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AND THE LAST QUESTION, THE FEAR OF GOD Is the idea of a personal God who watches out for us, even as a hypothesis, not useful in any way? Because the very idea of dropping the idea of God makes me immensely afraid. Why do you feel afraid of dropping the idea of God? Certainly the idea of God is somehow preventing you from being afraid. It is a kind of psychological protection, that's what it is. The child is bound to be afraid. In the mother's womb he is not afraid. I have not heard that any child in the mother's womb ever thinks of going to the synagogue or to the church or reading the Bible or the Koran or the Gita, or even bothers about whether there is a God or not. I cannot conceive that a child in the mother's womb will in any way be interested in God, in the devil, in heaven, in hell. For what? He is already in paradise. Things cannot be better than they are. He is completely protected in a warm, cozy home, floating in chemicals that are nourishing. And you will be surprised - in that nine months the child grows more than he will ever grow in ninety years, proportionately. In nine months he travels such a long journey from being almost nothing he becomes a being. In nine months he passes through millions of years of evolution, from the very first being up to now. He passes through all the phases. And life is absolutely secure; no need for any employment, no fear of starvation, hunger, everything is being done by the mother's body. Living nine months in the mother's womb in such absolute security creates a problem that has produced your so-called religions. As the child comes out of the mother's womb, the first thing that happens to him is fear. It is obvious. His home is lost, his security is lost. His warmth, his surroundings, all that he knew as his world is completely lost, and he is thrown into a strange world, of which he knows nothing. He has to start breathing on his own. It takes a few seconds for the child to recognize the fact that he has to breathe now on his own - your mother's breathing is not going to help. Just to bring him to his senses the doctor hangs him upside down and hits him on his bottom, hard. What a beginning! And what a welcome! And just out of that hit he starts breathing. Have you ever observed that whenever you are afraid, your breathing changes? If you have not watched it before, you can watch it now. Whenever you are afraid, your breathing will change, immediately. And when you are at ease, at home, unafraid of anything, you will find your breathing falling into a harmony, in a deep accord, becoming more and more silent. In deep meditation it happens sometimes that you feel as if your breathing has stopped. It does not stop, but it almost stops. The beginning for the child is fear of everything. For nine months he was in darkness, and in a modern hospital, where he going to be born, there will be just glaring tube lights all around. And on his eyes, his retina, which has never seen light before, not even a candlelight, this is too much. This light is a shock to his eyes. And the doctor does not take even a few seconds - he cuts the connection that is still joining him with the mother, the last hope of security . . . and such a tiny being. And you know it perfectly well, that nobody is more helpless than a human child, no other child in the whole existence. That's why horses have not invented the hypothesis of God. Elephants have not thought about the idea of God, there is no need. the child of the elephant immediately starts walking and looking around and exploring the world. He is not as helpless as a human child. In fact, on the helplessness of a human child depends so much that you may be surprised: your family, your society, your culture, your religion, your philosophy - everything depends on the helplessness of the human child. In animals, families don't exist for the simple reason that the child does not need the parents. Man had to decide for a certain system.. The father and the mother have to be together to look after the child. It is the outcome of their love affair: this is their doing. Now if the human child is left alone, just like so many animals are, you cannot imagine that he is going to survive; impossible! Where is he going to find food? Whom is he going to ask? What is he going to ask? Perhaps he had come too early? And there are a few biologists who thing that the human child is born premature - nine months are not enough - because he comes so helpless. But the human body is such that the mother cannot carry the child for more than nine months, otherwise she will die, and her death will mean the death of the child. It has been calculated that if the child can live in the mother's womb for at least three years, then perhaps there will be no need for a father and mother and the family, and the society and the culture, and God and the priest. But the child cannot live in the mother's womb for three years. This strange biological situation has affected the whole of human behavior, thinking, the structure of family, society, and this has caused the fear. The first experience of the child is fear, and the last experience of the man is also fear. Birth is also a kind of death, you should remember, just look at it from the child's point of view. he was living in a certain world, which was absolutely satisfactory. He was not in any need at al, he was not greedy for anything more. He was simply enjoying being, enjoying growing - and then suddenly he is thrown out. To the child, this experience is an experience of death: death of his whole world, of his security, of his cozy home. Scientists say that we have not been able yet to create a home as cozy as the womb. We have been trying - all our homes are just efforts to crate that cozy home. We have even tried to make water beds, to give you the same feeling. We have hot bathtubs; lying down in them you can have a little feeling of the child. Those who know how to take a really hot bath will also put salt into it, because in the mother's womb is very salty - the exact amount