The Courage to Stand Alone

conversations in Amsterdam
between Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and

anticopyright

[Published in paperback by Plover Press and distributed by Autonomedia
55 South Eleventh Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211-0568]

Part III

What is Left is the Courage

Q: May I ask you something?

U.G.: Yes, please.

Q: This constant change that we want to come about with our inner self, not necessarily changing the world but trying to find our inner self when we do meditation or yoga or whatever, why do we want this change?

U.G.: Why do you do them all?

Q: Well I try them out, I do them, and I see . . . .

U.G.: What for? Do you want to change something?

Q: That's the point, yes. Why do we want to change? What is it in us that wants this constant change? Why can't we be satisfied?

U.G.: You are dissatisfied with yourself, first of all. Yes?

Q: Not consciously ... it's a funny thing. I feel very good, I have relatively little to complain about, and yet. . . .

U.G.: And yet you do. Do you see the paradox? You are not as contented as you say you are, as satisfied as you say you are.

Q: That's right.

U.G.: Something there determines that all is not right. That's why, you want to bring about a change. And who is responsible for that demand to change? That is what I am asking. Culture, society has placed the demand before you, namely, that you should be like that, you aught to be like that. You understand? So you have accepted that as a model for yourself.

Q: But I don't feel that I have an image of a person or a thing that I am striving for. What I am trying to find out is, is there something more inside?

U.G.: No. The demand for more . . . .

Q: The inner thing . . . .

U.G.: There is no inner and outer. What I am trying to say is that there is a feeling, there is a demand, that there is something more interesting that you can do with yourself, more meaningful, more purposeful than your existence is today. That is the demand, you see. That is why there is this restlessness. You become restless because of this drive in you, which is put in there by the society or culture, that makes you feel that there is something more interesting, more meaningful, more purposeful that your life can be than what it is today.

Q: And the more natural state of your self which you try to find doesn't exist?

U.G.: No.

Q: It's just words that the society has put together.

U.G.: Exactly. Your naturalness is destroyed by that demand which is put in there by the culture. So, then, your life looks meaningless to you if that is all that you can do. You have tried to fill in that boredom with everything possible. ... Now you have all these new gimmicks -- yoga, meditation, and all the psychology.

Q: Reading books.

U.G.: Reading books, religious books -- this is something new added on to the already existing [list of] things there, but you have not succeeded in freeing yourself from the boredom. That is the demand. You are bored with your life, with your existence, because it's very repetitive. First of all, your physical needs are very well taken care of, you see, here in this part of the world, at least. So, there is no need for you to spend any more energy to survive. That part is taken care of.

When that is taken care of, the natural question that arises is a very simple question: is that all that is there? Going to the office every morning, or just being a housewife doing all the chores of the house, or sleeping, having sex -- everything, you see -- is that all? It is that demand on your part that is being exploited by these holy men. Is that all? So, those are some of the gimmicks that you are trying to fill the boredom with there.

[But] it's an empty, bottomless cup. It's not even a bottomless cup, it is a bottomless pit. You can fill that all the time with every conceivable thing that you can imagine or that others can come up with, but yet the boredom is a reality; it's a fact. Sure. Otherwise, you wouldn't do anything. You are just bored. Simply bored with doing the same thing again and again and again. And you don't see any meaning in this.

Q: You're not quite conscious of that boredom....

U.G.: Not quite conscious of that boredom, because you are looking for something to free you from what is not there. That's all that I have been emphasizing all the time. The problem is not really the boredom. You are not conscious of the existence of boredom either on the conscious level of your thinking or on the conscious level of your existence.

The attractiveness of those things [which you use] to free yourself from the non-existing boredom has really created the boredom. And those things really cannot fill this boredom (created by that). So it goes on and on and on and on -- the newer and still newer techniques and methods. Every year we have a new guru coming from India with a new gimmick, with a new technique or some new therapy, you know. All kinds of things.

Q: When we talk about consciousness. . . .

U.G.: Yes, yes, I know. You seem to know something about consciousness. Will you please tell me what exactly do you mean by consciousness.

Q: I don't know. I asked you that question.

U.G.: Why are you asking me the question about consciousness? I am not throwing a counter-question at you. You are picking up that word "consciousness" somewhere, you see. You have picked that up somewhere, and so they are talking of expanding consciousness.

Q: ...in the form of trying to get to know oneself better, trying to find the naturalness.

U.G.: Your naturalness is something that you don't have to know. You just have to let that function in its own way. Your wanting to know that demands some know-how, which you want from somebody. The functioning of the heart is a natural thing; the functioning of all the organs in your body is very natural. They are not for one moment asking themselves the question "How am I functioning?" The whole living organism has this tremendous intelligence which makes it function in a very natural way. You have separated what you call life from [that]. What you call life is living, which is in no way related to the functioning of this living organism.

So, naturally, you are asking the question, "How to live?" You see, it is the "How to live" that has really destroyed the natural way the whole thing is going on. That is where the culture steps in and tells you, "This is the way you should act and live. This is the one and the only thing that is good for you and good for the society." You want to change that [state of affairs], you see. What is it that you want to change? That is all that I am asking.

Q: I wish I knew.

U.G.: You will never know. So, what is it that you are trying now then? Don't you see the absurdity of what you are doing? All this search is like trying to chase something that does not exist at all.

