the-hidden-splendor-21/

Osho,
As another of your communes takes off the ground, I strongly develop symptoms of a misfit. India, and even a commune, just does not seem to be the place where I feel comfortable. Is there such a state as “doing your own thing, content and full of gratitude” that is not just an ego trip?
Prem Leeladhar, I myself am a misfit. And this place here has gone far beyond being a commune. The commune was an alternative society. But it has its own organization, its own rules, regulations. Seeing that for misfits it will be difficult to be part of even a commune, I have dropped the idea of a commune too.
Here, now only individuals are living together. Nobody here is expected to be a permanent resident; whenever he feels, he can be here and whenever he feels, he can move. We are trying to give every misfit all the space that is possible. One of my sannyasins – Veeresh, in Europe – is creating “Misfit Cities.”
I think you have carried the idea from the American commune. It must have been difficult for you there, because whenever thousands of people live together, they have to follow certain rules. Otherwise it will become impossible to live. Here there is no permanent residentship. As long as you feel good, be here. The moment you feel uncomfortable, the whole world is available to you; wherever you want, you can go and be comfortable. But I want to remind you: if you cannot feel comfortable here, you cannot feel comfortable anywhere else either.
I will read your question. “As another of your communes takes off the ground…” That is not right. No commune is taking off the ground. I have tried hard and found it impossible. If the commune has to exist, the individual has to compromise. That’s absolutely natural and necessary. And I am so much in favor of the misfit people, that rather than dropping the misfits, I have dropped the idea of the commune itself. Now there are only misfit people here.
The misfit people obviously understand each other’s needs. The need is just to be yourself, and doing your own thing. That’s why we are not developing any kind of productive activity here. Neither roads have to be made, nor houses have to be built. Because if you have to make roads and you have to build houses and you have to farm, and you have to have milk products of your own, then naturally a certain organization becomes necessary.
Leeladhar is a plastic surgeon. Here we are not going to have even a medical center. There was a medical center in the old days before the American commune happened, but that needs organization.
Now I want this place just to be a paradise – a holiday resort where you can relax, have a massage. Soon there will be swimming pools, larger gardens, and lawns. You can play on your instruments whenever you want, at whatever time you want. You can do your own thing. Just remember that your thing should not be an interference in somebody else’s life structure, because he also wants to be independent, just as you want. That is the only agreement: everybody is free to the limit that he does not interfere with anybody else. This much of a limit is absolutely necessary.
Just think – you are sleeping and a few misfits come and start doing Dynamic Meditation in your room. They are doing their thing; they are not telling you to do the Dynamic Meditation. And by the time they have left, other misfits come and start playing on their musical instruments. Nobody is bothering you; you can go on sleeping or whatever you want to do! So this line has to be remembered.
Otherwise there is no interference at all. I have dropped work completely – unless you want to do it, unless it is your thing. In the commune, work was absolutely necessary to survive. Here, you come whenever you can manage financially, for as long as you can manage to live here, but there is no question of any work being imposed on you. You can choose if you want to do something or you simply want to rest, swim, do a few groups, meditate – or not to do any group, not to do any meditation, just to be.
You say, “I strongly develop symptoms of a misfit.” Again you are wrong: Leeladhar, you are a born misfit. It is not something that you are developing. I know you perfectly well. It was I who was forcing you to remain in the hospital unit in the commune, in spite of yourself. Because I wanted you to remain in the unit, you remained – but you are a misfit.
The misfit has to accept one thing: that he will not be respected by the ordinary society. He will not get recommendations and honors and awards for being a misfit. I am certainly thinking to create an award, a world award each year, to be given to the greatest misfit in the world. And Leeladhar, your name is the first on my list.
But the discomfort is not coming from the outside, because outside I don’t see that you are expected to do something. You are feeling uncomfortable as an inner tension; you don’t want to be a misfit, and you are. You have not accepted your misfitness with total love and joy. There is nothing wrong in it; the society needs a few misfit people. They are the people who carry the torch of freedom and consciousness from generation to generation.
