Most Commented Religion & Spirituality Blogs (1,491)

THE EDUCATION THAT has prevailed in the past is very insufficient, incomplete, superficial. It only creates people who can earn their livelihood but it does not give any insight into living itself. It is not only incomplete, it is harmful too – because it is based on competition.

Any type of competition is violent deep down, and creates people who are unloving. Their whole effort is to be the achievers: of name, of fame, of all kinds of ambitions – obviously, they have to struggle and be in conflict for them. That destroys their joys and that destroys their friendliness. It seems everybody is fighting against the whole world.

Education up to now has been goal-oriented: what you are learning is not important; what is important is the examination that will come a year or two years later. It makes the future important – more important than the present. It sacrifices the present for the future. And that becomes your very style of life; you are always sacrificing the moment for something which is not present. It creates a tremendous emptiness in life.

Before I enter into those five dimensions, a few things have to be noted. One: there should not be any kind of examination as part of education, but every day, every hour, observation by the teachers; their remarks throughout the year will decide whether you move further or you remain a little longer in the same class. Nobody fails, nobody passes – it is just that a few people are speedy and a few people are a little bit lazy – because the idea of failure creates a deep wound of inferiority, and the idea of being successful also creates a different kind of disease, that of superiority.
So, examinations will not have any place. That will change the whole perspective from the future to the present. What you are doing right this moment will be decisive, not five questions at the end of two years. Of thousands of things you will pass through during these two years, each will be decisive; so the education will not be goal-oriented.

The teacher has been of immense importance in the past, because he knew he had passed all the examinations, he had accumulated knowledge. But the situation has changed – and this is one of the problems, that situations change but our responses remain the old ones. Now the knowledge explosion is so vast, so tremendous, so speedy, that you cannot write a big book on any scientific subject because by the time your book is complete, it will be out of date; new facts, new discoveries will have made it irrelevant. So now science has to depend on articles, on periodicals, not on books.

The teacher was educated thirty years earlier. In thirty years everything has changed, and he goes on repeating what he was taught. He is out of date, and he is making his students out of date. So in my vision the teacher has no place. Instead of teachers there will be guides, and the difference has to be understood: the guide will tell you where, in the library, to find the latest information on the subject.

America is richest because America is the least miserly country in the world. Money circulates fast; everybody is using that money which he has, and even that money which he is going to have in the future, he is using it too. The country is bound to become rich. A country like India is bound to remain poor because people cling. If you cling to money the country will remain poor. When nobody uses it, money becomes like clots in blood.

India has two types of people: misers and renouncers. Both these types are wrong, ill, abnormal, neurotic. One should have money, earn money, produce money -- and use it. One should hold it only to use and one should use it only to hold; it becomes a circle. Then a person is both, a miser and a renouncer together. When you are miser and renouncer together you are neither miser nor renouncer, you simply enjoy whatsoever money can give. Money can give many things and money cannot give many things; when you use it then you know what money can give. Money can give all that is outward -- things of this world, nothing is wrong in them. Nothing is wrong in having a beautiful house. Nothing is wrong in having a beautiful garden -- money can give it to you. But money cannot give you love, that is expecting too much from poor money.

One should expect only that which can be expected, one should not move in the impossibilities..Just asking poor money to give you love -- poor money cannot do it. But nothing is wrong, don't get angry with the money! Don't burn it and throw it in the river and go to the Himalayas. In the first place you asked something which a man of understanding would never have asked -- you are foolish, that's all. Nothing is wrong with the money.

A wandering monk came to see me two or three years ago and he was very much against money. He would not even touch it -- this is a neurosis. There are people who only count money the whole day, and in the night also, in their minds, they go on counting. They touch only money with a loving hand, they never touch anybody else with a loving hand. When they look at their currency notes, watch their eyes -- they sparkle. They are hypnotized. These are neurotic people. Then there are other neurotics... This wandering monk came to me, he would not touch money. So I said: Then it must be very difficult for you. How did you come to Bombay to see me? He said: There is nothing difficult. He showed two other men, his disciples: they could touch, they were not such evolved beings. What foolishness! They could purchase the ticket and they could keep the money, but for him, he said: I don't touch, I have gone far beyond it.

said: But what is the point? Now you are not only using money, you are using two other persons as your pockets. You have reduced two persons, alive persons, to pockets; you have murdered. What was wrong in keeping it in your own pocket?

