Weblog von Hans-Wolfgang

Every child is born with an inner capacity; you don't have to teach the child how to relax. You just watch a child -- he is relaxed, he is in a let-go. But you won't allow him to enjoy this state of paradise. You will soon civilize him.

Every child is primitive, uncivilized. And the parents and the teachers and everybody are after the children to civilize them, to make them part of the society. Nobody bothers that the society is absolutely insane. It will be good if the child remains as he is, is no longer initiated into the society and your so-called civilization.

But with all good wishes the parents cannot leave the child alone. They have to teach him to work, they have to teach him to be productive, they have to teach him to be competitive. They have to teach him, "Unless you are at the top you have failed us."

So everybody is running to be at the top.

How can you relax?

When, for the first time in India, railway lines were laid down... A British engineer who was overseeing the work that was going on was amazed to see that every day a young Indian, a villager, would come and lie down under the shade of a big tree and watch the workers working and the engineers instructing them. The engineer became interested: a strange fellow; every day he comes. He brings his food with him, he takes his lunch and rests, sleeps in the afternoon under the shade of the tree.

Finally the engineer could not resist the temptation and he asked the villager, "Why don't you start working? You come anyway every day, and you waste your time just lying down watching."

The villager asked, "Working? But for what?"

The engineer said, "You will earn money!"

The villager asked, "But what will I do with the money?"

The engineer said, "You stupid, you don't know what can be done with the money? When you have money you can relax and enjoy!"

The poor villager said, "This is strange, because I am already relaxed and enjoying! This is going in such a roundabout way: working hard, earning money and then enjoying and relaxing. But I am doing it already!"

Children come with the intrinsic, intuitive quality of let-go. They are utterly relaxed. That's why all children are beautiful. Have you ever thought about it? All children, without exception, have a tremendous grace, aliveness and beauty. And these children are going to grow, and all their beauty and their grace will disappear.

It is very difficult to find a grown-up man with the same grace, with the same beauty, with the same aliveness. If you can find a man with childlike innocence and relaxation, you have found a sage.

That's how we have defined the sage in the East: he attains his childhood again. After experiencing all the ups and downs in life, finally he decides, out of experience -- the decision comes by itself -- that what he was in his childhood he has to be again before death comes.

Only stupid people never think of suicide. Life is so ugly, life is such a hell. It is very difficult to find an intelligent person who never thinks of committing suicide. The more intelligent you are, the more the idea will be coming again and again: Why go on living? for what? for this same rut? -- going to the office every day, doing the same files every day, coming back every day, talking about the same things, reading the same newspaper, listening to the same stupid radio station... going to sleep, just to get up early in the morning and catch the train to the office....

And so on and so forth, every day, year in and year out. Only a very very mediocre person can go on living. Otherwise, one day or other, the idea arises: "What am I doing here? If this is the way life goes, I have lived for forty years repeating the same thing, I may live forty years more, repeating the same things again -- then what? Then why not stop this game? Why not return the ticket to God and say, "I am finished. Enough is enough!"

The idea of suicide comes to everybody. That's why it is only man who thinks of suicide -- no other animal. It is only man who ponders over the idea of suicide, and sometimes commits suicide. It simply shows intelligence and nothing else.

And particularly in the modern society, man thinks more of suicide -- because modern society has become more mature, more intelligent, more educated, more sophisticated. In the old days, people were not thinking of suicide so much, for many reasons. In the old days, people were not individuals. They belonged to groups, castes, religions, countries. They had no individual existence as such -- and only individuals can commit suicide, remember.

When you have the idea that you are an individual, then the possibility opens up: you can destroy yourself. In the past, man has lived as part of a collective mind. And a collective mind is not a very intelligent mind. The collective mind lives according to the lowest denominator -- it cannot reach to the highest peaks of understanding, of vision, of seeing. The collective mind lives in a meaningless rut, thinking that this is meaningful -- because everybody else is doing the same, so it must be meaningful.

The modern mind is at a loss, the meaning is lost. You have to decide your own meaning. In the old days, when a son was born to a carpenter then he was going to be a carpenter. It was decided, already decided. His parents, his parents' parents... as far back as one could remember, they have always been carpenters. So he is a carpenter -- he knows his identity, who he is. He knows what he has to do. The society prescribes every rule, every regulation, he has simply to follow it. It is living below individuality -- and nobody can think of suicide when you live below individuality.

Buddha says: The first thing to remember when you move into the masses is to hold your tongue.

Once he was convinced of the fact that people are in need of great help he insisted his whole life that, unless you find it absolutely contrary to your innermost nature, become a bodhisattva. But there are a few people for whom it may be against their inner nature; then they have to remain arhatas. Don't force them. Remember: people need help. If you can be of any help, do whatsoever you can, but if you cannot, if it feels simply something totally against your intrinsic nature, your inner voice, then forget all about it.

An arhata also helps in his own way; without helping he helps -- by his presence. He remains in his silence, he lives his ordinary life without telling anybody anything, without manifesting his experience, without expressing his joy. He lives joyously, but he makes no deliberate effort to communicate. Still, a few sensitive souls will be attracted to him. They will start following him silently, they will sit by his side. He will not say anything; they will listen to his silence. If he has arrived then there is an aura around him; they will be nourished by this aura. If he has found his home there will be such peace radiating that you will be bathed in it, you will be blessed to be with him. He will be able to help you only indirectly.

A hot and flustered city gent in his big car was hopelessly lost in a maze of country lanes. Spotting a local sitting on a gate, chewing a piece of straw, he drew up opposite and shouted, "I say, my good man, can you tell me where this road goes to?"

