify our suppression of it. But we have never worried for a moment that these abuses and objections would eventually poison our entire beings. Nietzsche once made a very meaningful statement. He said that although religion had tried to kill sex by poisoning it, that sex was not dead, but...

... present ideological clash between the younger and the older generations. The suppression of sex has separated husband from wife and has set children against their parents. We do not need this repression of sex; clarification of sex is the need of the hour. As soon as children mature, as soon as they inquire, parents should lay the principal facts of life before them in a palatable manner. This ought to...

... has become almost synonymous with control, and control means repression. And repression is not the way of learning, repression is a way of avoiding. The man who represses sex is avoiding sex, and he will never understand it. And that which is repressed is BOUND to take revenge because it is not finished, it is there. Unless something is experienced you cannot go beyond it, you cannot transcend it...

..., control yourself. Mahatma Gandhi used to say... and he is quoted by his followers as if he had said something immensely significant. He used to say to his followers: "Be gentle with others, but never be gentle with yourself. Be HARD upon yourself, otherwise you will lose the battle." What does he mean by being hard upon yourself? - control, repress. He repressed many things his whole life, and...

.... Control is not the meaning of discipline, repression is not the meaning of discipline. That is a very unhealthy attitude. Understanding, meditation is the meaning of discipline. Rabbi Greenberg died and went to heaven. He saw only three people there, reading by a dim light. One of them was Madjibhai Morarjibhai Desai who was reading PLAYBOY, the second one was Ayatollah Khomaniac - he was reading...

... three stupid people!" Repression, control can only make you stupid. And remember, even if you go to heaven you will smuggle some old copies of PLAYBOY, GALLERY, GENESIS, because here you missed them. They are bound to go with you. Here you were reading the Gita, the Koran and the Bible; here you were repressing. It is easy to repress in a life of seventy or eighty years, but in heaven it is...

... infinity. How long can you repress? How long can you sit upon a volcano? Sooner or later it is bound to erupt. Remember, a wholesome discipline has nothing to do with control or repression. The DESIDERATA IS tremendously significant when it says: "BEYOND A WHOLESOME DISCIPLINE, BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF." Meditate, and meditate totally, and put your whole energy into it. Beyond that, be gentle...

... doors send their challenges to you, new adventures. This crying, this moving that is happening within your soul -- allow it, go with it. Don't try to control it -- I am saying this because there is every possibility you may try to control it, because we have been taught to control. Crying? -- control it. Laughter? -- control it. Control everything! And by control, you lose all spontaneity -- and God...

... WORKING FOR TWELVE DIFFERENT MAGAZINES IN EUROPE AND AUSTRALIA. I ASKED EVERY SINGLE MAGAZINE TO SUBMIT ONE QUESTION, WHICH I THEN RELAY TO YOU. SO SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WILL BE DIRECTLY FROM THE MAGAZINES; ROUGHLY ONE-THIRD ARE MY OWN QUESTIONS. SOME OF THE QUESTIONS ARE VERY SIMPLE, SOME OF THEM WILL BE CONTROVERSIAL... A: I will make the simple ones also controversial. Q: SEVERAL NEWSPAPERS IN NEW...

... be in the control of government, law. It is an individual freedom. If I don't want to live in this body anymore, nobody can prevent me. And in fact, even though all the governments and all the legal systems are against it, suicide goes on happening every day. And it is such a amusing phenomenon, that if a person is caught redhanded committing suicide, then he is sentenced to death. Because he was...

... they want to do when I am gone. Do you see the politics in the whole idea of successors? That even when I am gone I will control through Sheela the commune. Because I have trained Sheela I can trust her, and she will remain in control. Then she prepares somebody else. And in a subtle way, though I am dead, I am controlling the living people. No, I cannot be so inhuman. While I am here, rejoice with...

