ALL CHARITABLE WORK IS TO GET RID OF GUILT



WE HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO WORK OUT A SANE SYSTEM IN WHICH MONEY CAN BE A SERVANT TO THE WHOLE HUMANITY AND NOT THE MASTER OF A FEW GREEDY PEOPLE

[Note: The facts and figures in this chapter are that of the year 1985]

“Money is a loaded subject for the simple reason that we have not been able to work out a sane system in which money can be a servant to the whole humanity, and not the master of a few greedy people.”

“If you have money it does not change the basic thing: you want more, and there is no end to wanting more. And when finally you have too much money -- although it is not enough, it is never enough, but it is more than anybody else has -- then you start feeling guilty, because the means that you have used to accumulate the money are ugly, inhuman, violent. You have been exploiting, you have been sucking the blood of people, you have been a parasite. So now you have got the money but it reminds you of all the crimes that you have committed in gaining it.”

“That creates two kinds of people: one who starts donating to charitable institutions to get rid of guilt. They are doing "good work," they are doing "God's work." They are opening hospitals, and schools. All they are doing is trying somehow not to go mad because of the feeling of guilt. All your hospitals, and all your schools and colleges, and all your charitable institutions are outcomes of guilty people.”

“For example, the Nobel prize was founded by a man who earned money in the first world war by creating all kinds of destructive bombs, machines. The first world war was fought

using the means supplied by Mr. Nobel. And he earned such a huge amount of money... Both the parties were getting war material from the same source; he was the only person who was creating war materials on a vast scale. So whoever was killed, was killed by him. It doesn't matter whether he belonged to this side or to that side; whoever was killed was killed by his bombs.”

“So in old age, when he had all the money in the world a man can have, he established the Nobel prize. It is given as a peace award -- by a man who earned the money by war! Whoever is working for peace receives a Nobel prize. It is given for great scientific inventions, great artistic, creative inventions.”


“And with the Nobel prize comes big money -- right now it is near about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The best award, and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars with it; and it goes on increasing because money goes on becoming less and less valuable. And such a fortune that man must have created that all these Nobel prizes that are distributed every year are given only out of the interest. The basic money remains intact, will remain intact forever. Every year so much interest accumulates that you can give twenty Nobel prizes.”

“All charitable work is really an effort to wash your guilt -- literally. When Pontius Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus, the first thing he did was to wash his hands. Strange! The order for crucifixion does not make your hands dirty, why should you wash your hands? It is something significant: he is feeling guilty. It took two thousand years for man to understand this, because for two thousand years nobody even mentioned or bothered to comment on why Pontius Pilate washed his hands. It was Sigmund Freud who found out that people who are feeling guilty start washing their hands. It is symbolic... as if their hands are full of blood.”

“So if you have money, it creates guilt. One way is to wash your hands by helping charitable institutions, and this is exploited by the religions. They are exploiting your guilt, but they go on buttressing your ego, saying you are doing great spiritual work. It is nothing to do with spirituality; it is just that they are trying to console the criminals.”

“The first way is what religions have been doing. The other is that the man feels so guilty that either he goes mad or commits suicide. His own existence becomes just anguish. Each breath becomes heavy. And the strange thing is that he has worked his whole life to attain all this money, because the society provokes the desire, the ambition, to be rich, to be powerful. And money does bring power; it can purchase everything, except those few things which cannot be purchased by it. But nobody bothers about those things.”

“Meditation cannot be purchased, love cannot be purchased, friendship cannot be purchased, gratitude cannot be purchased -- but nobody is concerned with these things. Everything else, the whole world of things, can be purchased. So every child starts climbing the ladder of ambitions, and he knows if he has money then everything is possible. So the society breeds the idea of ambition, of being powerful, of being rich.”

“It is an absolutely wrong society. It creates psychologically sick, insane people. And when they have reached the goal that the society and the educational system have given to them, they find themselves at a dead end. The road ends there; there is nothing beyond. So either they become a phony religious person or they just jump into madness, into suicide, and destroy themselves.”