of salt that is in sea water. But how long can you lie down in a bathtub? We have isolation tanks that are nothing but a search for the same womb that you have lost. Sigmund Freud is not an enlightened man - in fact he is a little bit cuckoo, but sometimes cuckoos also sing beautiful songs. Sometimes he has significant ideas. For example, he thinks this idea of man making love to the woman is nothing but an effort to enter the womb again. There may be something in it. This man is crazy, this idea seems to be far fetched, but even if a man like Sigmund Feud is crazy, he has to be listened to very carefully. I feel that there is something of truth in it, the search for the womb, for the same passage as he had come out from . . . He cannot reach that womb, that is true. Then he created all kinds of things; he started making caves, houses, airplanes. You see the interior of the airplane - it will not be a wonder if one day you find that in the airplane people are floating in tubs of hot water, salted. The airplane can give you exactly the same situation, but it is not going to be satisfactory. The child has not known anything else. We try to make it as cozy: just push a button and the air hostess is there. We make it as comfortable as possible, but we cannot make it as comfortable as it was in the womb. You were not needed even to push a button. Even before you were hungry, you were fed. Even before you needed air, it reached you. You had no responsibility at all. So the child coming out of the mother's womb, if he feels it at all, must feel it as death. He cannot feel it as birth, that is impossible. That is our idea - the idea of those who are standing outside - we say that is birth. And the second time, again one day, after his whole life's effort . . . He has been about to make something - a little house, a family, a small circle of friends, a little warmth, a little corner somewhere in the world where he can relax and be himself, where he is accepted. Difficult - a whole life's struggle, and suddenly, one day, he finds again he is being thrown out. The doctor has come again - and this is the man who had hit him! But that time it was to start the breathing, this time, as far as we know . . Now we are on this side, we don't know the other side. The other side is left to the imagination; that's why heaven and hell . . and every kind of imagination has gone wild. We are on this side and this man is dying. To us he is dying; perhaps he is gain being reborn. But that only he knows, and he cannot turn back and tell us, "Don't be worried, I am not dead, I am alive." he could not turn in his mother's womb to have a last glimpse and say good-bye to you all, and say, "Don't be worried. I am not dying, I am being reborn." The Hindu idea of rebirth is nothing but a projection or ordinary birth. For the womb - if the womb thinks - the child is dead. For the child - if it thinks - it is dying. But he is born; it was not death, it is birth. The Hindus have projected the same idea on death. From this side id looks as if he is dying, but from the other side . . But the other side is our imagination; we can make it as we want it. Every religion makes the other side in a different way because every society and every culture depend on a different geography, a different history. For example, the Tibetan cannot think of the other side as cool - even cool is fearful, cold is impossible. The Tibetan thinks that the dead person is warm, in a new world that always remains warm. The Indian cannot think that it always remains warm. Even four months heat in India is too much, but for eternity to remain warm - you will be cooked! They had no idea of air-conditioning, but the way the Hindus describe their paradise, it is almost air-conditioned - always cool air, neither hot or cold, but cool. it is always spring. Indian spring - all the flowers are in blossom, the winds are full of fragrance, the birds are singing, everything is alive; but no warm, cool air. That they remind us again and again; cool air continues to flow. This is your mind that is projecting the idea; otherwise, for the Tibetan or for the Indian or for the Mohammedan, it cannot be different. The Mohammedan cannot think that the other world is going to be a desert - he has suffered so much in the Arabian desert. The other world is an oasis, an oasis all over. It is not that after a hundred miles you find a small oasis with a little water and a few trees, no - just oases all over, and desert nowhere. We project, but to the person who is dying it is gain the same process that he has experienced once. It is a well known fact that at the time of death, if the person has not become unconscious, has not fallen into a coma, he starts remembering his whole life cycle. He goes on back to the first moment of his life when he was born. it seems to be significant that when he is leaving the world he may have a look at all that has happened. Just in a few seconds that whole calendar moves, just as it moves in your movies. The calendar goes on moving, because in a two-hour movie they have to cover many years . . . .if the calendar moves at die usual pace, you will be sitting in the movie hall for two years, who is going to be able to afford that? No, the calendar just goes on moving the dates go on changing, fast. It goes even faster at the time of death. In a single moment, the whole life flashes by and stops at the first moment. It is the same process that is happening again - life has come around full circle. Why did I want you to remember this? Because your God is nothing but your first day's fear, which goes on and on until the last moment, becoming bigger and bigger. That's why when a person is young he may be an atheist, he can afford to be, but as he grows older to be an atheist becomes a little difficult. If when he is just coming close to his grave, one foot in the grave, you ask him, "Are you still an atheist? he will say, "I am having second thoughts" - because of freer: what is going to happen" His whole world is disappearing. You tell me, "The moment I think of dropping the idea of