I always give my pet simile. We all take it for granted that there is such a thing as a horizon there. So, if you look at that and you say that it is a horizon, it sounds very simple to you. But you forget that the physical limitation, the limitation of your physical eye fixes that point there and it calls it "horizon". If you move in the direction of the horizon, the faster you move in the direction, even in a supersonic plane, the farther it moves away. What you are stuck with is only the limitation.

I also give the example of trying to overtake your shadow. As children we played this game of trying to overtake our shadows - - all the other boys running with you, everybody trying to overtake his own shadow. It never occurred to us then that it is this body that is casting this shadow there, and that your wanting to overtake that shadow is an absurd game that you are playing. You can run for miles and miles and miles.

You know the story of Alice In Wonderland. The red queen has to run faster and faster and faster in order to keep still where she is. You see that's exactly what you are all doing. Running faster and faster and faster. But you are not moving anywhere.

All that you are doing to find exactly where you are is not moving at all. That gives you the feeling that you are working on something, you are doing something to achieve your goal, not knowing that what you are doing is totally unrelated to the natural functioning of this body. You are not acting in a natural way, because the ideal has been placed before you by the culture has falsified the natural actions here. You are frightened of acting in a natural way because you have been told the way you should act.

Physical perfection is another one of the means. I am not saying anything against yoga. Please don't get me wrong. I am not saying anything against meditation -- do meditation, do yoga -- they are palliatives. If you want to keep your body supple, do it [yoga]. A supple body is better than a stiff body. If, instead of creating tensions all the time, meditation gives you relief from your tensions, do it. But I am suggesting, that it is the meditation that is creating all the tensions. You first create the problem, and then you try to solve the problem. It's all right, but thank god you are not doing it very seriously.

That's the only hope you have. If you seriously meditate, you are in trouble. You will go crazy. Or, if you try to practice this awareness all the time -- in your conscious as well as unconscious levels -- you will be really in trouble. You will end up in the loony bin, singing loony tunes and merry melodies. You can learn the new songs from India, Hare Krishna songs, and sing and enjoy. That's all right, but don't do [practice awareness] because it's something like trying to walk and watch every step you take. You will be in trouble, you will not be able to walk at all. So don't do that, it's a mechanical thing. The things that are there are running very smoothly and mechanically. You don't have to do a thing about them. The more you try to do it [practice awareness], the more resistance you create.

Boredom is really the problem for you. The non-existent boredom has been created by the demand to free yourself from boredom. Since that [the demand] is not in any way helping you to be free from your boredom, but making it more and more and more difficult to be free from this, you have to shop around. You have to search for all and every kind of gimmick to free yourself from that non-existent boredom. It is that which is keeping this going on forever and ever.

I am not giving you another gimmick or suggesting anything. I just want you to look at this, what you are doing to yourself. [I am] not [trying] to free you from something, and take you away from that because I have some new product to sell. Not at all. I have no new products to sell, nor am I interested in selling anything. We just happen to be here, all of us, for some reason or the other -- I don't know why we are here -- so we might as well not even be exchanging ideas. That is meaningless. There is nothing to discuss here.

The discussion has no meaning, because the object or the purpose of a discussion or a conversation is to understand something. So, that [discussion] is not the means to understand anything. Ultimately, what I am emphasizing all the time is, "Look here, there is nothing to understand." When that is understood, that there is nothing to understand, all these conversations become meaningless. So you get up and walk away once and for all. So I say, "Nice meeting you, and goodbye." That's all that I am saying all the time. "Nice meeting you, and goodbye."

Q: We just don't understand it.

U.G.: No, that's exactly what I am saying all the time, "Nice meeting you, and goodbye. God be with you and stay with god." That's the Spanish -- stay with God. Your God, your gurus -- stay with them, you see. Don't disturb yourself unnecessarily. Live in hope and die in hope. And hope that you will be born again, if you accept the theory of reincarnation. One birth is bad enough. Why would we want to be born again? We might as well handle this problem once and for all, now, and begin to live -- what little is left for us. Don't bother about the world and the peace of the world.

If the question of how to be happy is dropped, then you begin to live, you see, not bothering about happiness at all. That doesn't exist, happiness doesn't exist at all. The more you want it, the more you search for it, the more unhappy you remain. They [the search and unhappiness] go together, you see.

Q: Don't you think that it goes against everything in religion, society and culture?

U.G.: Culture, and all systems of thought. . . .

Q: Structures, systems, all systems. . . .

U.G.: All structures of thought, philosophical, religious, materialistic structures . . . .

Q: Don't you think that's negative? Not just because I think it's negative, but people would say ....

U.G.: Why are you saying it is negative? Listen ....

Q: ...because people say that.

U.G.: People can say that because it's an easy way out for them. You forget one thing. All the positive approaches that man has invented and used for centuries -- they have not resulted in anything useful. They have not produced the results you have been promised. And yet you go on and on and on, hoping that somehow, through some miracle, you will be able to achieve your positive goals, or the goals which are placed before us through the positive approach. You keep doing it only because you have hope, and it is that hope that keeps you going.

Don't be caught up in this structure of thought which always suggests the positive and negative. Your goals are always positive. Since your goals have failed to give the desired results, you have begun to look at these things and approach them in a negative way. The positive and negative approaches function only in the field of thought.

