Glimpses of a Golden Childhood
1984 in Lao Tzu House, Rajneeshpuram, USA

Chapter # 1
Chapter # 2
Chapter # 3
Chapter # 4

Chapter #1
It is a beautiful morning. Again and again the sun rises and it is always new. It never grows old. Scientists say it is millions of years old; nonsense! Every day I see it. It is always new. Nothing is old. But scientists are grave-diggers, that's why I say they look so grave, serious. This morning, again the miracle of existence. Each moment it is happening, but only very few, very, very few ever encounter it.

The word encounter is really beautiful. To encounter the moment as it is; to see it as it is, without adding, without deleting, without any editorial work, just to see it as it is, like a mirror.... The mirror does not edit, thank God, otherwise no face in the world would be able to fit its requirements, not even the face of Cleopatra. No face at all would be able to fit the mirror, for the simple reason that if it starts cutting you, editing you, adding to you, it will start destroying you. But no mirror is destructive. Even the ugliest mirror is so beautiful in its undestructiveness. It simply reflects.

Before coming into your Noah's Ark, I was standing looking at the sunrise... so beautiful, at least today -- and who cares for tomorrow? Tomorrow never comes. Jesus says, "Think not of the morrow...."

Today it is so beautiful that for a moment I was reminded of the tremendous beauty of the sunrise in the Himalayas. There, when the snow is surrounding you, and the trees are looking like brides, as if they have flowered white flowers of snow, one does not care a bit about the so-called bigwigs, the prime ministers and the presidents of the world, the kings and queens. In fact kings and queens are going to exist only in playing cards, that's where they belong. And the presidents and the prime ministers will take the place of the jokers. They don't deserve anything more.

Those mountain trees with their white flowers of snow... and whenever I saw the snow falling from their leaves I was reminded of a tree from my childhood. That kind of tree is possible only here in India; it is called madhu malti -- madhu means sweet, malti means the queen. I have never come across any fragrance that is more beautiful and more penetrating -- and you know that I am allergic to perfume, so I immediately know. I am very sensitive to perfume.

Madhu malti is the most beautiful tree one can imagine. God must have created it on the seventh day. Relieved of all the worries and hurries of the world, finished with everything, even men and women, He must have created madhu malti on His day off, a holiday, a Sunday... just His old habit of creating. It is difficult to get rid of old habits.
Madhu malti flowers with thousands of flowers all at once. Not one flower here and there, no, that is not the way of madhu malti, nor is it my way. Madhu malti flowers with a richness, with luxury, with affluence -- thousands of flowers, so many that you cannot see the leaves. The whole tree becomes covered with white flowers.

Snow-covered trees have always reminded me of madhu malti. Of course there is no perfume, and it was good for me that snow has no perfume. It is unfortunate that I cannot hold the flowers of madhu malti once again. The perfume is so strong it spreads for miles, and remember I am not exaggerating. Just one single madhu malti tree is enough to fill the whole neighborhood with immense perfume.

I love the Himalayas. I wanted to die there. That is the most beautiful place to die -- of course to live too, but as far as dying is concerned, that is the ultimate place. It is where Lao Tzu died. In the valleys of the Himalayas Buddha died, Jesus died, Moses died. No other mountains can claim Moses, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Bodhidharma, Milarepa, Marpa, Tilopa, Naropa, and thousands of others.

Switzerland is beautiful but nothing compared to the Himalayas. It is convenient to be in Switzerland with all its modern facilities. It is very inconvenient in the Himalayas. It is still without any technology at all -- no roads, no electricity, no airplanes, no railroads, nothing at all. But then comes the innocence. One is transported to another time, to another being, to another space.

I wanted to die there; and this morning, standing and looking at the sunrise, I felt relieved, knowing that if I die here, particularly on a day as beautiful as this, it is okay. And I will choose to die on a day when I feel I am part of the Himalayas. Death for me is not just an end, a full stop. No, death for me is a celebration.

Remembering the snow falling from the trees, just like flowers falling from madhu malti, a haiku flashed....

The wild geese
Do not intend to make their reflections.
The water has no mind
To receive their images.

Ahhh, so beautiful. Wild geese not intending to make their reflections, and the water not intending to receive them either, and yet the reflection is there. That is the beauty. Nobody has intended, and yet it is there -- that's what I call communion. I have always hated communication. To me communication is ugly. You can see it happening between a wife and a husband, the boss and the servant; and so on and so forth. It never really happens. Communion is my word.

I see Buddha Hall with all my people... just for a moment like a flash, so many moments of communion. It is not just a gathering; it is not a church. People do not come to it formally. People come to me, not to it. Whenever there is a Master and a disciple -- it may be only the Master and just one disciple, that does not matter -- communion happens. It is happening right now, and there are only four of you. Perhaps with my eyes closed I can't even count, and it is good; only then can one remain in the world of the unaccountable... and tax-free too! If you can count, then taxation comes in. I am unaccountable, nobody has ever taxed me.

I was a professor in a university. When they wanted to raise my pay, I said no. The vice chancellor could not believe it; he said, "Why not?"

I said, "Beyond what I am getting now I would have to pay taxes, and I hate taxation. I would rather remain with the pay I am getting right now than get more and be bothered by the income tax department." I never went beyond the limit which was allowed to remain tax-free.

I have never paid any income tax; in fact there is no income. I have been giving to the world, not taking anything from the world. It is outcome, not income. I have given out of my heart and my being.

It is good that flowers are allowed to be tax-free, otherwise they would stop flowering. It is good that snow is allowed to be tax-free, otherwise it would not snow, believe me!

I must tell you that after the Russian revolution something happened to the Russian genius; Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Maxim Gorky -- they all disappeared. Yet in Russia today, the writer, the novelist, the artist, is the most highly-paid and honored person. So what happened? Why don't they create any more books like BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, ANNA KARENINA, FATHERS AND SONS, THE MOTHER, or NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND? Why? I want to ask a thousand times, why? What happened to the Russian genius for writing novels?

I don't think any other country could compete with Russia. If you count only ten novels of the world, just out of necessity you will have to include five Russian novels, leaving only five for the whole remaining world. What happened to this great genius? It died! Because flowers cannot be ordered, there are no ten commandments for them. Flowers flower, you cannot order them to flower. Snow falls -- you cannot issue a commandment, you cannot make a date with it. That is impossible. And that is so with the Buddhas. They say what they want to say, when they want to say it. They will say, even to a single person, something which the whole world would have liked to hear.

Now, you are here, perhaps only four. I say "perhaps" because my mathematics are poor, and with closed eyes... you can understand... and with tears in my eyes, not because only four are present but for this beautiful morning, for the sunrise.

Thank God. He thinks of me; although He does not exist, still He thinks of me. I deny Him, and yet He thinks of me. Great God. Existence seems to take care. But you do not know the ways of existence; they are unpredictable. I have always loved the unpredictable.

My tears are for the sunrise. Existence has taken care of me.
I had not asked.
Nor did it reply.
But still the care has been taken.
The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections.
The water has no intention to reflect their images....

That's how I am speaking. I do not know what the next sentence is going to be or whether it is going to be at all. Suspense is beautiful.

