MIND - A PANDORA'S BOX-Osho

 

 MIND - A PANDORA'S BOX

 

Man's mind is a Pandora's Box. It contains the whole of evolution from the lowest creature to the highest genius. They are all living together in man's mind simultaneously they are all contemporaries. It is not that something is past, something is present, and something is future: As far as mind is concerned everything is simultaneous, contemporary.

 

      It has to be understood very clearly because without understanding it the question of divisive belief systems and fanaticism will remain unresolved. The idiot is in you, and so is the genius. Of course, the idiot is much more powerful because it has a longer history, and the genius is a very still, small voice. From Khomeini to Einstein you are spread; and the trouble is that Khomeini is in the majority, much more in you than Albert Einstein, who is in a very poor minority.

 

       Think of man's mind as a pyramid. The base is made up of Khomeinis, millions of Khomeiniacs, and as you go upward there are fewer and fewer people. At the peak they are not in millions, not in billions, only in dozens--and at the very peak, perhaps there is a single individual.

 

      But remember that the difference between Khomeini and Einstein is not of quality, it is only of quantity, because part of Khomeini is Albert Einstein, and the major part of Albert Einstein is also Khomeini.

 

      Recently the results of a three-year-long study of Albert Einstein's brain were published. It took three years just to count the cells of his brain. There are millions of cells in every brain doing different kinds of specific work: It is a very miraculous world.

 

      How a certain cell functions in a certain way is still not known. A certain cell thinks, a certain cell dreams, a certain cell poetize, and a certain cell paints. What makes the difference between these groups of cells? They are all alike as far as chemistry and physiology is concerned; there seems to be no difference at all. But there are cells which think, there are cells which imagine, there are cells which are mathematical, and there are cells which are philosophical. It is a whole world.

 

      Three years counting the cells of Albert Einstein's brain--the result is very significant. A certain kind of cell has been found in his brain-- twenty-seven percent more than in the average brain. That certain kind of cell has only one function: to feed, nourish the thinking cells. It has no direct function; it is nourishment to the thinking cells. And this nourishing cell has been found to be twenty-seven percent more numerous in Einstein than in the ordinary, average man.

 

       Now the difference is of quantity, it is not a qualitative difference: Those extra twenty-seven percent of cells can be grown in you. And why only twenty-seven? Two hundred and seventy percent more can be grown, because it is well k n o w n and an established fact h o w those cells grow.

 

       In white mice they have been growing all kinds of cells. If the white mouse is given more things to play with, he starts growing those nourishing cells, because he has to think. If you put h i m in a maze and he has to find the way through it--if you put him in a box where food is hidden somewhere and he has to find the way through all kinds of labyrinths to reach the food, and he has to remember the ways that he has followed--- of course a certain kind of thinking has started. And the more he thinks, the greater his need for the nourishing cell.

 

 

Nature provides you whatever you need. Whatever you have is not given by any god, by fate; it has been created by your need. But one thing out of this whole research is very shocking and shattering: that the difference between Einstein and Khomeini is only of quantity. And that quantity also is not something special, it can be created: old Khomeini just has to start playing chess, cards . . . Of course he won't, but if he starts playing chess and cards and other things, he will have to think.

 

Religions kill this very nourishing cell because they tell you to believe. Believing means: Don't think, don't play with ideas. Don't try to find out on your own. Jesus has already found it, Buddha has already said it—why should you be unnecessarily concerned? The n naturally that part that makes a man an Einstein does not develop: You remain average. And average means the basement of humanity.

 

      Hence, I call man's mind a Pandora's Box. And for another reason also--because whatever has happened in evolution has left its traces within you. You are still afraid of darkness—that fear must be millions of years old; it has nothing to do with the modern world. In fact it is difficult in a place like New York to find a dark corner, everything is so lighted. People may not be enlightened, but places are!

 

      Why this fear of darkness? Because in modern life you don't come across darkness in any fearful way. If you meet darkness at all it is smoothing, relaxing, rejuvenating. Rather than being afraid of it you should have a certain love for it. But the very idea of loving darkness seems absurd. Somewhere deep down in your heart is still the caveman who was afraid of darkness. T h e fear of darkness comes from those days when ways to create fire had not been discovered. Those were the days of darkness, and darkness became almost synonymous with evil. Everywhere evil is painted as dark, black. Darkness became synonymous with death. Everywhere death is painted as black.

 

      The reason is very clear: Before man learned how to create fire, night was the most dangerous time. If you survived one night you had done something really great, because in the night all the wild animals were ready to attack you. You could not sleep, you had to remain awake---just the fear of the wild animals was enough to keep you awake. And still they would attack in darkness, and man was helpless.