What I am suggesting is, look, your positive approach so far has not given you the desired results. And I am telling you why it has not given you the desired results. I am telling you why you are stuck where you are stuck. But immediately you turn around and say, "Your approach is negative." It is not at all negative. I am presenting the other side of the coin, or the other side of the picture, to neutralize your argument, not to win you over to my point of view, or to stress the negative approach to problems. Your goal being a positive goal, no matter what approach you adopt, it is a positive approach. You may call it a negative approach, but it is still a positive approach.

So, you must be very, very clear about the goal. What I am trying to emphasize is that the goal must go.

Q: You leave the goal?

U.G.: It has no meaning at all. The goal has no meaning. The goal which you have placed before yourself has no meaning at all, because it has resulted only in struggle, pain and sorrow.

You are using will, as I said a while ago, and the will has a certain limitation, You can't use it beyond a certain limit. The use of your will and the use of your effort gives you a sort of additional energy to tackle these problems and to face these problems, but actually it is limited in its scope. The energy that you produce is only a frictional energy. The will creates friction, and that friction gives you some sort of energy. But that energy cannot last long, and so you are back again in square one.

Q: I think you also realize that the whole Western, Christian civilization is built upon the goal.

U.G.: Why [just] Western civilization? All civilizations, all cultures place before you a goal, whether it is a material goal or a spiritual goal. There are ways and means of achieving your material goals, but even in this respect there is a lot of pain, there is a lot of suffering. And you have superimposed on that what is called a spiritual goal.

Christianity, for example, is built on the foundation of suffering as a means to reach your goal. What you are left with is only the suffering, and you make a great big thing out of suffering, and yet you are not anywhere near the goal, whatever is the nature of your goal.

Whereas in the material world the goal is something tangible. The instrument which you are using to achieve your material goal does produce certain results. By using that more and more you can achieve the desired results. But there is no guarantee. The instrument which you are using is limited in its scope. It is applicable only in this [material] area.

So, the instrument which you are using to achieve your so-called spiritual goals is the same instrument. You do not realize that all the spiritual goals that are superimposed on your so-called material goals are born out of your fantasy, because you have divided life into material and spiritual. It doesn't matter what instrument you use to achieve your goal, whether it is material or spiritual, it is exactly the same.

Q: Is it not so that we as human beings are active, even plants are active, living beings? We are not passive. We must have some sort of a goal. Are you saying that it is bad to have....

U.G.: I want you to be very clear about the goal. What do you want? What do you want? It is not the want that is wrong. But the only way you can achieve your material or spiritual goals is through an instrument. What I am suggesting is, that the only instrument you have is thinking.

See, I want to be a millionaire. A millionaire wants to be a billionaire, and a billionaire wants to be a trillionaire. So, that is the goal. A happy man would never want to be happy. He wants to be more and more happy. Or, he wants to be permanently happy. Sure. You are happy sometimes and you are unhappy some other times. So, you want pleasures and you want those pleasures to be permanent. And at the same time, you also know that the so-called demand for pleasure, temporary or otherwise, is giving you pain as well. The goal of every person in this world, whether he is here in the West or in the East or even in communist countries -- is exactly the same. So, what he wants is to have pleasure without pain at all. And to be happy always without a moment of unhappiness. What he is actually struggling and striving hard for, is to achieve this impossible goal of having one [happiness] without the other [unhappiness].

Q: But that isn't true of old people.

U.G.: Everybody.

Q: But older people know that there is no pleasure without pain. There is no luck without bad luck, because you cannot speak of luck if you don't know what bad luck is. Older people know that everybody gets his portion of bad luck and suffering. And those people are not thinking of getting pleasure without pain. They know they [sometimes] get pain.

U.G.: And yet, you see, they want to make it possible to be without pain. Sure. That's all that I am saying. Whether they are consciously doing it or not, that is what everybody is after. You know what will give you happiness.

Q: Paradise.

U.G.: If you achieve all the goals you have placed before yourself, success, money, name and fame, position or power, you are happy. In this process you are struggling hard. You are putting a lot of will and effort into that. As long as you succeed you have no problems at all. [But] you cannot always succeed -- you know all that.

But there is somehow the hope that it will be possible for you to always succeed. You are frustrated because you find that you cannot always succeed. Yet there is still hope. Whether it is for material goals or spiritual goals, the demand is to succeed in your efforts to reach, attain or accomplish whatever goals you have placed before yourself.

You have to help me. I am not here to give any talk. So, I ask people repeatedly, when they come to see me, to be very clear as to what they want. "I want this" or "I don't want that." It's all right. When once you know exactly what you want, you will be able to find out the ways and means of fulfilling your wants. Unfortunately, people want too many things at the same time.

So, you crystalize all of your wants into one basic want, because all the other wants are variations of the same want. You reject my suggestion that man always wants to be happy without even rare moments of unhappiness or permanent pleasure without pain, which, as I said a while ago, is a physical impossibility.

The body cannot take any sensation, be it pleasurable or painful, for long. [If it does,] it will destroy the sensitivity of the sensory perceptions, and the sensitivity of the nervous system. The moment you recognize a particular sensation as a pleasurable sensation, naturally there is a demand to make that pleasurable sensation last longer. So, every sensation, depending upon the intensity of that sensation, which is plagued by you to invest it with more intensity or less intensity (depending upon what you are after), has a limited life of its own.

