From Darkness to Light Chapter 9 contd....

Knowledge has done immense harm.
The knowledgeable person goes on living with this false idea that he knows. And because he knows,
there is no need to enquire any more. The ignorant man is continuously on the verge of enquiry;
always a question mark is there. And this is one of the traits of human nature, that you cannot live
with a question mark. Either you have to cover it with false knowledge – which becomes your answer
– or you have to find the real answer so that the question disappears.
Knowledge is not the answer but only a pretension of an answer.
You say, ”Knowing perfectly well” .... Drop this idea of knowledge. Please just accept your ignorance.
Be courageous and capable of saying, of many things, ”I do not know.”
If somebody asks you about God, do you have the courage simply to say, ”I do not know”?
The atheist has no courage; he says, ”I know there is no God.”
The theist has no courage; he says, ”I know there IS God.”
Only the agnostic is a little courageous; he says, ”I do not know yet.” He leaves the question without
any definite answer. He is enquiring, he is searching.
From my very childhood I have been continuously questioning knowledgeable people. My house
was a guest house of many Jaina saints, Hindu monks, Sufi mystics, because my grandfather was
interested in all of these people. But he was not a follower of anybody. He, rather, enjoyed me
bothering these saints.
Once I asked him, ”Are you really interested in these people? You invite them to stay in the house
and then you tell me to harass them. In what are you really interested?”
He said, ”To tell you the truth I enjoy their being harassed, because these guys go on pretending that
they know – and they know nothing. But anywhere else it would be difficult to harass them because
people would stop you. People would tell me, ‘Your grandson is a nuisance here – take him away.’
So I invite them, and then in our own house you can do whatever you want. And you have all my
support: you can ask any questions you want.”
And I enquired of these people, just simple questions: ”Be true and just simply tell me, do you
know God? Is it your own experience or have you just heard? You are learned, you can quote
scriptures, but I am not asking about scriptures: I am asking about you. Can you quote yourself,
your experience?”
And I was surprised that not a single man had any experience of God, or of himself. And these
were great saints in India, worshiped by thousands of people. They were deceiving themselves and
they were deceiving thousands of others. That’s why I say that knowledge has done much harm.
Ignorance has done no harm.
Ignorance is innocent. Knowledge is cunning.
Knowing is far beyond both.
Knowing has the innocence of ignorance and the knowing of knowledge, both together. It is innocent
knowing.
And knowing is authentically yours.
Unless any knowledge is yours, it is better not to have such ideas of having perfect knowledge.
Do you understand, when you use words like ”perfect”? Is there anything in life perfect?
The moment anything is perfect, it is dead.
Life is continuous imperfection.
Yes, it is moving towards perfection – but always moving and never arriving. That’s the whole stance
of evolution, that it goes on evolving higher and higher but there is no point where it can say, ”Now
the journey is finished.” The book of life has no beginning and no end. It is a continuum; infinite
continuity.
Never use words like ”perfect”. Everything is imperfect here, has to be – except idiots like pope the
polack. These are perfect people, infallible. Only idiots can claim infallibility. The wise ones will say,
”Perhaps it is so. I do not know absolutely. Yes, I have glimpses. There are moments of clarity; there
are times it seems, ‘Yes! This is it!’ but there is no full stop anywhere.”
If you ask me how many times I have said, ”This is it!” and the next day, something bigger .... And
I think, ”My God! So this is it!” But slowly slowly, when it was happening more and more, more and
more, bigger and bigger, I dropped the idea of saying, ”This is it!”
This is always becoming it, but there is no full stop. It is never perfect.
Knowing is a process.
Knowledge is a dead thing, with a full stop.
You don’t know, and it will be of immense help to you to know that you don’t know, because from
there a true journey can start. Your question gives enough evidence of ignorance because you say,
”By understanding and then dropping it.” Alas, after understanding there is nothing to drop. You will
be at a loss.
Before understanding there is so much to drop, but you cannot drop it.
After understanding, when you can drop it, there is nothing to drop.
These are the mysteries of life, real mysteries of life – tremendously enjoyable.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 9 contd....

In understanding is the very dropping. There is no ”and to drop them.”
There is no action after understanding.
Understanding is the action itself.
It is not that you bring the light inside the room, then you throw the darkness out. You don’t say, ”I
will bring the lamp in and then throw the darkness out.” If you say that, anybody will know that you
are blind. You don’t know what you are saying. When you bring light in you will not find darkness at
all. What are you going to throw out?
Understanding is light.
The moment you understand, there is no suffering to be thrown out, to be dropped, to be got rid of.
Understanding simply cleanses you.
You may have a laugh after it, but there is no action. You may have a good laugh because you will
see how stupid you have been. You have been trying to get rid of things which only need to be
understood, and that very understanding becomes freedom from them.
No doing other than understanding is needed.
But perhaps you don’t have a clear-cut idea of knowing and knowledge. It is knowledge: you have
heard, you have listened, you have read.
Yes, you are knowledgeable, but knowledge helps nobody.
Sigmund Freud, a man of great knowledge, was afraid of ghosts – although he said continually,
”There are no ghosts, there is no evidence, no proof.” He was so much afraid of ghosts that a simple
incident became the breaking point between his chief disciple, Carl Gustav Jung, and himself.
Carl Gustav Jung was going to be his successor. Freud had already declared, ”Jung is going to
be my successor.” And Jung was the most intelligent, scholarly, impressive, charismatic personality
amongst all Freud’s disciples, but there were a few things which were troublesome. One was that
Jung was interested in ghosts; that was a constant trouble.
One day Sigmund Freud was sitting in his office with Jung in front of him; they were talking and
somehow the topic of ghosts came up. Jung said, ”Whatever you say, I still suspect that something
like ghosts exists.” Sigmund Freud became red with anger – and at that very time, in the cupboard
behind, there was a sound almost like an explosion. Sigmund Freud fell from his seat.
Jung opened the cupboard: there was nothing. He closed it again, put the seat right, placed Freud
there and said, ”There is nothing. I don’t know what happened, what caused this explosion.” They
started talking again, and again the ghost thing came up. Sigmund Freud said, ”I don’t believe in it
and you stop talking about it” – and the explosion!
This was too much: Sigmund Freud fell into unconsciousness. And that was the breaking point. He
simply informed Jung, ”Either you drop me, or you drop your ghosts.”
So knowledgeable, so much a pioneer, a great scientific mind .... But if you really know that there
are no ghosts then there will be a different response. You will not fall unconscious, you will not fall
from your seat. It is just knowledge, belief. Freud wants to believe that there are no ghosts, but deep
down he is just an ordinary human being like anybody else, with all the fears.
Jung was not different either. He was interested in ghosts, but he was very much afraid of death.
Now look at this strange thing. You are interested in ghosts; if you are really interested in ghosts,
you should be interested in death too, because without death ghosts can’t exist. A ghost is nothing
but a man who was once in the body and is no more in the body. If you are interested in ghosts, you
should be logically interested in death, in the very process of death.
But Jung was so afraid, more afraid than Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud at least had some excuse
in the explosion to fall unconscious. Jung was so afraid that even the word ”death” was enough.
Thrice in his life he became unconscious just because the word ”death” came into the conversation.
He was very much interested in seeing in Egypt the mummies of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, queens,
kings – which were very recently discovered, excavated, and were now available for the public to
see. He booked at least a dozen times to go to Egypt but at the very last moment he would find
some excuse not to go.
One time Jung even reached the airport in Zurich; finding no excuse not to go, he was very much
in trouble. He was trying to find some excuse not to go but there was no excuse. People had even
come to give him a good send-off and say, ”Have a good journey.” And finally he said, ”I am not
going.”
”But,” they said, ”why?”
He said, ”I have tried to find an excuse not to go – there is none. But if I don’t want to go, who are
you to force me to go? You have come with flowers, and I am dying with fear. I cannot look at a
corpse.”
It is the strange mind of man. You are obsessed with things of which you are afraid. Perhaps you
are obsessed only because you are afraid. Your fear and your obsession are almost always pointed
to the same thing. Jung never managed in his life to reach Egypt, and this was one of his cherished
desires. He was very knowledgeable, but as far as knowing was concerned – just nil.
Knowing transforms you.
Knowledge only gives you a false idea that you are wise.
It is better to be sincerely ignorant – because there is a chance of change – than to be a hypocrite
insincerely believing that you know.
Ignorance has done no harm to anybody.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 9 contd....

