Question 1

OSHO, DR. ABRAHAM KOVOOR HAS ATTACKED YOU IN AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE WEEKLY Current. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT?

I ENJOYED IT. It was sheer delight. It was delicious. It was simply far out. I enjoyed it because nobody else has complimented me so highly as he has done. I could not believe that somebody would praise me so highly. Listen to his compliments.

First compliment: he says Rajneesh is crazy. True, sir. I agree absolutely. In fact, there is no way to God unless you are utterly crazy. Only those who are courageous enough to go beyond the boundaries of so-called sanity attain. Only those who are ready to put their minds aside, only those who are ready to cut their heads off completely, they attain. I am crazy. So was Buddha, so was Jesus.

There are books written against Jesus in which people have tried to prove that he was mad. And of course when Mahavir was walking on the streets, naked, ecstatic, people must have thought him mad. He was driven out of towns, cities; shelter was not given to him. Down the centuries the man of God has always been thought of as mad. The reason is simple: if he is sane then you are all insane, then the majority is insane. The majority cannot accept the fact. It is easier, more comfortable to call him insane.

But remember something George Bernard Shaw once said. Somebody was saying, "Millions of people believe this. How can they be wrong?" And George Bernard Shaw said, "If millions of people believe it, how can they be right?" Millions of people and being in the right? -- impossible. The greater the crowd, the less is the possibility of truth.

Truth has been available to only a few individuals. Why? Because only a few dare to enter into that madness. Only a few dare to put their reasoning, cunningness, argument aside. Life is not logic; it goes beyond it.

And not only the mystics say so; now even the physicists -- who are not mystics at all -- what they are saying is incredible. Let me quote a few things. The physicists are now saying the same old nonsense as the mystics used to in the ancient days. The so-called rationalists have always called those mystics mad. Certainly whatsoever they say does not follow ordinary reason; it is something beyond. Now listen to what physicists are saying; they speak of a universe which is finite but unconfined. They say the universe is expanding, but expanding into nothing. They also tell us that electrons are capable of passing through space without make use of the term "quark" to describe a particle of which taking any time to do it. They are now even proposing to the essential property is that when three of them combine, their collective weight is less than that of any of them by itself, although nothing has been lost by their conjunction.

It is absurd. It cannot be so according to ordinary logic. But if you ask the physicist he says, "What can we do? We are helpless. It is so. We cannot change the reality. Just to adjust to your logic, we cannot change the reality. And the reality does not believe in your Aristotles. It does not suffer from Aristotle-itis. It does not bother about what your logic says; it goes on its own way." So the physicists say, "What can we do? Change your logic. If it looks mad, maybe the universe is mad."

It looks mad, but the mystics have always said so. In the Upanishads it is said, "Take the whole out of the whole, and the whole remains behind." Now, Dr. Abraham Kovoor will call this man mad. If you take the whole out of the whole, nothing remains behind! This is ordinary mathematics and logic. But the Upanishads say, "You take the whole out of the whole, and the whole still remains behind. You go on taking as many wholes as you want, and still the whole remains behind." The mystics have also stumbled upon the illogicalness of reality.

Now, what do you say about this "quark"? It fits absolutely with the Upanishadic idea. It does not fit with Aristotle. Bad for poor Aristotle! And bad for poor Dr. Abraham Kovoor!

I am crazy. I have seen the reality which does not fit with the mind. In fact, the mind is the only barrier to reality. It does not allow you to see the reality. The more you are confined in the mind, the less is the possibility of knowing. And if you insist that you will know only through the mind, then you will never know.

The mind is very ordinary. It is good for day-to-day use, but to penetrate the infinite, to penetrate the eternal, to penetrate that which is -- the ultimate mystery -- the mind is just as futile as if you are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. It is just irrelevant.

The reality is irrational, the reality is nonsensical, the reality is absurd.

Now, Abraham Kovoor can be against the mystics, but what will he do against the physicist? And why have they both come to the same conclusion? Science has penetrated into reality from a different door, but the reality is the same. So have done the mystics: they have entered from a different door, but they have entered into the same space.

Now scientists say the universe is expanding. Into what? Because when we say "the universe," we include everything that is. When we say "universe" we mean the whole, the total. Now you say the universe is expanding. Into what? There cannot be anything outside the universe. We have included, by the very definition of the word "universe," that all is in it. So nothing is outside it. Into what is the universe expanding? Even if you say "into nothingness," then the nothingness is outside the universe. Then the nothingness is very real into which the universe can expand. Then the nothingness is not just nothingness. Then you have not decided rightly what the universe is.

This concept of an expanding universe is crazy, but that is what mystics have been saying down the ages. Hindus have chosen the word "Brahman"; Brahman means "that which goes on expanding".

Now, Abraham Kovoor says that he believes only in something which is proved objectively. God is not proved objectively. What is proved objectively? The electron is proved? The neutron is proved? The proton is proved? What is proved objectively? Nobody has yet seen electrons, nobody has yet seen neutrons, nobody has yet seen protons, but the scientists say they are. If nobody has seen them, nobody has looked at them, nobody has observed them as objects, then why do you say they are? Scientists say, "Because we can see the effect. We cannot see them, but we can see their effect." The same say the mystics: "God is not observed objectively, but we can see the effect."