YOU SEE CHARITY, BUT YOU DON'T SEE FROM WHERE CHARITY COMES AND WHY

“You see charity, but you don't see from where charity comes, and why. In the first place, why should there be a need for charity? Why should there be orphans, why should there be beggars? Why in the first place should we allow beggars to happen and orphans to happen? And in the second place, why are there people who are very willing to do charity work, to give money, to give their whole lives to charity and serving the poor?”

“On the surface everything seems to be right because we have lived in this kind of structure for so long; otherwise it is absolutely absurd. No child is an orphan if the commune owns the children, and if the commune owns everything, then nobody is a beggar; we all share whatsoever we have. But then religions will not have their sources of exploitation. They will not have the poor to console, they will not have the rich to help get rid of their guilt. These are the reasons why they are so much against me.”

“And so is the case with money, because money immediately brings in the hierarchy of the society. So if there are twelve persons sitting around the table, immediately you can put them in a hierarchy; the similarity, the equality, for the moment is lost. Then somebody is richer than you, somebody is poorer than you, and suddenly you see yourself not as friends but as enemies, because you are all fighting for the same money, you are grabbing at the same money. You are not friends, you are all competitors, enemies.”

(Beyond Psychology # 1)



SO LONG AS THE MAN IS LIVING AN UNCONSCIOUS LIFE, HE CANNOT DO ANY VIRTUOUS ACT.

“First, in one's unconsciousness one cannot do any virtuous act. Virtue comes out of deep meditation. Virtue is a flower of your realization that you are eternal, immortal, that you are divine. Sharing that divineness is virtue. There is no other virtue in existence.”

“But all the religions, particularly Christianity, go on emphasizing, "Do virtuous acts. Don't sit silently, it is selfish."
“I have to ask, first: when you succeed as a rich man nobody says to you that it is selfish. Everybody praises you: that is great. When you succeed as a politician and become a

president or a prime minister nobody says it is selfish, everybody praises you.”
“Thirty million dollars (were) spent celebrating President Bush's success. Success is not selfish -- do you see the point? -- being super-rich is not selfish, creating materials for destruction of the world is not selfish, accumulating nuclear weapons is not selfish ....”

“And what is your virtue? Is it unmotivated? Are you not being virtuous doing service to the poor, or the sick, or the orphans, in order to get into paradise with all its pleasures? It is simply business. Who says it is virtue?”
“I am reminded of an ancient Chinese parable ....”
“There used to happen in the capital of China every year a festival. Millions of people gathered -- the fair lasted for one month -- and even the emperor used to come to inaugurate it. But in those days, in China, the water wells were not protected by walls. In darkness one could easily fall into a well, because there was no wall as a protection.”

“A man fell into a well. It was getting dark and his eyesight was not good, he was almost
blind. He shouted for help, but with millions of people there was so much noise -- who is going to hear him?”
A Confucian monk passed by the side of the well and he heard the noise of the man asking for help, to be taken out of the well. The Confucian monk said to him, "Don't be worried. Our master, Confucius, has written in his books that every water well should have walls, and I am going to create a tremendous uproar in the country!"
“The poor man said, "By the time you create the great uproar in the whole country and all the wells start having protecting walls, I will be dead. Just think of me first!"

“The monk said, "Individuals don't matter, what matters is society." That is the Confucian idea. That is the idea of all socialists, that the individual does not matter.”

“The reason for China becoming communist -- nobody has explored the reason why India has not become communist -- is Confucius. For twenty-five centuries Confucius had been

held in tremendous respect, so when Karl Marx became available to the Chinese, it fitted very well with the Confucian idea: the individual does not matter, what matters is the society.”

