... technique. The Jews circumcise the male child on the eighth day. Research has tried to uncover the advantages of this technique. There is no community more intellectual, more brilliant than the Jews. Though small in number they have taken the greatest number of Nobel prizes. They are prominent in whatever field of work they engage in, the leaders of everything they do. People of great influence and power...

... goats. I am now quite content to do so." So people become contented in old age or in poverty but this is pseudo-contentment. Contentment is really a power, not an outcome of weakness. It is a positive energy, not negative. It is not a state of helplessness, but a state of supreme helpfulness, a very high state of being. Contentment implies that you have much more than you require, more than what...

... the shame, so the veil. To many the more modest a woman is, the more attractive she is; the more she reveals, the less attractive she becomes. To many the woman of the West has lost her charm, for what is readily available in the market loses its drawing power. We don't go and sell ourselves to God; what have we got to show Him? We approach Him like a maiden in love - in full modesty. Our feet...

... on all. The lamp does not merely illuminate itself, it lights all things around it. This light that falls on others is sympathy, tenderness. Unlimited compassion arises when wisdom is born. You will give freely, even allow yourself to be looted; you will give assistance of every kind to one and all - then do all in your power to help others to reach Him, for all are wandering and groping. You will...

... arrogance. You feel you are somebody special. The only power that applies to religion arises out of: "I am nobody, nothing!" He who realizes and knows that he is nothing becomes everything. He who annihilates himself completely on earth, becomes God Himself. Do not be satisfied with anything less; if you do then you have opted for the powers of lesser quality. What will you gain by producing a...

... will not lead anywhere towards self-realization. Therefore Nanak has said that attaining supernatural powers are second-rate results. THE LAW OF UNION AND SEPARATION GOVERNS ALL THINGS. Union and separations run the whole show of samsara. So there is only one power worth attaining - to be freed from union and separations. Things that unite must part; things that are formed are bound to disintegrate...

... works according to the law of opposites, saves himself by going beyond both. He is neither made happy by unions nor unhappy by partings. This is the only siddhi, the only real power; master it! AND DESTINY DETERMINES OUR JUST INHERITANCE. Therefore be patient, be tranquil in whatever is given you, for it is a part of your destiny. Things had to happen this way and so they happen. And since only that...

... grows loathsome to you. What is your happiness?... so mundane, so ordinary, so repetitive: there is nothing great in it. But nobody thinks about what his happiness consists of. Somebody's happiness is good food, somebody's happiness is sexuality, somebody's happiness is accumulation of money, somebody's happiness is fame, somebody's happiness is power. Jayesh was telling me the other day that one of...

... answer me a simple thing. What is your hobby in life?" That moment in Indira Gandhi's life must have been of tremendous honesty and sincerity. One cannot expect politicians to be sincere, but there are moments. One becomes tired of insincerity, tired of dishonesty, tired of hypocrisy. She was alone and forgot that she was a politician, and answered, "My only hobby is power." But then she...

... must have recognized immediately what she had said. She implored the man, "This is off record, it is just a personal chit-chat: You cannot put it in the book you are writing." The politician is back. Somebody's happiness is power: power over people, domination, destruction. What are the constituents of your happiness? If you watch intelligently, you will be full of contempt. And your reason...

..., just as flowers come from the inner juices of the tree.... If your happiness is a flower of your being, it justifies existence. All your so-called happiness of power, and money, and prestige is just a migraine. THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: 'WHAT GOOD IS MY REASON? DOES IT LONG FOR KNOWLEDGE AS THE LION FOR ITS FOOD? IT IS POVERTY AND DIRT AND A MISERABLE EASE!' An authentic, reasoning man is always in...

... were drinking without any problem. They have power - the prohibition is for others; nobody can prevent them. This is meanness. Every political leader exploits his country. He promises the country that he is going to do great things. Those promises are never fulfilled. On the other hand, he goes on filling his treasury with as much money as possible. Those who give money are favored by licenses, by...

... not functioning, and he was released only when it was certain that now no cure is possible. But at his funeral, Indira Gandhi was present, Rajiv Gandhi was present, Sanjay Gandhi was present. The funeral was almost official. All great leaders and all great officers and generals of armies were present: and they were the real killers of the man. When Morarji Desai came into power - he was in jail in...

... against. He will live in the world, he will not renounce the world there is 11o need. You cannot drop out of one madness by creating another - you are simply changing your madness. Your so-called money-mad people are mad and your mahatmas are just at the other extreme of the same madness. They are not different. Somebody who is mad after prestige, power, pull, is abnormal. Sitting on a very high chair...