He said, ”I know, but when you are telling a story, and you say a small dog was following you, and you
were not afraid – that does not fit. A lion is needed. And as far as exaggeration is concerned, you
are telling me that you have told me one thousand times not to exaggerate. You are exaggerating
yourself.”
Everybody is making himself look, in every possible way, like somebody special.
You are talking about your suffering and somebody says, ”It is nothing.” You will be hurt, you will not
like this response. You were telling such a great story; you were opening your wounds and that man
said, ”This is nothing. You should know my suffering.”
Suffering also becomes a support to your ego. A man without suffering, without pain, without any
misery – how can he manage his ego? He won’t have any props for the ego.
I used to stay with one of the presidents of the Indian National Congress – which has been the ruling
party since independence. His name was Uchchhangrai Dhebar, and he loved me very much. He
was the only politician of that status who used to come to the camps to meditate, to participate. He
was really a nice person. It is very difficult to find in politicians that quality of niceness.
He was talking about the great problems that he was facing. I listened, and I told him, ”You can
talk about these things to other people – don’t waste my time. If you can do something about those
things then do it; otherwise what is the point of unnecessarily talking? I am not the person interested
in that kind of thing.”
Just then the phone rang and he took it. The prime minister was calling, and Uchchhangrai Dhebar
said, ”I am very much engaged right now.” And he was not engaged at all – we were just gossiping!
He said, ”I am very much engaged right now; today it is not possible for me to meet you. Perhaps
tomorrow I can manage. I will have to enquire from my secretary.”
As their conversation was finished I said, ”I don’t see that you are engaged.”
He said, ”That is not the point. When a prime minister phones – and I am the president of the party
as far as organization is concerned, he is just a member of the organization .... He may be the
prime minister, but when a prime minister calls me, I am always engaged. When the president of
the country calls me, I am always engaged. These people understand only that language.
”If I just go and run to his house and say, ‘Yes, sir, I am here, what do you want?’ then what is
the point of being the president of the party? So much struggle, so much trouble, so much conflict,
quarreling, and then in the end I have been able to become the president. And you want me to say
to the prime minister that I am gossiping, I am free, I have nothing to do? Now I am engaged in
great problems.”
I said, ”Perhaps the same is true when you are talking about your great problems to me. At least
with me be sincere. I am not the prime minister or the president.”
He looked into my eyes for a moment and he said, ”You are right. I was just bragging about how
much puzzled I am, how much trouble my life is. To be the president of the ruling party of such a
vast country is to be lying on a bed of thorns.”
He was sleeping on a Dunlop mattress. I said, ”What are you talking about? I see you sleep on a
Dunlop mattress!”
I cannot sleep on one of those because it is so soft that the moment you move, it moves with you. It
keeps me awake; I am waking continuously the whole night.
Once Teertha brought for me a water bed. That night I will never forget. That water bed must be
supplied in hell, because you turn and the whole water inside moves just underneath you. That
much water movement – how can you sleep? I can sleep on a hard floor; it may hurt a little bit, but
sooner or later you will fall asleep. But on a water bed ... and that was the latest ”in thing” so Teertha
brought it for me. I had to suffer many latest in things.
You cannot get rid of your miseries for the simple reason that you don’t have anything else to cling
to. You will be empty – and nobody wants to be empty. People befool themselves in every possible
way.
I have visited areas where people were so hungry – starving; they had no food. I enquired, ”You
don’t have any food, how do you manage to sleep?” – because without food you cannot sleep. In
fact sleep is needed for one of the most basic reasons: to digest food. So all other activity is dropped
and your whole energy goes into digestion. But when you don’t have any food in the stomach, sleep
becomes difficult.
I have been fasting, so I know. Before the fasting day, the whole night you go on tossing and turning,
thinking of the next day and the delicious foods. And when you are hungry anything looks delicious.
But you cannot sleep. I asked, ”How do you manage to sleep?”
They said, ”We drink a lot of water to fill the belly, to deceive the body, and then sleep comes.” They
know perfectly well they are deceiving; water is not nourishment. The body is asking for food, and
they are giving water because only water is available. But at least something is in the stomach, it is
not empty.
This is the situation as far as your psychological emptiness is concerned: anything will do. Nothing
is not acceptable to you. And unless nothing is acceptable to you, you are not ready to get rid of
your pain, misery, and suffering.
You say, ”Knowing perfectly well ....” You don’t know at all, and you are saying, ”Knowing perfectly
well.” You know nothing. ”Knowing perfectly well” means that if you understand, all these sufferings
and miseries will drop of their own accord.
Knowing perfectly well and still continuing to suffer, to be miserable – no, it is not possible. Either
you don’t know or you cannot suffer. You cannot be allowed both together: knowing perfectly well
and still suffering. And your last sentence makes it clear that that knowledge is not knowing. It may
be knowledge.
You say, ”Knowing perfectly well that one just has to understand and drop them.” It is a little delicate
affair – to understand and drop them ... as if after understanding you will have to drop them. That’s
not how it happens.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 9 contd....

Just now I was reading that the most prestigious directory of the royal family’s noble blood has
dropped many names out of it in the new edition because they were all AIDS victims. Now, you can
see even noble people have ways which are not noble at all: noble people with ignoble lifestyles.
But that is all underground. On the surface everything seems to be the way it should be. More or
less it is the same all over the world; nobody wants really to drop their suffering.
You have to ask this question very sincerely:
Are you ready to be lonely?
At least your suffering, your pain, your misery, makes you somebody special. It gives you a certain
character, it gives you a certain identity. Moreover it is your misery, nobody else’s. It is your
possession, your prestige. If it is just taken away from you, you will be a beggar.
You ask me, why is misery so difficult to get rid of?
It is difficult because you don’t want to get rid of it.
It is also difficult because you have many misunderstandings.
You say, ”pain, misery, suffering or anguish.” That shows you don’t understand. You can get rid of
pain, misery, suffering, which are your own creations; you can withdraw. They cannot stand without
your support, they need constant nourishment from you. They suck you, they are parasites – but
you can throw them away.
Anguish you cannot get rid of.
So don’t say ”suffering or anguish.”
Anguish is a totally different plane.
Anguish is something spiritual.
Anguish you are not to get rid of; anguish you have to become more acquainted with.
If you are standing with your back towards anguish, it appears like suffering.
If you turn your face towards anguish, it becomes blissfulness.
You are not to get rid of it. And it is nothing to do with you, so you cannot get rid of it. Even if you
want to get rid of this blessing, then too it is not in your power. It is something intrinsic to your nature.
If you are not facing yourself, you will feel anguish; if you turn towards yourself, the same anguish
becomes the greatest blessing in the world.
So don’t say suffering or anguish. That shows your utter ignorance of your own inner world.
Suffering, misery, pain, are all outside.
Anguish is within.
Anguish you are born with.
Suffering, misery, pain, are your creations.
That is also one of the causes why you cannot get rid of them. You have created them, they are your
children.
You just look at people when they are talking about their suffering; watch their faces, watch their
eyes – and you will be surprised. Are they talking about their suffering or are they bragging about it?
– because their face seems to be radiant when they talk about their suffering. And remember, you
know! – because you are doing the same. You always exaggerate your pain, your suffering, your
misery; you make it as big as possible. Why? If it is something to get rid of, why are you magnifying
it? You are enjoying it.
One of my friends is a Catholic priest. I asked him once, ”You hear people’s confessions. Have you
ever wondered whether they may be exaggerating?”
He said, ”What! Exaggerating? They are confessing their sins, why should they exaggerate?”
I said, ”People exaggerate everything. If sinners are standing in a queue, you would like to stand
first, you would like to be the greatest sinner. You would not like to be just third-class, standing at the
end of the queue. And if somebody asks what kind of sin you committed – you have stolen a hen!
When there are Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and Nadirshah, and Alexander the Great, and Ivan
the Terrible – your whole life you only stole a hen? You must be an idiot! Such a long life – seventy
years – you could not do anything else? And you have some nerve to stand in the line with such
great people: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin. Get lost! Don’t count yourself a
sinner!
No, you will have to magnify it as much as possible.
A small boy came running into his home and, huffing and perspiring, told his mother, ”A lion has
been following me! But I was not afraid.”
The mother said, ”Lion? In the middle of the city? I have told you a thousand times: Don’t
exaggerate. Where is the lion?”
He said, ”He is standing outside the door.”
The mother went to the door; a small dog was standing there.
The boy said, ”Yes, this is the lion.”
The mother said, ”You know perfectly this is a dog.”

From Darkness to Light Chapter 9 contd....

And they both were angry at my suggestion. They said, ”This is not nice of you to suggest that we
separate.”
I said, ”Yes, I suggest it. Get a divorce.” And they were both ready to fight with me.
I said, ”You need not fight with me because I don’t hate you, I don’t love you, darling; I am simply
not part of it. Exclude me out, I am going back. I just dropped in the suggestion – you can think
about it. Only three months have passed. After thirty years you will be still in the same situation, but
then it will be too late, even divorce will not be of any help. You will have become addicted to the
quarreling, to the fighting, to everything that you hate. You will become addicted to it, you will miss
it.”
They were very angry; they closed the door in my face. I said, ”Thank you.”
After two months the wife went to see her mother for a week – her mother was sick – and in just one
week Professor Nityanand Mukhopadhyaya started coming to me and continuously saying, ”I miss
my wife so much. I cannot sleep – the bed seems so empty.”
I said, ”And the room also seems so empty, things are not all over the place. Why don’t you throw
things yourself? Shout a little, scream a little – and she is not here so you can say anything you
want. Throw things, beat on the clothes, and then come to the climax: I love you, darling. And you
will have a good sleep.”
He said, ”You must be joking.”
I said, ”Why should I be joking? You try it – what is the harm?”
And you will not believe it: not that day, but after two days, he tried it – because I heard it. He
was doing really a great job, greater than he had done ever before, a greater performance. And he
climaxed it: ”I love you, darling.” And soon I heard him snoring.
In the morning I went to see his room; things were all over the place. The servant opened the
bedroom; the professor was still asleep. I woke him up; I said, ”You did such a good performance.”
He said, ”Really, it works. I was just trying, knowing perfectly well that it was not going to work. How
could it work? – she is not here. But it worked; slowly slowly I got hotter and hotter. She was almost
here: when I was beating the pillows I was beating her. And I have never given her such a good
beating – it was such a deep contentment to the heart. I have never slept so deeply. You were right.”
But this is the situation of almost everybody. You become addicted to your pain, to your misery, to
your suffering. You really don’t want to get rid of it.
You go on asking how to get rid of it, but that is also a strategy of the mind; to go on inquiring how to
get rid of it.
Have you ever asked sincerely, do you want to get rid of it? Are you ready to live without all the
miseries and the pains and the sufferings that you have been carrying all along? Will you be ready to be left alone without all these longstanding companions who have been with you in thick and thin,
who have never left you?
When everybody was leaving you, they were still with you. They have followed you like a shadow;
they have been in a certain way a consolation. This will be very shocking to you when I say they
have been in a certain way a consolation to you. When I say that, I have many things implied in it.
Your suffering makes you somebody special. Without all your suffering, you are nobody. Who are
you? You will not even have something to talk about with anybody. You will be at a loss – what are
you going to talk about?
In England, people talk about the weather just to avoid real conversation. It is a very sophisticated
way, to talk about weather. But it looks a little idiotic because you are seeing the weather, I am
seeing the weather, it makes no sense to say, ”What a beautiful day, how sunny!” you are seeing it,
you are also in the same day. You are not tomorrow, you are not yesterday, you are here with me.
And you say, ”Yes, so beautiful!”
This is because of the English character; it is one of the most phony characters in the world. It
does not want to raise any controversial conversation. Politics is dangerous, there is controversy;
religion is dangerous, there is controversy; literature is dangerous, there is controversy. Except the
weather there seems to be nothing non-controversial – something on which both can agree without
any problem.
It is said that two Englishmen were traveling in a compartment for almost three hours. Then the
ticket checker came in, looked at them ... they were looking very sad and depressed. He asked ....
One said, ”Three hours sitting, not even somebody to talk to.”
He said, ”Just in front of you another Englishman is sitting – you could have talked.”
The man said, ”But how? – because nobody introduced us. Without an introduction it is a kind of
trespass.”
I have heard another story too, that a man went to meet his wife – a four or five-hour journey. The
wife had come to the station to receive him, and he was looking very tired, utterly tired. She asked,
”What is the matter? Why are you looking so tired?”
He said, ”It always happens when I have to sit in a position where my back is against the direction of
the train. If I am sitting against the direction of the train – the train is going this way, and I am sitting
facing that way – then my whole body gets very tired.”
The wife said, ”But there was no problem. You could have asked the gentleman in the front seat,
‘This is my trouble; would you be kind enough to change?’”
He said, ”I wanted to but there was no gentleman, the seat was empty. Whom to ask?”
These are very sophisticated people.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 9