“The Confucian monk said to the man, "Anyway, any day you are going to die, so why not now? I cannot waste my time! I am going to create the revolution that will bring walls to every well in the whole country. Think of your children!" And the man went away.”
“The man in the well thought, "Strange ... I am dying here, and that idiot is going to createa revolution!"
“A Buddhist monk passed by. He looked in the well. The man said, "Buddha has taught
compassion. You should save me, I am dying! And it is getting darker and colder."
“The Buddhist monk said, "Be patient. It is because of your past lives' evil acts that you

have fallen into the well. Millions of people are here, and nobody else has fallen into the well. You must have committed very evil acts -- murder, rape. It is better to clear the account.”

 "And Buddha has also said, `Never interfere into anybody's life!' Just forgive me, I cannot interfere into your life. If I pull you out, you will fall again, because your punishment for the evil acts of the past life is not complete -- so what is the point? Just die and be reborn, fresh, without any past evil acts hanging around you."

“The man was so amazed, "These people are religious people?" And the Buddhist monk went away.”
“This is the logical consequence of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna. All the Indian philosophies teach it.”
“You will not believe it .... One of the Jaina sects, Terapanth, whose head is Acharya Tulsi, has seventeen hundred monks and three times more nuns. It is one of the very strongest folds; very rich, super-rich people belong to that sect.”

“The original man who created the sect separate from mainstream Jainism, his basic point was that if somebody is drowning you should not interfere. That is the logical consequence of believing in the past life and evil acts and their punishment. If somebody is hungry, you should not interfere. If somebody is thirsty, you should not even tell him the way to the river.”

“And, moreover, interfering in nature's course will create bad karmas for you. For example, if you pull a man out from the well, and tomorrow he commits a murder, do you think you are also responsible for it or not?”

“Logically, it seems to be perfectly right. If you had not saved the man, he would not have committed the murder. You are fifty percent responsible: you saved him, he committed the murder. Now you will have to suffer for saving the man. Whatsoever he does from now onwards, you will be responsible -- for his whole life. You have unnecessarily disturbed his finishing of the punishment, and you have created on the other hand evil acts for which you will suffer in your future life.”
“The statement, the philosophy, is logical, but absolutely against life. Is logic more important than life?”

“And as far as I am concerned, every act brings its punishment just as a shadow. You don't have to suffer in your future life. Right now you murder; why should nature wait that long for punishment? You put your hand in the fire ....”
“I have told this to Acharya Tulsi -- and he has been angry with me since then, speaking

every kind of lie against me. The reason is personal, because I told him, before fifty thousand people, "Your whole philosophy is absolutely ugly and obscene. You put your hand into the fire right now, and let us see whether your hand burns now or in the future life!"
“He had nothing to say. And his own people -- those fifty thousand were his own people -- they laughed and they clapped. That hurt him very much.”
“Action brings its reaction immediately, it follows without any gap. Why should there be
such a long gap? But the reason is ... You see right now all kinds of mean people being successful. How do you explain it? -- all kinds of cunning people being prime ministers, becoming presidents, becoming super-rich right now, just by sheer squeezing people's blood! How do you explain it?”

“The religions have been saving the vested interests. They had to find some way, and this was a good strategy: nobody is making you poor, you are suffering from your past life's acts, evil acts. And the rich? -- they are enjoying their past life's good acts, virtuous acts.”

“Do you see the cunningness of the argument? Neither do you know anything about your past life, nor do you know anything about your future life. Your real problem is dissolved
into smoke, so thick a smoke that you cannot see beyond it.”
“The Buddhist monk moved on from the well, and he was followed by a Christian missionary. The Christian missionary was carrying a bucket and a long rope. He immediately threw the rope and the bucket into the well, and pulled the man out. The man said, "You are the only religious man."
“The Christian missionary said, "In fact, I should be grateful to you, because unless you

fall in the well I cannot earn virtue. I am against the Confucian idea that every well should have a wall. Then nobody will be falling in! -- and for whom am I carrying the bucket and the rope? No walls are needed; otherwise, all virtue, all morality, all service will disappear from the world."

“Bertrand Russell has made a very important statement: "If there is no poverty, there will be no religion. Whom are you going to serve?"
“If there is no death, all churches, all religions will become absolutely useless, invalid, out of date. They are surviving because of poverty, because of death, because of disease, because of orphans. That's why they are all against birth control -- because birth control can destroy all poverty, and all the orphans can be stopped from coming into the world. What will happen to poor Mother Teresa? Who will give her a Nobel Prize?”