... is not going to make you happy. You can become a president and you can become a prime minister but that is not going to make you happy. And life is to be happy, life is to celebrate. The more power you have, the more and more unhappy you will become - because the more power you have, the more you will constantly have worries, constantly be in conflict. You cannot be at ease because others will be...

... rushing towards you; they will be ready to overthrow you because they also want the same chair, the same power. Power is scarce and everybody wants power. So you will be in a mad-house . If you really want to see a madhouse go to New Delhi. In India that is the greatest madhouse. And right now, because the elections are coming near, you can find out how many people are mad in this country. To find a...

... with yourself? Everything has become upside down. You are living for the non-essential and you have forgotten the essential. You are living for things, and things will be taken away when death comes. Money, power, prestige - nothing is going to be with you when death comes. Only that person lives who lives in such a way that death cannot destroy anything; who creates his inner being in such a way...

.... an ideology. Mind looks for a principle. Mind looks for some technology so that it can become more powerful in controlling. Mind looks for power. It is only accidental that you come across a Lao Tzu: you were not really looking for Lao Tzu, you were looking for Confucius. For example: you have come here. You were not looking for me, you were looking for a mahatma. You have come across me only...

... he was mad while he ruled Germany. Politicians, power-addicted people, money-mad people - nobody thinks that they are mad. But if somebody sitting under a tree starts laughing for no reason at all you think he is mad. He is not doing any harm to anybody. And he may have some reason to laugh which may not be apparent to you. And, finally, what is WRONG if somebody laughs without any reason? Why is a...

... doctors, all are well- qualified. Professionally they have been successful in life; just out of love for me they have dropped their success, their professions, and have come into this desert to create a utopia, an oasis. Sheela was a hindrance. She was creating what every power-lusty person creates: hostility amongst the neighbors. Adolf Hitler writes in his autobiography that unless you create...

... power. She was doing everything in my name. These people were doing everything because of me. I was not available. She was representing me. So whatsoever she wanted to do, just she has to say that, "Bhagwan wants it." And my people did it. And whatever she wanted to report to me, she reported; whatever she never wanted to report to me, she never reported. And she was the only communication...

.... Q:* WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER THAT TAPE RECORDERS, THE HIDDEN PASSAGE? HOW DID ALL THAT HAPPEN? IT'S ALMOST LIKE A SUSPENSE CRIME STORY, A SHERLOCK HOLMES THING. A:* It is a crime story, but there is no suspense in it. It is very simple. While she was in power, she has put on every power post -- we have many corporations, it is a big phenomenon. We have put two hundred million dollars in the commune...

..., the chancellor of the university left. The woman who had collected thirty-three million dollars -- the initial money that started the commune, she had to leave, she forced her to leave because she took all power from her hands. It was so insulting that she has to leave. Slowly slowly she has dropped all the people who could be suspected to go against her. So naturally the people who had left were...

... simple, innocent people who had come here just to live with me in peace and not to get into any power politics. So when she left, and all the gang of twenty people -- who were all criminals. I will tell you what crimes they had committed. When they all left, people started coming on their own. Q:* THESE THREE PEOPLE WERE CLOSE TO YOU: YOUR DOCTOR, YOUR DENTIST, AND YOUR CARETAKER, HAVE BEEN WITH YOU...

... was in a paranoia. The bugging was that perhaps somebody -- my caretaker or my dentist or my doctor -- says something, then she knows. Q:* BUT NOT TO HOLD THE POWER OVER YOU? A:* For me there is no question, because when I am alone I have not been speaking to the microphone. But the question is, even she bugged my room. I don't know about electricity, what wires are for bugging. Everybody in my...

... in silence I did not want to be disturbed. Q:* IF I MAY ASK, HOW DID YOU DISCOVER WHAT SHE WAS ABOUT AFTER THE TIME? A:* So this gave her immense power. In my name she could say anything to my people and they will follow, knowing that it is coming from me. Even if sometimes they will suspect that this cannot be from Bhagwan because it is against His teaching. I have never taught them to believe...

... and you have to do it. So those people who had any suspicion, she simply threw them out of the commune. The chancellor of the university she threw out, the vice-chancellor -- all intelligent people who could see that she is getting into a power trip. The best psychologists she threw out. The people who have been devotedly in love with me for fifteen years, she harassed them in such a way, misbehaved...