 

       So darkness became evil, bad, and synonymous with death. And the fear has not entered so deep in the heart that it remains even today, when darkness has gone through a complete transformation . . . do wild animals attack you in the dark, nor does darkness bring any evil or death to you. It only brings soothing sleep, takes away all the tiredness of the day; makes you again young, alive, full of energy, ready to meet tomorrow's morning sun. But our attitude remains the same. So is the case with everything.

 

       In the past, throughout the whole of evolution, man had to become part of a certain group, organization, society, tribe, for the simple reason that alone, he was so helpless. Alone, and the whole wilderness against you -- it was difficult to face it. Together, with a crowd, you felt more protected, more secure.

 

       You have to remember that man is the most weak and helpless animal in the world, and because of this helplessness and weakness our whole civilization and culture has grown. So don't think of it as a curse; it has proved a great, the greatest, and blessing. Lions cannot create a society; lions cannot create culture because a lion has no need of the group. He alone is powerful enough. Sheep move in groups; lions don't move in groups. Each lion has its own territorial imperative. They have a specific technique to declare their territory. All the animals have it--they piss on a certain area and its smell makes others aware that this is the boundary line the fence. Outside it, everything is okay; just a single step inside the territory and there is danger.

 

       Lions like to be alone for the simple reason that they are enough for any enemy Now if you think about man . . . his body is not so strong as that of an animal. His nails are not so strong that he can kill any animal just with his nails. His teeth are not so strong that he can eat the raw meat of an animal killed with his own hands. Neither can he kill with his hands nor can he eat raw meat directly with his teeth. All his limbs are weaker than those of other animals. He cannot run with a horse or with a dog, or with a bull, or with a wolf, or with a deer--he is just a nobody! It is good that these people don't participate in your Olympic races; otherwise your great runners would just look silly. You cannot move like monkeys from one tree to another. They go on jumping from one tree to another tree for miles; they need not touch the ground. You cannot fight even with a monkey.

 

       It has to be accepted that man is the weakest animal on the earth. And this is the foundation of his whole behavior, his commitments, his groupings. He has to be part of something bigger than himself; only then does he feel safe.

 

       He had to invent all kinds of weapons. No animal has bothered to invent weapons. There is no need; their hands, their teeth, their nails, are enough. From the earliest days man had to invent weapons--first made of stones, rocks, then slowly with metals. Then he had to admit that even with a weapon in his hand he could not fight with a lion or an animal at close quarters. He had to invent arrows--that is, shooting from a distance--because coming close was dangerous. You may have a weapon but it won't be of much use against an elephant. He will take you and your weapon both together and throw you half a mile away. Shooting from a distance in some way or other became necessary.

 

       That's how we have arrived at nuclear weapons. Now we have taken the man completely out of it; you just push a button and a rocket shoots. You need not know where the rocket is; it goes on its programmed course. It will reach the Kremlin or it will reach the White House; that program is inbuilt. Who pushes the button does not matter; he can be miles away. He has to be miles away because after all the man is not a pope, he is fallible: Things can backfire. The rockets may be somewhere in Texas and the buttons, the switches, may be somewhere in the White House.

 

      Man has created distance between himself and the enemy, and finally he had to create distance between himself and the weapon too, because the weapon became too dangerous. To keep it close is taking an unnecessary risk.

 

      But everything has grown in a very logical way. Man has become the conqueror of all the animals. Only in this sense can it be said, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the kingdom of the earth." They have inherited it only in this sense, but in no other, spiritual sense. Man's weakness has proved his strength.

      Man had to think, he had to work things out. There were so many problems and he had no natural way to find out solutions--hence, thinking. Thinking simply means you are faced with a problem and nature has not given you the clue to it. All the animals are provided with clues. They never face any problem. Whenever they have to encounter something, they know exactly what they have to do; hence thinking does n o t grow. Man was left without any solutions, with immense problems surrounding him -- he had to think.

      Over millions of years his thinking cells became more and more efficient. But along the way he was gathering all kinds of dust, all kinds of fears.

      It was necessary, it could not be avoided; but the trouble is that time has passed, you have passed through that way, but the dust is still clinging to you.

      Now man can be alone. Now there is no need for him to be fanatically committed to any religious group, any political ideology--Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, communism, fascism--there is no need. But the majority consists of idiots. They go on reliving their past again and again. It is said that history repeats itself--that is true as far as ninety-nine percent of humanity is concerned; it can't be otherwise. It has to repeat it-self because these people go on changing to their past, and they go on doing the same things again and again.

 

      They cluster in groups--and this has to be a commitment, because otherwise why should the group take on the burden of including you? You have to pay something in return. Why should the group bother about your safety? You have to do something for the group--that is your commitment. You say, "I am ready to die for you. If you are ready to die for me, I am ready to die for you." It is a simple bargain.

 

      And why are they fanatically committed? They have to be fanatically committed because if they start being conscious, alert, they will see what an idiotic thing it is.