Your suffering makes you special

Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO GET RID OF PAIN, MISERY, SUFFERING OR ANGUISH, WHILE
KNOWING PERFECTLY WELL THAT ONE HAS JUST TO UNDERSTAND AND DROP THEM?
It is difficult to get rid of pain, misery, and suffering for the simple reason that they have been your
companions for your whole life. Except them, you don’t have any friends in the world.
It is easier to be in pain, misery, suffering, than to be utterly lonely, because there are ways you can
have pain-killers, you can have drugs, as an escape from misery. You can get engaged in all kinds
of stupidities to forget your suffering. But there is no way – no painkiller is going to help you out of
your loneliness, no drug, no stupidity.
Loneliness is so deep that all these superficial methods cannot reach to it, cannot touch it. That’s
why it is so difficult to get rid of these few friends that you have got. This is your world, your family.
In my professorial days in the university, I had lived for a few months in the university campus. My
neighbor was a newly-married man, a professor of physics, Nityanand Mukhopadhyaya – a very
sharp, intelligent teacher, with a great future ahead, because he had such a grip on physics that
even older professors of physics used to come and ask him things about new physics.
He had been married not more than two or three months, but the marriage was finished. They
were constantly fighting, quarreling. The wife was also educated, a postgraduate, and in a beautiful subject, in music. The walls that separated me from this couple were not very thick – so thin that it
was impossible not to hear what was going on.
It was almost thirty years ago. I was only their neighbor for a few months; since then I have not seen
them, but they have given me one thing to which I have become addicted: earplugs. Even today
when I don’t have any neighbors for miles ... and even those who live miles away don’t consider
me their neighbor. In the whole of America I don’t have a neighbor. And anyway, tourists are not
supposed to have neighbors.
But I cannot get rid of those earplugs. I cannot go to sleep without earplugs. I have tried. The
moment I think of dropping them I start thinking of Nityanand Mukhopadhyaya. From morning till
midnight they were quarreling, on every point, on every single thing. There was no agreement on
anything. And almost every night it ended with them throwing things – a pillow fight. I even heard
them slapping each other.
Once or twice I interfered. I just knocked on their door in the middle of the night, and they opened the
door. I looked at the scene – things all over the floor – and I said, ”Don’t be embarrassed, because
I have been hearing the whole thing since the morning. I know every detail of it, so you do not have
to be hypocrites before me.
”This is perfectly good – it is supposed to happen between every husband and wife sooner or later.
You are intelligent people: it is happening sooner. But one thing I cannot understand: once in a while
you both say to each other, ‘I love you, darling, I love you.’ That, I cannot understand. Everything
else is understandable to me.
”I had to interfere in the middle of the night because just now, after a big pillow fight, you said, ‘I love
you, I love you, my darling.’ It simply disturbs my whole sleep. Everything else I accept, but how, out
of this pillow fight, and throwing things and shouting and screaming, does the conclusion come, ‘I
love you, darling’?”
They looked at each other. They had no answer because .... Then the professor said, ”I have never
thought about it but certainly you are right. After all this, this should not be the conclusion. I can
understand – you are a man of logic. I cannot understand too much logic but physics is also based
on logic; I can see the contradiction.”
The wife said, ”I have never thought about it, but it is true that .... Can you help us to understand
why?”
I said, ”That’s why I have come. This happens with husband and wife: they hate each other, and
then they hate themselves for hating each other. And then to cover up the whole thing – that ‘I hate
you,’ that, ‘I hate myself for hating you’ – this is the cover: ‘I love you, darling.’
”This manages both things. You are no longer hating yourself, because you love your wife. But this
is only a cover, a very thin cover which cannot stand the strong winds of life. Tomorrow morning
again you have forgotten. The same story begins, comes to the same conclusion. Why don’t you
just separate?”

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8 contd....

The Master is simply a proof that you don’t need to be afraid. If this man can find his center, passing
through all the agony, there is no reason why you cannot do it too. And once you know the taste of
ecstasy, your whole life, for the first time, has something that can be called godliness. A new quality
arises in you, a new flare, a new flame. But that is our nature, everybody’s nature.
I have never tried in my life to become anybody. I have simply allowed life to take me wherever it
wanted. One thing I can say to you, I have not been a loser; it was a great joy to be taken over by
nature. I have not at all interfered. I have not even been swimming, because in swimming you are at
least throwing your hands about. I have been just going with the stream, floating with wherever the
stream is going.
Fortunately all streams reach finally to the ocean. The small, the big, somehow or other they all find
their way to the oceanic. And the oceanic feeling I call the religious feeling.
When your small drop drops into the ocean ....
In one sense you are no more.
In one sense you are for the first time.
On one hand there is death, and on the other hand there is rebirth.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8 contd....

At that time Alexander visited India. Alexander looked beautiful, he was a beautiful man, so the
statues of Buddha are really Alexander’s statues. That face is not Indian, that face is Greek. That’s
why when you see the Buddha’s face, you cannot think that it is an Indian face. It is a Greek face,
and not an ordinary Greek face – the face of one of the most beautiful Greek men. It is Alexander’s
face. They got the idea from Alexander’s face. It was very fitting. It fits better with Buddha than with
Alexander, so I don’t have any objection.
I see it as perfectly right. Even if while Buddha was alive their heads were changed, it would have
been perfectly good. What Alexander was ... what he was doing he could have done even with
Buddha’s face, there was no trouble. But Buddha certainly needs a beautiful face, very symmetrical,
very harmonious with his inner self. The beauty that is shown on the face, in the proportion of his
body, is the beauty of his soul.
Agony is the experience that you have come into the world a clean slate, a tabula rasa; nothing is
written on it. This is your original face.
Now, you can do two things. One is, being afraid of this vacuum, you can start running after
something or other – earning money, power, learning, asceticism, becoming a sage, scholar,
politician – somehow to give you a feeling of identity, somehow to hide your own inner chaos.
But whatever you do the chaos is there and is going to remain there. It is an intrinsic part of you. So
those who understand don’t try in any way to escape from it. On the contrary, they try to enter into
it.
These are the two ways: either run away from it as everybody else is doing, or run into it. Reach
to its very center howsoever painful, fearful – but reach to the center, because that is you. And it is
good at least one time to be at the very exact center of your being.
The moment you reach that center then the second word becomes significant: ecstasy.
Ecstasy is the flower of agony.
Agony is not against ecstasy.
Agony is the way to ecstasy.
You just have to accept it – what else can one do? It is there. You can close your eyes – that does
not mean that the sun has disappeared; it is still there. And everybody is trying to close his eyes;
the sun is too glaring. Close your eyes, completely close your eyes. Forget about it, don’t look at it
... as if it is not there. Believe it is not there.
These pseudo-religions are trying to teach you exactly that:
Try to reach to God, try to reach heaven, follow Jesus Christ.
But none of them says don’t follow anybody and don’t look for any paradise or heaven because this
is all trying to deceive yourself.
Encounter yourself, face yourself.
Have a one hundred and eighty-degree turn.
Look into the chaos that is there, into the agony that is there. And if it is your nature, then howsoever
painful it is, we have to become acquainted with it. And the miracle is, it is painful to pass through it
but it is just the greatest bliss when you have passed and reached the center of your being.
Agony is all around the center, and the ecstasy is just in the center. Perhaps agony is just a protective
shell – ecstasy is so valuable it needs protection. And nature has created such a protective wall,
what to say of others? – even you start running away from it. Who is going to enter into your agony
if you yourself are running away?
The moment you think of it, agony seems to be a tremendous gift of nature. It changes its whole
color, its fragrance, its meaning. It is a protective wall, so protective that even you start running away
from it.
Don’t run away from yourself whatever the case may be. A man’s mettle is judged by his entering
into his own inner chaos. You are worthy to call yourself human beings when you have reached to
the center, and you can see from the center, around yourself. You are blissful – not only are you
blissful, from the center the whole existence is blissful too.
Agony and ecstasy are two sides of your being. They both make you one organic unity, one whole.
So I am not telling you how to get rid of agony.
That’s what pseudo-religions have been telling you for centuries.
I am telling you how to befriend agony, how to be in love with the chaos.
Once you are in love with the chaos, the freedom that chaos brings, the unbounded space that
chaos brings, enter into it till you reach the center.
To find oneself is to find all.
Then there is nothing missing, then there is no question left. Then for the first time you have the
answer. Although you cannot convey the answer to anybody else, you can convey the way you found
it.
That’s what the function of a Master is.
He does not give you the answer.
He does not make you more knowledgeable.
He simply shows you the method, how he found himself. He encourages you to take a jump into
your chaos, into your agony.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8 contd....