The demand comes only when you separate yourself from that pleasurable sensation and begin to think of how you can extend the limits of the pleasurable sensation or the moments of happiness. Your thinking has turned that particular demand to make this pleasurable sensation last longer than its natural duration into a problem. It has turned that into a problem for the functioning of this body, and by so doing, it has created a neurological problem. It [the body] is doing everything possible to absorb that, whereas your thinking makes it impossible for this body to handle that in its own way, for the simple reason that you are trying to solve those problems within the field of your religious or psychological approaches.

Actually, those problems are neurological problems, and if the body is left alone to handle them in its own way, it will do a better job than your trying to solve them on psychological or religious levels. All the solutions that we have been offered, and the solutions which we have been adopting for centuries, have not done any good except to give us a little bit of comfort, a palliative to help you bear the pain. Yet we are not free from that pain at all because of the hope that somehow the instrument which is turning all these things into problems can be solved through the same instrument. The only thing that this mechanism of thinking can do is to create a problem. But it can never, never, solve the problem.

If thought is not the instrument to solve the problems, is there any other instrument? I say no. It can only create the problems. It cannot solve the problems. When this understanding dawns on you, then you will realize that the energy that is there in the body, which is the manifestation of life or expression of life, handles everything in a tremendously easier way than the frictional thinking which you are generating through your ideas of how to handle these problems.

Q: So, when you feel that you have a problem you just leave it alone?

U.G.: You see when you put it that way, then there is a demand from the person who is suggesting that to ask how you can leave that alone. You know that you cannot leave it alone. You just say [that you should] leave it alone. Naturally the next question will be, how to leave that alone without the interference of this thought. There is no how.

So, if anybody suggests how, you are caught up in the same vicious circle. That is why all these therapies we have in our midst today and all those gurus we have in the market place, who are suggesting umpteen numbers of techniques, are creating this tremendous burden which does not in any way lighten the load, but on the other hand, is adding more and more burden to this situation in which you find yourself today.

So, all those systems and techniques cannot be of any help except that they will act as a palliative for a while so you can bear the pain for a little longer. On the other hand, they are disturbing the whole chemistry of the body, instead of being of any help for you to solve the problems for yourself.

Q: They are disturbing the chemistry?

U.G.: They are disturbing the chemistry and in this process it [the body] is throwing up all kinds of aberrations which you consider to be spiritual experiences. So, your breathing exercises, your yoga exercises, your meditations, are disturbing the chemistry of the body, and the natural rhythm of the body in exactly the same way that all these drugs which people take disturb the chemistry of the body. So, you say that they are damaging, but actually these are far more damaging than those things [drugs].

I am not suggesting that you should take drugs, but they serve the same purpose as all these therapies, spiritual or psychological therapies, that are being dished out day after day after day. The fact is that they give you some relief, like a paracetamol -- you have a headache and you don't even give the opportunity for the body to handle it for a little while you rush to the market and buy anacin or aspirin or something and drug yourself. In exactly the same way it makes it difficult for the body to manufacture the natural things that are there in your body to help relieve you of the pain.

The body has all the hallucinogens you are talking about as part of its system. It wants to control the pain and relieve itself of the pain. It knows only the physical pain, and it is not interested in your psychological pain at all. The solutions they are offering are only in the area of the psychological field, but not in the physical field.

So, if you take aspirin, for example, it destroys the capacity of this body to handle that pain in a natural way. I am not suggesting that you should take the natural way and switch over to macrobiotics or any other funny health food stuff. That is as vicious and mischievous as any other medicine.

Q: What then is your clear advice if you have problems?

U.G.: You cannot but create the problems. You are creating the problems, number one. But actually you are not looking at the problems at all. You are not dealing with the problems. You are more interested in solutions than the problems. That makes it difficult for you to look at the problem.

I am suggesting that "Look here, you don't have any problems." You assert with all the emphasis at your command, with tremendous animation, "Look, I have a problem here."

All right, you have a problem. That problem you are talking about is something which you can pinpoint and say, "This is the problem." Physical pain is a reality. So, you go to a doctor, whether it [the medicine] is good for the body or not, whether it is a poison or not, it produces the required relief, however short it may be. But the therapies that those people are dishing out are intensifying the problem which is non-existing. ... You are only searching for the solutions. If there is anything to those solutions that they are offering, the problems should go, should disappear. Actually the problem is still there, but you never question the solutions that those people are offering you as a relief or as something that can free you from the problems.

If you question the solutions that have been offered to us by all those people who are marketing these goodies in the name of holiness, enlightenment, transformation, you will find they are really not the solutions. If they were the solutions, they should produce the results and free you from the problem. They do not.

You don't question the solutions because the sentiment creeps in there. "That fellow who is selling this in the marketplace cannot be a fraud, cannot be a fake." You take him to be an enlightened man or a god walking on the face the earth. That god may be fooling and killing himself, maybe indulging in self-deception all the time and then selling that stuff, that shoddy piece of goods, to you. You don't question the solutions because then you will be questioning the man who is selling this. He cannot be dishonest, a holy man cannot be dishonest.