 

      There is no need to belong to Adolf Hitler's Nazi party. But a country like Germany--one of the most educated, cultured, sophisticated; the country that has given the longest list of thinkers and philosophers to the world--falls victim to an utter idiot. And a man likes Martin Heidegger, one of the most important philosophers of his age, perhaps the most important, was a follower of Adolf Hitler. One cannot believe it. It is simply inconceivable that a man like Martin Heidegger, who has no comparison anywhere in the world, all of his contemporaries look like pygmies in comparison. Heidegger's thinking was so complex that he could never finish any of his books. He would start, he would write the first part, and then the whole world would be waiting for the second part to appear. And it would never appear for the simple reason that by me end of the first part he had created so many problems for himself that now he did not know where to move, where to go, what to do, or how to resolve it all. He simply kept silent and started another book!

      And that's what he did his whole life. The first part appears, then the second part, the third part, is missing, no book is complete. But even those incomplete pieces are simply miracles of the mind. The fineness of his logic and the depth of his approach. . . . But even this man could not see that Adolf Hitler was a madman. He was also fanatically committed to Adolf Hitler.

 

       From where does this urge to be fanatically committed come? It comes from your doubt. You cannot really convince yourself that what you are doing is right, so you have to overdo it. You have to shout loudly so that you can hear; you have to convince others so that in turn you can be convinced. You have to convert others, so that seeing you have converted thousands of people you are at ease: There must be some truth in what you are saying; otherwise, why are so many people convinced? You can be a fool, but so many people can't be foolish.

      Just think of Adolf Hitler: He can think of himself as a fool, but what about Martin Heidegger? He has convinced Martin Heidegger; now no other proof is needed. This man is proof enough that what he is saying is right. This is a reciprocal process, a vicious circle. You become more convinced by having more fanatically committed people around you, and because you become more convinced you start gathering more people around you.

       Adolf Hitler says in his autobiography that it does not matter what you are saying--whether it is right or wrong, true or false--just go on repeating it with conviction. Nobody is bothered about its rationality and logic. How many people in the world understand what logic is, what rationality is? Just go on repeating yourself with force, with emphasis.

Those people are in search of conviction, not in search of truth. They are in search of somebody who knows it. And how can they feel that you know it if you say if and but, perhaps . . .?

       That's why the Jain mystic Mahavira could not gather many followers in India --because he started every-one of his statements with perhaps-He was right, he was absolutely correct--but that is not the way to find followers. Even those who were following by and by disappeared: "Perhaps . . . this man is talking about 'perhaps'? Perhaps there is a God? "Can you gather a following committed to your perhaps? They want certainty they want a guarantee. Mahavira was too wise a man for all those idiots He behaved with people as if they were capable of the same level of understanding he had.

 

      What he was saying would be understood by Albert Einstein, because what Albert Einstein says is also with a perhaps. That's the whole meaning of the theory of relativity: Nothing can be said with certainty because everything is only relative, nothing is certain. Can you say this is light? It is only relative. In comparison to a brighter light it may look very dim. In comparison to a light that is a million times brighter, it may look like just a black hole, just darkness. What is darkness? Less light. There are animals, cats, moving in the house in the night perfectly well. In your house, even somebody else's cat can move better than you can move in the darkness. You will stumble, but the cat has eyes that can catch dimmer rays of light.

 

       The owl only sees in the night; the day is too bright. The owl needs sunglasses; without sunglasses he cannot see, the day is too bright. When it is morning to you, it is evening to the owl. Now what is what? Think of the owl, then you will understand the meaning of perhaps--perhaps it is evening; as far as the owl is concerned perhaps it is morning. As the night grows darker, the owl sees better. In the middle of the night it is the middle of the day for the owl.

 

       Things are relative; hence to say anything with certainty is to show your stupidity. That's why Mahavira used a strange approach for the first time in the history of man, twenty-five centuries before Albert Einstein. His word for perhaps is syat. His philosophy became known as syatvad, the philosophy of perhaps." You could ask any question; he would never answer you with certainty. You might have come with some certainty; by the time you left him you would be more uncertain. Now, who wants to follow such a man?

 

       Adolf Hitler is going to be followed because he takes uncertainty, which was like a wound, out of you. You are trembling inside; you don't know what this life is all about. But somebody knows, and you can follow that somebody. You are relieved of a great burden of uncertainty. All that is needed from your side is a fanatical belief.

 

       The fanatical belief serves both sides. The leader needs it because he himself is just like you, trembling deep inside; he knows nothing. All he knows is that he can shout better than you, that he is more articulate than you, that he at least can pose as if he knows--that he is a good actor, a very refined hypocrite. But deep down he knows that he is trembling. He needs a great following, which will help him to get rid of his fear, which will convince him that he knows.

 

       I have heard that it happened that a journalist died and reached the gates of paradise. Journalists are not supposed to go there; how it happened I don't know. The gatekeeper looked at him and said, "Are you a journalist?"