I am reminded again of the small village where I was born. Why existence should have chosen that small village in the first place is unexplainable. It is as it should be. The village was beautiful. I have traveled far and wide but I have never come across that same beauty. One never comes again to the same. Things come and go, but it is never the same.
I can see that still, small village. Just a few huts near a pond, and a few tall trees where I used to play. There was no school in the village. That is of no great importance, because I remained uneducated for almost nine years, and those are the most formative years. After that, even if you try, you cannot be educated. So in a way I am still uneducated, although I hold many degrees. Any uneducated man could have done it. And not any degree, but a first class master's degree -- that too can be done by any fool. So many fools do it every year that it has no significance. What is significant is that for my first years I remained without education. There was no school, no road, no railway, no post office. What a blessing! That small village was a world unto itself. Even in my times away from that village I remained in that world, uneducated.

I have read Ruskin's famous book, UNTO THIS LAST, and when I was reading it I was thinking of that village. UNTO THIS LAST... that village is still unaltered. No road connects it, no railway passes by, even now after almost fifty years; no post office, no police station, no doctor -- in fact nobody falls ill in that village. It is so pure and so unpolluted. I have known people in that village who have not seen a railway train, who wonder what it looks like, who have not even seen a bus or a car. They have never left the village. They live so blissfully and silently.

My birthplace, Kuchwada, was a village with no railway line and no post office. It had small hills, hillocks rather, but a beautiful lake, and a few huts, just straw huts. The only brick house was the one I was born in, and that too was not much of a brick house. It was just a little house.

I can see it now, and can describe its every detail... but more than the house or the village, I remember the people. I have come across millions of people, but the people of that village were more innocent than any, because they were very primitive. They knew nothing of the world. Not even a single newspaper had ever entered that village. You can now understand why there was no school, not even a primary school... what a blessing! No modern child can afford it.

I remained uneducated for those years and they were the most beautiful years.

Yes, I must confess I had a private tutor. That first tutor was himself uneducated. He was not teaching me, but trying to learn by teaching me. Perhaps he had heard the great saying, "The best way to learn is to teach," but he was a good man, nice, not like a nasty schoolteacher. To be a school teacher one has to be nasty. That is part of the whole business world. He was nice -- just butterlike, very soft. Let me confess, I used to hit him, but he would not hit me back. He would simply laugh and say, "You are a child, you can hit me. I am an old man, I cannot hit you back. When you are old you will understand." That's what he said to me, and yes, I understand.

He was a nice villager with great insight. Sometimes villagers have insight which civilized people lack. Just now I am reminded....

A beautiful woman comes to a beach. Seeing nobody around she undresses. Just before she steps into the ocean an old fellow stops her and says, "Lady, I am the village policeman. It is prohibited to swim in the ocean from this beach." The woman looks puzzled and says, "Then why did you not prevent me from getting undressed?" The old man laughs and laughs, with tears in his eyes. He says, "Undressing is not prohibited, so I waited behind a tree!"

A beautiful villager... that type of people lived in the village -- simple people. It was surrounded by small hills and there was a small pond. Nobody could describe that pond except Basho. Even he does not describe the pond, he simply says,

The ancient pond
Frog jumps in
Plop!

Is this a description? The pond is only mentioned, the frog too. No description of the pond or the frog... and plop!

The village had an ancient pond, very ancient, and very ancient trees surrounding it; they were perhaps hundreds of years old. And beautiful rocks all around... and certainly the frogs jumped; day in and day out you could hear "plop," again and again. The sound of frogs jumping really helped the prevailing silence. That sound made the silence richer, more meaningful.

This is the beauty of Basho; he could describe something without actually describing it. He could say something without even mentioning a word. "Plop!" Now, is this a word? No word could do justice to the sound of a frog jumping into the ancient pond, but Basho did it justice.
I am not a Basho, and that village needed a Basho. Perhaps he would have made beautiful sketches, paintings, and haikus.... I have not done anything about that village -- you will wonder why. I have not even visited it again. Once is enough. I never go to a place twice. For me number two does not exist. I have left many villages, many towns, never to return again. Once gone, gone forever, that's my way; so I have not returned to that village. The villagers have sent messages to me to come at least once more. I told them, through a messenger, "I have been there once already, twice is not my way."

But the silence of that ancient pond stays with me -- again I am reminded of the Himalayas... the snow -- so beautiful, so pure, so innocent. You can only see it through the eyes of a Bodhidharma, a Jesus, or Basho. There is no other way to describe the snow; only the eyes of Buddhas reflect it. Idiots can trample it, can make snowballs out of it, but only the eyes of the Buddhas can reflect it, although...

The wild geese
Do not intend to cast their reflections.
The water has no mind
To reflect their images...

and still the image happens.
The Buddhas do not want to reflect the beauty of the world, nor does the world in any way intend to be reflected by the Buddhas, but it is reflected. Nobody wills, but it happens, and when it happens it is beautiful. When it is done, it is ordinary; when it is done, you are a technician. When it happens you are a Master.

Communication is a part of the world of the technician -- communion is the fragrance of the world of the Master.

This is communion. I am not speaking about anything in particular....

The wild geese and the water....