Can't you see the universe running so intelligently? Can't you see tremendous intelligence permeating the whole?

And it is not only the mystics who say the universe is full of intelligence. Just the other day I was reading and I came across one of Albert Einstein's quotes. He says, "The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of the natural law which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."

"Intelligence of such superiority"! And this is not Jakob Bohme, Ramkrishna, or Rajneesh. This is Albert Einstein saying so. Intelligence of such superiority that human intelligence is reduced to utterly insignificant status! The world is running in such a deep harmony; that harmony shows that there is a unity in it, that it is not a dead universe, that it is not a"stupid" universe, that it is intelligent.

Physics has become metaphysics again. Physicists even talk about atoms having free will. Albert Einstein has said that no event can be postulated without the presence of a witnessing observer. And Eddington says: "Religion first became possible for a reasonable scientific man about the year 1927." But Dr. Kovoor seems to have not lived since then! Eddington also says: "We begin to suspect that the stuff of the world is mind-stuff. The universe looks more like a thought than like a thing." And that is what I mean when I say that there is intelligence, great intelligence in existence or God. Recently a new branch of science, molecular biology, has conclusively proved that the "matter" of organic life, our very flesh, really is mind-stuff. Eddington, Jeans, Einstein, Schrodinger all agree in this. But the problem with the learned Dr. Kovoor is that he goes on fighting against out-of-date religion with the aid of his out-of-date, so-called science!

You can ask what is the purpose of this intelligent universe. The scientist David Foster says: "To become more intelligent." I love this answer. This is what the mystics have always been propounding. From unawareness to awareness... from unintelligence to intelligence... there is the way and there is the goal. The Upanishads say: "TAMSOMA JYOTINGAMAY" -- "O Master of the Universe, take me from darkness to light."

What do we mean when we say "God is"? We only mean that the world is intelligent, nothing else.

Now, Dr. Kovoor has a very childish idea of God, and he goes on demolishing that idea -- and without ever bothering about the fact that that is not MY idea. It seems he has not read anything of whatsoever I have been saying. Through his article I could not gather that he has read anything. What type of rationalist is he? He is ready to condemn me and criticize me, and without ever having read anything. At the most, it seems that he has read a few reports of journalists in the newspapers -- and that too it seems was many years ago because for years I have not been conducting meditation sessions and he says I conduct meditation sessions and I hypnotize people! He is not aware of what I am doing here. This is not a rationalistic approach.

And he says he believes only that which is proved objectively. In the article, he mentions that fifty years ago, his wife conceived a son from him, and now that son is still alive and still healthy and "still growing and proliferating independently as Dr. Aries Kovoor". Now, he says he believes only in the objective truth. The mother knows; the father only believes. The son is never an objective fact for the father. Dr. Kovoor's wife may know to whom the son belongs, but not Dr. Kovoor. Dr. Kovoor, you may be misguided by your wife! And women are very strange creatures. What objective proof have you that this is your son? There is no possibility of any objective proof. You trust, you believe.

God cannot be proved objectively, that's true. Nobody is trying to prove him objectively. In fact, if God is proved objectively, he will be no longer God. Then he will become a thing. Then you can dissect God in your lab, you can dissect God in the scientist's laboratory. You can analyze; then it will not be God at all.

We are not saying that God exists as a person; at least, I have never said so.

Now, he goes on saying that "Rajneesh holds the foolish view that through meditation man can'feel the very core of existence'." If this is the foolish view, then Buddha is a fool and so is Krishna and so is Christ, so is Lao Tzu, so is Chuang Tzu, so is Zarathustra, and so is Mohammed, because they all hold the view that through meditation you can come to the very core of existence -- because through meditation you come to your innermost core of intelligence. Through meditation you become so silent that your own intelligence is revealed to you. In that very revelation, God is revealed.

If I am intelligent in my innermost core, then the existence cannot be unintelligent, because I am born out of this existence. I am a by-product of this existence. If I am intelligent, then the universe has to be intelligent; otherwise from where will my intelligence come? Dr Kovoor is an intelligent man. And that is enough proof that there is God. Otherwise from where comes this intelligence?

He goes on saying that life is nothing but chemicals; life is "sustained by the oxidatory chemical action (oxidization).... This chemical action is maintained by my breathing and blood circulation. It is not in any way different from the production of heat and light energies during the combustion of the hydrocarbon in a burning candle." But a burning candle has no intelligence. He says there is no difference in any way between a man's life and a burning candle. The burning candle is not intelligent.

I tried because I thought "maybe" -- so I criticized a burning candle last night. But I could not provoke her. I succeeded with Dr. Kovoor. I "pushed his button"; he is very angry. Can you push the button of a burning candle, and will the burning candle criticize you? There seems to be a little difference, Dr. Kovoor. It can't be just a burning candle. You got hurt; you jumped to defend yourself. You have been arguing against me; you have been calling me names -- all the names that can be called. He says Rajneesh is an "ignoramus," Rajneesh is a "fool," Rajneesh is "crazy," Rajneesh is "mad," Rajneesh is "absurd," Rajneesh -- so on, so forth. He has exhausted the whole vocabulary.