Yet you have to question the solutions because those solutions are not solving your problems. Why don't you question those solutions and put them to test -- test the validity of those solutions? When you realize that they don't work, you have to throw them out, down the drain, out of the window. But you don't do it because of the hope that somehow those solutions will give you the relief that you are after. The instrument [thought] which you are using is the one that has created this problem. So that instrument will never, never accept the possibility that those solutions are fake solutions. They are not the solutions at all.

The hope keeps you going. That makes it difficult for you to look at the problems. If one solution fails, you go somewhere else and pick up another solution. If that solution fails you go find another. You are shopping around for all these solutions but never once will you ask yourself, "What is the problem?"

I don't see any problem. I see only that you are interested in solutions and that you come here and ask the same question. "I want another solution." I say, "Those solutions have not helped you at all, so why do you want another solution?" You will add one more to your list of solutions, but you will end up in exactly the same situation. If you find the uselessness of one, if you see one of them, you have seen them all. You don't have to try one after the other.

What I am suggesting is if that is the solution you should be free from the problem. If that is not the solution, then there is nothing that you can do about it; and then the problem is not even there. So, you are not interested in solving the problem, because that will put an end to you. You want the problems to remain. You want the hunger to remain because if you are not hungry you will not seek this food from all these holy men. What they are giving you are some scraps, bits of food, and you are satisfied. Even assuming for a moment that he [the spiritual leader or therapist] can give you the whole loaf of bread, which he cannot do, he will only promise to keep it here, hidden somewhere -- promises. Bit by bit, bit by bit -- he gives you. And thereby you are not dealing with the problem of hunger, but you are more interested in getting a bit more from that fellow who is promising you a solution rather than dealing with your problem of hunger.

You are not dealing with the problem of hunger, but you are more interested in getting more crumbs from that fellow, than dealing with your problem of hunger.

Q: It's like going to a movie, running away from reality.

U.G.: You never look at the problem. What is the problem? Anger, for example. I don't want to discuss all those silly things which these people have been discussing for centuries. Anger. Where is that anger? Can you separate the anger from the functioning of this body? It's like a wave in the ocean. Can you separate the waves from the ocean? You can sit there and wait until the waves subside... That will never happen. You can sit there and learn all about how these waves, the high tide and the low tide (the scientists have given us all kinds of explanations), but the knowledge about that is not going to be of any help to you. You are not really dealing with anger at all.

Where do you feel the anger, first of all? Where do you feel all these so-called problems you want to be free from? ... the desires? The burning desires. The desire burns you. Hunger burns you. So, the solutions you have or the means of fulfilling them [desire and hunger] is very simple and makes it impossible for that to burn itself out in your system.

Where do you feel the fear? You feel it here in the pit of your stomach. It is part of the body. The body cannot take those high and low tides of energy that is there in your body. So you are wanting to suppress it for some spiritual or social reasons. You are not going to succeed.

Anger is energy, a tremendous outburst of energy. And by destroying that energy through any means, you are destroying the very expression of life itself. It becomes a problem only when you try to do something with that energy. When it is absorbed by the system, you will not do the things that you think you will do if the anger is left alone. You are actually not dealing with the anger, but the frustration. Or to avoid such a situation which has resulted in clumsiness in your relationships or in your understanding of yourself. You want to be prepared to meet such situations as and when they arise in the future.

The instrument which you are using has been used by you every time there is an outburst of anger. Yet you have not succeeded in freeing yourself from the anger. You won't come into the position of anything extraordinary, other than this instrument which you have been using all these years, and at the same time you hope that somehow this very thing will help you to be free from the anger tomorrow. It is the same hope.

Q: But if somebody is very angry, he or she may become violent.

U.G.: That violence is absorbed by the body.

Q: And threatening.

U.G.: To whom?

Q: To other people.

U.G.: Yes. So? So what?

Q: Running around with a knife . . . .

U.G.: So what?

Q: Killing somebody else.

U.G.: Yes. Why are you killing people, thousands of people, for no fault of theirs. Why are you limiting something which is natural, but are not condemning the nations that are dropping bombs on helpless people? Do you call them sane? Both of them have sprung from the same source. As long as you do anything to control your anger here, you will indulge in such atrocious things and justify them, because that is the only way to protect your way of life and your way of thinking. These two things go together. Why do you justify that? That is insane.

He is not hurting you, but he is threatening your way of life. There is a danger of that man taking away what you consider to be your precious things. This idea of stopping this man from acting when there is an outburst of anger is exactly the same. The religious man has found that an angry man will be an anti-social man.

As long as he practices virtues, so long he will remain an anti- social man, and he will act out of anger. When that goal that the society has placed before you, when that same goal which you adopted for yourself as an ideal goal to be practiced, is finished for you, you will not harm anybody, either individually or collectively as a nation.

You have to deal with the anger. [But] you are dealing with something totally unrelated to the anger, not even once do you let that anger burn itself out within the framework where it originates and functions. Having some therapy of hitting your pillows, hitting this, that, and the other, is just a joke. That does not free the man from the anger once and for all.

Q: Hitting on a pillow?

U.G.: That's what they do, one of the therapies they have....

Q: It doesn't help?