... is dead. The moment I am dead, for me the whole world is dead. Now who bothers about a dead world? It is not one-sided death, that I am only dying. I am disappearing to you, you are disappearing to me. It is equal, equal death on both the sides. And I have no desire to control. I don't control even while I am living. But these people, for example, John the Baptist, baptizes Jesus, initiates him as...

... they are saying that anybody who goes for abortion will be expelled from to Catholic religion. These people can't see that who are you to dominate the whole world and its troubles and miseries and sufferings? On the one hand you go on saying we are here for your salvation, and whatever you do is just to create more misery for people. I do not belong to this mafia gang of popes, shankaracharyas...

... the child forever. From now on, a glance, a word or a single threatening gesture is sufficient to rule the child." What happened to his own children? Nobody bothered. Everybody liked the idea. Parents all over the world became very enthusiastic and everybody started trying to discipline their children. And that's how, according to Schreber, the whole of Germany was disciplined. That paved the...

... way for Adolf Hitler. Such a beautiful country, intelligent, became the victim of a fool who was almost mad. And he ruled the whole country. How was it possible? It is still a question which has not been answered. How could he rule so many intelligent people so easily, with such foolish ideas? These people were trained to believe; these people were trained not to be individuals. These people were...

... follow your parents, it is very easy to follow your teachers, it is very easy to follow the society, it is very easy to be obedient -- to be rebellious, to be on your own, is very difficult. But growth comes the hard way. Let me tell you one small anecdote to end with: There was once a farmer who, after a poor crop, complained: "If God would only let me control the weather, everything would be...

... better, because He apparently does not know very much about farming." That's true! Nobody has ever heard about God being a farmer -- how can He know? The Lord said to him: "For one year I will give you control of the weather; ask for whatever you wish and you will get it." In the old days God used to do that. Then He got fed up. The poor man became very happy and immediately said, "...

...;Now I want sun," and the sun came out. Later he said, "Let the rain fall," and it rained. For a whole year first the sun shone and then it rained. The seed grew and grew, it was a pleasure to watch it. "Now God can understand how to control the weather," he said proudly. The crop had never been so big, so green, such a luscious green. Then it was time to harvest. The farmer...

... took his sickle to cut the wheat, but his heart sank. The stalks were practically empty. The Lord came and asked him, "How is your crop? " The man complained, "Poor, my Lord, very poor!" "But didn't you control the weather? Didn't everything you wanted turn out all right?" "Of course! and that is the reason I am perplexed -- I got the rain and the sunshine I asked...

... right for man, it is being misused. The pope, Mother Teresa, and their tribe are using it for teaching people against birth control, against abortion, against the pill. Man's mind is so cunning. It was a question of human rights - they are taking advantage of it. They are saying you cannot use birth control methods because they go against life; the unborn child also has the same right as you have. So...

... pill for men too. It is not necessary that the woman should take the pill, the man can take it. The child is not formed in any way; hence, this fundamental right is inapplicable in that case. But these religious people - the shankaracharyas in India, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran... and all over the world, all religions are against birth control methods. And they are the only methods which can prevent...

... man from falling into a barbarous state. I am absolutely in favor of birth control methods. A child should be recognized as a human being when he is born - and then too, I have some reservations.... If a child is born blind, if a child is born crippled, if a child is born deaf, dumb, and we cannot do anything.... Just because life should not be destroyed, this child will have to suffer - because of...

... Prince Charles died of the disease AIDS. Now you cannot get AIDS from the sky. One does not know who the holy ghost is, but he must be in the royal family. And soon many more will die, because it is a chain disease. There should be no boundaries - that a Hindu should marry only a Hindu, or a brahmin should only marry a brahmin. In fact, the rule should be that the Indian should never marry an Indian...

... another idea that goes far ahead of democracy. Democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people - but it is only in words. In India right now there are nine hundred million people. How can nine hundred million people have power? They have to delegate the power to somebody. So it is not the people who rule, but the people who are chosen by them. What are your grounds for choosing...