"No," was the reply.

"Can you tell me where that road goes to, that turns off to the left?"

"No."

Getting quite a bit irritated the city gent yelled, "Well, where does that road that goes off to the right go to?"

"Don't know," was the reply.

"You must be some sort of idiot!" yelled the frustrated gent.

"Maybe," said the cool man, "but at least I know where I am."

This is the way of the arhata: he knows where he is. He will not say anything about any road, anything about any way, but he knows where he is and he is utterly contented with that. You can sit by his side, you can be nourished by his presence, but he is not going to make any direct effort.

First, one has to concentrate on the object. Concentration means narrowing of the mind.

Ordinarily, mind is in a constant traffic -- a thousand and one thoughts go on moving, like a crowd, a mob. With so many objects, you are confused, split. With so many objects you are moving in all directions simultaneously. With so many objects you are always, almost, in a state of insanity, as if you are being pulled from every direction and everything is incomplete. You go to the left, and something pulls you to the right; you go to the south, and something pulls you to the north. You are never going anywhere, just a muddled energy, a whirlpool, constant turmoil, anxiety.

This is the state of ordinary mind -- so many objects that the subjectivity is almost covered by them. You cannot have a feel who you are, because you are so much concerned with so many things you don't have a gap to look into yourself. You don't have that stillness, that aloneness. You are always in the crowd. You cannot find a space, a corner, where you can slip into yourself. And the objects continuously asking for attention, every thought asking for attention, forcing exactly that the attention should be given to it. This is the ordinary state. This is almost insanity.

In fact to divide mad people from nonmad people is not good. The distinction is only of degrees. It is not of quality: it is only of quantity. Maybe you are ninety-nine percent mad and he has gone beyond -- a hundred and one percent. Just watch yourself. Many times you also cross the boundary in anger you become mad -- you do things you cannot conceive of yourself doing. You do things for which you repent later on. You do things for which you say later on, "I did it in spite of me." You say, "... as if somebody forced me to do it, as if I was possessed. Some evil spirit, some devil forced me to do it. I never wanted to do it." Many times you also cross the boundary, but you come back again and again to your normal state of madness.

Go and watch any madman. People are always afraid of watching a madman because, suddenly, watching a madman you realize your own madness also. Immediately it happens because you can see at the most the difference is of degrees. He has gone a little ahead of you, but you are also following, you are also standing in the same queue.

William James once went to a madhouse, came back, became very sad, covered himself with a blanket. The wife could not understand. She said. "Why are you looking so sad?" He was a happy man.

He said, "I have been to the madhouse. Suddenly the thought occurred that between these people and me there seems to be not much difference. There is a difference, but not much. And sometimes I have also crossed the boundary. Sometimes in anger, sometimes in lust, sometimes in anxiety, depression. I have also crossed the boundary. The only difference seems to be that they are stuck and they cannot come back and I am still a little flexible and I can come back. But who knows? Someday the flexibility may be lost. Watching those madmen in the madhouse I became aware that they are my future. Hence. I am very much depressed. Because the way I am moving, sooner or later I will overreach them."

One man was creating great disturbance in the priest's mind, because he was not only asleep, he was snoring. The priest pulled the man aside after the sermon and told him that "There is no objection against sleeping; it is not against spirituality or Christianity. There is not a single sentence in the whole Bible against sleep, so there is no problem. But snoring is too much.

"And the problem is that your snoring disturbs other people's sleep. So many complaints have come to me, `Somehow this man's snoring has to be stopped.' Not that they are interested in the sermon, but their sleep -- just a beautiful morning sleep....

"So you please either stop snoring or stop coming to the sermon, and let people sleep. That gives me also the opportunity to go on repeating the same sermon every Sunday. I need not prepare it again and again, because what is the point? -- people are asleep, nobody is listening. But you are creating double problems: you are disturbing people's sleep and you are forcing me to prepare a new sermon every Sunday. How can I do that?"

You simply rejoice. You enjoy each moment.

Enlightenment has happened in all conditions, all situations, strange... but one thing, laughter, is certain.

And a person who is rejoicing, dancing, singing, automatically becomes independent. There is no need for him to make an effort to become independent.

It is because of this I don't consider Moses, or Jesus, or Mohammed to be enlightened. None of them knew what laughter is.

Why did Jesus choose Judea to be born in? Britain was the right place. Long faces, carrying the whole burden of the world -- the white man's burden.

Why did Jesus have more followers in the world than anybody else? Because somehow he fits with your misery, your suffering. You have a certain synchronicity with Jesus. He fits with you because you are also carrying a cross on your shoulder. Your life is nothing but a cross.

Looking at Jesus -- if this is what is going to happen after enlightenment, then it is better to remain unenlightened. I don't think he ever smiled -- not a single picture, not a single statue.... He's so goddamned serious! And that is the reason why he has found so many followers in the world.

Sigmund Freud is as serious as Jesus.

Both are Jews. Jews have given to the world three great men: Jesus, Freud, Karl Marx -- and all these three people are immensely serious. Nobody has seen Freud or Marx.... Jesus, of course, lived two thousand year ago, we cannot be certain -- but about Marx, about Freud....

Freud's daughter, Anna Freud said, "Freud -- not serious? He was serious even in his sleep." He was so serious that if you brought him a joke he would not laugh, he would start analyzing the psychology of the joke.

He has written a book, ANALYZING JOKES AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGY. The joke cannot make him laugh. It only creates a great effort to analyze it, give it a psychological color, sometimes far-fetched. Jokes are simple. They are not created by great philosophers -- just ordinary people in ordinary life. They don't know that they are creating a great psychological thing.