... inexpert and unskilled people. They will continue to ruin the country. And the inexpert want to monopolize everything. They want all power for themselves. Besides political power, they want to monopolize economic power too. They want trade and industries and everything in their hands. Even science and religion are not spared -- they want everything under the sun. They may desire so, but if we allow their...

... with birth. No one is a brahmin by birth, or a tradesman or a warrior by birth. But there are people for whom the search for knowledge becomes their very breath, their soul. There are people who search for wealth with the same passion and commitment. Then there are others who seek power like they are seeking their lives. Similarly there are people whose life's central theme is work, labor. This...

... is that knowledge cannot be created without the brahmin. He who brings knowledge to any part of the world belongs to the category of brahmins. So also, only a few men can create wealth. And the pursuit of power and politics is different from the pursuit of wealth. If the passion for politics is right and pure, then the pursuit belongs to the category of the warrior. The warrior totally goes in...

... pursuit of power and spends his life in that pursuit. And the shudra, the worker type, is not going to disappear from the earth. Of course, nobody should be a shudra by birth. Shudra means a type of person who works, eats, procreates and dies. And many people are shudras, workers, and they are found all over the world. They are found in the families of brahmins, warriors and businessman. Shudra is not a...

... with Gandhi because their mental type was the same. The British were essentially businessmen, who by mistake became rulers of a country and wielded power. And the person who confronted them was, to their good luck, also a businessman. It is surprising to see that the British government provided every security to Gandhi, something no government on earth had ever done to their enemy. We could not save...

... have emerged out of that clean fight. Then India would not have been divided into two parts; it would have remained one and whole. A direct fight with the British power would have disciplined us as a people, given an edge and sharpness to our energy and a dignity and grandeur of our own. A straight and clean fight with the alien rulers would have filled us with hope and confidence, verve and vitality...

... reprehensible practices of the Persian mystery. (2070.8) 195:0.12 Wisely or unwisely, these early leaders of Christianity deliberately compromised the ideals of Jesus in an effort to save and further many of his ideas. And they were eminently successful. But mistake not! these compromised ideals of the Master are still latent in his gospel, and they will eventually assert their full power upon the world...

... centuries of the thought of these two peoples now became the driving power of a new order of human society and, to a certain extent, of a new order of human religious belief and practice. (2071.7) 195:1.7 The influence of Greek culture had already penetrated the lands of the western Mediterranean when Alexander spread Hellenistic civilization over the near-Eastern world. The Greeks did very well with...

... power to a spiritually hungry people whose language had no word for “unselfishness.” (2073.8) 195:3.4 That which gave greatest power to Christianity was the way its believers lived lives of service and even the way they died for their faith during the earlier times of drastic persecution. (2073.9) 195:3.5 The teaching regarding Christ’s love for children soon put an end to the widespread practice of...

... European and American life is decidedly secular — humanistic. For three hundred years Western thinking has been progressively secularized. Religion has become more and more a nominal influence, largely a ritualistic exercise. The majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual secularists. (2081.4) 195:8.4 It required a great power, a mighty influence, to free the thinking...

... weakness of secularism is that it discards ethics and religion for politics and power. You simply cannot establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of God. (2082.4) 195:8.12 Secular social and political optimism is an illusion. Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth will lead to peace. (2082.5) 195:8.13 The complete secularization of science...

... entrance of the eternal spiritual realities of the divine values of the worlds beyond. (2083.5) 195:9.9 Christianity has dared to lower its ideals before the challenge of human greed, war-madness, and the lust for power; but the religion of Jesus stands as the unsullied and transcendent spiritual summons, calling to the best there is in man to rise above all these legacies of animal evolution and, by...

... in the minds of all the world as a part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor a society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without idealism, politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without restraint, knowledge without character, power without conscience...

... the fanatic and fascist attitudes of religious leaders. A great consciousness is needed, particularly for those who are in power, that they don't misuse it. Banning Salman Rushdie's book is a misuse of power, and I condemn it with my whole heart. I have nothing to do with the book, or with Islam, or with the writer. My concern is that these things become precedents for destroying freedom of speech...

... that is your intrinsic energy, your intrinsic power. The power that depends on others creates the ego. The power that comes from within your own sources of life creates dignity. Meditation brings tremendous dignity, a great grace, but not even a shadow of ego is found in it. If you are capable of murdering God, you will certainly be capable of murdering his image in you. In fact, the moment God is no...