If there is too much alfalfa then deer will start coming more and more from all over the place; if there
is less alfalfa, deer will disperse. But our deer are in a difficulty: they cannot go anywhere because
they cannot find a place where human beings will not be killing them. This much in three years they
have understood perfectly well.
They are far more intelligent than your attorney general; they know that these are the right people
to live with. They stand on the road, they don’t bother ... you may go on honking the horn – they
move with their ease and grace and beauty. They don’t bother; they understand that ”These are our
people,” so they are not going to leave. And they don’t have a built-in program where to stop, so they
go on eating.
I told that professor, ”Essence is a built-in program – and that’s where man is different. Man comes
as existence, and essence follows. You are not given a built-in program. You come open-ended,
with no directions, with no clear-cut idea of what you are going to be. You exist first – and this is a
great difference, the greatest possible difference.”
You exist first, and then you have to find who you are. The animals, the trees, the rocks, know first
who they are, then they exist; hence there is no spiritual enquiry. No animal bothers asking the
questions: Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? He knows it already; there is no question,
there is no doubt, no enquiry.
Man is a continuous enquiry, a continuous question. To the very last breath he goes on growing. To
the very last breath he can change his whole life pattern.
He can take a quantum jump.
There is no necessity for him to just go on following the path that he has followed. At the very last
moment he simply can step aside. There is nobody to prevent him, it is his freedom. Man is the only
animal in existence who has freedom – and out of the freedom is agony.”
Agony means: I don’t know who I am.
I don’t know where I am going and why I am going. I don’t know whether whatever I am doing I am
supposed to do or not. The question continuously remains; not even for a single moment does the
question leave. Whatever you do, the question is there: Are you sure? Is it the thing for you to do?
Is this the place for you to be?
The question leaves not even for a single moment. And this is as deep as anything can be in you,
at the very core of your being. This is the agony – that the meaning is not known, that the purpose
is not known, that the goal is not known. It seems as if we are accidental, that by some accident we
are born.
No other animal, no tree, no bird is accidental; they are planned. Existence has a whole program for
them. Man seems to be totally different.
Existence has left man utterly free.
Once you become aware of this situation then agony arises. And it is fortunate to feel it. That’s why
I say it is not ordinary pain, suffering, misery. It is very extraordinary, and it is of tremendous value
to your whole life, its growth, that you should feel agony, that each fiber of your being should feel the
questioning, that you should become simply a question. And naturally it is frightening. You are left
in a chaos. But out of this very chaos the stars are born.
If you don’t start stuffing out of fear, if you don’t start escaping from your agony .... Everybody
is trying to escape, finding ways: falling in love, doing this, doing that – somehow, somewhere
engaged. One thing is not finished, and you start doing another thing because you are afraid. If
there is a gap between the two and the question raises its head, and you start feeling agony, then it
is better to continue, to go on running; don’t stop. People start running from their birth till they die.
They don’t stop, they don’t sit by the side of the road under a tree.
To me the statues of Buddha and Mahavira in the East, sitting in a lotus posture under a tree, do not
mean anything historical. They mean something far more significant.
These are the people who have stopped running. These are the people who have stepped out of
the road on which the whole procession of humanity is going.
They are real dropouts, not the Californian type which within a few years drops in again. No, these
are real dropouts who never drop in again.
Sitting under a tree is just representative. You will be surprised to know that after Buddha’s death,
for five hundred years his statue was not made. Instead of a statue only a tree was made. For
five hundred years, in the temples that were made and dedicated to Buddha, there was only a tree
carved on the stone or marble, nothing else.
It was enough to remind one to step out of the road, because this has been for thousands of years
the tradition, to plant trees on both the sides of Indian roads – huge trees with big branches almost
meeting over the middle of the road so the road is completely covered with shadow. Even in the
hottest summer you can go on the road in coolness, in the shadow.
So the tree became the symbol of dropping out of ”the road.” The road is the world, where everybody
is going somewhere, trying to find something, and in fact basically trying to forget himself because
it hurts. To remember oneself hurts, and the only thing that everybody is doing is to get engaged,
concentrated – after money, after power, after this, after that. Become a painter, become a poet,
become a musician, become someone and go on becoming. Don’t stop, because if you stop you
become aware of your hurt; the wound starts opening up. So don’t give it a chance. This is the road.
For five hundred years they managed simply to have the tree. It was a beautiful symbol of stepping
aside. But as time passed, people started forgetting the symbol. The simple tree – they could not
understand what is supposed .... They started worshipping trees. It was at that time when Alexander
the Great visited India, five hundred years after Buddha. He had seen those temples with trees, and
he had asked people, but nobody knew what they meant, just tree worship. And all over India, even
today, trees are worshipped; it has remained.
Then the Buddhist monks who could understand started making statues of Buddha. But five hundred
years had passed; there was no photography possible in those days, so they had not even any idea
of how Buddha looked.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8 contd....

The materialists say that the world goes on perfectly because there is no manager, so who can
commit a mistake? It is mechanical.
The same logic: the spiritualist tries to prove God, the materialist tries to prove, using the same logic
– this harmony, this continuity – that there is no manager, that it is all mechanical. Only machines
are not able to commit mistakes – either they work, or they fail. While the machine is working, it will
be working the way it has been working forever, reproducing again and again, again and again, the
same kinds of peacock feathers. It is not a work of consciousness.
A conscious mind would try to improve, would like to change a little bit – once in a while to put a little
more red, a little more green, a little more blue ... a little different blue, because there are so many
kinds of blues and so many kinds of greens. Once in a while he would put the head of one bird on
another bird. One gets bored, putting on the same kind of head again and again, the same red nose
again and again; just for a change, one would change to yellow, green, blue. But nothing like that
happens.
The materialist says it is mechanical, it is a vast mechanism that goes on reproducing without any
mind. While it produces, it will be producing the same. Yes, one day every machine fails, but you will
not be there to know it. Once the machine fails, you fail too, so there will be nobody as a witness of
the failure.
I told the old professor – his name was Professor Dasgupta – ”Through this argument I can help you
to have some insight into agony. The existentialist says there is a difference between animals and
man. For the first time a certain group of thinkers has pointed to a difference which really makes
a difference. They say, two sentences will have to be understood. One is: Existence precedes
essence. And the other is: Essence precedes existence.
”In animals essence precedes existence. Essence means whatsoever they are going to be; the
whole program comes first, before their birth. Before they exist the blueprint is there; they bring their
blueprint with themselves, it is ahead of them. Their existence follows the essence.”
Essence means the program, the blueprint of what they are going to be, how many lives they are
going to live, how many children they will have, what colors they will change to according to seasons
– everything. So much so that there are birds who come flying from the North Pole, three thousand
miles down, because it becomes too cold there, and to exist is impossible.
They have to ... they start exactly on the same date every year. They don’t have any calendar,
they don’t know that the season is going to change, but on the exact date, day, time, millions of
birds immediately start moving towards the south. They will stop only when they have passed the
three-thousand-mile radius, because within three thousand miles they will not be able to survive,
they need a little warmer place.
But the strangest thing that has puzzled the scientists is that while they are away from their arctic
home, the season for reproduction comes. So they mate, they make love, they find boyfriends,
girlfriends. It takes time for the girls to become pregnant and then lay the eggs. By the time they lay
the eggs, the warm season is finished. Now the arctic is ready to receive them back. So they leave
the eggs and fly back to the arctic exactly on the same date as their forefathers and their forefathers
have always done.
Those eggs hatch in their time, and the birds come out and start flying towards the arctic; three
thousand miles in the exact direction they fly back to their world. Strange, absolutely miraculous,
because nobody is there to tell them where .... ”Your parents have gone. You don’t have a map, and
the arctic is far away – three thousand miles – and you are a little bird just out of the egg.” Such a
long journey with no preparation ... but they manage, they reach. And this happens year after year.
This is the meaning of essence coming first, existence following. They don’t know what they are
doing. It is some inner impulse, some urge that takes those birds far away. Flying three thousand
miles without fail they reach their parents who had left them in the eggs without even telling them,
”We are going, so when you get out, please come back home. Don’t forget us, we will be waiting
there,” or giving them any indication of direction, nothing – no message has been left. At least they
could have left one old guy and said, ”When all these kids come out you take them home.” Nobody
is left, no message is left, no contact exists between them – but they reach.
There are fishes from the arctic that move in a certain season, and near England at a certain place
they lay their eggs. Before the eggs are ripe, their journey back starts. And when the eggs give
birth, the new fish start swimming against the current! The natural course would be to go with the
current, but their program is fixed. Against the current they start moving towards the arctic, and they
find their way back to their parents.
They will not recognize their parents. There is no need either because these fellows, if they can
manage a three-thousand-mile journey against the current, don’t need any parents, any teachers,
any schools, college, universities. They are self-sufficient. This is the meaning of essence preceding
existence. They are born with their whole life pattern complete and they will simply go on unfolding
it. They are not going to learn anything.
Learning is not for them. They need no learning. They have already got all that they need for their
life, every detail about everything – what to eat, what not to eat. You just look at a buffalo eating
grass and you will be surprised: she goes on leaving certain grass and goes on eating certain other
grass. Strange, but if you look closely, you will find she eats only a certain grass, other grass she
does not eat.
You see here so many deer. They prefer a grass called alfalfa, and just now because we have
brought water and planted trees and lawns and made it a green place, and certainly because of the
deer, I have told my secretary, ”Take care that so much good alfalfa is grown around that the deer
will come automatically, and this will become a deerpark.”
And I love that word, because Gautam Buddha lived in a deerpark. Where his thousands of disciples
lived, hundreds of deer also lived in the same place. And our deer are growing, but a danger has
started happening: they are eating too much alfalfa, getting too fat, and for deer that is dangerous
because once they get too fat then they cannot run. Then they are easy prey to any animal, to any
hunter. Not only that – when they become too fat ... because two or three deer have died.
I enquired why they died. The reason was they became so fat they could not walk. They fell over
their feet and broke their legs, the weight was too much. Their feet are thin, those feet are not meant
for that big a load. So I told my secretary then to either bring more deer so the alfalfa is not too
much, or start cutting down the alfalfa, because this will kill the poor deer. They don’t have a built-in
program where to stop. Nature takes care. In nature, nothing goes off balance.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8 contd....