Chapter #2
I just had a golden experience, the feeling of a disciple so lovingly working on his Master's body. I'm still out of breath because of it. And it also reminds me of my golden childhood.
Everybody talks of his golden childhood, but rarely, very rarely, is it true. Mostly it is a lie. But so many people are telling the same lie that nobody detects it. Even poets go on singing songs of their golden childhood -- Wordsworth for example, not a worthless fellow at all -- but a golden childhood is extremely rare, for the simple reason: where can you find it?
First, one has to choose one's birth; that's almost impossible. Unless you have died in a state of meditation you cannot choose your birth; that choice only opens for the meditator. He dies consciously, hence earns the right to be born consciously.
I died consciously; not in fact died, but was killed. I would have died three days later but they could not wait, not even for three days. People are in such a hurry. You will be surprised to know that the man who killed me is now my sannyasin. He came to kill me again, not to take sannyas... but if he sticks to his game, then I stick to mine. He himself confessed later, after seven years of being a sannyasin. He said, "Bhagwan, now I can confess to you without fear: in Ahmedabad I had come to kill you."
I said, "My God, again!"
He said, "What do you mean by `again'?"
I said, "That's another matter, go on...."
He said, "In Ahmedabad, seven years ago, I came to your meeting with a revolver. The hall was so full that the organizers had allowed people to sit on the dais."
So this man, with a revolver to kill me, was allowed to sit at my side. What a chance! I said, "Why did you miss your chance?"
He said, "I had never heard you before, I had only heard about you. When I heard you, I thought I would rather commit suicide than kill you. That's why I became a sannyasin -- that's my suicide."
Seven hundred years ago this man had really killed me; he poisoned me. Then too he was my disciple... but without a Judas, it is very difficult to find a Jesus. I died consciously, hence I had the great opportunity to be born consciously. I chose my mother and my father.
Thousands of fools are making love around the earth, around the clock. Millions of unborn souls are ready to enter into any womb, whatsoever. I waited seven hundred years for the right moment, and I thank existence that I found it. Seven hundred years are nothing compared to the millions and millions of years ahead. Only seven hundred years -- yes, I am saying only -- and I chose a very poor couple but a very intimate one.
I don't think my father ever looked at another woman with the same love he had for my mother. It is also impossible to imagine -- even for me, who can imagine all kinds of things -- that my mother, even in her dreams, had another man... impossible! I have known both of them; they were so close, so intimate, so fulfilled although so poor... poor yet rich. They were rich in their poverty because of their intimacy, rich because of their love for each other.
Fortunately, I never saw my mother and father fighting. I say "fortunately" because it is very difficult to find a husband and wife not fighting. When they have time for love only God knows, or maybe He doesn't know either; after all, He has to take care of His own wife... particularly the Hindu God. At least the Christian God is in a happier state of affairs: He has no wife at all, no woman at all, what to say of a wife? Because a woman is more dangerous than a wife. A wife, you can tolerate, but a woman... you are a fool again! You cannot tolerate a woman, she "attracts" you; a wife "distracts" you.
Look at my English! Put it in inverted commas so nobody misunderstands me -- although whatsoever you do everyone is going to misunderstand me. But try, put it in inverted commas: the wife "distracts," the woman "attracts."
I have never seen my father and mother fight, not even nagging. People talk about miracles; I have seen a miracle: my mother did not nag my father. It is a miracle, because for centuries woman has been bossed so much by man that she has learned underhand practices -- she nags. Nagging is violence in disguise, masked violence. I never saw my mother and father in any fighting situation.
I was worried about my mother when my father died. I could not believe that she would be able to survive. They had loved each other so much, they had almost become one. She survived only because she also loves me.
I have been continuously worried about her. I wanted her to be near me, just so that she can die in utter fulfillment. Now I know. I have seen her, I have seen into her, and I can say to you -- and through you it will one day reach the world -- she has become enlightened. I was her last attachment. Now there is nothing left for her to be attached to. She is an enlightened woman -- uneducated, simple, not even knowing what enlightenment is. That's the beauty! One can be enlightened without knowing what enlightenment is, and vice versa: one can know everything about enlightenment and remain unenlightened.
I chose this couple, just simple villagers. I could have chosen kings and queens. It was in my hands. All kinds of wombs were available, but I am a man of very simple tastes: I am always satisfied with the best. The couple was poor, very poor. You will not be able to understand that my father had only seven hundred rupees; that means seventy dollars. That was all he possessed, yet I chose him to be my father. He had a richness which eyes cannot see, a royalty which is invisible.
Many of you have seen him and must have felt the beauty of the man. He was simple, very simple, you could even call him just a villager, but immeasurably rich -- not in the worldly way, but if there is an other-worldly way....
Seventy dollars, that was his sole possession. I would not have known it. I came to know only later on when his business was going bankrupt... and he was very happy! I asked him, "Dadda..." I used to call him that; "dadda" means father..."Dadda, soon you are going to be bankrupt, and still you are happy. What is the matter? Are the rumors false?"
He said, "No, the rumors are absolutely true. Bankruptcy is bound to happen, but I am happy because I have saved seven hundred rupees. That's what I started with; and I will show you the place."
Then he showed me the place where he had hidden the seven hundred rupees and said, "Don't be worried. I started with only seven hundred; nothing else belongs to us -- let it go to hell. What belongs to us is hidden here, in this place, and I have shown it to you. You are my eldest son, remember this place."
This I know... I have not said anything to anybody about that place, and I am not going to either, because although he was generous in showing me his secret, I am neither his son, nor is he my father. He is himself, I am myself. "Father and son" is just a formality. Those seven hundred rupees are still hidden somewhere under the earth, and will remain there unless found accidentally by someone. I told him, "Although you have shown me the place, I have not seen it."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "It is simple. I don't see it, and I don't want to see it. I don't belong to any heritage, big or small, rich or poor."
But from his side he was a loving father. As far as my side is concerned, I am not a loving son -- excuse me.
He was a loving father; when I left my university post, only he was worried, nobody else. None of my friends were worried. Who cares? -- in fact, many of my friends were happy that I had vacated the chair; now they could have it. They rushed. Only my father was worried. I told him, "There is no need to worry."
But my saying it was not of much help. He purchased a big property without telling me, because he knew perfectly well that if he had told me, I would have hit his head. He made a beautiful little house for me, exactly as I would have liked it to be. You will be surprised: it was even air-conditioned, with all modern facilities.
It was near my village, with a garden on the bank of the river, with steps leading down so that I could go swimming... with ancient, old trees and absolute silence surrounding, no one else for miles. But he never told me.
It is good that my poor father is dead, otherwise I would have given him trouble. But he had so much love, and so much compassion for a vagabond son.
I am a vagabond. I have never done anything for the family. They are not obliged to me at all. They have done everything for me. I had chosen this couple not without good reason... for their love, their intimacy, their almost one-ness. That is how, after seven hundred years, I entered into the body again.