And the man said: So it seems you are in favour of money? What can money give? Can money give love? Can money give God? I said: You are foolish if you ask love and God from poor money, your expectations are false. Money never promised them to you, but whatsoever money promises it can give. It never promises that it can give you love. If you expect it you are idiotic.

These people who have been expecting too much from money one day become enemies of money. Then they escape, then they don't touch money. Even Vinoba closes his eyes if you bring money to him, he will not see it. What nonsense! What is wrong in money? Something still seems to be miserly inside, something still seems to be like a wound, otherwise why close your eyes? What is wrong in a currency note? It is just paper, and these spiritual people go on saying that it is just paper. If you put ordinary paper in their hands, they touch it, but when you put a currency note there they throw it away as if it is a scorpion or very deadly disease.

Neurosis can move from one extreme to another. Use money. Money is beautiful as far as it goes, and it goes far enough! As far as the world is concerned it goes far enough, but don't expect love, because it is of the interior, of the inner being, and don't ask for God, because it is transcendental.

Use everything for its own capacities, not for your dreams. Then you are a healthy man, and to be healthy is to be holy. Don't be abnormal in any way. Be normal, ordinary, and just create more understanding so that you can see. Money can be used, should be used, it can give you a beautiful world.

Otherwise, sooner or later, if you are against money you will create a dirty country like India: everything is dirty -- but they think they are great spiritualists. Everything has gone ugly but they think they are great spiritualists because they have renounced. That's why things have got so bad. They think one has to close one's eyes and not look outside.

It is good to look outside because outside is God's creation; it is good to look inside because inside is sitting the Creator. Both are good. Eyes are meant to blink; they are not meant to remain open forever and they are not meant to be closed forever. They are meant to blink -- open and close, open and close. That is the rhythm -- out and in, out and in.

Look outside -- the beautiful creation; look inside -- the beautiful God. And by and by you will see that the in and out meet and mingle and are one.

And just opposite me lived a very famous astrologer who was deciding people's marriages by reading their birth-charts. As we were living opposite each other, it did not take long to get introduced to him.

I told him, "Do you really believe that what you are doing is sane?"

He said, "What do you mean? I am the best astrologer around this area. People come to me from hundreds of miles away."

I said, "That I can see myself. But I also see that your wife beats you. Did you look at your birth-charts when you got married to this woman? And if you could not decide even for yourself, don't you feel ashamed that what you are doing is simply stupid -- and not only stupid, inhuman?"

He was at a loss. I said, "Remember, I am a strange man. I will spread this news to everybody, and I will sit in the front of my garden to prevent people coming to you. I will tell them what is happening in your life."

At that very moment his wife came in from the kitchen and she said, "You are right. I will support you. This man is simply an idiot. He knows nothing; he has destroyed my life, he has destroyed his life, and he is destroying thousands of other people's lives!"

But this goes on.

There are people who will consult the I-Ching, who will consult the Tarot cards.... But the real thing is somewhere else. And it is known, but religious prejudices are preventing humanity from using it.

When mind knows, we call it knowledge.
When heart knows, we call it love.
And when being knows, we call it meditation

But all three speak different languages, which are not translatable into each other. And the deeper you go, the more difficult it becomes to translate, because at the very center of your being there is nothing but silence. Now, how to translate silence into sound? The moment you translate silence into sound you have destroyed it. Even music cannot translate it. Perhaps music comes closest, but still it is sound.

Poetry does not come quite as close as music, because words, howsoever beautiful, are still words. They don't have life in them, they are dead. How can you translate life into something dead? Yes, perhaps between the words you may have a glimpse here and there – but it is between the words, between the lines, not in the words, not in the lines.

This is the most fundamental error of all religions: that they have deceived humanity by blatantly posing as if they know all.