Missing yourself means that you have been trying to become something, somebody. You have an
idea, and you are trying to fulfill that idea in your life.
All idealists live in agony.
It is not only the existentialist philosophers who are in agony. Of course they have brought the word
to great prominence for the simple reason that
this century has come as far away from nature and existence as possible: one step more and
humanity disappears. This was the longest distance possible – we have traveled it.
We have come as far away from ourselves as possible.
That’s why in this century a philosophy like existentialism became possible.
I showed one of the histories of existentialism to one of my old professors who must have studied
thirty, forty, years before. At that time the word ”existentialism” was not even coined. Sartre, Jaspers,
Marcel, were yet to be. He looked at the content and he could not believe it.
He said, ”Is this a book on philosophy? No chapter on God, no chapter on the proofs for God, no
chapter on religion, no chapter on the soul of man, no chapter on beyond death, heaven, hell. A
strange history – chapters on agony, meaninglessness, anguish, anxiety. These are philosophical
subjects?”
I said, ”You have missed forty years. You have completely forgotten that forty years have passed
since you were in the university studying philosophy, and after that you have never bothered
about what has been happening to philosophy. You are still remembering Aristotle, Kant, Hegel,
Feuerbach, Shankara, Nagarjuna, Bradley. You are still remembering these people who have really
faded out; they are simply no longer in. And any philosopher worth the name today is not interested
in God – he is interested in man. And to be interested in man brings all these problems, agony ....”
He said, ”But what is agony?”
I had to use his language, something from the past history of philosophy so that he could have a
little insight into agony. In the past there has been a great philosophical question down the ages.
The question was: between animals, trees, rocks, and man, what is the difference? Certainly they
all exist; as far as existence is concerned there is no difference. Certainly they all live – even rocks
grow.
The Himalayas are growing every year, one foot higher. The place where I was born was by the side
of a mountain range called Vindhyachal. It is thought to be the ancientmost mountain in the world. It
is almost a proved fact that Vindhyachal and the land around it came out of the sea first, because on
Vindhyachal corpses of sea animals have been found which are the most ancient. On the Himalayas
also they have been found but they are not so ancient. The Himalayas are the youngest mountains
in the world, and Vindhyachal is the oldest mountain in the world.
Just by the way, I am reminded of the story about Vindhyachal in the UPANISHADS. One great seer,
Agastya, went to south India, and had to cross Vindhyachal.
Vindhyachal was so high it was difficult for the seer, so he prayed to Vindhychal, ”Be kind enough to
just bend down a little and let me pass. And remain bending till I come back, because I will have to
pass again.” Agastya died in the south and never came back, but Vindhyachal is still bending. If you
see the mountain you can see, it is as if an old man is bending.
The story is beautiful, but it shows that Vindhyachal is really old, an old man who cannot even stand
straight. Mountains grow old or young; they are as alive as you are. Trees, animals, birds – as far
as life is concerned we may have different kinds of life but we all have a certain quality called living,
aliveness, which is similar.
So in ancient philosophy this has been a problem: Then what is the difference? Is there no
difference? There have been two schools. One said there is no difference; we are all alike, we
are part of one single whole – different dimensions, different branches, but we are all rooted in one
existence. These are the spiritualists who say that we are all one.
The other school is that of the materialists, who say that we are all separate, there is no organic
unity anywhere; existence is not one. According to the materialists, the word ”universe” should
not be used. The word ”universe” was invented by the spiritualists because it means ”uni,” one.
According to the materialists the right word should be ”multiverse” – many, not one. Everything is
separate, and there is no unity anywhere.
And how does this whole go on? – and in a such a tremendous harmony? This is where you will
see how logic can be fallacious.
The spiritualist says there is harmony because it is ruled by one God, or one universal
consciousness. One absolute being, one center, controls everything. That’s why nothing goes
wrong. Everything moves in an absolute harmony. And the universe is vast, it is immense,
immeasurable; still, everything goes on without any disturbance, without any discrepancy. The logic
seems to be solid, but it is not so.
The same logic the materialist uses. He says it goes on in such a harmonious way because there
is nobody who is controlling it. Whenever there is somebody who is controlling everything, there is
a possibility of failure, mistakes, errors. Nobody is infallible.
If there were one God controlling everything for millions of years sometimes He might fall asleep,
sometimes just for a change He might go for a morning walk. If it is being controlled by one being
then there is every possibility of a mistake. And during such a long period can you think that a
person will not commit any mistake? Just by mistake he may commit a mistake. And there are so
many things to be arranged and looked after – just look ....
Just the other day Vivek was saying to me – seeing a peacock with its feathers open, so colorful,
she said, ”God must be taking so much care to paint them.”
If God were really to paint all the peacocks of the world then you can be certain there would bound to
be a thousand and one mistakes. Howsoever infallible God is He cannot manage to go on painting
year by year millions and millions of peacocks. And not only peacocks, there are other birds, and
every detail has to be looked into.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8 contd....

There is a Sufi story about a very cunning fox .... All foxes are cunning, but there are politician foxes
too. This happened to be a politician fox, very cunning. One day she woke up, and finding herself very hungry, came out of her cave in search of some breakfast. The sun was rising, and she saw
her shadow so long she could not believe it. She said, ”My God! I am that big? Now where am I
going to get my breakfast? I will need at least one camel; less than that won’t do. My shadow is so
big, naturally I must be as big.” It is logical, perfectly Aristotelian. You cannot say she is wrong.
You also know yourself only in the mirror – there is no other way. Have you known yourself in any
other way except through a shadow?
So don’t laugh at the poor fox. How can she conceive that a small thing can make such a big
shadow? It is very natural to conclude that if the shadow is so big, you must be as big.
And when it comes to feeling oneself big, who wants to argue against it? When anything gives you
the sense of bigness, you don’t want to go into details to find whether it is true or wrong, whether it
is logically right, scientifically provable. No, your whole being is so enchanted ....
The fox really felt that big. You could see – her walk changed. But where can she find a camel for her
breakfast? And even if she can find a camel, it is going to be absolutely pointless; she cannot make
a breakfast out of a camel. She searches, she finds many small animals which would have been
enough any other day, but today is different. She does not bother about all those small creatures.
They will be lost just in her teeth. She needs a camel, an elephant or something big.
But she finds nothing big. The sun goes on rising higher and higher, and she goes on becoming
hungrier and hungrier. When the sun is just exactly above her head she looks again at her shadow:
it has shrunken so small it is just underneath her. She says, ”My God! Hunger does things to
people. Just one morning I have missed breakfast and look what has happened to my poor self! In
the morning I was so big; only half a day has passed and this is my situation. Now even if I can get
any small creature, that may be too much, I may not be able to digest it.”
This Sufi story is significant. It is our story.
This is our agony:
We are trying to become something which is not in the nature of things. We are not allowing nature
to take its course; that is our agony.
When I was leaving my parents to go to the hostel in the university, they were persistently asking,
”What do you want to become?” And I was telling them, ”That question is utter nonsense. How do I
know what I am going to become? Only time will show.”
They could not understand me. They said, ”Look at all your friends: somebody is going to become a
doctor, somebody is going to become an engineer, somebody is going to be become this, somebody
is going to become that. You are the only person who is going to the university without any idea of
what you want to become.”
I said, ”Becoming is not my number. I want to let things take their course. I would love to find what
nature makes of me, but I don’t have any program of my own. To have a program of my own means
suffering. That means I am trying to impose something on nature and it is going to fail.”
Man has been failing for thousands of years for the simple reason that he wants to conquer nature.
Someone has even written a book, CONQUEST OF NATURE. Nature cannot be conquered. Just
look at the foolishness of the idea. You are part of nature, such a small, tiny part of such an infinite
nature. And the part is trying to conquer the whole – as if your little finger is trying to conquer you.
How can you conquer nature?
Nature is your very soul.
Who is going to conquer whom?
Where is the separation?
I told my parents, ”Please let me go. I am not going to project anything for my future. I want to keep
it open so if nature desires anything of me, I am available. If nothing is desired of me that too is
perfectly good. Who am I to expect that something should be desired of me? One day I was not,
one day I will not be. Just a few days in between – why make much fuss about it? Can’t you pass
silently across this little interval between birth and death without making noise, raising flags, and
shouting slogans? Can’t you simply pass?”
But they said, ”This is not the way. Everybody has to have an ideal; otherwise he will be lost.”
I said, ”I would love to be lost but remain true to nature, to existence, rather than achieve a great
ideal against nature, against existence. In the first place, in which you say I will be lost, I will be
blissfully lost. In the second place, in which you think I would have achieved something, I will be
nothing but pain, suffering, and finally agony.”
Agony is the deepest in you.
And it happens only to man.
All other animals are free of agony – but they are also free of ecstasy. Agony and ecstasy happen
together; otherwise they don’t happen at all.
Have you seen any animal in ecstasy or in agony? a buffalo in agony? Just to think of it seems to be
absurd. A buffalo in agony? For what reason should the buffalo be in agony? The buffalo never tried
to become the queen of England – why should it be in agony? It simply allowed nature to make her
whatsoever was the will of existence. Yes, it will never know ecstasy either because both happen at
the same depth.
Agony happens if you go on missing your self.
Ecstasy happens if you happen to find yourself.
Missing yourself or finding yourself:
Both happen at the same depth of your being.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 8