My childhood was golden. Again, I am not using a cliche. Everybody says his childhood was golden, but it is not so. People only think their childhood was golden because their youth is rotten; then their old age is even more rotten. Naturally, childhood becomes "golden." My childhood was not golden in that sense. My youth was diamond, and if I am going to be an old man then it is going to be platinum. But my childhood was certainly golden -- not a symbol, absolutely golden; not poetically, but literally, factually.
For most of my very early years I lived with my mother's parents. Those years are unforgettable. Even if I reach to Dante's paradise I will still remember those years. A small village, poor people, but my grandfather -- I mean my mother's father -- was a generous man. He was poor, but rich in his generosity. He gave to each and everyone whatsoever he had. I learned the art of giving from him; I have to accept it. I never saw him say no to any beggar or anybody.
I called my mother's father Nana; that's the way the mother's father is called in India. My mother's mother is called Nani. I used to ask my grandfather, "Nana, where did you get such a beautiful wife?"
My grandmother looked more Greek than Indian. When I see Mukta laughing, I remember her. Perhaps that's why I have a soft spot in my heart for Mukta. I cannot say no to her. Even though what she demands is not right, I still say "Okay." The moment I see her I immediately remember my Nani. Perhaps there was some Greek blood in her; no race can claim purity. The Indians particularly should not claim any purity of blood -- the Hunas, the Moguls, the Greeks and many others have attacked, conquered and ruled India. They have mixed themselves in the Indian blood, and it was so apparent with my grandmother. Her features were not Indian, she looked Greek, and she was a strong woman, very strong. My Nana died when he was not more than fifty. My grandmother lived till eighty and she was fully healthy. Even then nobody thought she was going to die. I promised her one thing, that when she died I would come, and that would be my last visit to the family. She died in 1970. I had to fulfill my promise.
For my first years I knew my Nani as my mother; those are the years when one grows. This circle is for my Nani. My own mother came after that; I was already grown up, already made in a certain style, and my grandmother helped me immensely. My grandfather loved me, but could not help me much. He was so loving, but to be of help more is needed -- a certain kind of strength. He was always afraid of my grandmother. He was, in a sense, a henpecked husband. When it comes to the truth, I am always true. He loved me, he helped me... what can I do if he was a henpecked husband? Ninety-nine point nine percent of husbands are, so it is okay.
I remember an incident that I have never told before. It was a dark night. It was raining and a thief entered our house. Naturally my grandfather was afraid. Everybody could see that he was afraid, but he pretended not to be, he tried his best. The thief was hiding in the corner of our small house, behind a few bags of sugar.
My grandfather was a continuous pan-chewer. Pan is betel leaf. Just like a chain smoker, he was a chain pan-chewer. He was always making pan, and the whole day long he would chew it. He started chewing pan and spitting it at the poor thief who was hiding in the corner. I looked at this ugly scene, and told my grandmother, with whom I used to sleep, "This is not right. Even though he is a thief we should behave in a gentlemanly way. Spitting? Either fight or stop spitting!"
My grandmother said, "What would you like to do?"
I said, "I will go and slap the thief and throw him out." I was not more than nine.
My grandmother laughed and said, "Okay, I will come with you -- you may need my help." She was a tall woman. My mother does not resemble her in any way, neither in physical beauty, nor in her spiritual daring. My mother is simple; my grandmother was adventurous. She came with me.
I was shocked! I could not believe what I saw: the thief was a man who used to come and teach me, my teacher! I really hit him hard, more so because he was my teacher. I told him, "If you were only a thief I would have forgiven you, but you have been teaching me great things, and at night you do these things! Now run away as fast as you can before my grandmother gets hold of you, otherwise she will crush you."
She was a big woman, tall, strong and beautiful. My grandfather was small and homely, but they both went well together. He never fought her -- he could not -- so there was no problem at all.
I remember that teacher, the village pandit, who also used to come and tutor me sometimes. He was the priest of the village temple. He said, "What about my clothes? Your grandfather has been spitting all over me. He has spoiled my clothes."
My grandmother laughed and said, "Come tomorrow, I will give you some new clothes." And she really did give him some new clothes. He did not come, he did not dare, but she went to the thief's home and took me with her, and gave him the new clothes, telling him, "Yes, my husband is terrible to spoil your clothes. It is not good. Whenever you need clothes you can always come to me."
That teacher never came to teach me again... not that he was told not to, he did not dare. He not only stopped coming to teach me, he stopped coming to the street where we lived; he stopped passing that way. But I made it a point to visit him every day just to spit in front of his house, to remind him. I would shout to him, "Have you forgotten that night? And you always used to tell me to be true, sincere and honest and all that bullshit."
Even now I can see him with his eyes cast down, unable to answer me.
My grandfather wanted the greatest astrologers in India to make my birth chart. Although he was not very rich -- in fact not even rich, what to say of very rich, but in that village he was the richest person -- he was ready to pay any price for the birth chart. He made the long journey to Varanasi and saw the famous men. Looking at the notes and dates my grandfather had brought, the greatest astrologer of them all said, "I am sorry, I can only make this birth chart after seven years. If the child survives then I will make his chart without any charge, but I don't think he will survive. If he does it will be a miracle, because then there is a possibility for him to become a Buddha."
My grandfather came home weeping. I had never seen tears in his eyes. I asked, "What is the matter?"
He said, "I have to wait until you are seven. Who knows whether I will survive those years or not? Who knows whether the astrologer himself will survive, because he is so old. And I am a little concerned about you."
I said, "What's the concern?"
He said, "The concern is not that you may die, my concern is that you may become a Buddha."
I laughed, and amongst his tears he also started laughing; then he himself said, "It's strange that I was worried. Yes, what is wrong in being a Buddha?"
When my father heard what the astrologers had told my grandfather, he took me to Varanasi himself -- but more of that later.
When I was seven an astrologer came to my grandfather's village searching for me. When a beautiful horse stopped in front of our house, we all rushed out: the horse looked so royal. And the rider was none other than one of the famous astrologers I had met. He said to me, "So, you are still alive? I have made your birth chart. I was worried, because people like you don't survive long."
My grandfather sold all the ornaments in the house just to give a feast for all the neighboring villages, to celebrate that I was going to become a Buddha, and yet I don't think he even understood the meaning of the word "buddha."
He was a Jaina and may not have even heard it before. But he was happy, immensely happy... dancing, because I was to become a Buddha. At that moment I could not believe that he could be so happy just because of this word "buddha." When everyone had departed I asked him, "What is the meaning of `buddha'?" He said, "I don't know, it just sounds good. Moreover I am a Jaina. We will find out from some Buddhist."
In that small village there were no Buddhists, but he said, "Someday, when a passing Buddhist Bhikku comes by, we will know the meaning."
But he was so happy just because the astrologer had said that I was to become a Buddha. He then said to me, "I guess `buddha' must mean someone who is very intelligent." In Hindi Buddhi means intelligence, so he thought "buddha" meant the intelligent one.