Do you think Gautam Buddha was not a misfit? Or Mahavira was not a misfit? The son of a king goes naked – his father was ashamed, his family was ashamed. They were willing… “You can renounce the world, but what is the need to go naked?” But Mahavira never felt uncomfortable; he accepted himself as he was.
The misfitness does not come alone; it will bring disrespect from people. You have to accept it. The society is made by the people who are square, absolutely “fit” people. Any misfit is a disturbance. The society creates in every child the idea: never be a misfit, otherwise you will be dishonored, disrespected, rejected. Those ideas are still in your mind.
Misfitness is your nature, and the discomfort is arising because the ideas that society gives to everybody, it has given to you too. You are not together; there is a split. Deep down you don’t want to be a misfit. I would like to suggest: drop those ideas. All respectability, all honor, is meaningless if it drives you against your nature. What can you do if you are not a lotus flower, but just a marigold? – enjoy being a marigold!
Existence has no disrespect for misfit people. The sun makes no difference, the moon does not discriminate; the whole of existence accepts you as you are. But deep down within you there is a rejection, so you are in a split, in a dilemma. With this dilemma, wherever you go you will feel uncomfortable – more uncomfortable than you are feeling here, because here nobody is interested in condemning, in judging. Nobody will say, “Leeladhar, you are not what you should be.” There is no “should” here.
In the American commune, you were not willing to remain a plastic surgeon. Now is the chance – nobody is telling you to be a plastic surgeon; even if you want to be, nobody is interested in plastic surgery here. If somebody’s nose is a little long, nobody objects. Or a little smaller. A nose is just functional. With the long nose or the small nose, if breathing is going well, there is no problem. Here nobody is interested in changing from a man into a woman, or from woman into a man. This is not a commune; this is simply a gathering of all kinds of misfit people who cannot fit anywhere else. Here they can celebrate their misfitness without losing respect and honor and dignity.
You say, “India, and even a commune, just does not seem to be the place where I feel comfortable.” India is the oldest country which has allowed all kinds of misfit people. It is unbelievable that Indian society down the ages has never crucified a Jesus; there have been many who were claiming “Aham brahmasmi – I am God” and nobody has objected. Jesus was only saying “I am the only begotten son of God.” If they are enjoying and feeling blissful, they are not doing any harm to anybody.
Gautam Buddha did not believe in God. Mahavira absolutely rejected the very idea of God. But they were not crucified – they were loved as they were. Even before them, a long passage of ten thousand years…
You will find all kinds of people. Somebody is standing on his head; nobody even takes any note of it, nobody says that they are mad or something. Somebody has been standing for years, has been sleeping standing, with the support of a wooden structure – he is keeping his hands on the structure and fast asleep – and people always give the freedom: if he decides to be this way, this is his business. It is between him and God; who we are to interfere?
I have seen a man who has been standing for so many years that the upper side of his body has become thin, and all the blood has gone into the legs. In medical science it is called elephantiasis; it is a certain disease. Now even if he wants to sit, he cannot sit. His legs are so thick, and they have lost the quality of elasticity; they have become almost solid. But nobody condemns him. On the contrary, people bring sweets to him, somebody brings flowers. Poor fellow is doing something great, suffering too much, unnecessarily. But if it is natural to him, then it is perfectly okay.
No Socrates was ever poisoned in India, and India has known more Socrateses than any other country – thousands of them, of the same caliber, with the same logic; sometimes even a more subtle logic, very destructive to people’s prejudices. But people have enjoyed them. Whether you agree with them or not, that’s one thing, but you have to appreciate their sharpness, their intelligence.

I am reminded of Ramakrishna. He was uneducated, and you will not find another misfit like him. Yet this country has accepted him as one of the incarnations of God.
When he was nine years old he had an experience of deep meditation. He was not looking for it. He was just a boy coming back from the field to his home, and on the way there was a lake, a beautiful lake. It was sunset time and there were black clouds in the sky. The rains were just about to come. And as he came by the side of the lake, a line of white cranes, who must have been sitting on the bank of the lake, were disturbed by his coming. They flew across the black clouds.
