The sixth question:

Question 6

YESTERDAY IN YOUR DISCOURSE YOU SAID THAT ONE HAS TO CHOOSE THE PATH BEST SUITED TO ONE'S TEMPERAMENT -- EITHER THE PATH OF MEDITATION OR THE PATH OF THE HEART -- BUT I DO NOT FEEL BOTH PATHS TO BE TOTALLY SEPARATE. CAN ONE TRAVEL A PATH THAT IS SOMEHOW A FUSION OF THE TWO?

Never heard of it. A fusion is not possible and in the name of fusion only a dead compromise will happen.

The directions are so totally, diametrically, opposite. If you love, you will have to use imagination, dreams, all the faculties of dreaming, of auto-hypnosis. If you meditate, you will have to drop all the dreaming faculties, auto-hypnosis, imagination, love -- everything you have to drop. But don't be afraid. If meditation happens, in the end you will find that love simply follows. And then that love is totally different from that love that you were trying to fuse with in the beginning. It is totally different. It comes out of your meditation, out of your silence. It has no desire in it, no passion in it. It is cool. It is not a disturbance, it is not an excitement, it has no madness in it.

And if you follow the path of love, one day meditation will come, and the meditation will be totally different to what you can think of right now. That meditation will not be dry like a desert, it will be like an oasis. That meditation will not make you renounce the world, it will make you capable of enjoying and delighting in it more. That meditation will not be against love.

But you have to follow one path. A fusion is not possible because both paths move in different directions, use different techniques.

And if you make a fusion, who will be making it? You will be making the fusion. What is your understanding? How can you synthesise? Synthesis is possible only when you have gone beyond. When you have become greater than love and meditation both, then you can synthesise -- not before it. A Buddha can synthesise, but he never synthesises because he knows that synthesis has happened in him. And if he synthesises it will not be of use to anybody. It will be simply useless, abstract. He insists on the path of meditation -- so much so that he has to deny the path of love; he has to say that it is absolutely wrong. If he says,'Not absolutely wrong,' then you will start thinking,'Then why not move on both? Why not be safe? Who knows which is right? So be clever.' But your cleverness will help only your ego-confusion to persist and nothing else.

I have heard. George M. Pullman decided to build a model community on the outskirts of Chicago many years ago. It was during the early part of 1880 and the Pullman Company had purchased more than four thousand acres of prairie, twelve miles south of the Chicago business district. On this tract there were going to be constructed shops and a town to house almost ten thousand people.

Mr. Pullman engaged the services of Solon Spencer Berman, a well-known New York architect, who was to be the master designer of the master-town which was to be completed in 1884.

As the town was nearing completion Berman was so proud of his new city with its public buildings, residences, paved streets, paths, playgrounds, freeway system and water-supply that he went to Mr. Pullman one day and suggested that it would be quite appropriate to name the city 'berman' after its architect.

Pullman freely admitted that Berman was a pretty name and that Berman had done a great deal to bring his dream to fruition but in response to Berman's request he said,

'Berman, I will compromise with you. We will use the first syllable of my name and the second syllable of your name. The city will be called Pullman.'

This is how ego goes on trying for its own way. It was going to be called Pullman anyway; now he shows that he has made a compromise -- he has taken in half of the name of the architect.

Don't be clever otherwise you will remain the same, you will not change. Half-techniques on the path of love and half-techniques on the path of meditation will create much confusion in you. They will not help. They may destroy you. You may go berserk.

It is as if you are trying two different'-pathies' together: allopathy and ayurvedic. It can be dangerous. Or allopathy and naturopathy, it can be dangerous. Their whole understanding is different, their gestalt is different. Both work, but they are complete systems. Once you accept one it is better to accept that and don't bother to create any synthesis on your own.

Why does this idea of synthesis arise? Because you are so confused you cannot understand which path is your path. Rather than recognising your confusion you start creating a compromise. Drop all idea of compromise, just recognise that you are confused. These are the three possibilities: one, the person knows well that he is a man of the path of love, or, second, he knows that he is the man of the path of meditation, or, one knows the third possibility -- that he is confused.

If the first two are the case then there is no need; if the third is the case then I am here to help you. But to ask for help is against the ego, so you try to compromise. This compromise will be more dangerous, it will confuse you more, because, made out of confusion, it will create more confusion.

So try to understand why you hanker for compromise. Sooner or later you will be able to understand that compromise is not going to help. And compromise may be a way of not going in either direction, or it may be just a repression of your confusion. It will assert itself. Never repress anything, be clearcut about your situation. And if you are confused, remember that you are confused. This will be the first clear-cut thing about you: that you are confused. You have started on the journey.

I have heard.

A friend of Mulla Nasruddin said to him,'Come and have a drink.'

Mulla Nasruddin came up and took a drink of whisky.

'How is this, Mulla?' asked a bystander.'How can you drink whisky? Sure it was only yesterday ye told me ye was a teetotaller.'

'Well,' said Nasruddin,'you are right. I am a teetotaller, it is true, but I am not a bigotted one.'

People go on finding some way or other. But on the path of growth these deceptions are not good.

Another anecdote.

Flagherty sneaked into the room and started making love to his sleeping wife until she awakened and shouted,'Is that you?'

'It better be,' snorted Flagherty.

'When are you gonna stop this sinning?' she demanded.'Moody quit smoking, Paine stopped gambling, what are you gonna give up? 'All right,' said Flagherty through bloodshot eyes, 'from now on, you sleep in the bedroom and I will sleep in the spare room.'

Three weeks went by with Mrs. Flagherty sleeping alone. Finally, unable to contain herself for one night more, she tip-toed to the spare room and tapped lightly on the door.

'What is it?' shouted Flagherty.

'I just wanted to tell yer,' said his wife,'that Moody has started smoking again.'