Agony is missing yourself, ecstasy is finding yourself

Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
WHAT IS AGONY AND WHAT IS ECSTASY?
The same. They are not opposites as they are understood to be. They are complementaries,
intrinsic parts of one organic whole. Neither can exist without the other.
It will be a little difficult to understand because they have always been thought to be polar opposites.
They are polar opposites, seen from the outside. But all polar opposites are joined together from
the inside. The negative or positive poles of electricity, the body and soul – from the outside they
are not only different but antagonistic. From the inside they are two aspects of one phenomenon.
Let us first try to understand their meaning.
What is agony?
It is not ordinary suffering, misery, pain.
All these are very superficial things, just like ripples on the surface of a pond. They don’t have any
depth. You have known many pains, many miseries, many moments of suffering, and you know
perfectly well they come and go. They don’t even leave a trace behind them, they don’t leave scars

behind.
Yes, while they are there you feel that you are engulfed completely in pain. But when it is gone
you know perfectly well that that was only a momentary emotional, sentimental, non-intelligent
understanding of the thing. When you were in the cloud, yes, you were engulfed. But the cloud
is gone with the wind and you are out of it, and now you know exactly that even in the cloud you
were out of it, you were not it.
Note this difference, because that is the fundamental difference.
Agony is not separate from you, it is you.
Pain, suffering, misery, they are all separate from you; hence, momentarily they come and go. They
have causes; when the causes are removed they disappear. Mostly they are your creations.
You hope for something, and then it does not materialize: great frustration comes in. You feel pain,
hopelessness, as if you have been rejected by existence. Nothing of the sort has happened – it is
all due to your expectation. The bigger the expectation, the bigger is going to be the frustration.
It is within your hands to be frustrated in life or not. Just your expectations should become smaller,
smaller, smaller, and in the same proportion the frustration will become smaller. A day will come
when there will be no expectation; then you will never come across any frustration.
You think, you imagine, some moments of pleasure – and they don’t materialize, because existence
has no obligation to materialize your imaginations. It has never given you any promise that whatever
you think is going to happen. You have taken it for granted without any enquiry, as if the whole
existence owes you something.
You owe everything to existence.
Existence owes you nothing.
So if you are running to catch shadows, you cannot catch them – it is not in the nature of things.
Then there is pain, because you were so much absorbed in running after the shadows that you were
feeling a kind of fulfillment. A goal was there; although not in your hands but far away, still it was
there. And it was only a question of time, a little more effort. Be a little more American: try and try
and try again – and sooner or later existence is going to yield.
Existence does not care who you are, American or Russian. It never yields to anybody – it simply
goes in its own way. By making an effort to fulfill your desires, to force nature, existence, to come
behind you, you are creating causes of pain, suffering.
The moment you understand, you drop these causes.
And the dropping of the causes is the disappearance of all your misery.
It was your projection.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

To be conscious not a game.
To be conscious is to go through a deep surgery.
And the problem is, you are the surgeon, and you are the patient.
Just think of some surgeon doing surgery on himself. I had one surgeon friend – and it was not
much of a problem .... A certain disease, a very strange disease, started happening to me every
year. First, one of my fingers started being painful in the first joint – immense pain. Sleep was
not possible; no sleeping medicine would help, the pain was so shooting sharp. It continued for
twenty-one days.
I asked my surgeon friend about it. He said, ”This is a troublesome thing, but for one year there is
no problem. Next year the second finger will be affected, and for twenty-one days at the utmost. But
for ten years you will have to suffer; each year one finger will be affected.”
I said, ”I don’t want that kind of business for ten years. Who knows? – if I die tomorrow then my nine
fingers .... No, I cannot leave them just like that. You have to do something.”
He said, ”There is no medicine for it – only surgery can be done. I will have to cut the bone – which
has grown a little – on the joint. That’s how this whole thing is happening.”
So I said, ”There is no problem, you can cut it. But I can’t wait for ten years.”
He prepared everything, but I was so close to him that at the final time he had a nervous breakdown.
He said, ”I cannot do it; on you I cannot do it – I cannot cut your finger. I will call another surgeon. I
have kept him ready in case, because I knew it from the very beginning – last night I could not sleep,
just the idea of cutting your finger ....”
I said, ”What nonsense. My finger, anybody’s finger – you should be able to cut your own finger too
if the time comes. If there is no surgeon available, you should be able to cut your own finger.”
He said, ”I can cut my own finger, but I cannot cut your finger, because then I will repent my whole
life that I did that nasty thing to you. No, I will not do it.”
He simply freaked out; the other surgeon did it. That day I understood how difficult it must be to be
the patient on the table and also the surgeon by the side – the same person cutting his own deepest
layers of being.
Consciousness is self-surgery.
And don’t ask me how can we raise ...? Nobody can do it for somebody else; you can only do it for
yourself.
This is the fundamental of spiritual surgery: you can only be successful on yourself.
Howsoever painful it is ... but there is no other way. Yes, it pays tremendously if you can pass
through the test.

If you can pass through the pain, if you can pass through all the misery, the suffering that you have
repressed will rise again. It is like entering a house which nobody has entered for years. You will
raise so much dust – and that dust is not simple dust, it covers your wounds. It has helped you to
forget yourself. It has made you unconscious of yourself. It is not like taking off your clothes, it is
more like peeling off your skin.
But once you succeed, then all the pain seems to be just nothing, because the bliss that descends
on you is incomparable; the pain that you suffered looks so tiny and so meaningless. But that is in
the end.
Gautam the Buddha used to say, ”My path in the beginning is tremendous pain; in the end,
tremendous blissfulness. But patience is needed.”
I told you, in this surgery you are the patient and you are the surgeon both. Remember the English
word ”patient” comes from ”patience.” It is significant. Why is the sick person called a ”patient?” He
has to be patient, he has to wait. But when you are the patient yourself and also the surgeon, the
difficulty is multiplied. But still it is nothing compared to the bliss.
All that you can do is to pass through this suffering, to pass through this dark night of the soul.
Reach to the dawn of your being.
Blossom. Let your blissfulness explode.
Perhaps somebody’s sleeping soul may be triggered. Somebody’s sleeping consciousness may
have a shock and wake up.
But these are only ”perhaps.” One cannot be certain in these matters. The matters are so subtle you
cannot be certain.
Hope for the best.
And wait for the worst.
And time certainly is short.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

If they were not here, would existence be poorer because of that?
All these considerations have to be looked into before you start raising the consciousness of the
world.
The greater masses of the world are not interested in consciousness.
They are more interested in unconsciousness.
You will be surprised because you may not have heard them saying that they are interested in
unconsciousness, but you can see them drinking alcohol – all kinds of narcotics are being used,
all kinds of drugs are being used. And there are other kinds of unconsciousnesses which are not
produced by chemical drugs.
For example, in a movie, for three hours, for what are you searching? You are searching for three
hours of unconsciousness. For three hours you become so involved in any idiotic story. And they
have been almost the same for centuries: just two men, one woman; two women, one man. There
are only two stories. I tried to find a third story – I have not succeeded. If any of you succeeds,
please inform me, help me, because I have found only two stories. And there is not much difference
in those stories: two women, one man; or two men, one woman. It is really one story. Only three
persons are needed; put them in all kinds of situations, create all different details, but the story
remains the same.
But it is helpful – you get involved in it. Millions of people seeing sports, millions of people
participating in political rallies, shouting slogans, screaming ....
I used to know one man in Jabalpur. I liked that man, I was really impressed by him: he was
something unique .... For one year I was living in a bungalow which was facing six roads, so all
kinds of processions were passing by there. And it was near the high court, the collector’s office,
the commissioner’s office. They were all just within a half-mile radius.
So every kind of procession – protests, either going to the chief justice, or going to the commissioner,
or going to the collector .... I used to enjoy seeing them. The most exciting thing for me was one
who was always in every protest, whether it was the communist party, socialist party, congress party,
president’s party – any party. And in India there are all kinds of parties.
Whether it was a religious protest – Christians protesting that something was being done against
their religion, or Mohammedans, Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists – he was always, inevitably there. I
could not believe it. That man was something! One day I caught hold of him and I said, ”You have
to come inside with me.”
He said, ”Right now I cannot come, I am going in the protest.”
I said, ”You can go later on – I will send you, I will drive you. But for five minutes you just come in –
because now it is too much, I cannot bear it any more.”
He said, ”But what is the problem? What have I done to you?”