The white crane is snow white, and twelve or fifteen cranes in a line, moving across the black clouds… And the sunset on the lake, spreading gold all over: the beauty of the moment was such that Ramakrishna could not contain it; he fell into unconsciousness. It was too much for his conscious mind, just to say “It is beautiful” and go home.
When he did not come home, people went in search. His father said, “He left the field before me.” They looked around the lake and they found him unconscious – but with such a joy on his face. When he came back to consciousness, the first words he said were, “I have known life for the first time. Up to now I have been unconscious; these few hours I was conscious.”
The parents became afraid – any parents would have become afraid – that he was showing symptoms which could lead him to becoming a sannyasin, a seeker. And for centuries parents have thought, and thought rightly, that it would be good to arrange a marriage. The woman will put him right.
They were afraid: perhaps he will say no. But when his father asked, “Would you like to be married?” he said, “Great! I have seen many marriages in town; it is such a joy, riding on a horse like a king.”
The father thought, “He does not understand what marriage is, he has simply seen the marriage processions. But it is good he is ready.”
So they found a beautiful girl in a nearby place, and when he was going there – it was summertime – to see the girl, his mother put three rupees in his pocket and told him, “If you need, use them, but there is no need to waste them. We are poor people.”
And this is the way in India, which still persists over almost ninety percent of India: you can see only a glimpse of the girl. She will come and serve tea – and that is the moment when you see her for a few seconds – and she is gone.
Sharda, who was going to become his wife, came to put some sweets on his plate when they were taking their breakfast. He said to his father, “My god, the girl is so beautiful!” He took the three rupees out and put them at her feet, then touched her feet and said, “Mother, you are one in millions. I am going to marry you.”
The father said, “Idiot! First you call her ‘mother,’ touch her feet. And you have put your offering also, three rupees. And you are going to marry her?”
Even the girl’s parents became a little afraid because this boy seems to be a little crazy. But Ramakrishna said, “I don’t see any problem in it. She is so beautiful, that’s why I touched her feet. Beauty should be respected. And she is so motherly; you can see it even from her face. That’s why I called her ‘mother.’ Every girl is going to be a mother, so why you are freaking out? And I have decided that if I am going to marry anyone, this girl is the one. Otherwise I will remain unmarried.”
Both the families managed, convinced each other that he was not mad or anything, just a little off land, a little eccentric, but he was not harmful. He does things which should not be done, but he never harms anybody.
They were married and the first night Ramakrishna said to Sharda, “It is private, don’t say it to anybody; I have accepted you as my mother. Let the whole world think you are my wife. I know you are my mother, you know I am your son. This is going to be our relationship.” And this remained their relationship their whole life. But rather than being criticized he is being respected for this strange relationship. His wife is his mother, and there was never any husband and wife relationship between them.

There are so many stories of misfitness. A sudra queen – she was a queen, but by the Hindu caste system she was the lowest untouchable – made a very beautiful temple on the banks of Ganges near Kolkata, in Dakshineshwar. No brahmin was ready to be a priest in her temple. The temple made by a sudra, by an untouchable, had also become untouchable – and the god inside had also become untouchable. In the whole of Bengal, only Ramakrishna, when he heard it, said, “This is a perfectly good chance.” He went to the queen and said, “I am ready to be the priest” – and he was a high-caste brahmin.
She said, “Have you thought about it? Your society may discard you, expel you.”
He said, “I don’t have any society. And what does it matter if they expel me, if they make me an outcaste? I am not dependent on anyone. I am going to be the priest in this temple.” And he was expelled, condemned.
People tried to persuade him: “If you leave this job we can give you a better job in a high-caste Hindu temple. You will get more money.” But he said, “It is not a question of money. I love the temple, I love the place, I love the silence surrounding it, the trees. And I love the goddess inside the temple.”
He was expelled, but he never cared about it. Even his family stopped visiting him – because they would be expelled too – and they told him that he could not come back home. He said, “It is perfectly okay.”