 

       He said, "Of course, and as a press reporter I am allowed everywhere. Let me in."

       T h e gatekeeper said, "There is a difficulty. In the first place, in paradise we don't have any newspaper because no news happens here—no crime, no drunkards, no rape. There are only saints, dried up, frozen from eternity till eternity. So what news is there? Still, we have a quota of ten journalists, but that has been full from the very beginning. You will have to go to the other gate on the other side of the road."

 

       T h e journalist said, "Can you do a little favor for me? I will leave after twenty-four hours, but just give me a chance, at least a tour. If you cannot allow me a permanent, residential green card, you can let me have a twenty-four-hour tour. That is not too much to ask. Since I come from so far away, have mercy on me. And give me one promise: If I can convince one of those ten journalists to go to hell in my place, then will you let me stay here?"

 

       The gatekeeper said, “No problem. If you can convince somebody to go to the other place, you can be in his place. It makes no difference to us; the quota is ten."

 

      The man said, “Then just gives me twenty-four hours."

      He went in and he started talking to everybody, whomever he met. "Have you heard that in hell they are going to start a new daily newspaper the biggest that has ever been tried? And they are in need of a chief editor, editorial staff, and all kind s of journalists. Weekly editors and literary editors . . . haven't you heard?"

      The others said, "We have not heard anything, but that is great. In this rotten place, only one issue of a newspaper was published, way back in the beginning of time, but since then nothing has happened. So we go on reading the first issue again and again, what else to do? This newspaper sounds great!" All ten journalists became agitated. The next day, after twenty-four hours, the journalist went back to the gate. The gatekeeper immediately closed the door and said, "Remain inside!"

      He said, "Why?"

      The gatekeeper said, "You are a tricky fellow. All those ten have escaped to the other place, now I cannot allow you to go. At least one journalist should be here."

      The journalist said, "But I cannot remain here! You have to let me go!"

      The gatekeeper said, "Are you mad? You spread that rumor, which is absolutely false. They got the idea that they will get great jobs in hell, and became excited--but why are you wanting to go?"

      He said, "Who knows, there may be something in it. I cannot stay here and miss it. You cannot stop me anyway because I am not supposed to be here; I am only a tourist for twenty-four hours. Remember, that was our basic decision--that for twenty-four hours I will be in, and then I will go out. You cannot stop me--you cannot go against your word."

      But the gatekeeper tried hard: "You have spread the rumor; it is absolutely false. And don't bring trouble on me because the hierarchy, the bureaucracy, will ask me, Where are all the ten journalists?' Once in a while they take t h e census and they'll say, ' Not a single journalist? The whole quota is missing? Where have they gone?'

 

        At least I can show the hierarchy the man who convinced them; and they escaped. And because it has never happened before—anybody escaping from paradise into hell--we don't keep the doors closed from the inside. Nobody ever escapes; anybody can open them and look out, there is no problem. Who is going to want to go to hell? And there is no third place. So the doors were open as always, and they escaped. They simply said to me, 'Good-bye, we are not coming back again.' I cannot let you go."

 

      But the journalist was stubborn. He said, "Then I will go immediately to the hierarchy and expose the whole thing: that I am not entitled to be here, I don't have a green card--I am just a tourist--and the gatekeeper is not allowing me to go out. You have committed two crimes: first, you allowed me in; second, you are not allowing me out."

 

      T h e gatekeeper understood; that was perfectly right. He said, "Okay, you go. The census, it takes eternity--everything takes eternity here. Meanwhile maybe some other journalist may turn up. But this is strange, that you are convinced by a rumor that you created yourself."

 

       He said, “When ten other journalists believe it, there must be some- thing in it. Some part of it must be true; otherwise how can you convince ten journalists to go from paradise to hell? There is bound to be some truth in it."

 

       The leader is continuously in need of being convinced again and again that what he is saying is right. For that he needs growing numbers of committed people. And the more fanatically they are committed, the more convincing they are to him. If they are ready to die or to kill, to go on a crusade, do jihad, holy war-- that makes him certain.

 

       And in a circular way, his certainty convinces the followers—because he becomes louder, more stubborn; he becomes absolutely certain. Ifs and buts disappear from his language – whatever he says is the truth. And this vicious circle goes on and on. It makes the leader fanatic and the followers fanatics. It is the psychological need of both; both are in the same boat.

 

       People have a psychological need to feel certain. To have shifting sand continuously underneath their feet makes their life difficult. It is difficult enough as it is--and then all around, uncertainty and insecurity, all around, problems and no answers. This gives an opportunity to those few cunning people who can pretend that they deal exactly in the commodities you need. The only quality the leader needs is that he should always be ahead of the crowd. He should be constantly watchful of where the crowd is going, and be ahead of it. That keeps the crowd feeling that the leader is leading.