U.G.: It [the anger] will appear again. So what do you do? You are not dealing with anger. You will never deal with this anger at all as long as you are interested in finding out a way of not hitting the person who is coming with a knife. You have to protect yourself, that is essential. I am not saying for a moment that your anger makes it impossible for you to deal with that situation. Don't say that it's non-violence or you should not hurt somebody else. He is hurting you. Even in the Bible, it is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You never practice that. Of course, they practice it on a larger scale, but in daily life they say it is something terrible to do. I don't see any problem with that at all. What is the problem?

There is no point in discussing those hypothetical situations for the simple reason that the person who is hopping mad with anger, burning with anger, will not seek and discuss the question of anger. That is amazing. That's the time to deal with those things, when you are really burning with anger, burning with desire, burning with all those things that you want to be free from. Otherwise, it becomes a classroom discussion. Somebody talking on the anatomy of anger, the anatomy of how the anger arises, or the anatomy of love. It's too ridiculous. Or, they offer solutions which don't work when there is a real situation. That's the reason why I don't discuss all these things. No problem. There's no problem for the individual. When he's mad with anger -- that's the time for him to deal with it. It stops the thinking.

Q: U.G., is there a possibility of looking at the problem?

U.G.: No. Because you are yourself the problem.

Q: So, there is no answer?

U.G.: There is no way of separating yourself from the problem. That's what you are trying to do. That is what I mean by saying that you are putting anger out there and trying to look and deal with it as if it is an object outside of you. When you separate yourself, the only result is that exactly what you fear would happen. That is inevitable. So you have no way of controlling that at all. Is there anything that you can do to prevent this separation from what you are? It is a horrible thing to realize that you are yourself anger and whatever you do to stop that, prevent it, or do something about it, is false. That [preventing etc.] will be tomorrow or in your next life -- not now. So that is what you are.

You are not a spiritual man or a religious man. You can imagine that you are a religious man, because you are trying to control your anger, or trying to be free from anger, or trying to be less and less angry as the years go by. All that makes you feel that you are not that vicious man whom you avoid. You are no different. You are not any more spiritual than the people whom you condemn.

Tomorrow you are going to be a marvelous person, you will be free from anger. What do you want me to do in the meantime? Admire you? Because you have put on the label that you are a spiritual man or that you have put on fancy robes? What do you want me to do? For that you want me to admire you? There is nothing there to be admired because you are as vicious as anybody else in this world. If you condemn that...? Condemning that has no meaning. Adopting a posture which is totally unrelated to what is happening there has no meaning either.

So, how can you put on this posture or adopt some kind of an attitude and feel superior to the animals. The animals are better than the humans. If there is an anger, it [the animal] acts and that [killing] is only for the purpose of survival. If you kill your fellow man for feeding yourself that is a moral act -- only for that purpose, because you look around, one form of life lives on another form of life. And if you talk of vegetarianism and kill millions of people, that is the most immoral, unpardonable act that a civilized culture of human beings can ever do. Do you see the absurdity of the two? You condemn this [killing]. [And] you love the animals. What for?

What about the human beings there? You are murdering, massacring, simply because they are a threat to you. They are one day going to take away everything you have. So, in anticipation of those people coming and robbing everything, you think you have a right to massacre them in the name of your beliefs, in the name of God knows what. That is what religions have done right from the beginning.

So, what is the point in reviving all those religions? What is the point in all those hosts of gurus coming into these countries preaching something that does not operate in their own lives or in the countries they come from. They can talk of oneness of life and unity of life all the time. But it doesn't operate in their own lives. What does it mean? You condemn this simple thing that is a necessity for your survival. That's a very moral action. Not to survive, not to feed yourself is an act of perversion.

Suffering is the foundation on which the whole Christian religion is based. Don't forget that. So you suffer in the hope of getting a permanent seat there in heaven -- non-existent heaven. You are going through hell now in the hope of reaching heaven after your death. What for? So suffer. All religions emphasize that. Bear the pain, the endurance of pain is the means. You go through hell in the hope of having paradise at the end of your life, or the end of a series of lives if you want to believe that. I am just pointing out the absurdity of talking about these things. The religious [teaching] has no meaning when you are pushed into a corner. Then you will behave exactly like anybody else. So this culture, your values, religious or otherwise, haven't touched a bit there.

If man is freed from this moral dilemma, which has been the basis of the whole thinking of man, then he will live like a human being. Not a spiritual man, not a religious man. A religious man is no good for society. A kind man, one who is practising kindness as a fine art, is a menace to our society .

Q: ...is a menace?

U.G.: [He] is a menace to our society because all the destruction has come out of them [religious teachers] -- one who talks of love, one who talks of "Love thy neighbor as thyself", and one who talks about non-violence. All the destructive forces originated in the thinking of that man. So, we are all the inheritors of that culture. We cannot do anything but that. [If you reject these teachers] you are freed from the burden of this, the falseness of the whole culture. That's all that I am saying. Individually you are freed from the totality of all the absurdities that have been imposed upon us. That's all that I am saying.

Q: I can't accept that there are persons, for instance, Jesus, not Christianity, not the church, who are real people.

U.G.: You can't accept it. I know. Why did they put him on the cross and nail him to death? He was a menace to their society.

Q: They made a god out of man. I don't agree with that.