And his worshipping was so strange: sometimes he would worship from morning til evening, dancing and singing madly. People would come and go, and sometimes he would lock the temple and would not open it for a few days. It was reported to Rashmani, the queen: “What kind of priest have you found? Every priest worships for half an hour at the most. This man seems to be mad: when he worships, time stops; then he goes on dancing and singing from morning til evening. And sometimes he locks the temple, which is absolutely sacrilegious. Neither he worships, nor does he allow anybody else to enter!”
The queen called him and asked, “Ramakrishna, what kind of worship is this?”
He said, “Who says it is worship? It is a love affair. And in a love affair it is natural: sometimes I get angry, sometimes she gets angry” – he is talking about the goddess of the temple – “and when I get angry I lock the door and I say, ‘Now live for three days, four days, without food, without worship, and you will come to your senses.’”
Rashmani said, “But we have never heard of this kind of worship!”
Ramakrishna said, “There has never been a priest like Ramakrishna.”
In the temples, when priests worship, the food is presented to the god or the goddess and then it is distributed. And Ramakrishna would spoil it completely. First he would taste everything inside the temple. Before offering it to the goddess, he would taste everything, and then he would offer it. Again he was told: “You are doing something very wrong. It has never been done.”
He said, “I am not concerned whether it has been done or not. I know only one thing: my mother used to taste first, and then she would give it to me. If it was really delicious, she would give; if it was not, she would prepare it again. And if my mother can do that for me… I cannot give anything to the goddess without knowing whether it is worth eating or not.”
Rashmani must have been a very intelligent woman to tolerate this misfit man. Instead of condemning him, people started coming to pay respect to him. His love for the goddess was so genuine, although it was not ritualistic. And anything genuine cannot be a ritual.
One of the great logicians of Bengal, Keshav Chandra, heard about thousands of people going to Ramakrishna. He was an atheist and a great philosopher, and a very sharp logician. He challenged Ramakrishna: “I am coming on a certain day to discuss matters with you.”
All the followers of Ramakrishna were very afraid, afraid because they knew that Ramakrishna knows nothing, no scripture; he makes his own songs that he sings in the temple. He is uneducated, he has never heard anything about logic, philosophy. It is not a question of mind to him.
They were afraid: “It will be very embarrassing to us all, because Keshav Chandra can defeat Ramakrishna within seconds.”
And Keshav Chandra came with his own disciples. He had his own society, and he was a very egoistic man. Ramakrishna jumped up from where he was sitting under a tree, hugged Keshav Chandra, and said, “I am feeling so happy that you also have come to me.”
Keshav Chandra said, “I have come here to defeat you.”
Ramakrishna said, “It does not matter whether you defeat me or I defeat you. From this moment our love will remain. Start defeating – I am ready.”
Keshav Chandra said, “Start defeating? First you have to propose your philosophy.”
Ramakrishna said, “I don’t know anything about philosophy. You will have to do both things yourself – propose my philosophy and defeat it.”
Instead of Ramakrishna looking embarrassed, Keshav Chandra started looking embarrassed – where have I come? But something had to be done, so he asked, “Okay, do you believe in God?”
Ramakrishna said, “Believe? I know him. Why should I believe? Only ignorant people believe.” Now what to do with this man? A belief can be criticized, but the man says he knows!
Still, Keshav Chandra made great arguments against God. He said, “It is all hallucination, illusion, imagination, that you think you know God.”
And each time he would make a good argument Ramakrishna would stand up and hug him again and say, “You are so beautiful, Keshav Chandra; I love the way you talk, although it does not change anything. In fact, your intelligence is a proof to me that God exists, because your intelligence is derived from existence. It cannot come from nowhere, and all that we mean by God is that the universe is intelligent. I am a poor fellow, uneducated. I am not a proof for God, but you are.”
The authority and the authenticity and the sincerity. For the first time in his life, Keshav Chandra felt defeated, although the man had not argued. He touched the feet of Ramakrishna and said, “Accept me also as your disciple. Seeing you, seeing your behavior, seeing your joy, is enough to prove that dry arguments are not going to transform me. But you are a transformed man. Most probably you are right and I am wrong. Although I can prove myself right – but proving oneself right is one thing, and to be right is another thing. Your presence is the argument.”