But every day they have been exposed and their knowledge has been exposed; hence, they have been fighting with any progress of knowledge.

If Galileo finds that the earth moves around the sun, the pope is angry. The pope is infallible; he is only a representative of Jesus, but he is infallible. What to say about Jesus – he is the only begotten son of God, and what to say about God.... But in the Bible – which is a book descended from heaven, written by God – the sun goes around the earth.

Now, Galileo creates a problem. If Galileo is right, then God is wrong; God's only begotten son is wrong, the only begotten son's representatives for these two thousand years – all the popes who are infallible – are wrong. Just a single man, Galileo, destroys the whole pretension. The whole hypocrisy he exposes. His mouth has to be shut. He was old, dying, on his deathbed, but he was forced, almost dragged, to the court of the pope to ask for an apology.

And the pope demanded: "You change it in your book, because the holy book cannot be wrong. You are a mere human being; you can be wrong; but jesus Christ cannot be wrong, God Himself cannot be wrong, hundreds of infallible popes cannot be wrong.... You are standing against God, His son, and His representatives. You simply change it!"

Galileo must have been a man with an immense sense of humor – which I count to be one of the great qualities of a religious man. Only idiots are serious; they are bound to be serious. To be able to laugh you need a little intelligence.

It is said that an Englishman laughs twice when he hears a joke: once, just to be nice to the fellow who is telling the joke, out of etiquette, a mannerism; and second, in the middle of the night when he gets the meaning of the joke. The German laughs only once, just to show that he has understood it. The Jew never laughs; he simply says, "In the first place you are telling it all wrong...."

You need a little intelligence, and Galileo must have been intelligent. He was one of the greatest scientists of the world, but he must be counted as one of the most religious persons also. He said, "Of course God cannot be wrong, Jesus cannot be wrong, all the infallible popes cannot be wrong, but poor Galileo can always be wrong. There is no problem about it – i will change it in my book. But one thing you should remember: the earth will still go around the sun. About that I cannot do anything; it does not follow my orders. As far as my book is concerned I will change it, but in the note I will have to write this:'The earth does not follow my orders, it still goes around the sun.'"

Playing The Fake Jesus

The perception that happiness is the end of the road is what leads people to perpetual unhappiness and the illusion of an unfulfilled life. We are beings that live in duality ALL the time. The same moment you praise yourself for something, you beat yourself up for something else. If you are loved by 100 people, you are certainly despised by others to the same degree that you are loved. It is the law of cause and effect working synchronistically. There is no action now, reaction later.. It happens simultaneously. It is our distorted perception that leads us to believe that "karma" plays a role in our lives. Nothing is missing in your life. You are as happy as you are sad. You are as good as you are bad. You are as loved as you are hated. The key to understand the divine matrix is to open your heart with gratitude and feel the infinite love that surrounds you. The feeling of unconditional love (not the temporary dopamine fix of instant gratifications) is all there really is. All else is illusion. Until you are grateful for everything in your life, it is impossible to feel it. Blessings..

"Not only the corporate houses but every place where man dwells has much to learn from the temples. First, you are always moving on holy ground. Not only in the temple are you in a holy place, but even in the marketplace you are moving on the same holy ground. You are not to be just prayerful in the temple, in the mosque, in the church. Your prayerfulness has to become just your breathing. You have not to create only in your temple a beautiful world of incense, of flowers, of music, of chanting, of beautiful architecture, of sculptures -- the temple should simply be the model for every house. Not only corporate houses, every house should be a temple, because every body is a temple.

God dwells in you, and wherever you are, you should create the aroma, the fragrance of godliness.

The authentically religious person is neither Hindu, nor Mohammedan, nor Christian, nor Jaina, nor Buddhist. An authentic religious person is simply a prayerful person, a loving person, a creative person -- a man who has the golden touch; whatever he touches becomes beautiful and valuable. It is not possible that our houses remain in hell and once in a while, for an hour, we can enter a temple and find heaven -- that is not possible. Unless you are twenty-four hours in heaven, you cannot enter into a temple and suddenly change -- suddenly drop your jealousies, your anger, your hatred, your competitiveness, your ambitions, your politics. You cannot simply drop all your ugliness.