U.G.: Not even an ordinary man, because he made statements out of which the whole dogmatic teaching of Christianity originated. Certainly. That applies to every teacher. I am not condemning only Jesus. All teachers -- Buddha, Mohammed -- all the teachers whom we consider to be the great religious teachers of mankind, let alone those people who are doing holy business in the market place today. We are not concerned about this. There is no use blaming them anyway.

So, we are here. We are the inheritors of all that violent culture. So, your culture is nothing but to teach man how to kill and how to be killed, whether it is in the name of religion or in the name of political ideology, or in the name of patriotism, or anything you want. It can't be anything different. That is why I said that the whole thing is moving in the direction of the total annihilation of man. Such things have set in motion forces of destruction which no power can stop.

Q: Yes. No power.

U.G.: No power, no god can stop it because those gods themselves have set in motion these forces of destruction. You see that now happening. When the cave man used the jawbone of an ass to kill his neighbor, there were chances of survival for others. The same cave man today who lives there in the Kremlin and in the Whitehouse, and in the Parliament House there in India -- they are the ones who will set in motion, who will let loose forces of destruction that will completely wipe out every form of life on this planet.

And man will take with him every species that exists today on this planet. It has all come out of that thinking of the man who taught religion to men, who wanted to establish love on the face of this earth. And see what he has made out of it!

Q: So, if you say we can't stop it....

U.G.: Can you? Can you stop it? You can't stop it. So the one thing that you can do is to....

Q: I think that as humanity we can stop it if we want to.

U.G.: WHEN? Well you don't want to obviously. Do you want to?

Q: Yes.

U.G.: Then how do you go about it? How do you go about it, tell me. Do you see the urgency of the whole situation? Some lunatic there may press the button. So, we sit here comfortably and talk about these things. . . .

Q: I think there is a possibility that we can stop it.

U.G.: What is the possibility?

Q: To act.

U.G.: How? When are you going to act. When the tide is too late. When the whole thing, the holocaust, is released, it will be too late. Or, you can join the anti-bomb movement -- which is ridiculous.

Q: It's ridiculous?

U.G.: Yes, of course.

Q: It's too late?

U.G.: Don't you want the police to protect your tiny little property? The hydrogen bomb is an extension of the same. You can't say this [the police] I want, and that [the bomb] I don't want. It is an extension of the same.

Q: So, we are helpless?

U.G.: What makes you think that it is possible for you to stop this? You can stop it in you. Free yourself from that social structure that is operating in you without becoming anti-social, without becoming a reformer, without becoming anti-this, anti-that. You can throw the whole thing out of your system and free yourself from the burden of this culture, for yourself and by yourself. Whether it has any usefulness for society or not is not your concern. If there is one individual who walks free, you don't have any more the choking feeling of what this horrible culture has done to you. It's neither East nor West, it's all the same. Human nature is exactly the same -- there's no difference.

You are only interested in what to do, what to do.

Q: We all are.

U.G.: How can we stop? Individually there isn't a damn thing that you can do. Collectively you can create a salvation army like that. That's all. So what? Another church, another Bible, another preacher.

Q1: What do you think about such an answer?

Q2: What do I think about such an answer? I do agree, but it's very theoretical. Just free yourself of the burden of culture. I understand it. But practically it's very difficult, of course. There's nothing I can do about it.

U.G.: There's nothing, not a thing .... You have no freedom of action at all.

Q: No.

U.G.: When that is understood, what is there expresses itself. The intelligence that is there can function much more effectively than all the solutions that man has come out with through his thinking, which is the result of millions and millions and millions of years of [evolution]. The ideal that we have placed before us, the perfect man, is just a myth. Such a man doesn't exist at all. The ideal man doesn't exist. It is just a word, an idea. All your life you are trying to become that ideal man and what you are left with is the misery, the suffering, and the hope to be that. "One day, you will see." That's the hope. We will die with that hope.

Q: So, one solution is to accept your being here, as you are.

U.G.: As you are, exactly the way you are. Then you are not in conflict with society. Culture has put the demand in you that is pushing you in the direction of wanting to change yourself into something. That is what the culture has done, put it in you. If you want to do something, [they say,] "Boy, look here, watch your step." That is what they are doing.

The second movement that comes, that is the society. "Watch your step" it says. So, that has put fear in you. Then at the same time it talks of freeing yourself from fear, and courage and the whole thing -- be a peerless man -- that is only for the purpose of using you as a pawn in maintaining the status quo of society.

That is why it is teaching courage, it is teaching fearlessness, so that it can use you to maintain the continuity of the society. You are a part of that. That is why every time you want to act, what is there is fear and the impossibility of acting. The society is not out there, the culture is not out there, and unless you are free from that you cannot act.

Q: Unless, you are free from it?

U.G.: Then you will not come here and ask me the question, "What will be that action?" There is an action already. There is an action as far as you are concerned.

Q: So, you mean that the man is only entitled to act when he is free from society. Are you free?

U.G.: Man is not able to act, because he is all the time thinking in terms of the freedom to act. "How can I be free to act?" That's all that you are concerned about, the freedom. But you are not acting that freedom. The demand for the freedom to act is preventing the action, which is neither social nor anti-social.

Q: So, you are free if you accept yourself and your situation?