Now, I tried hard with a burning candle. Nothing happened. The burning candle continued to burn. There is some difference. The difference is that of intelligence.

And if you say that life is born out of chemicals, then too you will have to accept that somehow the chemicals are carrying a latent intelligence. Otherwise from where will this intelligence come in? Out of the blue? From where?

He says life is nothing but oxidization, breath -- breathing in, breathing out. But can't you become a witness to your breath? Can't you sit silently? The Buddhists have been doing so down the ages. Can't you see the breath coming in, going out? You breathe in; you can watch. You breathe out; you can watch. Between the two there is a gap; you can watch that gap too. Certainly somebody else is there hidden behind the breathing process: a witnessing intelligence.

That's what meditation is all about: to know the witness, to know the SAKSHIN, to know the observer.

Even if life comes out of chemicals, out of oxidization, even if life is prolonged by oxidization, one thing is certain: that life is far superior to these things. There is intelligence, there is awareness. This awareness cannot be objectively proved, because I cannot put this awareness on the table for your examination. This awareness is subjectivity. When a scientist is trying to analyze something, there are two things: the thing that he is analyzing and the person who is hidden behind and is analyzing it. The analyzed is not the analyzer; and the analyzer is not the analyzed. The observer, the subjectivity, is there standing behind.

The object confronts you. That's why we call it "object"that which confronts you. How can I confront myself? I will always remain the subjective. Things can confront me; I will always be the one who confronts things. I cannot be a thing. Man cannot be reduced to being an object.

And if man's consciousness cannot be reduced to being an object, what to say about the total consciousness of existence? That's what God is.

He says, "I am an atheist because I do not believe in Gods, and I do not believe in Gods because it is not rational to believe something for which there is no objective evidence." There is no objective evidence for the subjectivity. That's why we call it "subjectivity." By the very nature of it there is no objective evidence, but inference is possible. A candle is a candle. A candle is not Kovoor. And there IS a difference! And it is not a slight difference. The difference is great because the difference is that of subjectivity. The candle has no subjectivity; it has no interiority. The candle has no intention. It is burning there; it has no innermost core. If Kovoor is standing there, he has an intention, an interiority. That interiority, that intention, that subjectivity cannot be objectified, and if we cannot objectify a single man's consciousness, how can we objectify the consciousness of the total? But the total is full of intelligence.

Watch the trees, the birds, the life growing, evolving. Watch the stars moving.... In such absolute harmony, with such rhythm -- it cannot be just accidental.

There are only two possibilities. Either the existence is just accidental or it has something running in it which joins it together. We call that thread God which runs into everything and joins and keeps the whole existence together. God is not a person, is not a thing. God is just the intelligence of the existence.

He says, "Unlike Rajneesh, I am not a fool to believe in a creator of the cosmos that was not created. Universe is matter and energy in space and time. Matter, energy, space, and time have neither beginning nor end." Now, I have never said that God created the universe. That's why I say he has never read anything I have said. He goes on projecting his own ideas and arguing against them! I have never said that God has created the universe. I have again and again said that the creation is the creator, that the world is God, that there is no separation, that it is not like a painter and the painting -- that it is like a dancer and the dance. God IS existence. There is no separation. Not that God has created it; God has become it. You cannot find God anywhere else other than in his existence, and you cannot separate them.

Can you find the dance when the dancer has gone? Or can you call a person a "dancer" when he is not dancing? They are always together; the dance and the dancer are together. They are two aspects of one energy. Creation and creator are together.

In fact, my own choice is that I don't like calling God a "creator". I call God "creativity". k is an ongoing process. Not that one day God created the world. The creation continues. It is moment to moment, moving, it is a process, it is dynamic, it is riverlike. And God is not separate.

But then he will say, "Then why bring God in? Why can we not simply say that'existence' is enough?" There is a reason. If you don't like the word "God," there is no problem with me. You can drop the word "God". I bring the word "God" in only to indicate that existence is not just material, it has intelligence; that the existence is not just the outer periphery, it has an interiority; that there is a great intention moving, that it is not without a soul.

If you want some other word you can use one, Dr. Kovoor. I am not a fanatic about words; any word will do. You can call it "X energy". If you are so obsessed with the idea of being anti-God, drop that word; that doesn't matter. Buddha never used it, Mahavir never used it. There is no need; it can be dropped. If you accept that the existence is intelligent, drop the word "God". We are not worried about it. But if you accept intelligence in existence, you have accepted God. That's all we mean by "God". It is a way of saying that things have not just happened accidentally.