This country has accepted and loved all kinds of misfit people, and if you feel that India is making you uncomfortable, you have to be here a little longer to feel the atmosphere. I have been around the world. No country has such a groovy atmosphere. They are scientifically developed, technologically very progressive. They are rich, they are educated. This country is poor, hungry, with no science, no technology. But this country has a certain vibe which has been created by thousands of mystics. You need to be here, Leeladhar, for a little longer, so that you can start feeling the subtle vibe.
My experience is that in America we created the commune, but in the American atmosphere the commune was, as a whole, out of place. There was no supporting nourishment as far as atmosphere is concerned. And then I moved around the world. I have been talking in every country, and the strangest fact is that I was talking with my own sannyasins, with whom I talk here, but something was missing. I was there, my people were there, but in the air, something was missing.
Back to India, the same people… But nothing is missing. A subtle juice surrounds, a certain noosphere, a very deep and ancient flavor of mysticism, an inner richness, and communication is easier.
To adapt to the Indian atmosphere takes a little time, and perhaps that also is making you uncomfortable. It is just as if you are coming from a desert into a garden. It will take a little time to feel the greenness, to feel the fragrance of the flowers. The contrast is so big. And you have been brought up in the West. Your whole make-up is that of a scientist, and this country knows nothing of science. This is the most unscientific country in the world. But it is the most religious, mystic, heartful land. It has its own juice. Give it a chance.

Certainly you are not a bigger misfit than I am. In India I feel at ease. The Western tension is not there; neither is the Western speed. I am reminded when, for the first time, the British Empire was laying rails for railway trains.

A British officer was looking at an Indian sannyasin who used to come every day, sit under a tree or lie down under a tree, and watch the people working, putting down the rails, making the arrangements. The officer had never seen such a lazy man: the sannyasin never did anything, he just rested there.
One day the officer approached him. He had learned a little bit of Hindi because of working with Indian workers, laborers, for years. So he asked the man, “You come every day. Before we come you are here, and when we go, then you go. Why are you wasting time just lying down under the tree, lazy? You can earn money, you can become a laborer. We have a shortage of laborers. I can give you a good job.”
The man was not even bothering to sit up. He was lying down and talking with the officer. He said, “The idea is good, but I don’t need money. I get food twice a day. My other brothers work on the farm. I have been always this way. And even if I earn money, what I am going to do with it?”
The officer said, “When you earn enough money, then you can retire and rest.”
And the sannyasin said, “This is strange, I am already retired, and I am resting! Why take this unnecessarily long route? First earn money, then retire, then rest – I am retired from the very beginning. And I am resting; I don’t do anything except rest.”

There is no speed in the Indian atmosphere. Things move very slowly. You cannot even see the movement, they move so slowly. Centuries pass. If a man in Europe wakes up from his grave after two thousand years, he will not be able to understand what is happening, because in two thousand years the West has changed so much. But if an Indian comes to visit India after two thousand years, he will be perfectly at home. Almost nothing has changed!
Leeladhar, your discomfort is coming from your own conditioning, one thing. Second, you have not accepted your misfitness in its totality; otherwise why should one be uncomfortable?
And you can be free to do anything you want, anywhere. For example, I have not been uncomfortable anywhere around the world. I was not uncomfortable in the American jails. I was not uncomfortable in different cultures, different countries, different religions. I accept my misfitness with absolute joy.

After the first three days in the American jail, the sheriff of the jail came to see me. He was wondering what kind of man I am because the inmates had become my disciples! I was talking to them about meditation. The nurses and the doctor – because I was in the hospital section – had also joined. Finally, the sheriff brought his wife and his children also: “We may not be able to see this man again, and what he is saying makes sense.”