You can pretend, you can be a hypocrite ... and in fact all the people who are visiting temples of any religion are hypocrites, because their other twenty-three hours show their reality. For only one hour, they cannot become a different being.

A religious person has to understand that it is not a question of believing in a certain theology; it is not a question of believing in a certain tradition. It is a question of transforming yourself in such a way that compassion becomes your very heartbeat, that gratitude becomes your very breathing, that wherever you are, your eyes can see the divine -- in the trees, in the mountains, in people, in animals, in birds. Unless you can make the whole existence your temple, you are not religious.

Wherever you move, you are always in a temple, because you are always surrounded by that mysterious energy that people have called "God." A few others have given it other names -- they differ only in names. But one thing is certain: we are not living in a mundane universe. On each step there is a mystery, and there are mysteries beyond mysteries. If you are simply aware of all the mysteries, your worship will be to make everything as worthy of God as possible.

The first type is childish; it is searching for a father-figure. The first type is immature; it cannot rely upon itself, hence it needs a God somewhere or other. The God may exist or not -- that is not the point -- but a God is needed. Even if the God is not there the immature mind will invent him, because the immature mind has a psychological need -- it is not a question of truth whether God is there or not, it is a psychological need.

In the Bible it is said God made man in his own image, but the reverse is more true: man made God in his own image. Whatsoever is your need you create that sort of God, that's why the concept of God goes on changing in every age. Every country has its own concept because every country has its own need. In fact, every single person has a different concept of God because his own needs are there and they have to be fulfilled.

A small boy was saying his prayers and concluded with this remark: "Dear God, take care of Mommy, take care of Daddy, take care of baby sister and Aunt Emma and Uncle John and Grandma and Grandpa -- and, please God, take care of yourself, or else we're all sunk!"

This is the God of the majority. Ninety per cent of the so-called religious people are immature people. They believe because they cannot live without belief; they believe because belief gives a sort of security; they believe because belief helps them to feel protected. It is their dream, but it helps. In the dark night of life, in the deep struggle of existence, without such a belief they will feel left alone. But their God is their God, not the God of reality. And once they get rid of their immaturity, their God will disappear.

That's what has happened to many people. In this century many people have become irreligious -- not that they have come to know that God does not exist but only because this age has made man a little more mature.
So the God of the childhood, the God of the immature mind, has simply become irrelevant.

That is the meaning when Friedrich Nietzsche declares that "God is dead." It is not God that is dead, it is the God of the immature mind that is dead. In fact to say that God is dead is not right because that God was never alive. The only right expression will be to say that "God is no more relevant" Man can rely more upon himself -- he does not need belief, he does not need the crutches of belief.

Hence people have become less and less interested in religion. They have become indifferent to what goes on in the church. They have become so indifferent to it that they will not even argue against it. If you say: "Do you believe in God?" they will say: "It's okay whether he is or not, it doesn't make any difference, it doesn't matter." Just to be polite, if you believe, they will say: "Yes, he is." If you don't believe, they will say: "No, he is not." But it is no more a passionate concern.

This is the first type of religion; it has existed for centuries, down the centuries, down the ages, and it is becoming more and more outmoded, out of date. Its time is finished. A new God is needed -- who is not psychological; a new God is needed -- who is existential, the God of reality, the God as reality. We can even drop the word "God" -- "the real" will do, "the existential" will do.

Then there is a second type of religious people for whom religion is not out of fear. The first type of religion is out of fear, the second type -- also bogus, also pseudo, also so-called -- is not out of fear, it is only out of cleverness. There are very clever people who go on inventing theories, who are very trained in logic, in metaphysics, in philosophy. They create a religion which is just an abstraction: a beautiful piece of art work, of intelligence, of intellectuality, of philosophizing. But it never penetrates life, it never touches life anywhere, it simply remains an abstract conceptualization.

Now what kind of religion is that? It has no impact on life.

Why did Mohammed marry Aisha at a young age?