What do I mean when I say there is "intention"? If I give you a wristwatch and you open it, you will immediately say, "Somebody has done a beautiful job." If I say to you, "Nobody has done this. It is just out of existence, out of millions of years of existence, just accidents. Things got together; somehow it turned out to be a watch," you will laugh at me. You have already laughed! You will not even believe a small wristwatch can turn out without anybody making it, without any intelligence functioning behind it. That will be a great miracle. You cannot believe even a small wristwatch can come out of accidents, and you can believe that the whole existence -- so delicate, so subtle, so complex that we have not yet been able to know its mystery -- has come just out of accidents?

It is as if you give a typewriter to a monkey and he goes on typing at random, and one day suddenly a great book like the Bible happens. Out of accidents. The monkey goes on typing, goes on typing. Something will happen. And you see the Sermon on the Mount is being typed! Just accidentally? It is not probable. It is impossible. No possibility of it ever happening.

That's what I mean when I say "intelligence", "intention". The existence is functioning so together, so beautifully, and the evolution is moving to higher peaks. All this shows that existence is full of intelligence.

To remain confined to your intelligence is to remain confined in an imprisonment. To get out of this limitation and to look into the intelligence of the universal, of the universal intelligence, to have a feel for it, that's what religion is. But one needs to go crazy over it.

Dr. Kovoor says, "Life must have originated on different planets at different times by chemical evolution first and then by biological evolution...." But it makes no difference. If it started on some other planet, how did it start? Whether it started here on the earth or on some other planet, how did it start? The atheist, the materialist has to agree with one thing: that it started suddenly for no reason at all; it was not there and it started. It was not hidden, it was not latent, it was not in a seed form. If you say it was hidden, it was latent, it was in a seed form, that's what religions say. They say, "God is hidden and is getting more and more expressed."

Man is yet the highest expression of that intelligence. The tree is a lower expression; the rock a still lower expression. But all are expressions of the same intelligence. Man, as far as we know on this earth, is the highest expression of that intelligence. There are higher possibilities, because man is not the end. And the highest possibility that we have seen is what we call "enlightenment". A man comes to such a peak that all thoughts disappear and only pure awareness remains  -- no clouds, only pure sky of being; no smoke of thoughts, only the flame burning bright, of pure life and awareness, of pure energy.

We have seen in Buddha the ultimate expression of that intelligence. That's why we call Buddha "Bhagwan," because he comes closest to the ultimate intelligence. Maybe there are higher possibilities. One can never be closed to the possibility; maybe there are higher possibilities. It is impossible to conceive of, but maybe. It is impossible to conceive of it because when all thoughts have been dropped there is no longer anything contaminating consciousness, so what more can be possible? That's why we have called Buddha "Bhagwan". "Bhagwan" simply means that he has become the vehicle of the intelligence, and now the vehicle does not interfere at all.

When I say "God is" I do not mean God is the creator. I mean God is the hidden energy of existence. Matter is visible God, and soul is invisible God.

He does not believe in God, but he believes in four gods instead. Those four gods are matter, energy, space, and time. Now, he seems to be completely unaware. Since he left school -- he is eighty, so he must have left school somewhere sixty years back -- it seems since he left school he has not been in touch with what has been happening in science, in the world of science. Dr. Kovoor, much water has flowed down the Ganges. Now matter exists not! And you talk about maKer. Friedrich Nietzsche declared, "God is dead," and God is not dead. He is still alive and kicking. But matter, on the contrary, is dead. Matter has been found not to exist.

When the physicists went deeper into the constituents of matter, they found there is no matter at all; there is only energy. Then what is the "matter" we see in a rock? It is just condensed energy. Matter is appearance. It only appears. There is no solidity. Solidity is just an appearance. Hindus have the right word for it; they call it "maya". Maya means that which only appears and is not. Matter has been proved maya! And that's what Shankara has been saying in India and Buddha has been saying and Nagarjuna has been saying: that matter is illusory. Science has absolutely proved it, that matter is illusory.

When you go deeper into matter and when you come to the electrons, matter is not. Those are nonmaterial energy phenomena. But the energy moves so fast that it creates the illusion of stability, solidity. It is as if you run an electric fan very fast, so fast that you cannot see the blades separately and you cannot see the gaps between two blades. Now scientists say if the fan runs with the same speed as electrons run, you can sit on the fan and you will not feel the blades moving. They will be moving so fast. Sunrays move, in one second, 186,000 miles -- in one second -- and that is the speed of electric energy. That is the speed of electrons. Now, in a small space the electron is moving with such great speed that you cannot see the gaps. That's why the wall seems to be solid and you cannot pass through it. In fact, it is not solid. In fact, the wall can be reduced to such a small size that it will become invisible -- it has much space in it.

The scientists say the whole earth can be reduced to the size of one orange. It is very porous. The whole of existence -- all the matter that exists in the whole of existence -- can be reduced to such a small size that you can carry it in your suitcase. All is porous; much space exists.

And those small elements that go on running are not material either. They are just "electrons" -- electric energy. Now, Kovoor goes on talking about matter. Matter exists not, Doctor. You'd better start looking into modern science again.

And the second thing. He goes on talking about space and time, and Albert Einstein has proved that they are not two. Time also does not exist separately from space; it is a dimension of space. So Einstein uses "spaciotime"; he never says "space and time".