And the doctor – a woman, very beautiful woman – used to come to the hospital section only once in seven days; otherwise she was engaged in other parts of the jail. It had seven hundred inmates. But for those three days, all the nurses were there, the doctor was there, the whole staff was there. The doctor said to me, “It has never happened. You have turned my office into your class! Otherwise my office is always empty.”
Because my cell was very small… It was meant only for two persons and there were twelve inmates in the hospital section. They all wanted to be with me as much as possible – six nurses, four staff people, the sheriff, the assistant sheriff, the doctor – so they moved me to the doctor’s room. And she told me, “You need not use the bathroom that is meant for the prisoners. My bathroom is for you as long as you are here.”
Nirupa is here, David is here. They were staying in town to take care of me, to bring new clothes, or if I needed anything. The sheriff told me in front of them, “I would like to come to see your commune where such silent, beautiful young people – intelligent, loving – are living with you and growing with you.”
He said to me, “Just David and Nirupa are enough proof that man can be transformed.” Otherwise, American kids – even the primary school kids – are taking drugs. Thirteen and fourteen year-old young boys have been found committing murders, rape, suicide. That is the American atmosphere.
The jails are so full that the magistrate has to think before he sends another prisoner to the jail, because some old prisoner has to be released. The jails are packed. You can bring a new prisoner, but you have to release an old prisoner.
My attorneys who used to come there – Niren was my chief attorney; he is here – could not believe it: Why was I was looking so happy and so at ease and at home? I said, “I have never been able to rest so much. The inmates are taking care, the nurses are taking care, the doctor is taking care. And they are all interested in only one thing: the moment I am released and I go back to the commune, they all want to stay in the commune for a few days.”
The first day, the sheriff received a phone call from Germany asking about me, saying, “You must be surprised, because this may be the first time that you have a man like Osho in your jail.” He was not acquainted with me. He said, “No, but we have had cabinet ministers, great politicians, so it is not new to us.”
But on the third day he came with tears in his eyes when I was leaving and he said, “I don’t know who has phoned, but I want to apologize because I gave him the wrong answer. In these three days so many flowers have come that we don’t have any space to keep them; so many telegrams, so many phone calls that we have to keep two extra telephones.
“If you find the man, just tell him from me to forgive me. The great politicians and cabinet ministers don’t matter. I never in my whole life had a prisoner like you – and I don’t think I ever will have, in my remaining years in the service – for the simple reason that you have changed the whole atmosphere of my jail.
“If you are allowed to be here for three or four months this will be your commune. You are really dangerous because all the people of my staff are coming with their wives and with their children to have a photograph taken with you.”
The poor prisoners could not manage. They were coming with photographs cut from newspapers just to get my signature: “We will remember our whole lives that for three days we were with you, and in three days we have felt a change.” People were not making noise. Everybody was saying, “Don’t make noise, he will be disturbed.”

I have never felt uncomfortable anywhere. The question, basically, is to accept yourself. It is an inner feeling, nothing to do with anything outside you. And I repeat: if you cannot feel comfortable here, Leeladhar, you will not find another place on the whole earth to be comfortable because nowhere else is the uniqueness of individual respected; nowhere else are you loved as you are. You have to prove, you have to deserve.
Here you don’t have to prove anything, and you don’t have to deserve anything. You don’t have to be worthy of anything. This is the way you are and everybody is in a tremendous, accepting, awareness. Just give it a little time.
“Is there such a state as doing your own thing, content and full of gratitude?” Yes. That’s my whole approach toward life: “…doing your own thing, content and full of gratitude.” It is not an ego trip. It is your nature wanting to be left undisturbed.
And here we are not engaged in any kind of work which has to be forced on you. This place has to leave in you a memory of sheer enjoyment, of silence and beauty. And people who are non-interfering with you, and are happy in your happiness. Nobody is jealous, nobody is competitive. Nobody is even comparing. But it all depends on you. I have created the space here. Now how you use it is up to you.

During the Second World War, an Italian and a German general are preparing an attack on the Russian front. When all the preparations are ready, and the attack is ready to be launched, the German general calls his servant: “Heinz, bring me my red coat.”