 

      The leader only has to be this clever, that he goes on watching the mood of the people, where they are moving. Wherever the wind starts blowing the real leader never misses the chance: He is always ahead of the crowd.

 

      Thinkers are not needed because a thinker will start wondering whether the way the crowd is going is the right course, or whether the way he was going is the right course. If he starts thinking in that way then he will not be the leader any longer, he will be alone. The crowd will have moved with some idiot who does not bother to wonder about where they are going. You may be going to hell, but he is the leader--he is ahead of you. The only quality in the leader that is needed is a faculty that can judge the mood of the crowd. This is not very difficult because the crowd is shouting loudly what it wants all the time, where it wants to go, what its needs are. You have just to be a little alert and put all these voices together; then there will be no problem, you will be ahead of the crowd.

 

      And go on promising whatever they are asking for--nobody will expect you to fulfill your promises, they are asking only to be promised. Who has asked you to fulfill your promises? Go on giving promises and don't be worried that someday they will catch hold of you and ask about them. They never will, because whenever they catch hold of you, you can give them bigger promises.

 

       And people's memories are very short. What you promised five years ago, who remembers? In five years' time so much water has gone down the Ganges, who bothers? In five years so much has changed. Don't be worried, you just go on making bigger and bigger promises.

 

      And people believe in those promises, people want to believe. They have nothing else, just hopes. So the leaders go on giving opium, hope, and people become addicted.

 

      Fanatic commitment to groups and organizations, political, religious, or any other kind, is a kind of addiction--just like any other drug. A Christian feels at home surrounded by Christians. That is addiction, a psychological drug. Seeing a person outside of their crowd, something in the psyche of people immediately starts trembling: a question mark has arisen. There is a man who does not believe in Christ: "It is possible not to believe in Christ? It is possible to survive without believing in Christ?" Suspicions, doubts . . .

       Why do they get angry? They are not angry, they are really afraid. And to hide the fear they have to project the anger. Anger is always to hide fear.

       People use all kinds of strategies. There are people who will laugh just so that they can stop their tears. In laughing you will forget, they will forget. . . and the tears can remain hidden. In anger, their fear remains hidden.

       They are very fanatic; defensive . . . They know their belief is not their experience, and they are afraid some outsider may scratch, may dig deep, may bring the wound in front of their eyes. Somehow they have been able to cover it up--they are Christians and Christ is the savior, the only savior, the only real savior, and they have the Holy Book and God is with them so what is there to fear? They have created a cozy psychological home and suddenly, like a bull in a china shop, in comes a stranger who doesn't believe as they do!

 

      One of my teachers loved me very much. In my high school days he was the one teacher with whom I was very intimate. So after I went to university, and came back to my home town on holidays, I would go to see him.

 

      He said one day, "I wait for you. It is very strange that I wait for you, knowing that now the holidays are here and you will be coming. And your coming is just like a fresh breeze. In my old age you remind me again of my youth and my youthful dreams. But when you come, I become afraid and I start praying to God: 'Let him go as soon as possible!' Because you create suspicion in me; you are my greatest doubt. Just seeing you is enough for all my doubts to start arising. Somehow I keep them down, but with you it is difficult."

 

      He said, "It is strange that just your coming into my house is enough and all my efforts at repression fail and all my doubts stand up. I know that I don't know God, and I know that my prayers are just futile—there is nobody to hear them. Still I go on doing them three times a day: morning, afternoon, evening. But when you are here then I cannot do my prayers as peacefully as I do every other day."

 

      I said, "But I never disturb your prayers!"

      He said, "It is not that you disturb them. But if you are just sitting here and I am doing my prayer . . . it is impossible. Suddenly I know that what I am doing is stupid and I know what you are thinking. You must be thinking that this old fool still goes on doing the same thing . . . I know that in your eyes this is not intelligent, what I am doing. And the trouble is, that deep down I agree with you. But now I am too old and I cannot change. Fear arises. I cannot stop. Many times I have thought, Why don't I stop praying? But I have been praying for seventy-five Years . . ."

 

      At that time he must have been about ninety-two. "I have been praying for so long. And now, at the time of death, to stop? And who knows? . . . If this boy is around and God really does exist, then I will be in a fix: I will not be able even to raise my eyes before God if at the last moment I dropped praying. So I think, now that I have done it all my life, let me continue, right or wrong. If it is wrong, nothing is lost. Anyway, now that I am retired, the whole day I am free. And if God is there, then it is perfectly good--my prayers have succeeded."

 

       I said, "This won't help. Even if God is there, this kind of prayer is futile. Do you think you can deceive God? Won't he ask you? You were praying with this idea that if he does not exist, good, and if he exists, you can say that at least you prayed to him. You think you can deceive God?"

 

      He said, "This is the trouble. That's why I say to you, please don't come! I cannot drop it, and I cannot do it sincerely. And now you have created a third problem: Even if I am doing it, it is useless! Because you are right: If God is there he will know this simple thing that this old man is trying to deceive him."