He came very close, he almost guessed right. Alas that he is not alive, otherwise he would have seen what being a Buddha means -- not the dictionary meaning, but an encounter with a living, awakened one. And I can see him dancing, seeing that his grandson has become a Buddha. That would have been enough to make him enlightened! But he died. His death was one of my most significant experiences... of that, later on.
Is there time yet?
"It's eight-thirty, Bhagwan."
Good, just five minutes for me....
It is time to stop, but it has been beautiful, and I am grateful. Thank you.

Chapter #3

Again and again the miracle of the morning... the sun and the trees. The world is just like a snow flower: take it in your hand and it melts away. Nothing is left, just a wet hand. But if you see, just see, then a snow flower is as beautiful as any flower in the world. And this miracle happens every morning, every afternoon, every evening, every night, twenty-four hours, day in, day out... the miracle. And people go to worship God in temples, churches, mosques and synagogues. The world must be full of fools -- sorry, not fools but idiots, incurable, suffering from such retardedness. Has one to go to a temple to search for God? Is He not here and now?
The very idea of search is idiotic. One searches for that which is far away, and God is so close, closer than your own heartbeat. When I see the miracle every moment I am amazed how it is possible. Such creativity! It is possible only because there is no creator. If there were a creator you would have the same Monday every Monday, because the creator created the world in six days, then was finished with it. There is no creator, but only creative energy -- energy in millions of forms, melting, meeting, appearing, disappearing, coming together and departing.
That is why I say the priest is the farthest away from the truth, and a poet, the closest. Of course the poet has not attained it either. Only the mystic attains it.... "Attain" is not the right word: he becomes it, or rather he finds that he has always been it.
People ask me, "Do you believe in astrology, in religion... in this, in that?" I don't believe in anything at all, because I know. That reminds me of the story I was telling you the other day.... The old astrologer came. My grandfather could not believe his eyes. The astrologer was so famous that even kings would have been surprised if he had visited their palace; and he came to my old grandfather's house. It has to be called a house, but it was nothing much, just made of mud walls, not even a separate bathroom. He visited us and I immediately became a friend to the old man.
Looking into his eyes, although I was only seven, and I could not read a word... but I could read his eyes -- they don't need your three Rs. I said to the astrologer, "It is strange that you traveled so far just to make my birth chart."
Varanasi in those days, and even now, is far away from that small village. The old man said, "I had promised, and a promise has to be fulfilled." The way he said "a promise has to be fulfilled" thrilled me. Here was an alive man!
I said to him, "If you have come to fulfill your promise, then I can predict your future."
He said, "What! You can predict my future?"
I said, "Yes. Certainly you are not going to become a Buddha, but you are going to become a bhikku, a sannyasin." That is the name of a Buddhist sannyasin.
He laughed and said, "Impossible!"
I said, "You can bet on it."
He asked me, "Okay, how much?"
I said, "It does not matter. You can bet any amount you want, because if I win, I win; if I lose, I lose nothing, because I don't have anything. You are gambling with a child of seven. Can't you see it? I don't have anything."
You will be surprised to know that I was standing there naked. In that poor village it was not prohibited, at least for seven-year-old children, to run around naked. It was not an English village!
I can still see myself standing there naked, before the astrologer. The whole village had gathered around, and they were all listening to what was conspiring between me and him.
The old man said, "Okay, if I become a sannyasin, a BHIKKU" -- and he showed his gold pocket watch, studded with diamonds -- "I will give this to you. And what about you, if you lose?"
I said, "I will simply lose. I don't have anything; no gold wristwatch to give to you. I will just thank you."
He laughed and departed.
I don't believe in astrology; ninety-nine point nine percent of it is nonsense, but point one percent is pure truth. A man of insight, intuition and purity can certainly look into the future, because the future is not non-existential, it is just hidden from our eyes. Maybe just a thin curtain of thoughts is all that divides the present and the future.
In India, the bride covers her face with a ghoonghat. Now it is difficult to translate this word; it is just a mask. She pulls her sari over her face. That's the way the future is hidden from us, just by a ghoonghat, a thin veil. I don't believe in astrology, I mean the ninety-nine point nine percent of it. The remaining point one percent I need not believe in, it is true. I have seen it function.
That old man was the first proof. But it is strange: he could see my future, of course vaguely, with all kinds of possibilities, but he could not see his own. Not only that, he was ready to bet against me when I said that he would become a bhikku.
I was fourteen, and again traveling around Varanasi with my father's father. He had gone on business, and I had stubbornly insisted on going with him. I stopped an old bhikku on the road between Varanasi and Sarnath and said, "Old man, do you remember me?"
He said, "I have never seen you before -- why should I remember you?"
I said, "You may not, but I have to remember you. Where is the watch, the gold watch studded with diamonds? I am the child with whom you gambled. Now the time has come for me to ask. I had declared that you would become a bhikku, and now you are. Give me the watch."
He laughed, and brought out from his pocket the beautiful old watch, gave it to me with tears in his eyes, and -- can you believe -- he touched my feet.
I said, "No, no. You are a bhikku, a sannyasin, you cannot touch my feet."
He said, "Forget all about it. You proved to be a greater astrologer than I; let me touch your feet."
I gave that watch to the first of my sannyasins. The name of my first sannyasin is Ma Anand Madhu -- a woman of course, because that's what I wanted. Nobody has initiated women into sannyas like me. Not only that, I wanted to initiate a woman as my first sannyasin, just to put things in balance and in order.
Buddha hesitated before giving sannyas to women... even Buddha! Only that thing in his life hurts me like a thorn, and nothing else. Buddha hesitating... why? He was afraid that women sannyasins would distract his followers. What nonsense! A Buddha and afraid of business! Let those fools be distracted if they want to be!
Mahavira said that nobody in a woman's body could attain to nirvana, the ultimate liberation. I have to repent for all these men. Mohammed never allowed any woman into the mosque. Even now women are not allowed into the mosque; even in the synagogue women sit in the gallery, not with the men.
Indira Gandhi was telling me that when she visited Israel and went to Jerusalem, she could not believe that the prime minister of Israel and herself were both sitting in the balcony, and all the men were sitting downstairs on the main floor. She did not realize that even the prime minister of Israel, being a woman, could not be allowed into the synagogue proper; they could only be observers from the balcony. It is not respectful, it is an insult.
I have to apologize for Mohammed, for Moses, for Mahavira, for Buddha, and for Jesus too, because he didn't choose a single woman as one of his twelve apostles. Yet when he died on the cross the twelve fools were not there at all. Only three women stayed -- Magdalena, Mary and Magdalena's sister -- but even these three women had not been chosen by Jesus; they were not among the chosen few. The chosen few had escaped. Great! They were trying to save their own lives. In the hour when there was danger, only women came.
I have to apologize to the future for all these people; and my first apology was to give sannyas to a woman. You will be amused to know the full story....
The husband of Anand Madhu, of course, wanted to be initiated first. It happened in the Himalayas; I was having a camp in Manali. I refused the husband saying, "You can only be second, not the first." He was so angry that he left the camp at that very moment. Not only that, he became my enemy and joined Morarji Desai. Later on, when Morarji Desai was prime minister, this man tried in every way to persuade him to imprison me. Of course Morarji Desai does not have that kind of courage; one can't have if one drinks one's own urine. He is an utter fool... again, sorry... utter idiot. "Fool" I reserve only for Devageet, that's his privilege.
Anand Madhu is still a sannyasin. She lives in the Himalayas, silently, without speaking. Since then, my effort has always been to bring women to the front as much as possible. Sometimes I may even look unfair to men. I'm not, I am just putting things in order. After centuries of man's exploitation of women, it is not an easy task.