U.G.: That's all. You are not in conflict with the society any more. You will not be any use to the society. On the other hand, if you become a threat to the society, the society will liquidate you.

You are a neurotic because you want two things at the same time. It is that which has created this problem for you. Wanting two things at the same time. You want to bring about a change in yourself. The change is the demand of the society, so that you can become a part of that and maintain the continuity of the social structure without any change. The second thing is, you want change. This is the conflict.

When the demand for bringing up any change in you ceases, then the concern to change the world around you also comes to an end, ipso facto. Both of them are finished. Otherwise, your actions will be a danger to the society. They will liquidate you, that's for sure. So, you are ready to be liquidated by that social structure, that is the courage.

Not to die in the battlefields, to fight for your flag. What does a flag symbolize? You wave your flag here, they wave their flag, and then both of them talk of peace. How absurd the whole situation is. And yet you talk about peace. You owe allegiance to your flag and they owe allegiance to their flag, and you are at the same time talking of peace in this world? How can there be any peace in this world when you are waving your flag here, and they are waving their flag? Whoever has better weapons will have the day for himself. With my flag here, your flag there -- these peace marchers -- or you create another flag with the anti-bomb groups.

Q: It's useless.

U.G.: I don't have to tell you. Are you ready to do away with the policeman? Individually you want to protect yourself, your life number one -- I am not saying whether you should or should not -- or your little property you have. So, you need the help of the policeman to protect it. And, you draw a line and say "this is my nation." You want to protect your nation. And, when you cannot do it, you will have to expand your means of destruction also to protect yourself, and you will say it is for defensive purposes. Certainly it is defensive. That [the bomb] is only an extension of this [the policeman]. You can't talk against that as long as you want this policeman to protect your things. You can sit around there, go on peace marches, sit around those nuclear reactors, sing peace songs and play guitars, and "make love not war" -- don't listen to all that crap. Making love and making war spring from the same source. That [such singing] becomes a sham mockery.

[That's enough I think. That's enough.]

Q: So what is this relation between ourselves and the world we live in?

U.G.: Absolutely nothing except that the world you experience is the one that is created by you. You are living in a world of your own. You have created a world of your own experiences and you are trying to project it onto the world. You have no way of experiencing the reality of the world at all. You and I use the same word to describe a video camera. What you are holding is a pen, or a pencil, as the case may be. So, we have to accept all these things as valid because they are workable. They help us to function in this world, to communicate only on that level intelligently.

Q: So nobody can be an example for anybody else?

U.G.: It [i.e., following] is only for the animals, not for humans. A human being cannot follow anybody. Physically you have to depend on others; but that is all there is to it.

Q: Would you say that there is no such thing as growth in spirituality? Or could you say that . . . .

U.G.: What I am suggesting is that there is no such thing as spirituality at all. If you superimpose what you call spirituality on what is called material life, then you create problems for yourself, because you see a growth, growth and development in the material world around you. So, you are applying that to this so-called spiritual life also.

Q: Do you suggest that the problem starts when you start separating things?

U.G.: Separating things, dividing things into material life, and spiritual life. There is only one life. This is a material life, and that other has no relevance. Wanting to change your material life into that so-called religious pattern given to you, placed before you by these religious people, is destroying the possibility of your living in harmony and accepting the reality of this material world exactly the way it is. That is responsible for your pain, for your suffering, for your sorrow.

It is a constant struggle on your part to be like that and to chase something that does not exist. And that has no meaning at all. That gives you the feeling that doing is all that is important for you. Not the actual achievement of that. You are moving farther and farther away [from such a false goal]. The more effort you put into it, the more you feel good. Like the problems you have. Trying to solve the problems is all that is important to you, but the solutions are more interesting to you than the problems. You are more interested in solutions than looking at the problem. What is the problem, I say. You have no problems, only solutions. What is the problem? Nobody tells me what the problem is.

You are telling me that these are all the solutions. Which one should I use to solve my problem? What exactly is the problem? The material problems are understandable. If you don't have health, you have to do something about your health. If you don't have money, you have to do something about money. These are understandable. If you have some psychological problems, then the real problem begins. All these psychologists and the religious people with their therapies and their solutions are trying to help you, but they don't lead you anywhere, do they? The individual remains as shallow and as empty as before. What do they want to prove to themselves?

Q: You believe that problems solve themselves by going along with your own life?

U.G.: What is the problem? You never look at the problem. It is not possible for you to look at the problem as long as you are interested in the solutions.

Q: Don't you want solutions?

U.G.: You are only interested in solutions, not in solving the problem.

Q: Isn't that the same thing then?

U.G.: In that process, you find out that those solutions are really worthless. Those solutions don't solve your problem, whatever is the problem. Those solutions keep the problems going. They don't solve them. If there is something wrong with your tape recorder, or television, that can be remedied. There is a technician who can help you. But this is an endless process going on and on and on and on, all your life. More and more of something and less and less of the other.

So, you never question the solutions. If you really question the solutions, you will have to question the ones who have offered you those solutions. But sentimentality stands in the way of your rejecting not only the solutions, but those who have offered you the solutions. Questioning that requires a tremendous courage on your part. You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody. You cannot free yourself of that burden by trying to develop that courage.

If you are freed from the burden of the entire past of mankind, then what is left is the courage.

THE END