God, fear comes up." It is a simple indication that with the rock of the idea of God, you are repressing fear; so the moment you remove the rock the fear springs up. If the fear comes up. that means you have to face it; it is in no way going to help you to cover it by the idea of God. You cannot have faith again, that is destroyed. You cannot have faith in God, because doubt is a reality, a faith is fiction. And no fiction can stand before a fact. Now, God is going to remain a hypothesis to you; your prayer will be useless. You will know it is a hypothesis, you cannot forget that it is a hypothesis. Once you have heard a truth it is impossible to forget it. That is one of the qualities of truth, that you don't need to remember it. The lie has to be remembered continually; you may forget. The person habituated to lies needs a better memory than the person who is habituated to truth, because a true person has no need of memory. If you say only the truth there is no need to remember. But if you are saying a lie, then you have to continually remember because you have said one lie to one person, another lie to another person, something else to somebody else. To whom you have said what you have to categorize in your mind and keep. And whenever a question arises about a lie you have to lie again, so it is a series. The lie does not believe in birth control. Truth is celibate, it has no children at all; it is unmarried to fact. Once you have understood that God is nothing but a hypotheses created by the priests, the politicians, the power elite, the pedagogues - all those who want to keep you in psychological slavery, who have some vested interest in your slavery . . . They all want to keep you afraid, always afraid, trembling deep inside, because if you are not afraid, your are dangerous. You can either be a person who is a coward, afraid, ready to submit, surrender, a person who has himself no dignity, no respect for his own being - or you can be fearless. But then you are going to be a rebel, you cannot avoid that. Either you can be a man of faith or you are going to be a rebellious spirit. So those people who don't want you to be rebels - because your being rebellious goes against their interests - go on enforcing, conditioning your mind with Christianity, with Judaism, with Mohammedianism, with Hinduism, and they keep you trembling deep inside. That is their power, so anybody who is interested in power, whose whole life is nothing but a will to power, has tremendous use for the hypothesis of God. If you are afraid of God - and if you believe in God you have to be afraid - you have to follow his orders and commandments, his holy book, his messiah, his incarnation. You have to follow him and his agent,. In fact he does not exist; only the agent exists. This is a very strange business. Religion is the strangest business of all. There is no boss, but there are mediators, the priest, the bishop, the cardinal, the pope, the messiah, the whole hierarchy - and on top there is nobody. But Jesus drives his authority and power from God - his only begotten son. The pope derives his authority from Jesus - his only true representative, infallible. And it goes on and on to the lowest priest . . . but there is no God; it is your fear. You asked for God to be invented because you could not live alone. You were incapable of facing life, its beauties, its joys, its sufferings, its anguishes. You were not ready to experience them on your own without anybody protecting you, without somebody being an umbrella to you. You asked for God out of fear. And certainly these are don men everywhere. You ask and they will do it for you. You will have to drop this idea of God that helps you to remain unafraid. You will have to pass through fear and accept it as a human reality. There is no need to escape from it. What is needed is to go deep into it, and the deeper you go into your fear the less you will find it is. When you have touched the rock bottom of fear you will simply laugh, there is nothing to fear. And when fear disappears there is innocence, and that innocence is the summum bonum, the very essence of a religious man. That innocence is power. That innocence is the only miracle there is. Out of innocence anything can happen, but you will not be a Christian out of that, and you will not be a Mohammedan out of that. Out of innocence you will become simply an ordinary human being, totally accepting your ordinariness and living it joyously, thankful to the whole existence - not to God, because that is an idea given by others to you. But existence is not an idea. It is there all around you, within and without. When you are utterly innocent, a deep thankfulness - I will not call it prayer because in prayer you are asking for something. I will call it a deep thankfulness - a gratitude arises. Not that you are asking for something, but thanking for something that has already been given to you. So much has been given to you. Do you deserve it? Have you earn it? Existence goes on pouring so much over you that to ask for more is just ugly. This which you have received, you should be grateful for it. And the most beautiful thing is that when you are grateful, more and more existence starts pouring over you. It becomes a circle; the more you get, the more you become grateful, the more you become grateful, the more you get. . . and there is no end to it, it is an infinite process. But remember: the hypothesis of God is gone; the moment you called it a hypothesis the idea of God has been already dropped. Whether you are afraid or not, you cannot take it back, it is finished. Now the only way left is to go into your fear. Silently enter into it, so you can find its depth. And sometimes it happens that it is not very deep. A story:
From my own experience I can say to you: the fear is not more than six inches deep. Now it is up to you whether you want to go on clinging to the branch and turn your life into a nightmare, or whether you would have to leave the branch and stand on your feet. There is nothing to fear. |
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