The first woman I loved was my mother-in-law. You will be surprised: Am I married? No, I am not married. That woman was Gudia's mother, but I used to call her my mother-in-law, just as a joke. I have remembered it again after so many years. I used to call her mother-in-law because I loved her daughter. That was Gudia's previous life. Again, that woman was tremendously powerful, just like my grandmother.
My "mother-in-law" was a rare woman, especially in India. She left her husband and went to Pakistan, married a Mohammedan even though she was a brahmin. She knew how to dare. I always like the quality of daring, because the more you dare, the nearer you come to home. Only the daredevils ever become buddhas, remember! The calculating ones can have a good bank balance but cannot become buddhas.
I am thankful to the man who declared my future when I was only seven. What a man! To have waited until I was seven just to make my birth chart -- what patience! And not only that, he came all the way from Varanasi to my village. There were no roads, no trains, he had to travel long on horseback.
And when I met him on the road to Sarnath and told him that I had won the bet, he immediately gave me his watch and said, "I would have given you the whole world but I don't have anything else. In fact I should not even have this watch, but just because of you I have kept it all these years knowing that any day you are bound to come. And when I became a bhikku, Buddha was not in my mind, but you -- a naked seven-year-old child declaring the future of one of the greatest astrologers in the country. How did you do it?"
I said, "That I don't know. I looked into your eyes and I could see that you could not be content with anything this world could give you. I saw the divine discontent. A man only becomes a sannyasin when he feels the divine discontent."
I don't know whether the old man is still alive or not. He cannot be, otherwise he would have searched for me and found me.
But that moment, in the life of the village, was the greatest. They still talk about that feast. Just recently a person from that village came here, and he said, "We still talk about the feast that your grandfather gave to the village. Never before and never after, has anything like that happened." I enjoyed so many people enjoying.
I enjoyed the white horse. Gudia would have loved that horse. She used to show me the horses as we passed them on the road. "Look," she would say, "what beautiful horses."
I have seen many horses but nothing like the horse that old astrologer had. I have seen the most beautiful horses but I still remember his horse as being the most beautiful. Perhaps my childhood was the cause of it. Perhaps I had no way to compare them, but believe me, whether I was a child or not, that horse was beautiful. It was immensely powerful, must have been eight horsepower.
Those days were golden. Everything that happened in those years I can again see like a film passing before me. It is unbelievable that I would ever be interested....
No.... Ashu is looking at her watch. It is too early to look at your watch. Don't be just like Canada Dry -- relax. Don't be so dry. You looked at your watch at such a moment, and you don't know what you have disturbed. It is not just a plop!
What was I saying...? Those days were golden. Everything that happened in those nine years, I can again see like a film passing before me.
Good, the film is back, despite Ashu and her watch.
Yes, it was a golden time. In fact more than golden, because my grandfather not only loved me but loved everything that I did. And I did everything that you could call a nuisance.
I was a continuous nuisance. The whole day he had to listen to complaints about me, and he always rejoiced in them. That is what is wonderful and beautiful about the man. He never punished me. He never even said a single word like "Do this," or "Don't do that." He simply allowed, absolutely allowed me to be myself. That is how, without knowing it at all, I came to have the taste of Tao.
Lao Tzu says, "Tao is the watercourse way. The water simply flows downwards wherever the earth allows it." That is how those early years were. I was allowed. I think every child needs those years. If we could give those years to every child in the world we could create a golden world.
Those days were full, overfull! So many events; so many incidents that I have never told to anybody....
I used to swim in the lake. Naturally my grandfather was afraid. He put a strange man to guard over me, in a boat. In that primitive village you cannot conceive what a "boat" meant. It is called a dongi. It is nothing but the hollowed-out trunk of a tree. It is not an ordinary boat. It is round, and that is the danger: unless you are an expert you cannot row it. It can roll at any moment. Just a little imbalance and you are gone forever. It is very dangerous.
I learned balance through rowing a dongi. Nothing could be more helpful. I learned the "middle way" because you have to be exactly in the middle: this way, and you are gone; that way, and you are gone. You cannot even breathe, and you have to remain absolutely silent; only then can you row the dongi.
The man who was put on guard to save me, I called him strange. Why? Because his name was Bhoora, and it means "white man." He was the only white man in our village. He was not a European; it was just by chance that he did not look like an Indian. He looked more like a European but he was not. His mother most probably had worked in a British Army camp and had become pregnant there. That's why nobody knew his name. Everybody called him Bhoora. Bhoora means "the white one." It is not a name but it became his name. He was a very impressive-looking man. He came to work for my grandfather from early childhood, and even though he was a servant he was treated like one of the family.
I also called him strange because although I have come to know many people in the world, one rarely comes across such a man as Bhoora. He was a man you could trust. You could say anything to him and he would keep the secret forever. This fact became known to my family only when my grandfather died. My grandfather had entrusted to Bhoora all the keys and all the affairs of the house and the land. Soon after we arrived in Gadarwara my family asked my grandfather's most devoted servant, "Where are the keys?"
He said, "My master told me, `Never show the keys to anybody else but me.' Excuse me, but unless he asks me himself I cannot give you the keys." And he never gave them the keys, so we don't know what those keys were hiding.
Many years later when I was again living in Bombay, Bhoora's son came to me and gave me the keys and said, "We have been waiting and waiting for you to come, but nobody came. We have taken care of the land and looked after the crops and put aside all the money."
I gave him the keys back and said to him, "Everything now belongs to you. The house, the crops and the money belong to you, they are yours. I am sorry that I did not know before, but none of us wanted to go back and feel the pain."
What a man! But such men used to exist on earth. They are disappearing by and by, and instead of such people you find all kinds of cunning people taking their place. These people are the very salt of the earth. I call Bhoora a strange man because in a cunning world, to be simple is strange. It is to be a stranger, not of this world.
My grandfather had as much land as one could desire, because in those days, in that part of India, land was absolutely free. You had just to go to the government office in the capital and ask for the land. That was enough -- it was given to you. We had fourteen hundred acres of crops which Bhoora attended to. When my grandfather became sick, Bhoora had said he would never be able to live without him. They had become so close. When my grandfather was dying we took him from Kuchwada to Gadarwara because there were no facilities in Kuchwada to care for the sick. My grandfather's house was the only house in the village.
When we left Kuchwada Bhoora had given the keys to his sons. On the way to Gadarwara my grandfather died, and because of the shock, the next morning Bhoora did not wake up from his sleep; he died in the night. My grandmother, my father and mother did not want to go back to Kuchwada because of the pain it would cause us, because my grandfather had been such a beautiful man.
Bhoora's son is around the same age as me. It is only just a few years ago that my brother Niklanka and Chaitanya Bharti went back just to take pictures of the house and the pond.
The house in which I was born, they are now asking ten lakhs rupees for it, knowing that one of my disciples may be willing to purchase it. Ten lakhs! That is one hundred thousand dollars. And do you know? -- it was worth thirty rupees at the time my grandfather died. Even that was too much. We would have been surprised that anybody would be ready to give us even that.
It was a very primitive part of the country. Just because it was primitive it had something which is now missing from man everywhere else. Man also needs to be a little primitive, at least once in a while. A forest, a jungle, rather... an ocean... a sky full of stars.
Man should not be only concerned with his bank account. That is the most ugly thing possible. That means the man is dead! Bury him! Celebrate! Burn him! Dance about his funeral! The bank account is not the man. Man, in order to be man, must be as natural as the hills, rivers, rocks, flowers....
My grandfather not only helped me to know what innocence is, that is what life is, but he also helped me to know what death is. He died in my lap... of that sometime later on.