Now matter has disappeared. Time has disappeared as a separate entity; it has become a dimension of space. So there are two things: energy and space.

Now, Albert Einstein also says to keep this energy and space together, intelligence is needed. Great intelligence is needed; otherwise they will fall apart. Who will keep them together? How will they be kept together? That intelligence is God.

So three things: space, intelligence, energy. Three things.

That is the Christian trinity, the very idea of the three: God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And that is the idea of the Hindu Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. Three faces of one reality. These are metaphors, because mystics are not talking about mathematics. Mystics are talking in poetry; the same truth is being expressed in poetry. This is the whole idea of the three GUNAS of the Sankhyas: SATTVA, RAJAS, TAMAS, Three GUNAS, three attributes, are there, but they are faces of one reality. That reality is God.

You can call it X, Y, Z, whatsoever name you like. It doesn't matter. A rose is a rose is a rose. By what name you call it makes no difference.

But he goes on talking as if matter, energy, space, and time are four things. He is not aware of modern science.

David Foster, the cybernetic scientist, says: "Nothing whatsoever is known about the following rather basic phenomena: mass, electricity, magnetism, spaciotime, et cetera, et cetera.... Existence remains a mystery, it is not available to knowledge... essentially it is unknowable." I call this unknowable element God.

What is matter? Physics says there is no matter as such. What we know as matter is made of waves or quanta. The quantum is a mysterious phenomenon. It is a point and a line simultaneously! Absurd. Illogical. Bizarre. And if you ask what sort of waves are these, the answer is: "waves of probability". Not even waves of "anything"! The modern understanding of science is mystery and magic.

If we think deeply into anything, we are bound to stumble upon God because God is the depth of existence. If you go deep into the rock you will come upon God. If you go deep into yourself you will come upon God. God is the depth. If we think hard enough in any single direction we always arrive at the unthinkable. If we ask enough questions along a given line of inquiry, we come in the end to an unanswerable question. That unanswerable question is "Who am I?" That unanswerable question is the koan of the Zen people. That unanswerable question is what meditation is all about.

Second compliment: he says Rajneesh is an ignoramus. Perfectly true, sir. I don't claim any knowledge. I only claim ignorance, utter ignorance... but that's what the Upanishads have been saying: those who say that they know, know not. That's what Socrates has been saying: "I know only one thing: that I know nothing." These are all ignoramuses, and I am happy with this company -- the Upanishads, the Taoists, the Zen people, the Sufis. I am tremendously happy with this company.

In fact, to know reality, to know yourself, you have to unlearn. Knowledge is good, but good only for the practical world, good only for the objective world. It is not good for knowing yourself. You need not know anything to know yourself. What you need is to go within. You can enter into your being. There is no need to know anything beforehand. Knowledge has to be dropped.

A German philosopher came to Raman Maharshi and said to him, "Master, I have come to learn from you, and I have traveled long and I have been desiring and desiring to come, and now I am happy that I have come." And Raman said, "Please, the first Principle is that you will have to unlearn. I am not here to help you to learn! You already know too much! If you want more learning, go somewhere else. Here the whole work is of unlearning, unconditioning. I am ignorant, and I help people to become ignorant again, so that they can become innocent, childlike."

And yes, Jesus is right. Only those who are childlike will be able to enter into the kingdom of God. That quality of innocence has to be attained.

Third compliment: Rajneesh is a fool. Good. True. It I was not a fool, why should I be seeking and searching for God? Only fools do that. Clever people seek money, power, prestige. Cunning people seek something of the world. Only fools try to seek the ultimate.

In Hindi we have the same word for "fool" as for the "enlightened one". We call a fool BUDDHU; it is derived from "Buddha". People must have thought Buddha a fool. He looks foolish. He had everything that one can desire -- the palace, the beautiful woman, the kingdom -- all comforts -- and suddenly he renounced. The masses must have called him BUDDHU, a fool. These are the things one desires, and he is renouncing them. And what is he going to seek and search for? What more is there than this? St. Francis was thought to be a fool.

Dr. Kovoor has put me in the great company of the greatest people who have walked on the earth. I am thankful.

Fourth compliment: Rajneesh is dangerous. I am. Those who come to me are going to be destroyed by me, because that is the only way to give them rebirth. If you come to me, I am going to destroy you because only through that destruction is resurrection. A Master has to be a death to the disciple. You will never be the same again. The danger is there. I will take all that you have away. All the illusions have to be taken away. I will leave you naked and nude, empty. But in that emptiness happens that which is real, happens that which is eternal. I am dangerous.

And the fifth compliment: Rajneesh is a voyeur. Beautiful. Psychologists say that there are two types of people: voyeurs and exhibitionists. Man is a voyeur, woman is an exhibitionist. And out of the voyeurism of man, all that has happened has happened. It is voyeurism to inquire into truth. It is voyeurism to penetrate into reality, into the mystery of reality. It is voyeurism to go to Everest and to see what is there. It is voyeurism to go to the moon. Women have not been very creative in that way because they are not voyeurs; they are exhibitionists. They are satisfied to exhibit themselves. Finished. Their work is finished. Man is a voyeur.