“What, a red coat?” asks the Italian general surprised. “How come?”
“Well, during the battle I may be hurt; blood may be flowing, and my soldiers, seeing blood, might get demoralized. So I always wear a red coat during battle.”
“What a great idea,” says the Italian general and calls his servant.
“Giuseppe, quick, bring my brown trousers!”

Osho,
I blew it today. One moment of unawareness feels like it wipes out those moments of awareness. While pruning in your garden I cut deeply into a living tree that I thought was dead. The very moment the ax made its death blow I knew, you knew, existence knew, I had taken life. Feeling guilt, fear, stupidity, I finished cutting the tree, carrying it out of your garden. Osho, I have cut thousands of trees and killed many, many animals in my life, but never before felt hurt as much as I did, and do, about this tree. Mukta is afraid you’ll cut off her head. Spare her head and cut mine, along with my unawareness. I’m sorry.
Anand Vibhavan, it is something tremendously beautiful that reverence for life is arising in you. But don’t feel any guilt, neither fear nor stupidity, because these are parasites. Just do one thing: become more alert and remember, before you cut another tree, make sure that it is dead.
There is no hurry. It is simply unconsciousness; otherwise you would have found that it was alive. Perhaps the leaves had fallen and the tree was waiting for new leaves to come. And you could have waited and watched. But guilt is not the right thing.
You hurt the tree; now you are hurting yourself. Reverence for life does not mean reverence only for others’ life. It also includes reverence for your own life too. Guilt is not reverence. Neither you are stupid – because you became aware; not only aware, but you felt hurt that a life is unnecessarily destroyed. It shows intelligence.
And as far as fear is concerned, don’t be worried about Mukta because I have chopped her head off long ago – she believes she has a head – and I will chop your head off too. But my surgery is not painful. It brings more blissfulness to you than you have ever experienced. So there is no need to have fear. Just have awareness, more alertness, more consciousness.
This garden is not just an ordinary garden. These trees have heard me as much as you have heard me, and these trees have loved me as much as you have loved me. These trees are as much my disciples as you are. So be respectful with them. With loving care, with sensitive alertness, you will not only be a good gardener, you will also become a higher consciousness – more human, more divine. Shower on these trees all your love. They cannot speak, but they are very sensitive. The latest experiments about trees are so revealing – they can even read your thoughts. Their sensitivity is far greater than man’s sensitivity.
Scientists have developed certain instruments like the cardiogram. They put the cardiogram on a certain tree and the cardiogram starts making a graph of how the tree is feeling. The graph is symmetrical, and then suddenly they bring a woodcutter with an ax, and the moment the tree sees the woodcutter, the graph changes. It goes berserk, the symmetry is lost. Nothing has been done to the tree, just the woodcutter has come with the idea to cut it. That idea is being caught by the sensitiveness of the tree, and now there are scientific ways to find it out.
The strangest thing is that if the woodcutter is just passing without any idea of cutting the tree, the graph does not change. It depends on his idea – his thought creates a certain wave. Every thought is being broadcasted from your mind, creating waves around you, and those waves are picked up by the sensitiveness of the tree. They are very much alive.
It is good that you have become aware of it. Don’t lose this awareness because it will not only help the trees, it will help you too. It will become your meditation. Everything that is being done here has to become your meditation. This is a temple, and we are here just for a single reason: to transcend our darkness and our unconsciousness.

A man goes into a men’s toilet, holding his hands outstretched, as if they are paralyzed. In the urinals, he taps another man on the elbow.
“Excuse me, I wonder if you could help me. I have a problem with my hands and need assistance in using the urinal. Would you be so kind as to open my zipper?”
The other man is very embarrassed, but obliges. The first man says, “Thank you very much. Now I have another favor to ask. Would you mind helping me to aim?”
The second man blushes, but helps him aim. After he has relieved himself, the first man says, “You don’t know how grateful I am. Now please just do me up again.” Nearly at the end of his patience, the second man does so.
The first man turns to leave, and looking at his awkwardly-held hands, says, “Good. I think my nail polish is dry now.”