“Orphans are absolutely needed, otherwise Mother Teresas will disappear. Poverty is needed, that's why they go on continuously being against all birth control methods. It has nothing to do with God -- they need the poor people, because their religion teaches them that if you serve the poor, if you open hospitals for the poor, if you open schools for the poor, you are earning a great bank balance in paradise.”

“This is not unselfishness. Who says it is unselfish? It is more selfish than anything else
you can find in the world -- a motivation to exploit poor people, people who have fallen into the well, people who are dying, people who are sick, people who are orphans. You are taking great advantage.”

“All religions say that you will have great pleasures in heaven; beautiful women will be
available to all the saints who have done virtuous acts. Strange ... Here you talk about celibacy, and in all the paradises of all the religions, celibacy is no longer applicable. Do you see the contradiction?”

“All religions are exploiting your tremendous greed, in the name of virtue, in the name of
unselfishness.”
“As a fundamental principal, I want you to remember that an unconscious man cannot act without motivation, and motivation is selfishness, whatever you do.”
“I used to live in a city, teaching in the university, and a beautiful marble temple was being made there. For years I used to pass it on the road. Nine years I lived in that city, and the temple was just coming up, coming up, because they wanted to make something rare. Some super-rich man's father had died and it was his memorial.”

“I had no idea about it, so one day I stopped my car and went inside where hundreds of
marble workers were working. I asked the chief, "For what is this temple being raised?" A man of great intelligence, he did not take me to the statue of Krishna which was placed in the middle of the temple. I was thinking he would take me to the statue, saying that the temple is being created for Krishna -- but he took me behind the temple.”

I said, "Where are you taking me?"
He said, "To the right place."
“There was a big marble slab with the writing: "This temple is created by so-and-so in the
memory of his great spiritual father."
He said, "For this stone the whole temple is being created. Krishna is just an excuse."
:The unconscious mind cannot do anything without motivation. What will I get? And religions promise that in the future life, when he reaches to the pearly gates, Saint Peter will be standing there with all the angels singing "Alleluia!", playing on their harps in your welcome. It seems to be worthwhile to give something in charity, to do some virtuous act.
Unless an act is done without any motivation, it cannot be unselfish.



NO MIND IS THE SEARCH OF MEDITATION. AND FROM NO-MIND BLOSSOM FLOWERS OF UNSELFISHNESS, OF LOVE, OF COMPASSION, OF SHARING; THAT IS CHARITY.

“I want you to understand that except meditation there is no act which is unselfish, because it is only meditation which is going to dissolve your self, which is going to dissolve you into the whole. And once you are no more, whatever you do is going to be without motivation. Virtue comes out of a person who has become one with existence.”

“Meditation is the door.
Meditation is the only unselfish act.”
“But it appears that people who are engaged in meditation are just thinking of themselves, not bothering about the whole of humanity. Absolute nonsense!”
“The people who are engaged in meditation are the only people who will find a place where there is no self, and all selfishness disappears. Then their whole life, their whole love, their whole compassion will be unmotivated. Whatever they will do will be virtuous, because virtue can come only out of a conscious mind, an absolutely conscious mind.”

“In the conscious mind, totally conscious, there is not a single shadow of self. The totally
conscious mind becomes qualitatively different from your unconscious mind. Hence it has been called no-mind, just to show the difference, otherwise you will get confused.”
“Mind is what you have. No-mind is the search of meditation. And from no-mind blossom flowers of unselfishness, of love, of compassion, of sharing.”
“I repeat Basho, the great Zen master, and one of the greatest poets of the world: "Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."