 

       I said, "This is far worse than not praying. At least be honest. And I don't think being honest is anything against religion. Just be honest; if you don't feel it, drop it!"

 

       He said, " With you I again start feeling young, strong. But when you are gone I am again old, death is close by, and this is not the time to change boats. One may fall into the water. It is better to keep on with what you are doing . . . whatever is going to happen, let it happen. Just continue. And I am not alone; two hundred million Hindus are with me. That's the point; two hundred million Hindus are with me."

 

       I said, "Yes, that's true. Two hundred million Hindus are with you and I am alone. But a single person can destroy your two hundred million Hindus' support, if it is based on a lie. You have taken a wrong step--you should never have listened to me!"

 

       That's what fanaticism is: Don't listen to anything that goes against you. Before anybody says something you start shouting so loudly that you hear only your own voice. Read only your own book, listen only to your church, to your temple, to your synagogue.

 

      Fanaticism is simply a strategy to protect you from doubts. But although doubts can be protected, they cannot be destroyed. And now there is no need either. Man has passed through those stages where he needed crowds. Now he can be an individual. That does not mean that you don't have clubs, you don't have societies, but there is no need to be committed fanatically.

 

      You can be a Rotarian; that does not mean you are committed fanatically, that you will die for the Rotary Club. That will be a really great martyrdom-- somebody dying for the Rotary Club! You don't have to die for the Rotary Club, Lions' Club . . . you need not die for Christianity, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, communism, socialism. You can have a rapport with people; you can have a dialogue with people. You can have meetings with people, you can commune with people w h o are of the same mind, but there is no need to make any fuss about it. No crusade, no holy war . . .

 

      Yes, you can remain a nation but there is no need to make too much of those boundaries that you have created on the map. They are only on the map, don't start seeing them on the ground. That's where you become blind. : It is perfectly good there should be so many nations but there is no need for so many madnesses. It is perfectly good, people can worship in their own ways, pray in their own ways, have their own book, love their own messiahs, and there is no problem about it. But don't make it a problem for other human beings. It is your personal thing. You like something, you prefer a certain perfume--perfectly good; if somebody else does not like it, it does not make h i m your enemy. These are preferences--somebody can differ. And differing does not mean antagonism; it simply means one has a different way of looking at things, feeling things.

 

       There is no need for any fanaticism; there is no need for any commitment. If we can have organizations in the world without commitment, without fanaticism, it will be a beautiful world. Organizations themselves are not bad. Organizations without commitment, without fanatic attitudes, simply make an orderly world. And order is certainly needed. Where there are so many millions of people you cannot live without order.

 

       I have called that order a "commune." I have called it "commune" just to make it different from organization, political party, and religious cult. I have called it simply "commune," where people of similar vision live in friendliness, with all their differences.

 

       They are not to erase their differences to be part of the commune that becomes commitment. Their differences are accepted, those are the qualities of those individuals.

 

       And it is in fact making the commune rich when so many people with so many different qualities, talents, creativities, sensitivities, are joined without crippling each other, without destroying each other. On the contrary, they are helping each other to become a perfect individual, a unique individual . . .

 

                     STEPPING OUT OF THE PYRAMID

 

       A question: I was shocked to hear you say that the pyramid of humanity consists of Ayatollah Khomeini and Albert Einstein, and there is no qualitative difference between the two. Isn't there a third alternative?

 

       I am shocked too, but one is helpless against the reality. The truth is that there is no qualitative difference between Ayatollah Khomeini and Albert Einstein; I would have loved to declare it if there was even a small possibility of some qualitative difference. That does not mean that both are the same type of person.

 

       Ayatollah Khomeini is a madman. Albert Einstein is a genius; the sharpest intelligence humanity has ever produced. So I am not saying that they are the same kind of people, but what can I do? They belong to the same range. The Ayatollah is the lowest in the line, Albert Einstein the highest, but the difference is only of degrees; it is the same pyramid.

 

       Ayatollah Khomeini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung--they are as human as Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers; they belong to one humanity, to one mind. But Ayatollah Khomeini and his company are sick. The mind is the same but it is a sick mind, it is upside down. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell are healthy. It is the same mind but in the right shape; it is as it should be.

 

      But I cannot say that they belong to two different categories; that would be a lie. It would be consoling--you would not be shocked, I would not be shocked, everybody would be happy. But to destroy truth for such stupid consolation is n o t going to help anybody.

 

      But why do you look only from one side? There are many aspects which have to be considered. Why don't you see it as a great revelation? You have thought only of one thing, that's why you got shocked. I got shocked too, but I also got excited, ecstatic.

 

      You thought only of one thing, that Albert Einstein is reduced to the level of Ayatollah Khomeini. But why can't you see the other possibility--that Ayatollah Khomeini can be raised to the level of Albert Einstein?