... consciousness, a certain height of love, a certain height of compassion, understanding, wisdom, enlightenment. Existence is trying in every possible way to create a buddha in your very innermost being. The moment you are a buddha, there is dignity without any superiority. There is dignity in a roseflower. Do you think it has any power over anybody? It is so delicate, so vulnerable, but it has tremendous...

... people? -- money, power, prestige. Sekito is saying, "I also love, but not the way the ordinary people love, and not the objects that ordinary people love. I love their subjectivity. I love their subjectivity because I know my own subjectivity. Just as I am there always, they are also always there. They may know it, they may not know it. I don't love their bodies. I don't love their minds, but I...

... Sekito's love, or my love, you are obliging me and Sekito. You could have refused. It was within your power, but you received it with joy. You are not to be grateful to me or to Sekito. I have to be grateful to you. I was too full of love, and you came on the way and unburdened me. I have to be obliged to you, and I have a deep gratitude towards you. ALTHOUGH THE HUT IS SMALL, IT CONTAINS THE DHARMA...

... few people are stuck in the world - in the world also there are many powers. A politician has great power, a man who has money has great power. A few people are lost in worldly powers: those powers belong to the body level. Then a few people are lost in mental powers. Then you can have clairaudience, telepathy - things like that - mind reading. But you will be lost, you will never move beyond that...

... develop imagination or you develop will, then you can develop these powers. These are the two ways - both are dangerous. If you develop the power of imagination, it is a double-edged sword. For example, that's what has happened to Mantra. She says she was not ill for two years, and she was powerful enough. Then what happened? She came here, and she heard these things. Imagination can work both ways: it...

.... But to himself he is always dangerous, because now he is caught in a will. The will has become very strong - now he cannot get out of it, now he cannot surrender it. And now there is much investment in it too. He has worked for it for so long, how can he surrender it? And there is always a possibility when you have power to misuse it. Power corrupts, not only political power, but the so-called...

... psychic power also corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. So this is my suggestion to you: Rather than thinking of resurrection, powers, miracles, will - think, meditate more about what this life is. Go into it, otherwise you will be moving in a wrong direction. You will be gathering junk and you will be throwing away real diamonds. Meditate on this small anecdote:. A young American entered a...

... politicians were in a hurry: before the war ended they had to throw the bomb to see what power they had gained through atomic energy, whether it was worthwhile or not. Thousands of people died, innocent people. Even this justification was not true, that it was needed to end the war. The war was ending on its own; the German and the Japanese resources were finished. They were going to surrender; it was only...

... totally. And he is not yet out of politics. For a few months he remained silent, seeing that now there was no possibility of his coming back into power. But as the riots started and as people started creating chaos in the country, he came out. Again a hope has arisen that maybe in the next elections he can regain power. By the next elections he will be reaching nearabout ninety, but the desire never...

... he will be active in politics and still ambitious to realize God. He wants to have not only power here but power in the other world too; he wants to know God. He said, "I have realized only a little bit of truth. I have not been able to know the truth in its totality." Now, except for me nobody in the whole of the country has criticized him. The truth is always known in its totality...

.... Greed means now you feel excited only, sexually excited, with money - money is your object of love. It may become politics; then power is your object of love. Then you are simply living an unnatural life, because power cannot fulfill your love, neither can money fulfill your love. But you have completely forgotten what has happened, why you have become so much interested in money. Why do people cling...

... is your nature. All that is needed is to discover it, because it has been hidden from you for certain reasons by people who are powerful and who want to remain in power. Of course they will not like it. That's why they are against me. They CANNOT like it - I am creating trouble for them. The more people become meditators, the more people become sannyasins, the less is the possibility of oppressing...

... religions depend on these commodities. And they have immense power; for centuries they have been exploiting people. And from the side of the people it was almost inevitable to be exploited. Each child is born in a family, and when he is small he thinks his father knows all, naturally. The father is so strong, can do so many things, and he is so small and cannot do anything. A psychology is created in him...

... Himalayas, touching the feet of any stupid priest, asking for blessings. The priest holds more power; the politician's power is mundane. The priest's power has entered in the very spirit of man. That's why religions did not allow science to move into their territory. First they did not allow science even to move into the objective world - the subjective world was out of the question. They did not want...

...... now we have to take those methods to the subjective reality. Religion tried in every possible way, but could not succeed - nobody can succeed against truth. The religions had the whole world with them; the scientists were individuals, they had no power. But truth gave them such immense power that millions of people who were in favor of religion could not prevent their truth. They could not prove...