And the mystics are the voyeurs par excellence. They penetrate to the very mystery of God.

You can ask Sigmund Freud. He says that the male energy starts seeking the female energy. That is natural. That's why the woman waits and the man takes the initiative. Even small children will play the game of doctor. And the woman will be the patient and the boy will be the doctor -- the voyeur! He wants to see how this girl clicks, what makes her click, what is inside her. Now the scientist is born -- and the mystic too.

Out of this sexual curiosity, all curiosity is born. All curiosity basically is sexual. But nothing is wrong. I love to see a beautiful woman as much as I love to see a beautiful rose. I love to see a beautiful face as much as I like to see a beautiful sunrise. I love to see a beautiful body as much as I love to see a beautiful bird on the wing. I love beauty. I am a voyeur. And I love beauty so much that I want to find out how this whole existence clicks. In that very search, one stumbles upon God.

And I want to know how I click, what is this intelligence in me. And only because of that search does one come to one's own being.

Nothing is wrong in being a voyeur. And I would have thought that Dr. Kovoor was a voyeur. His name fits with the sound of "voyeur" -- "Kovoor". It must be accidental, because he believes in accidents. But it rhymes well. But according to himself, it seems that he is an exhibitionist. That's not very good. You are in bad shape, Dr. Voyeur. I had always thought you were a man! Now you have created suspicion in me.

The quality of voyeurism is the quality of inquiry. Nothing is wrong in it. Everybody should be a voyeur. And I would like even women to become voyeurs; only then will they be able to become more creative; only then will they be able to penetrate into the mysteries of life. We should try to know what it is! The very curiosity helps you to grow towards higher peaks of intelligence.

The sixth compliment: Rajneesh is a sexual pervert. That is wonderful. To go beyond sex is certainly a perversion. It is not natural. So it is a perversion! It is not part of unconscious evolution. It is conscious revolution. It happens only through transforming the unconscious into the conscious. When not even a trace of unconsciousness remains one is free from all desire. This is real BRAHMACHARYA. But to have eyes in the valley of the blind is certainly a perversion. Dr. Kovoor, who is not a voyeur, simply shows his obsession with sex. Just a nice old dirty man!

And the last compliment: Rajneesh is absurd. I am really at a loss how to thank Dr. Voyeur. These are the words I love! I am the genius of the absurd, and that is the highest that one can attain. Tertullian, a mystic, a Christian mystic, is reported to have said, "I believe in God because God is absurd." I also believe in God because God is absurd. I believe in existence because this existence is really absurd. It is incredible. It is so beautiful. It is so wonderful. It is so fantastic. It is so psychedelic. And it comprehends all contradictions. It is so tremendously in harmony that even contradictions don't contradict! The night and the day, and the summer and the winter, and life and death -- what more contradictions can you find and what more absurdities? But somehow everything fits together. The absurdity makes life more fun.

If God was just an Aristotelian, life would have been without fun. It would have been too serious -- and dull and boring. God is not dull, not boring. Life is full of joy and delight. There is love and there is song and there is celebration.

I am absurd.

You will think that Dr. Kovoor uses all these terms in a very condemnatory sense. That is his business -- that is his problem. I am a religious man. If I can find a rose flower, I don't bother about the thorns. If I can see that the black cloud has a white, silver lining, I dance for the silver lining; and I feel thankful for the black cloud also because without it the silver lining cannot exist. I look through religious eyes. Even the negative turns positive. So maybe he has tried to condemn me, but that is HIS problem. Why should I take it as a condemnation? I take it as praise; he has complimented me. And these are my words that I like, that I enjoy.

Now, a few things that I am sorry to say that I cannot agree on with Dr. Kovoor.

The first thing: he says that man has no soul. That means man has no interiority, no intention. That means man has no meaning.

He goes on throwing theories upon me which I have never propounded, and then he condemns them. He is fighting with ghosts -- and he himself has created them. I have never said that man has an individual soul. We have individual bodies, but our soul is universal. On the periphery we are different; at the center we are one.

Now, he goes on condemning and criticizing, "How is it possible? When the body dies, where can the soul go? Nobody has ever seen the soul going." I have never said that the soul goes anywhere. There is nowhere to go! In fact, the body is nothing but the visible aspect of the soul, and the soul is nothing but the invisible aspect of the body. Man is an ensouled body and an embodied soul. These are two aspects of some energy: X or God. One aspect is the body, another aspect is the soul. When a man dies it is not that the soul goes somewhere. When the man dies the soul moves into the unmanifested.

Now, he says one man, a certain Peter, has been revived seven times. He dies of a heart attack; through artificial techniques he is revived again. Again after a few days or a few hours he dies; again he is revived. In all, seven times. So Dr. Kovoor asks what I say about it. Does the soul go and come back again, go and come back again? No. There is nowhere to go. The soul becomes unmanifest when the situations to manifest it are no more there. When the situations are there again, it becomes manifest.

It is just like the seed. Where has the tree gone? You cannot find it in the seed. It has disappeared in the seed. It has become unmanifest in the seed. Put the seed in the soil, and again the tree is there. And again the tree will die one day and will leave many seeds.