 

       I am opening a tremendous possibility for these mad people. And these mad people have dominated humanity; something has to be done. Humanity as such is not bad, not evil, but one Ayatollah Khomeini can drive a whole country crazy, idiotic.

 

      The names, the words, the principles these people use to hide their madness and stupidity are beautiful. Ayatollah Khomeini recites the holy Koran every day. He does not need to read; he has memorized it—the whole holy Koran. He quotes continuously from the holy Koran, and those who are listening to him and following him believe that he is a prophet, a messenger of God sent to help Islam succeed. That's what all the religions believe: If they succeed, only then is there any future for humanity; otherwise there is no future, man is finished. And what he is doing is so barbarous, so ugly, so inhuman . . . People are being slaughtered continuously, beheaded continuously. People are being beaten to death on the crossroads before thousands of spectators--and all those spectators are rejoicing because this is the success of Islam.

 

      Ayatollah Khomeini says that anything done according to the Islamic principles is right. There is no other way, no other criterion to decide right and wrong. To behead a man is Islamic. If the man is not willing to become a Mohammedan then it is better he should die. Living as a non-Mohammedan is worse than dying, because death may change his life pattern. Perhaps in this body, in this mind, he is incapable of becoming a

Mohammedan, so this body and mind have to be destroyed. These are hindrances to his salvation. And to die by the hands of Islamic soldiers is a glory in itself. You should be proud: You attained a great death. You could not attain a great life but you attained a great death. So the person who is being killed by the Islamic murderers is fortunate. And the people who are killing him are also earning great virtue, because there is no other motive--they are trying to help the man, to transform his being. They are making the way to God clear and clean for the person. They are doing God's work: They will be born as saints in paradise. So both are benefited. How can something be wrong and evil when both parties are immensely benefited, spiritually benefited?

 

       Do you see the cunningness of people? But this Ayatollah has the same mind as you have, it is just that it has gone nuts. But it can be repaired.

 

       This is happening all over the world . . . Just the other day in the Vatican one woman jumped from St. Peter's basilica--the highest church in Christendom--and killed herself. Nobody knows why, and perhaps nobody will ever know why. But when I heard this, the immediate response that came to me was that this woman has declared something significant. The whole of humanity is going to die in the Vatican, jumping from St. Peter's basilica. This woman is a pioneer. She has simply said that this is going to happen to the whole of humanity. And they are doing everything--the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops, the priests--to encourage this to happen.

 

      A much respected humanitarian, a Catholic nun, Sister Judith Vaughan, was expelled from the Catholic Church. In California she was running a shelter for poor women, abandoned women, rejected women. And she helped thousands of women. But all her life's work is nothing; she just committed a small mistake, a mistake in the eyes of the Christian bureaucracy. She signed a newspaper advertisement in favor of abortion rights. The newspaper had asked those who were in favor to sign and send the advertisement back to the newspaper, so they could say that not all Christians are against the right to abortion. Sister Judith signed it --and that is a great sin.

 

      The woman worked her whole life, served thousands of women, was respected all over California, and she understands the problems of women--abortion, children, orphans--more than those idiots who expelled her from the church. Not only did they expel her from the church, they prevented her from entering the shelter that she created for poor women, for suffering women. She was not allowed to enter the church or the shelter, and she is no longer a nun. Nobody cares that what she was doing was humanitarian.

 

      More population means more problems--and you are not able to solve the problems that are present. Each child brings thousands of problems with him. Already more people have arrived on the earth than the earth can support. Even countries like America have problems which should have disappeared from the world long before--what to say about the third world, the poor world? Africa, Latin America, Asia--what to say of those countries?

 

      In America there are millions and millions of illiterate adults. In the richest country of the world--technologically, scientifically, culturally, in every way at the top--millions of adults are still uneducated, they can't read a newspaper. And you go on bringing more people? You cannot even solve simple problems--and there are complicated problems.

 

      In a gas explosion in Bhopal thousands of people died. All the women that were pregnant and did not die then started giving birth to children. Thousands of children were coming out of the womb dead or crippled or blind or retarded. A few which were born alive died within six weeks. The physicians and the scientists did not think that the gas was going to affect the fetus so severely. And this was only a small explosion. When your nuclear explosions and atomic explosions start happening, how they are going to affect you is unimaginable. And it will not affect only you; it will affect all the generations that follow you. It will affect the whole future of humanity.

 

      Who is creating these problems? The mind. The same mind can solve them.

 

      So when I say Ayatollah Khomeini and Albert Einstein belong to the same line . . . if you think that Albert Einstein is also like Ayatollah Khomeini you will get only a shock. But if you also think that Ayatollah Khomeini has the capacity to be an Albert Einstein then you will be excited like me.

 

      But I have talked only about the pyramid of the mind. I have not talked about people who have dropped out of the mind, I have not talked about the meditators. They are qualitatively different from both.