I said, ”You have not done anything to me; I just want to know to which party you belong.”
He laughed. He said, ”As far as parties are concerned, I am a member of all the parties.”
I said, ”But ...?”
He said, ”You will not understand, nobody understands. I enjoy shouting, screaming. Now, who is
screaming against whom, that is not material. I simply enjoy – I shout, jump, have a flag. I don’t care
whose flag, I don’t have any flag of my own. And I am not interested in what they are demanding,
whether they get it or not, but I enjoy it.”
Now this man has no political interest, no religious interest. What his interest is, is in finding
unconsciousness in shouting, screaming, getting involved in something in which he has no
ideological interest. But he has psychological involvement, he forgets himself. For the two, three
hours that the protest continues, he forgets himself. Now, how can he miss if some other party is
protesting? His psychological interest is the same.
He said, ”It is not very costly.” In India you can become a member for one fourth of a rupee; that is a
one-year membership. And that too you don’t have to pay, somebody will pay for you, you have just
to vote for him.
So I asked him, ”So many parties, so many religions and you must be paying so much money ....”
He said, ”No, they pay it. And those idiots don’t even ask, ‘Are you a member of any other party?’
I have not yet been asked, so I have not yet been forced to lie. Nobody asks me. I say, ‘I want to
become a member of your party.’ They say, ‘Very good, you just become a member of the party,
fill in the form.’ I have filled in all the forms of all the parties. I go to all religious prayers, religious
meetings. I believe in the unity of all.”
I said, ”That’s very good.”
But he was really getting juice. You try protesting, shouting, and soon you get involved in it. Your
thinking disappears, your past, your present, disappear. You are suddenly herenow – but not in a
conscious way – through an unconscious trick. You can do it by alcohol, you can do it by politics,
you can do it by religion. You can do it in a church, you can do it in a movie house. You can do it in
a thousand and one ways, and people are using all kinds of ways.
People are not interested in consciousness.
Consciousness is painful, because you will have to drop so much which you have carried your whole
life thinking it very valuable.
You will have to uncover your wounds which you have covered and completely forgotten.
You will have to revive all worries and anguishes that somehow you have repressed.
You will have to face again your original face which you have lost far back. You have become
somebody else. You have been somebody else so long, that now to face your original face is going
to shatter you completely.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

And, in India, there are two types of coconuts – coconuts which people eat, and coconuts which
people use religiously. They offer it to gods, to temples, to gurus. Those coconuts for centuries have
the same price, their price has not changed. For one rupee you can get three – because they are
the same coconuts! For centuries ....
In my village, just in front of my house there was a temple of Krishna, and by the side of the temple,
a coconut shop. A coconut shop is always very close. If you find a temple, you can believe without
any trouble that within a five-minute radius there must be a coconut shop; mostly it is just by the side
of the temple.
You go on offering to the god, and the same coconuts go on getting back to the side shop. So the
price remains the same because ... and they are all rotten. The coconut shell is so hard that what is
inside nobody knows. These are religious coconuts. Nobody will purchase coconuts from a religious
coconut shop for eating, or for anything, because inside you will find nothing. Their function is just
to move from the shop to the temple, and from the back door again to the shop. In the morning they
are again for sale – and this round goes on and on.
And the coconut is a strange fruit. You can work with it for centuries. Its consciousness remains the
same, no change. In India it is so cheap – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi may not have been able to raise
the consciousness of the people but he has raised the price of transcendental meditation from one
coconut to two hundred and fifty dollars. I don’t know how many coconuts that will be ... because for
one rupee you can get three coconuts – religious coconuts, don’t forget that. For one rupee, three
religious coconuts; for one dollar you can have at least sixty religious coconuts; for two hundred and
fifty dollars ... now you can work it out.
And now he is not only trying to raise the consciousness of people. He has been doing that for
almost thirty years, and now people are fed up because nothing is raised. Simply their pocket
becomes lighter, and nothing is raised. They are getting fed up. And how long can you cheat
people?
So now these people have to go on inventing something new. His new thing is even more idiotic:
now he is trying to levitate people. First he was trying to levitate their consciousness, now he is
trying to levitate people. The fees have also gone higher – of course, because he is raising your
body too. Now he says he has found the secret. Joined with transcendental meditation your body
will rise, float in the air; your head will touch the roof. And there are fools in the world who are ready
to pay for this kind of nonsense.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has been asked again and again, ”Give a public demonstration, at least one
person.” That he is not doing, because it is such a secret thing that you cannot do it in public. It
can be done only in private. But strangely, if it is done only in privacy, how are the photographs
appearing in his magazines? At least the photographers must be there. It is public; the person is
not isolated.
The whole thing is, it is a simple photographic trick. It is not much of a thing; any person who
understands a little photography can manage it. He just has to mix two negatives; in one negative
you are sitting on the floor, and in the other negative it has to be managed that you are touching the
roof. You can be put on a tall stool, with the same mattress on which you were sitting on the floor, in the same room. And there is no problem – you just have to arrange these two photographs together
to show that this man’s body has levitated.
Time is short, and people are trying to levitate bodies. For what purpose? Even if, for argument’s
sake, we accept that people can learn to levitate their bodies, and their heads start touching their
roofs, how is it going to make humanity better?
If just touching the roof with your head is the thing, then simpler methods can be used. Just make a
tall stool – ask Asheesh; he can make you a beautiful tall stool so your head touches the roof. A stool
can be adjustable, so if you are short or tall the stool can be adjusted. You can adjust it yourself, so
your head touches the roof. If that makes you a superman, then why bother about meditation and
such long procedures? Time is very short.
But I am not interested either in raising people’s consciousness, or in raising their bodies. In fact
for decades I have not been interested in doing anything for the world, for humanity, because to me
these are bogus words. I am interested only in a few chosen people.
The whole mass of humanity – whether it lives or disappears makes no difference.
I may look hard to you, but I am simply being factual. Just look at the past. Millions of people have
lived and died – what does it matter? Where does it lead? Millions of people are living today – in
what way are they enriching life? Just breathing, just vegetating; is that enough?
Just today I have received a news item: in Miami, a man’s situation has become really terrible. He
had a brain cancer, and to remove that cancer they had to use, for the first time, some poison without
which it was not removable. That poison entered into his brain by mistake. The cancer was removed
but the poison entered into his brain and killed his brain. Now the man is alive, the brain is dead.
He can live for years, there is no problem; you just have to take care of him. His brain is completely
dead, so everything that his brain was doing, you will have to do. And it was your mistake.
But the doctor can also not be condemned. That poison was used for the first time, so there is no
way to say that he used it wrongly because there is no precedent. He tried his best – just an unlucky
man.
Now, between this man, I thought as I was reading the news, and the millions of masses, is there
any difference? That was the question that came to me. Their brains are not dead, but their souls
are dead – which is far worse. And nobody else is responsible – they themselves are responsible.
They are living, but do you call it life?
What is the point of their living?
What have they found out about it, what have they experienced?
Where have they arrived?
If they were not born, would you have missed them?

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

Remember one thing:
Consciousness is always individual.
There is no way for consciousness to become collective. It is always ”I,” it is never ”we.”
Why this concern? And this is not only your concern – millions of people around the world are
concerned with raising the consciousness of the world. And not only now; as far back as you can
find any records they have been concerned with raising human consciousness, humanity, making
the world divine, sacred. And the same problems ....
In Mesopotamia – where one of the oldest civilizations existed once and is no longer in existence,
but ruins are there – a pillar has been found which is six thousand years old at least. That is the
minimum, it cannot be more recent than that; it can be twelve thousand years old, but six thousand
is the bottom line. With all the scientific observations they have concluded that it is at least six
thousand years old, more perhaps.

What does it say? The pillar says: ”Man has fallen to such a rotten state that we have to teach
humanity again to become human. Sons are no longer listening to their fathers” – there is a
generation gap – ”wives are no longer faithful to their husbands. Husbands are doing all kinds
of things, which make them disrespected and fathers are not fulfilling their duties.” The whole pillar
seems as if it is in some newspaper, just today’s editorial.
In India the RIG VEDA is the oldest book. According to the Hindu scholar Lokmanya Tilak, a great
scholar, it is ninety thousand years old. He has immense proof and evidence, and as yet he has not
been challenged. It is almost sixty years or more since he proved that it is ninety thousand years
old. In these sixty years nobody has been able to disprove his evidence; it is now either forgotten or
accepted.
Whatsoever the case, the RIG VEDA is certainly the most ancient book in existence – but it raises
the same problems that you face today, the same questions: Is it possible to change man’s nature?
Is there time enough? Ninety thousand years before, they were worried: Is there time enough? And
the time has not proved enough, that’s certainly true, because the problems are still the same –
perhaps worse.
You are asking me the same questions but I am a different kind of man, a little bit eccentric ...
otherwise, if you had asked the question to any mahatma, any great religious personality, he would
have answered, ”Yes, we can raise humanity’s consciousness. Of course time is very short but my
methods are very quick too.”
That’s what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on telling people. Time is short, according to all the
prophecies, all the astrologers; as this century closes there is every possibility that the earth will be
finished. Time is really short. It is 1985 – only fifteen years more. Ninety thousand years have not
proved enough. Fifteen years! But Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes around the earth with jet speed. Of
course he has to use the jet speed – time is short!
But he says his method is quick: just ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening you
do transcendental meditation. And what is transcendental meditation? You repeat one word that is
given to you. Of course you have to pay a fee for it, two hundred and fifty dollars. And what does he
give? He asks you, ”Are you a Christian?” You say, ”Yes.”
He says, ”Catholic? Protestant?” – just to figure out who you are so he can give you a mantra
suitable to your religion.
If you say, ”I am a Catholic,” he will say, ”That’s very good. You start the mantra, ‘Ave Maria.’ Repeat
continuously: Ave Maria, Ave Maria, Ave Maria, anywhere, in any posture, just for ten minutes.
Between two Ave Marias don’t leave any gap, go as fast as you can.” One Ave Maria almost entering
another Ave Maria, just as when sometimes there is an accident of a railway train, and compartments
go over other compartments, and inside other compartments. All the buffers are broken and the train
is for the first time in a real unity.
This is a very traditional method in India. It is nothing new, and it is used by everybody; in every
village you can get it, very cheap .... If you are very rich then the price is eleven rupees, which is
less than one dollar. If you are poor it can be reduced; for the very poor, a coconut.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