The manifest becomes the unmanifest, the unmanifest becomes the manifest. These are the two wings of reality. Nobody goes anywhere. There is nobody to go and nowhere to go.

I don't believe in individual souls. I believe in the universal ocean of consciousness. A wave arises; then the wave disappears. Where has it gone? It has gone to the same source from where it had arisen in the first place. It had risen out of the ocean; now it has gone back to the ocean.

There is a beautiful story about Junaid, a Sufi mystic. He was passing through a small village. It was evening, and a small boy was carrying a small candle. He was going to the mosque to put the candle there. The mosque was dark and it was a dark night, and the night was descending. Junaid just laughingly, jokingly asked the small child, "Have you yourself lighted this candle?" And the boy said, "Yes, sir." And Junaid said, "Then tell me one thing. From where has this flame come? From where? And you say you yourself have lighted the candle, so you must have seen from where this flame has come." The boy must have been a genius. He laughed and blew the candle out, and he said, "Right now it has gone. Where? You have seen it! Where has it gone? "

The coming and going is not from somewhere to somewhere. We arise out of the cosmic consciousness; we fall back into the cosmic consciousness. We arise again; we fall back again.

My concept of the soul is exactly the same as that of Gautam the Buddha. There is no individual soul, there is no ego. That's why I insist so much: drop the ego. Then you will start living a life -- a cosmic life, a divine life. Then you will live like God -- because God will live through you. You will not be there.

Second thing: he calls me a fraud. I would have loved it if I could have agreed with him. I could not. I am sorry. He calls me a fraud because he says I claim miraculous powers. I was simply amazed. I have never claimed any. With whom is he fighting? With Satya Sai Baba? I have never claimed any miraculous powers, and he says I claim miraculous powers. That's why I am a fraud, because there are no miraculous powers. My whole emphasis is that the whole existence is miraculous! There are no miraculous powers, but the whole of life is miraculous. And I don't claim any power. I am the most ordinary man. I don't claim anything. I have no claim.

When I say that I am the most ordinary, I mean it exactly. I am not special; I am not "holier than thou". Then what am I doing here with people? I am just helping them to come back to their reality, to their ordinariness, to their first principle. If you start living and enjoying your ordinariness you are divine, because the ordinary is the divine.

He projects something, then he demolishes it, and he thinks he has demolished me.

And the third thing. Because I say that without God there will be no meaning and I had asked Dr. Kovoor, "What meaning will your life have if there is no God?" he has answered that his life has an aim, and that aim is to impart whatsoever he has learned to other human beings. But that seems to be very irrelevant. One candle imparting to other candles! What is the meaning of it? There is no difference. And why do you say "human beings"? And what is the point? Even if you make a candle very much informed -- you talk and talk and talk -- what is the point? A candle is a candle -- there is no difference, sir. And this is your whole aim of life! Whatsoever you have learned in life, you have to teach others. This does not seem to be much of an aim. It seems more like a duty -- and a mechanical one at that.

And why help these candles -- these chemicals, oxidization processes -- why help? If they remain ignorant, if the candles are ignorant, what is lost? And he says, "My aim in life is to help people so that they become aware and nobody can exploit them." But what is the point if one candle exploits another candle? A little wax goes from here to there -- what is the point? It does not seem very meaningful.

And then, finally, he says, "Except for creating mental derangements and hallucinations... there is absolutely no beneficial value in meditation... meditation is a... technique of inducing self-hypnosis." Now, he says meditation only creates "mental derangement," "hallucination," and only "religious maniacs" do meditation, and people who are "mentally sick". That means all the Vedas were written by mentally sick people. And the Bible and the Koran and the Dhammapada and the Tao Te Ching and the Zend-Avestaall were written by mentally ill people. Then all that has been of any value on this earth was illness! Then Buddha has no health; then Buddha has no well-being. Then who else can have well-being? Then Nagarjuna and Shankara and Vasubandhu and Bodhidharma and Bokuju and Lin Chi, all are "religious maniacs". Then Jalaluddin and Bahauddin and Junaid and Mansur are all mentally ill people.

If these are ill people, then who is healthy? Adolf Hitler? Mao Tse-Tung? Genghis Khan? Tamurlane? Nadir Shah? Who is healthy?

He says meditation only creates derangement. He does not know even the ABCD of meditation. He has not even read about it. Experience is not the question at all; he has not even read about it. Or whatsoever he has read must have come from some people who are just like him. Maybe he has been reading Karl Marx on meditation! Or Betrand Russell on meditation.

If you want to know about meditation, ask the meditators. If you want to know about meditation, the real, rational way is to go into meditation and see what happens because the proof of the pudding is in its tasting.

He has no idea what meditation is. He calls it a technique of hypnosis. It is just the opposite, let me tell you. Hypnosis means sleep, induced sleep. The word HYPNOS means "sleep". Hypnosis means "suggesting to you to fall asleep". Meditation means AWARENESS. Meditation means helping you to become more aware. Meditation is not hypnosis. Meditation is a process of DEhypnosis; it is a dehypnotization. You are hypnotized already by the society, by the schools, by the priests and the politicians. Meditation is a way to dehypnotize you, to uncondition you, so that you can attain to your childhood innocence again. And the difference is so vital and so clear and so distinct that unless one is absolutely closed to understanding there is no way to miss it.