 

      A man of meditation is as far away from Ayatollah Khomeini as he is from Albert Einstein, because he is far away from mind itself.

 

      The pyramid is only of people living in the mind, so don't be depressed. You can jump out of the pyramid; nobody is forcing you to be in it. It is your decision to be in it or not to be in it. You can become a watcher. You stand outside the pyramid and watch the whole stupid game that goes on.

 

       I am not part of the pyramid. That's why I can talk about the pyramid, describe it in total detail from all aspects, because I am just a watcher. I can move around the pyramid, I can see all its faces. I can see its lowest depth, I can see its highest peak--because I am not in it.

 

      If you are in it, then it is impossible for you to watch it in its totality; you have to be outside of it. And there have been such people down the ages--very few, but that does not make any difference: Even if a single person can escape from the pyramid that is enough to prove the possibility. And many have escaped from it.

 

      Just a little effort on your side, a little alertness, and you can slip out of the min d --because the pyramid is not made of something solid; the bricks it is made out of our thoughts. You are surrounded by a wall of thoughts. It is so easy to come out of it. You don't even have to dig a hole in the wall; you don't even have to open a door. You have simply to stand silently and see whether the wall really exists or only appears to.

 

      In the East they call it a mirage; it only appears real. The closer you come to it,

and the better you look at it, the more it starts disappearing. Thoughts are the most insubstantial things in the world; they don't have anything material in them.

 

      Your thoughts are just like ghosts. You simply go on believing in them, never trying to have an encounter, never turning yourself at them. You will be simply surprised that any thought that you stare at simply melts away. It cannot stand your watchfulness.

 

      So there is a third alternative. You need not be either Ayatollah Khomeiniac or Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein is a good man, but good and bad are two sides of the same coin. Saint and sinner are two sides of the same coin; heaven and hell, God and devil--two sides of the same coin. Neither can exist without the other.

 

      But there is a third alternative--you need not be either--and that's really to be yourself.

 

      To be out of the pyramid of the mind is to enter into the temple of your being.

 

      The pyramid is for the dead. Actually the pyramids were made as graves for Egyptian kings and queens. They are graveyards; and when I used the word pyramid for the mind I used it knowingly. Mind is also a graveyard of dead things, past memories, experiences, shadows . . . all shadows. But by and by they become so thick that they create a dark curtain around you.

 

      If you want to escape from your shadow, what do you think you have to do? Run? The shadow will follow you wherever you go, it will be with you; it is your shadow. And a shadow is no existential; it is a ghost. The only way to get rid of it is to turn back and look at it and try to find whether there is any substance in it. There is nothing! It is pure negativity. It is just because you are standing in the way of the sun rays that the sun rays cannot come in; and the absence of sun creates the shadow.

 

      Exactly this is the situation about your thoughts. Because you are not watchful, because you are not silent, because you can't see things clearly without any disturbance, thoughts are substitutes for awareness. Unless you become aware, thoughts will continue.

 

      The mind is not you; it is somebody else: You are only a watcher. And just a few glimpses of watching will prepare you to get out of the pyramid without any fighting, without any struggle, without any practice. You simply stand up and get out.

 

      People go on believing in anything that is consolatory. Their ghosts, their gods, their heaven and hell--these are all just consolations. Their saints, holy men, sages--all consolation. A true man needs guts to get out of all this rotten mess. And the only way to get out of it is to become a witness of your own thought processes. And it is easy, it is the easiest thing in the world. You just have to do it once; but you never try even once, and you go on thinking it is the most difficult thing.

 

      I also used to think that it was a very difficult thing, because that's what I had been told by everybody, read in every book--that it is such a great, difficult phenomenon; it takes lives together for a man to come to the state of no-mind. W h e n everybody is saying that, and there is not even a single exception, it is very natural that you may start believing it.

 

      But I am a little eccentric. My logic does not follow the ordinary course, it goes zigzag. Once I became aware that everybody says it is difficult, every scripture says it is difficult, the first idea that came to me was that it is possible that nobody has tried. Otherwise there would be different opinions. Somebody would say it is this difficult; somebody would say it is more difficult than that; somebody would say it is less difficult than that. It is impossible to have unanimous support for its difficulty from all over the world. The only possibility was that nobody had tried -- but nobody wants to confess one's ignorance. Then the best course is to agree with the collective consensus that it is difficult, very difficult; it takes lives.

      I dropped that idea. I said, "It has to happen in this life; otherwise I will not let it happen in any life, I will struggle against it. Either this life or never." " Now or never" became my fixed approach, and the day I decided " Now or never," it happened. Since then I have been simply amazed how people have been fooled.

 

      The simplest thing has been made the most impossible--and the simplest thing opens the door for the third alternative.

 

      It takes you out of the pyramid: You are no longer a mind. And then only do you know who you are. And to know it is to have achieved everything worth achieving.