Chapter #4

I was telling you of the moment when I met the astrologer who had now become a sannyasin....
I was nearabout fourteen at the time, and with my other grandfather, that is, my father's father. My real grandfather was no more; he died when I was only seven. The old bhikku, the ex-astrologer, asked me, "I am by profession an astrologer, and by hobby a reader of many things -- lines of the hand, of heads, of feet, and so on. How could you manage to tell me that I was going to become a sannyasin? I had never thought about it before. It was you who dropped the seed in me, and since then I have been thinking only of sannyas, and nothing else. How did you manage?"
I shrugged my shoulders. Even today if someone asks how I manage, all I can do is shrug my shoulders, because I do not manage -- I simply allow things to be. One just has to learn the art of running ahead of things so that everybody thinks you are managing them; otherwise there is no management, particularly in the world I am concerned with.
I told the old man, "I just looked into your eyes and saw such purity that I could not believe that you were not yet a sannyasin. You should have been already; it was already too late."
In a sense, sannyas is always too late, and in another sense, it is always too soon... and both are true together.
Now it was the turn of the old man to shrug his shoulders. He said, "You puzzle me. How could my eyes give the clue?"
I said, "If eyes cannot give the clue then there is no possibility for any astrology."
The word astrology is certainly not concerned with the eyes, it is concerned with the stars. But can a blind man see stars? You need eyes to see stars.
I said to that old man, "Astrology is not the science of the stars, but the science of seeing, seeing the stars even during the day, in full daylight."
Once in a while it happens... when the Master hits the disciple on the head. Just this morning, Ashu, do you remember when you were looking at your watch, and I hit your head with a Canada Dry soda bottle? Remember now? At the time you missed it. That's what it means to know astrology. She had a little taste of it this morning -- I don't think she will ever look at her watch again.
But please, look at it again and again, so I can hit you again and again. It was only a beginning. Otherwise how are you going to freak in? Forgive me, but always allow me to hit you. I am always ready to ask your forgiveness, but never ready to say that I will not hit again. In fact, the first is only a preparation for the second, and a deeper hit.
This is a strange company here. I am an old Jew. There is a proverb which says, "Once a Jew always a Jew." And I was once a Jew, and I know the truth of that proverb. I'm still a Jew, and sitting by my right side is a one-hundred-percent Jew, Devageet; and there, by my side near my feet, Devaraj is sitting, partially a Jew. You can see from his nose... otherwise from where could he get such a beautiful nose?
And Gudia, if she is still here, is not English either. She has also once been a Jew. For the first time I want to make it known to you that she is none other than Magdalena! She loved Jesus, but missed him. He was crucified so early and a woman needs time, and patience; and he was only thirty-three. That is the time to play football, or if you are a little grown up at thirty-three, then to go to see a football match.
Jesus died too early. The people were too uncruel to him... I mean cruel to him. I wanted them to be uncruel, that's why the word came. Gudia, this time you cannot miss. Whatsoever you do, and howsoever you try to escape.... I am not Jesus, who could be easily crucified at thirty-three. And I can be very patient, even with a woman, which is hard... that I know, difficult, very very difficult at times. A woman can really be a pain in the neck!
I have never suffered from a pain in the neck, thank God! But I know the pain in the back. If it is so terrible in the back, how much more it must be in the neck. The neck is the very pinnacle of the back. But with me whether you are a pain in the neck, or the back, it does not matter: this time you cannot miss. If you miss this time, it will be impossible to find a man like me again.
Jesus can be found again very easily. People are becoming enlightened all the time. But to find a man like me -- who has traveled thousands of ways, in thousands of lives, and has gathered the fragrance of millions of flowers like a honeybee -- is difficult.
If one misses me, perhaps he misses forever. But I won't allow it to happen to any of my people. I know all the ways to cut through their cunningness, their hardness, their cleverness. And I am not concerned with the world at large. I am concerned only with my people, those who are really in search of themselves.
Just today I received a translation of a new book they are publishing in Germany. I don't know German, so somebody had to translate the part concerned with me. I never laughed so much at any joke, yet it is not a joke, it is a very serious book.
The author devoted fifty-five pages just to prove that I am only illuminated and not enlightened. Great! Just great! -- only illuminated, not enlightened. And you will be surprised to know that just a few days ago I received another book from the same category of idiot, a Dutch professor. The Dutch are not very different from the Germans, they belong to the same category.
By the way I must tell you that Gurdjieff used to divide every person according to a certain plan. He had a few categories of idiots. Now this German and that Dutch fellow, whose name I have fortunately forgotten, both belong to the first category of fools... no, not fools -- that is reserved for my Jew disciple, Devageet -- idiots. The Dutch idiot proved, or tried to prove, in a long dissertation, that I am only enlightened, not illuminated. Now, these two idiots should meet and wrestle, and hit each other with their arguments and books.
As far as I am concerned, once and for all, let me declare to the world: I am neither illuminated nor enlightened. I am just a very ordinary, very simple man, with no adjectives and no degrees. I have burned all my certificates.
The idiots always ask the same question -- it makes no difference. This is the miracle. Everything is different between India, England, Canada, America, Germany -- but not the idiot. The idiot is universal, the same everywhere. You taste it from anywhere and it is the same. Perhaps Buddha would have agreed with me; after all he said, "Taste the Buddha from anywhere, and he is just like the ocean: wherever you taste it, it tastes of salt." Perhaps just as the Buddhas taste the same, buddhus -- which is the Indian name for idiots -- also taste the same. It is good, but only in the Indian languages, that "buddha" and buddhu are made from the same root, are almost the same word.
I am not at all concerned whether you believe me to be enlightened or not. What does it matter? But this man is so concerned that in his small book, fifty pages are devoted to this question, whether I am enlightened or not. It certainly proves one thing, that he was a first-class idiot. I am just myself. Why should I be enlightened or illuminated? And what great scholarship! Illumination is different from enlightenment? Perhaps you are enlightened when there is electricity, and you are only illuminated when there is only candlelight?
I don't know what the difference is. I am neither. I am light myself, neither enlightened nor illuminated; I have left those words far far behind. I can see them like dust, still stirring, far away on the path that I will never travel again, just footprints in the sand.
These so-called professors, philosophers, psychologists -- why are they so concerned about a poor man like me, who is not at all concerned with them? I am living my life, and it is my freedom to live it as I want to live it. Why should they waste time on me? Please, it would have been better to have lived those fifty-five pages. How many hours and nights this poor professor must have wasted? He could have become illuminated meanwhile, or at least enlightened. And the Dutch one would have become enlightened meanwhile, if not illuminated. Both would have understood: Who am I?
Then there is only silence.