Hypnosis is sleep; when you hypnotize a person he falls asleep, he loses consciousness. When a person meditates he becomes conscious -- he attains consciousness. He becomes MORE conscious. In fact a meditator by and by starts feeling that he needs less sleep than before; and with less sleep he feels more vital. If he was sleeping for eight or ten hours before, now he feels five or six or even four or three hours are enough; that gives him enough rest. And a meditator by and by comes to know that even in sleep something remains aware in him.

But these are experiences, Dr. Kovoor. I cannot invite you into my sleep. I am helpless. Otherwise I would have invited you into my sleep to see what is happening. The only way to know is to meditate.

And I am not saying something for the first time. Down the ages thousands of mystics have said the same thing. Krishna says in Geeta, "When everybody is fast asleep, the yogi is awake." Buddha's disciple Ananda asked Buddha, "I have a feeling that in your sleep you remain alert." Buddha said, "You are right. Body goes to sleep, mind goes to sleep; I remain aware." In fact modern psychology says that a layer of your consciousness is there which is always alert, always awake.

Have you not watched? A mother is sleeping. There are thundering clouds in the sky, or airplanes are passing by, and her sleep will not be disturbed. But her small child -- just a small movement or the child starts crying -- and she is fully awake. What happenend? She was not disturbed by the airplane passing, she was not disturbed by the thundering in the clouds. What happened? Just a small noise from the child, and she is fully alert. A part of her being is aware and keeps caring for the child. She closes herself against the thundering clouds, but she cannot close her awareness from the child. She is alert.

If you fall asleep here and I come and I suddenly call a name, "Is Ram here?" nobody will listen, but the man whose name is Ram will say, "Who is disturbing my sleep? Yes, I am here what do you want?" Everybody heard it, but nobody responded; only Ram responded. A part of his mind -- even in sleep -- knows this is the name, somebody has called him.

Even in sleep you go on chasing the mosquitoes. If an insect crawls on you, you throw it away, and sleep is not disturbed. Something keeps alert, surrounds you.

This is in ordinary life. When you become a meditator, this awareness becomes deeper, more crystallized. A point comes when you can sleep and yet remain awake.

I would like to invite Kovoor into my sleep, but my sleep is subjective. I know it, but I cannot put it in front of you, Dr. Kovoor, so that you can examine it objectively.

But there is a way: you can learn meditation. You can meditate, and you can see what the difference between hypnosis and meditation is. They are diametrically opposite!

And he says "There is absolutely no beneficial value in meditation." Now, this going too far. So many universities are experimenting, and there is now solid proof from medical colleges, medical research, psychiatric research that meditation is of tremendous benefit. He seems to be completely unaware of what is happening in the world.

I invite you, Dr. Kovoor. You should come here. We have thousands of books here -- the latest ones. It seems you have not seen books for sixty years.

And whatsoever he says in his article is just elementary biology, high-school biology. When I was reading I thought, "My God, what knowledge!"

Now there is absolute proof that a meditator is less prone to ulcers, less prone to heart attacks, less prone to high blood pressure. A meditator is less prone to many illnesses that happen ordinarily to everybody. A meditator is less prone to madness, to insanity, to neurosis, psychosis. And a meditator is certainly more quiet, calm, and collected. A meditator is more responsible. A meditator is more loving. And there is definite proof that a meditator lives longer than a nonmeditator. A meditator has a higher I.Q., more intelligence, than a nonmeditator, more vitality, more creativity.

Meditation is therapeutic. In fact, "meditation" and "medicine" come from the same root. Meditation is a healing force, because it relaxes you and allows nature to heal you. But that is not the primary benefit of meditation. It is just a side effect. The basic benefit is the entry into the divine. Self-realization. God-realization. Oh! the ecstasy of it, the blessing and the benediction.

And these are not assertions of mystics. Now scientific labs are producing papers, research work, theses, dissertations. Through scientific equipment, measurement, ways and means, now it is almost a certain fact that mind can exist in many wavelengths and meditation changes the wavelength. Meditation creates more "alpha" waves -- and alpha waves release joy, happiness, bliss, benediction. Forget what the mystics say, but you can listen to the scientists.

In the end, I pray for the old man. Please, you also pray for him. His days cannot be many and I would not like him to die believing that he is nothing but a chemical process and oxidization! Poor thing!

And finally Dr. Kovoor requests the government to prevent my work. This is great! What type of argument is this? This is nerve failure, Dr. Kovoor! Can you not argue yourself, so now you need the support of the state?

And he thinks he is a rational man and he has a scientific outlook. I don't see rationality or scientific outlook. I simply see a dogmatic, closed attitude, as if he has decided once and for all what is truth and is adamant not to listen to anything which can disturb his dogmatic ideas, ideologies.