In India there is an organization of Hindu monks. It has been founded by one of the politicians who
has been twice prime minister of India, for a few days only. His name is Guljarilal Nanda. Whenever a prime minister dies this man is put as acting prime minister. Before the second one comes, for a
few days, a few weeks, he remains a prime minister. He has no support but he is a person who can
be relied on not to create any trouble. And he is not even courageous enough to create any trouble
– he is a weakling.
Sometimes your weakness proves of great help. When Jawaharlal died, Morarji was hoping to
become immediately the acting prime minister, but he was not chosen because he is, although very
mediocre, also very stubborn. If once he becomes acting prime minister then it will be difficult to
recall him, to tell him to get down. He will not get down so easily once he gets up.
Some weakling has to be chosen for the interim period so you put him up like a puppet; and when
you want him down, he comes down. The same man did it twice: when Jawaharlal died he became
the prime minister, and when Lal Bahadur Shastri died he became the prime minister. Both times
Morarji was hoping, and both times he was denied, because everybody was afraid that once he got
up, he would not come down.
But this man was cowardly, weak; hence, naturally, he could not manage to be a great political force.
Guljarilal Nanda turned towards religion. Many weaklings turn towards religion, many cowardly
people turn towards religion, because here you don’t need much guts. He founded an organization
of Hindu monks; he was the president of the organization.
When I started initiating people into sannyas, he told me, ”You are creating trouble.”
I said, ”What trouble?”
He said, ”You are giving them the same robe. Now it is going to be a very confusing thing: who is
who?”
I said, ”That is what I want to do. And I am going to fill your whole organization with my sannyasins,
you cannot prevent it. And soon you will see, my sannyasins will be the president, the secretaries,
in your organization.”
They became freaked out so much! I was just joking – I was not interested; who bothers about these
idiots and their organizations? They became so freaked out they immediately made a resolution that
anybody wearing my mala should not be allowed in the organization as a member – ”He is not really
a Hindu sannyasin.”
I said, ”That’s true, he is not. He is neither a Hindu sannyasin nor a Mohammedan sannyasin, nor
a Christian sannyasin. He is just himself. The orange robe I have chosen is just to destroy this
monopolistic idea.”
But Ramateertha was subdued so much by those mere intellectuals that he dropped his orange
robe. These are all ways of the ego. Now he would learn Sanskrit; he would prove to himself that
he was a scholar in Sanskrit too – and with grace and honor he would receive the robe from them.
These are the ways of the ego. Who are they? On what authority ...? Just because they are
crammed with rotten knowledge? So I said to his followers, ”To me his saying that ‘Ramateertha is hungry’ rather than saying, ‘I am hungry’ does not change his ego; it simply makes it more
complicated. And the greatest problem is, he may be deceived by it. If others are deceived, that
is not much of a trouble; he himself may be deceived. He may himself start thinking that he has
dropped the ego because now he never uses the word ‘I’.”
So the question is not of using the word. The question is of understanding how you are using it. Use
it as a utility, don’t make it a psychological trip.
Now you are asking me – how are we going to raise the consciousness of the world? Why should
we raise the consciousness of the world? Are you nuts or something? Can’t you let the world alone?
You just raise your consciousness.
No, but this is how the world is. Nobody is interested in raising his own consciousness. Everybody
is interested in raising the world’s consciousness – that seems to be easier, more fun. To raise one’s
own consciousness is arduous. To raise the consciousness of the world is just fun, no problem to
you. Whether it is raised or not, you are not losing anything.
Yes, by trying to raise it suddenly you become a great sage, you become a great religious leader,
you become world famous. You are raising the consciousness of the world – as if consciousness
is just lying down there asleep and you just have to wake it up. Just pour cold water over it and
consciousness rises up and says, ”What is the matter? Who is troubling me?”
It is not so easy. Consciousness is not there in any collective sense, there is no world consciousness.
There are only trees, no forest. Forest is only a word – convenient, useful, but non-existential. If you
go in search of a forest you will never find it. Standing in the middle of it still you will not find it. What
you will find always is an individual tree, and of course an individual tree is not the forest.
This consciousness of the world, consciousness of humanity, is just a word. Don’t fall into linguistic
games.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 7 contd...

And instead of Ramateertha having a red-carpet welcome, a letter was handed to him from the
highest Hindu committee of pundits, scholars. The letter said, ”Before you speak anywhere else,
first you have to face the committee, the supreme committee of the scholars of Hinduism, because
the way you have been talking about Hinduism is not orthodox, it is not traditional.” More shocking!
He was almost court-marshaled. In front of the scholars he had to answer why he said this, why he
said that. This he had never thought was going to be, but this is how it happened. He had to appear
before the scholars – and there is the point that I wanted to make to the conference in Lucknow.
As he was just going to speak, one old Hindu scholar stood up and said, ”First tell me, do you know
Sanskrit?” Unfortunately Ramateertha did not know Sanskrit at all, for the simple reason that he was born near Lahore, which is now in Pakistan. In that part even Hindi was not spoken; Urdu,
a Mohammedan language, was the spoken language. And those who wanted to become great
scholars of course had to read Persian and Arabic. They had to go to the roots of Urdu; that is,
Persian and Arabic. Sanskrit has nothing to do with Urdu.
Mohammedans or Hindus was not the question: the area where Ramateertha was born was Urdudominated;
in schools, in colleges, in universities, Persian and Arabic were the exalted languages.
So he was a scholar of Persian, Arabic and Urdu, but he had never thought that religion had anything
to do with language.
You can be a Hindu without knowing Sanskrit, you can be a great Hindu sage without knowing
Sanskrit; Sanskrit is not something absolutely necessary. And that was one of the questions those
scholars were asking him: ”While speaking around the world you were not quoting the upanishads,
the vedas, the shankaracharyas. You were quoting Sufi mystics – Jalaluddin Rumi, Farid, Sarmad.
You can befool in the West because people don’t know what you are quoting, but these are not
Hindus, these are not our people.”
The truth is Ramateertha had quoted exactly rightly. It does not matter whom he was quoting, what
matters is the meaning. He had no knowledge of Sanskrit but he understood. He had read the
upanishads in Urdu, he had read the vedas in Urdu, and naturally he had the understanding of
the essential message. And that message was so clearly expressed by Sufi mystics – Rumi, Al-
Hillaj-Mansoor, Junnaid, Rabiya Al Adabiya; they have expressed the same thing. Of course their
language was different. But here he found that he was being treated as a criminal.
Another scholar stood up and said, ”Before you speak in front of us, first go and learn Sanskrit.” And
he was completely shattered. Now, only an ego can be shattered.
If I was in his place, in the first place I would not have expected any overwhelming reception. If they
were not throwing stones at me, that would have been enough – a great reception. If they allowed
me to enter Varanasi that would have been more than one could hope. And then I would not have
gone to their scholars to be examined, interrogated. I should have torn up that letter then and there,
and thrown it on the platform and said to them, ”Tell all of them to go to hell! What business have I
got to do with your scholars? If they want to do anything, they have to come to me.
”And I have not come here to be certified that I am really a Hindu sage. I myself say that I am not a
Hindu, neither am I a sage. So what is the problem? How can you shatter me? – I don’t have any
claim. Can’t you even accept me as a human being? If even that is difficult for you, then that is your
problem, don’t accept. But that is not going to shatter me either.”
You are shattered only when you are living in a glass house. Then anybody can throw a stone and
that’s enough. But I am not living in a glass house. The ego is a glass house: it is continuously
afraid of being shattered. Somebody does not say ”Hello” to you on the road, and that’s enough. He
has not done anything, he has not even said ”Hello” – but this man used to say ”Hello” every day.
It pinches, it hurts: ”What happened? Have I fallen in his eyes, or what?” He will disturb your sleep
because he has not said ”Hello” to you.
Expectations always lead to frustrations.

Expectations are the seeds, and frustration is the crop that sooner or later you will have to reap. It
is your own doing.
So I asked the followers of Ramateertha, ”What was shattered? If there was no ego there was
nothing to be shattered. If you throw a stone into empty space, nothing will be shattered, only the
stone will look silly – falling with a thud, no obstruction, no joy of destroying something, no excitement
of shattering something; just falling with a thud on the ground like a fool.
”A man without an ego is like an empty house. You can throw stones from this side to that side, they
will go across him without finding any obstruction. Nothing can be shattered.”
So I said, ”Note this point, but this is not the whole story. Ramateertha left Varanasi and went to the
Himalayas. He had a follower and a friend who was a king of Gadhwal in the Himalayas, a small
state. He went there and told his friend, the king of Gadhwal, ‘I would like to learn Sanskrit, so
please arrange for a scholar to teach me Sanskrit.’”
Now, is this the way of a sage? Who could not say to these fools in Varanasi, ”Enlightenment does
not come through a language. It comes when all languages are left behind. It comes when even
thinking exists no more. There is no Arabic, no Hebrew, no Greek, no Sanskrit, no Latin. Only then
that light shines within yourself.”
Yes, when you start communicating of course you will have to use some language. And you will use
the language which you know best. In Ramateertha’s place I would have said, ”I will continue to use
Urdu, Persian, Arabic because those are the languages I know best, and I am not going to follow
your dictation that I should start learning Sanskrit. For what? to get your recognition? to be certified
by you that I am really a saint? Does sainthood need anybody’s recognition?”
Who recognized Gautam Buddha, that he is enlightened? Who has recognized anybody in the whole
world, in the whole of history? In fact it is impossible. The unenlightened people cannot recognize
or certify an enlightened one; he has to declare himself, there is no other way. Whether you believe
it or not, that does not matter, and that does not shatter him.
Nobody may believe it, not even a single human being. Do you think that makes any difference to
the status of a man of enlightenment? He remains still the same, his enlightenment not even a little
bit less because you have not recognized him.
Why did Ramateertha agree to learn Sanskrit?
And the story is really strange. He started learning Sanskrit – not only that, he dropped his orange
robe and started using white clothes. Asked why, he said, ”Because if Hindu scholars do not
recognize me then I am not yet capable of using the traditional robe of a Hindu sannyasin.”
When I decided to give my sannyasins the same robe, it was for one reason – to destroy this whole
idea that anybody has a monopoly.