Nothing to say
Perhaps a song to sing
or a dance
or just to prepare a cup of tea
and silently sip it....
The flavor of the tea is far more important than all philosophy.
Remember, Ashu, that's why I say only one thing has come out of Canada that is worth mentioning: that is Canada Dry, the soda. It is really beautiful -- I love it. Among all the sodas in the world, that's the best. Now you are laughing. You are allowed to look at the watch. There is no need to hide it under your sleeve, or to leave it behind in case by accident you see it. I do not bother at all what time it is. Even when I ask, I don't really mean it; it is just to console you. Otherwise I go on and on in my own way. I am not a man of time. Look how long it took me just to come back to the missing thread.
My mother's father suddenly fell ill. It was not time for him to die. He was not more than fifty, or even less, perhaps even younger than I am now. My grandmother was just fifty, at the very peak of her youth and beauty. You will be surprised to know that she was born in Khajuraho, the citadel, the ancientmost citadel of the Tantrikas. She always said to me, "When you are a little older, never forget to visit Khajuraho." I don't think any parent would give that advice to a child, but my grandmother was just rare, persuading me to visit Khajuraho.
Khajuraho consists of thousands of beautiful sculptures, all naked and copulating. There are hundreds of temples. Many of them are just ruins, but a few have survived, perhaps because they were forgotten. Mahatma Gandhi wanted these few temples to be buried under the earth because the statues, the sculptures are so tempting. Yet my grandmother was tempting me to go to Khajuraho. What a grandmother to have! She herself was so beautiful, like a statue, very Greek in every way.
When Mukta's daughter, Seema, came to see me, for a moment I could not believe it, because my grandmother had exactly the same face, the same coloring. Seema does not look European, she is darker. And her face and figure are exactly the same as my grandmother's. Alas, I thought, my grandmother is dead, otherwise I would have liked Seema to see her. And do you know, even at the age of eighty she was still beautiful, which is utterly impossible.
When my grandmother died, I rushed from Bombay to see her. Even in her death she was beautiful... I could not believe that she was dead. And suddenly all the statues of Khajuraho became alive to me. In her dead body I saw the whole philosophy of Khajuraho. The first thing I did after seeing her was to again go to Khajuraho. It was the only way to pay homage to her. Now Khajuraho was even more beautiful than before because I could see her everywhere, in each statue.
Khajuraho is incomparable. There are thousands of temples in the world, but nothing like Khajuraho. I am trying to create a living Khajuraho in this ashram. Not stone statues, but real people who are capable of love, who are really alive, so alive that they are infectious, that just to touch them is enough to feel a current in you, an electric shock!
My grandmother gave me many things; one of the most important was her insistence that I should go to Khajuraho. In those days, Khajuraho was absolutely unknown. But she insisted so much that I had to go. She was stubborn. Perhaps I got that quality from her, or you may call it a dis-quality.
During the last twenty years of her life I was traveling all over India. Each time I passed through the village she would say to me, "Listen: never enter a train that has already started, and do not get out of the train before it has stopped. Second, never argue with anyone in the compartment while you are traveling. Thirdly, remember always that I am alive and waiting for you to come home. Why are you wandering all over the country when I am waiting here to take care of you? You need care, and nobody can give you the same care as I can."
For twenty years continuously I had to listen to this advice. Now I can say to her, "Don't be worried, at least there in the other world. First, I no longer travel by train; in fact I no longer travel at all, so there is no question of getting out of the train that has not yet stopped. Secondly, Gudia is taking care of me as beautifully as you would have liked to. Thirdly, remember that just as you waited for me while you were alive, wait for me still. Soon I will be coming, coming home."
The first time I went to Khajuraho I went just because my grandmother was nagging me to go, but since then I have been there hundreds of times. There is no other place in the world that I have been to so many times. The reason is simple: you cannot exhaust the experience. It is inexhaustible. The more you know, the more you want to know. Each detail of the Khajuraho temples is a mystery. It must have taken hundreds of years and thousands of artists to create each temple. And I have never come across anything other than Khajuraho that can be said to be perfect, not even the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal has its flaws, but Khajuraho has none. Moreover Taj Mahal is just beautiful architecture; Khajuraho is the whole philosophy and psychology of the New Man.
When I saw those naked -- I cannot say "nude," forgive me. "Nude" is pornographic; "naked" is a totally different phenomenon. In the dictionary they may mean the same, but the dictionary is not everything; there is much more to existence. The statues are naked, but not nude. But those naked beauties... perhaps one day man will be able to achieve it. It is a dream; Khajuraho is a dream. And Mahatma Gandhi wanted it buried under earth so nobody could be tempted by the beautiful statues. We are grateful to Rabindranath Tagore who prevented Gandhi from doing such a thing. He said, "Leave the temples as they are...." He was a poet and he could understand their mystery.
I have gone to Khajuraho so many times that I have lost all count. Whenever I had time I would rush to Khajuraho. If I could not be found anywhere else, my family would automatically say that I must have gone to Khajuraho, look for me there. And they were always right. I had to bribe the guards of those temples to tell people that I was not there when I was. It is a confession, because that is the only time I ever bribed anyone; but it was worth it, and I don't regret it. I don't feel sorry about it.
In fact, you will be surprised, you know how dangerous I am.... The guard who I bribed became my sannyasin. Now, who bribed whom? First I bribed him to say that I was not inside; then by and by he became more and more interested in me. He returned all the bribes that I had given him. He is perhaps the only man who has returned all the bribes given to him. He could not keep them after becoming a sannyasin.
Khajuraho -- the very name rings bells of joy in me, as if it had descended from heaven to earth. On a full moon night, to see Khajuraho is to have seen all that is worth seeing. My grandmother was born there; no wonder she was a beautiful woman, courageous and dangerous too. Beauty is always so, courageous and dangerous. She dared. My mother does not resemble her, and I am sorry about that. You cannot find any proof of my grandmother in my mother. Nani was such a courageous woman, and she helped me to dare everything -- I mean everything.
If I wanted to drink wine, she would supply it. She would say, "Unless you drink totally you cannot get rid of it." And I know that is the way to get rid of anything at all. Whatsoever I wanted she arranged. My grandfather, her husband, was always afraid -- just like every other husband in the world, a mouse; a beautiful mouse, a nice fellow, loving, but nothing compared to her. When he died in my lap she did not even weep.
I asked her, "He is dead. You loved him. Why are you not weeping?"
She said, "Because of you. I don't want to weep before a child" -- she was such a woman! -- "and I don't want to console you. If I start weeping myself, then naturally you will weep; then who is going to console whom?"
I must describe that situation.... We were in a bullock cart going from my grandfather's village to my father's, because the only hospital was there. My grandfather was seriously sick; not only sick, but unconscious too, almost in a coma. She and I were the only other people in the cart. I can understand her compassion for me. She did not even weep at the death of her beloved husband, just because of me; because I was the only one there, and there would be nobody else to console me.
I said, "Don't worry. If you can remain without tears, I can also remain without tears." And, believe it or not, a child of seven remained without tears.
Even she was puzzled; she said, "You are not crying?"
I said, "I don't want to console you."
It was a strange group of people in that bullock cart. Bhoora, of whom I talked this morning, was driving. He knew that his master was dead, but he would not look inside the bullock cart, not even then, because he was only a servant and it was not his place to interfere in private affairs. That is what he said to me: "Death is a private affair; how can I look? I heard everything from the driving seat. I wanted to cry, I loved him so much. I feel like an orphan -- but I could not look back into the cart, otherwise he would never forgive me."
A strange company... and Nana was in my lap. I was a seven-year-old child with death, not just for a few seconds, but continuously for twenty-four hours. There was no road, and it was difficult to reach my father's town. The progress was very slow. We remained with the dead body for twenty-four hours. I could not weep because I did not want to disturb my grandmother. She could not weep because she did not want to disturb the little seven-year-old child that I was. She was a real woman of steel.
When we reached the town, my father called the doctor, and can you imagine: my grandmother laughed! She said, "You educated people are all stupid. He is dead! There is no need to call any doctor. Please burn him, and as quickly as possible."
Everybody was shocked by these words except me, because I knew her. She wanted the body to evaporate into the elements. It was already time... already late; you can understand. She said, "And I am not going back to that village."
When she said she was not going back to live in the village, it of course meant that I could not go back to see her there again either. But she never stayed with my father's family; she was different. When I started living in my father's village, I lived very mathematically in that town, spending the whole day with my father's family and the whole night with my grandmother. She used to live alone in a beautiful bungalow. It was a small house but really beautiful.
My mother used to ask me, "Why don't you stay home at night?"
I said, "It is impossible. I have to go to my grand-mother, particularly at night when she feels so alone without my Nana, my grandfather. During the day she is okay, she is busy and there are so many people around -- but at night alone in her room she may start crying if I am not there. I have to be there!" I remained there always, every night, without exception.
During the day I was at school. Only in the morning and in the afternoon I spent a few hours with my family; my mother, my father, my uncles. It was a big family, and it remained foreign to me; it never became part of me.
My grandmother was my family, and she understood me because from my very childhood she had seen me grow. She knew as much of me as anyone has ever known, because she allowed me everything... everything.
In India, when the Festival of Lights comes, people may gamble. It is a strange ritual: for three days gambling is legal; after that you can be caught and punished.
I told my grandmother, "I want to gamble."
She asked me, "How much money do you want?"
Even I could not believe my ears. I thought she would say, "No gambling." Instead she said, "So you want to gamble?" So then she gave me a one-hundred-rupee note and told me to go and gamble wherever I wanted, because one learns only by experience.
In this way she has helped me tremendously. Once, I wanted to go to visit a prostitute. I was only fifteen years old and had heard that a prostitute had come to the village. My grandmother asked me, "Do you know what a prostitute means?"
I said, "I don't know exactly."
Then she said, "You must go and see, but first only go to see her sing and dance."
In India prostitutes sing and dance first, but the singing and the dancing was so third rate and the woman was so ugly that I vomited! I returned home in the middle, before the dancing and singing had finished, and before the prostituting had begun. My Nani asked, "Why have you come home so early?"
I replied, "It was nauseating."
Only later when I read Jean-Paul Sartre's book, NAUSEA, did I understand what had happened to me that night. But my grandmother even allowed me to go to a prostitute. I don't remember her ever saying no to me. I wanted to smoke; she said, "Remember one thing: smoking is okay, but always smoke in the house."
I said, "Why?"
She said, "Others may object, so you can smoke in the house. I will provide you with cigarettes." She continued to provide me with cigarettes until I said, "Enough! I don't need any more."
My Nani was ready to go to any length just to help me experience myself. The way to know is to experience for yourself; it is not to be told. That's where parents become nauseating; they are continuously telling you. A child is a rebirth of God. He should be respected, and he should be given every opportunity to grow, and to be -- not according to you but according to his own potential.
If my time is over, it is good. If my time is not over, it is even better. Now it is up to you, how long you prolong it. You are not the only Jew, remember. You are only a Jew by birth, I am a Jew by spirit. It is all up to you.