I studied botany in the university. When you study the leaves under a microscope, you can see that no two leaves are the same. Our whole attempt, for idiotic reasons, to fit every individual into a common mold is not going to succeed. If we push it too hard, we will probably blow ourselves all up. That is inevitable because we have in our possession tremendous instruments of destruction, far surpassing the capacity of the so-called mind to deal with them.
Q2: I want to return to my question. When I started I said there are two computers, X and Y. Their computers have been programmed. Everything is programmed. Once everything is programmed, everything — effort, will, and all that — is immaterial.
UG: Yes, that's what I am saying.
Q2: There is no scope for the word called `effort'....
UG: That's what I say too. ...or for freedom of action.
Q2: ...will or any such thing. Because everything is programmed.
UG: Yes, not only by culture, but by nature itself, probably for its own survival. We don't know, it [each species] is programmed. That is why I say that there is no freedom of action at all. The demand for freedom of action is meaningless.
Q2: Well, maybe it is also programmed, and that is why people keep on demanding. We can leave the matter at that. To come back to the cat and the man, personally, I think, there is absolutely no difference.
UG: No. If we had remained that way, probably we would have become a different species. This is only a speculation.
Q2: Every time we get into the ice age, or another age when the whole thing restarts, you start from that level.
UG: Yes, we have come to a nuclear age where the future is very gloomy. Anyway that is not the point.
Q2: You know, gloomy may be another way of describing....
UG: If the human race goes we also go with it.
Q2: All the computers will be destroyed.
UG: Not only the computers, everything will be destroyed.
Q2: No, computers, because I have reduced everything to computers. ... My second question: You said you must be highly obliged to all the spiritual teachers at least for one reason, namely, but for them I or you or anyone would not have realized that there is no such thing as enlightenment.
UG: I am not with you. Say that again.
Q2: .... because they have been selling enlightenment as a product and we go after it.
UG: And then you discover that it is a shoddy piece of goods that they are selling.
Q2: Right. But for them you would not have realized even this.
UG: I don't think that there is room for any gratitude to them.
Q2: No. I wouldn't say that.
UG: See, you are thrown into a situation from where you have no escape. You are trapped in it. The very attempt on your part to `untrap' (is there any such word?) or free yourself, or get out of that trap, is making you sink further into it. What we are left with is the total helplessness to do anything. But yet, unfortunately, we have a hope that there is something we can do. We don't stop at that total helplessness; we goes on and on until the dead end. The living teachers and the yet unborn ones are hammering into our heads that they have answers for our problems and that they have the means to save the whole situation.
Q2: Since there are no questions, there is no question of answers. Where are the questions?
UG: All the questions are born out of the answers. But nobody wants the answers. The end of the question is the end of the answer. The end of the solution is the end of the problem. We are only dealing with solutions and not with the problems.
Actually there are no problems, there are only solutions. But we don't even have the guts to say that they don't work. Even if you have discovered that they don't work, sentimentality comes into the picture. The feeling, "That man in whom I have placed my confidence and belief cannot con himself and con everyone else," comes in the way of throwing the whole thing out of the window, down the drain. The solutions are still a problem. Actually there is no problem there. The only problem is to find out the inadequacy or uselessness of all the solutions that have been offered to us. The questions naturally are born out of the assumptions and answers that we have taken for granted as real answers. But we really don't want any answers to the questions, because an answer to the questions is the end of the answers. If one answer ends, all the other answers also go. You don't have to deal with ten different answers. You deal with one question and that puts an end to the answer. Not that you get an answer. But there will be no questions. Yet I have to accept the reality of the world as it is imposed on me for purposes of functioning sanely.
Q2: Will it not lead us to the tribal level again?
UG: We have not moved away from the tribal level. [Laughter] Have we really? The cave man didn't have the means to blow up the whole world, but we do. And animals don't kill anybody for an idea or belief. Only we do it.
Q3: Is there, Sir, any evolution apart from the biological one?
UG: You mean spiritual?
Q3: Well, any other.
UG: Even the biological evolution, we don't know for sure. Some idlers like me have observed certain things and they have arrived at some conclusions.
Q3: Please tell us.
UG: I am an illiterate. I don't read much. I haven't read anything for ages now.
Q2: For idling you don't need literacy, Sir! [Laughter]
UG: I don't even observe. At least the scientists have this motivation, if I may use that word, to observe things and understand the laws of nature.
Q3: It's all a self-centered activity.
UG: It's all a self-centered activity. It is a question of self-fulfillment. You may feel that I am fulfilling myself through this talk, surrounding myself with all the people here. Yes, you can throw that at me and maybe there is something to it. I really don't know. Pleasure it is not. I have pain here — [Laughter] — a headache.
Q3: Acute pain leads to pleasure.
UG: They are the same, Sir. We forget that. Pain indicates a healing process in the body. That is what I have discovered. We don't give the body a chance to recover but rush to the doctor.
Q3: Actually all these spiritual leaders....
UG: They don't exist without us, Sir.
Q3: No, they don't. They have confused mankind to such an extent....
UG: They can't confuse us. We want to be confused. Otherwise how can they confuse us? We are willing victims in this matter.
Q2: We are fooling ourselves.
UG: Yes, we are fools. If one fool leaves, there are ten fools to change places with him. There will never be any shortage of fools at any time.
Q2: Sir,