“This sitting silently is not avoiding life. Sitting silently is searching for life, the very source of life. And the moment you have found the source, everything grows by itself, just like when spring comes, the grass grows by itself.”
“Virtue, truth, compassion, love -- everything you can conceive of arises out of meditation, and there is no other source for it. They do not arise from prayers, because prayers are addressed to a fictitious God, who does not exist.”
“The crowd is living so unconsciously. You cannot expect from this crowd any act of virtue, any act of unselfishness. It is simply not possible. It is categorically impossible. First comes meditation, then everything else follows.”

“So when your parents or your priests tell you that you are doing a selfish act, tell them
clearly that you are the only one who is going to drop the self, and there will be no selfishness left, and out of that state virtue will follow -- "not from your prayers, not from your Bible or your Koran or your Gita, not from your teachings, but from my own exploration into whether there is a self."
“The self is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness. It has never been
found by those who have entered deeper into themselves.”

“Just a few days ago there were twenty-one Christian missionaries here. They have been at a seminary for seven years in Poona. Poona is one of the centers for creating missionaries for the whole of Asia.”
“For seven years they were not allowed by their principal even to come close to the ashram. That day when their course was finished, and they were ready to leave to their places, they did not miss at least one chance to hear me. And they have come here, but they must have been very much puzzled. I could see it on their faces: their seven years of seminary training was erased within three hours!”

“To one sannyasin they said, "Everything seems to be good, but your master is taking only the negative side of religion and condemning it. There are many beautiful things that
religion has done to humanity, and he is not taking them."

“Now I am going to talk about "all the beautiful things that religion has done to
humanity."
“By the way, the same person quoted what seems on the surface a beautiful sentence: "It is better to give than to receive." Ordinarily you will agree with it -- it is better to give than to receive ....”
“I don't agree with it.

Why is it better to give? -- because it enhances your ego. You are the giver, you are higher, your hand is upper. Why is it good to give? You are reducing the other man's dignity, you are making him a beggar, you are insulting him. You are not really giving, you are rejoicing in your ego being bigger and bigger. The more you give, the bigger ego you will have, the more respect, the more prestige, the more honor.”

“What is good in giving? It is a sin, because it enhances your ego.”
“And what is not good in receiving? In fact, the receiver has not to be obliged to you; he is unburdening you, you have to be obliged to him. That is authentic spirituality. You give, and you touch the feet of the person to whom you have given, to thank him that he received your gift and did not reject it. He could have rejected it, and you would have been insulted -- but he received it.”
“I say to you that these kinds of statements, which look very good if you don't have a sharp intelligence to go deeper into them, are all over, in all the scriptures of the world. And anyway, if it is better to give than to receive, then who is going to receive? Everybody is going to give -- it is better to give -- but to whom? Everybody will reject, because it is better to give than to receive.”

"Why are you insulting me?", everybody will ask you. "Do you want to insult me, humiliate me by giving me just a few coins? Throw away those coins in the river and get lost!"

“Gautam Buddha is far more right. He has made it very clear to his sannyasins and to his lay-disciples. Because the sannyasins will be going to beg their food one time a day from the lay-disciples, he has made it clear to his lay-disciples, "Don't feel that you are great because you are giving. Remember the humbleness of the other person who is receiving. So first you give the food, then you touch the feet of the person who has received the food, and you give some other gift as your gratefulness."
“So two words are used: giving is called bhiksha, and when somebody has received bhiksha, then you have to be grateful to him. The second word is dakshina; to show your gratefulness, you present something else, a shawl -- the winter is coming -- or a new set of clothes. An old set of clothes you can preserve as a memory from a man of meditation; something of his meditation must have touched those clothes.”

“When you pass through a rose garden, you may not touch the roses, but some fragrance is caught by your clothes. If a man has been meditating -- and if by chance you come across an enlightened person -- having his clothes in your house, your house becomes a holy temple. His clothes have been receiving radiation continuously, of a different world, vibrations .... So give him a new set of clothes, his old set is torn, too old. This will be your gratitude.”
“So Buddha's statement will be, "It is better to receive than to give." The giver is a poor
man, he has nothing else than money.”


Excerpts from: 'Christianity is the Deadliest Poison' # 3)



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