UG: Don't you think that he has done the greatest harm — the atom-bomb?
Q: He simply said that matter and energy are interchangeable.
UG: Which has resulted in the atom-bomb. When the question came up whether America should go ahead with the weapon or not, he said "Yes, do it, by all means. If you don't do it, Germany will do it." If not Einstein, somebody would have done that.
Q: So he had no choice; he had to choose between two evils.
UG: No. If you go on choosing the lesser of the two evils, you'll end up only with evil. That is what has happened to us now.
Not that I consider him enemy number one. I also consider Freud the biggest fraud of the twentieth century because he talked of some theory which really has no basis at all. So he's the confidence trickster of the twentieth century. But it has become the slang of man today: everybody is using that. So in that sense; not that I consider all these people enemies of mankind or any such thing.
Q: This change — you call it a `calamity'?
UG: You see, people usually imagine that so-called enlightenment, self-realization, God- realization or what you will (I don't like to use these words) is something ecstatic, that you will be permanently happy, in a blissful state all the time — these are the images they have of those people. But when this kind of a thing happens to the individual, he realizes that really there is no basis for that kind of thing. So, from the point of view of the man who imagines that that is permanent happiness, permanent bliss, permanent this and permanent that, it is a calamity because he is expecting something whereas what happens is altogether unrelated to that. There's no relationship at all between the image you have of that, and what actually is the situation. So, from the point of view of the man who imagines that to be something permanent, this is a calamity — it's in that sense I use it. That's why I very often tell people "If I could give you some glimpse of what this is all about, you wouldn't touch this with a barge pole, a ten foot pole." You would run away from this because this is not what you want. What you want does not exist, you see.
So, the next question is: Why did all these sages talk of this as "permanent bliss," "eternal life," this, that and the other? I'm not interested in that at all. But the image you have of that has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the actual thing that I'm talking about, the natural state. So the question whether somebody else is enlightened or not doesn't interest me, because there is no such thing as enlightenment at all.
Q: In the light of what you have said, this question may be rather irrelevant. Have you any message?
UG: For whom?
Q: Anybody. Everybody.
UG: I have no message, Sir — no message for mankind — no message. People ask me "Why the hell are you talking always?" When I say I can't help anyone, why the hell are you here? (I don't mean you.)
I don't want to use this `flower' business.... That is the fragrance of the flower. Such an individual cannot retire into a cave or hide himself; he has to live in the midst of this world; he has no place to go to. That is the fragrance of that particular flower — you don't know what it is.
You don't know the fragrance of that flower — you have no way — that's why you are comparing it: "This smells like that flower. This looks like that flower." That's all that you are doing, you see. When you stop doing that — trying to understand what that flower is, and what that perfume is which you have never known — there is another flower; not a copy of that flower, not the rose, which you admire, nor the daffodil. "An Ode to the Daffodils," some chappie wrote. Or the rose.... Why has the rose become so important? Because everybody likes them. The grass flower that is there is more beautiful than the rose flower. The moment you stop trying to compare this, trying to understand and even imagine what that flower is, what its fragrance is, there is a new flower there, which has no relationship whatsoever with all the flowers that we have around us.
Q: Thank you, Sir. I'm a changed man, to what I was an hour ago.
UG: Thank you.
Part Four
Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding
(Excerpts from conversations in Switzerland and India, 1972 to 1980)
I've no message to give to the world. Whatever happens to me is such that you can't share it with the world. That's the reason why I don't get up on a platform or give any lectures — it's not that I can't give lectures; I've lectured everywhere in the world — I've nothing to say. And I don't like to sit in one place, surrounded by people asking set questions. I never initiate any discussions; people come and sit round me — they can do what they like. If somebody asks me a question suddenly, I try to answer, emphasizing and pointing out that there is no answer to that question. So, I merely rephrase, restructure and throw the same question back at you. It's not game playing, because I'm not interested in winning you over to my point of view. It's not a question of offering opinions — of course I do have my opinions on everything from disease to divinity, but they're as worthless as anybody else's.
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What I say you must not take literally. So much trouble has been created by people taking it all literally. You must test every word, every phrase, and see if it bears any relation to the way you are functioning. You must test it, but you are not in a position to accept it — unfortunately this is a fact, take it or leave it. By writing it down, you will do more harm than good. You see, I am in a very difficult position: I cannot help you, whatever I say is misleading.
UG: Put it simply. I can't follow a very complex structure — I have that difficulty, you see. Probably I'm a low-grade moron or something, I don't know — I can't follow conceptual thinking. You can put it in very simple words. What exactly is the question? Because the answer is there; I don't have to give the answer. What I usually do is restructure the question, rephrase it in such a way that the question appears senseless to you.
Q: The answer latent in the question is brought to the surface?
UG: That is all. That is why I want to understand what exactly your question is. It is not a tricky thing or any such thing. I don't want to throw another question at you. But I must understand that question, then I can phrase it in my own way and throw it back at you. And you will find out for yourself, without my telling you, that the question has no meaning at all; not that I say "Your question is a meaningless question."
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You know, this dialogue is only helpful when we come, both of us, to a point and realize that no dialogue is possible, that no dialogue is necessary. When I say 'understanding', 'seeing', they mean something different to me. Understanding is a state of being where the question isn't there any more; there is nothing there that says "now I understand!" — that's the basic difficulty between us. By understanding what I am saying, you are not going to get anywhere.
There is another thing I want to stress: all the questions you come out with must be your own questions — then there is meaning in carrying on a dialogue. It has to be your question. So, do you have a question to call your own, a question which nobody else has asked before?
Q: So many questions that people ask interest