conformist or nonconformist

The nonconformist is a reactionary he acts out of anger, rage, violence and ego. His action is not based in consciousness. Although he goes against the society, just to be against the society is not necessarily to be right.  In fact most of the time to move from one extreme to another is always to move from one wrong to another wrong. a tremendous balance, and that is not possible without awareness, alertness, and immense compassion.

It is not a reaction, it is an action The nonconformist is only against the old, against the established; but he has no creative conception of why he is against it,

When I say reaction, I mean your orientation is basically dependent you are not acting out of freedom and independence. It has very deep implications. It means your action is just a by-product it also means that your action can be controlled very easily.

There is a small story about Mulla Nasruddin. He was a nonconformist, a fundamental reactionary, an absolutely negative mind. If his father would say, ”You have to go to the right,” you can be certain he would go to the left.

Soon the father became aware, and then there was no problem. When he wanted him to go to the right he would say, ”Please go to the left,” and he would go to the right.

He was disobeying, he was nonconformist, but he was completely unaware that he was being dictated to, ordered, controlled and doing actually what his father wanted him to do.

Slowly slowly, he also became aware –
”What is the matter? Before, my father used to be very angry that he had told me to go right and I went left. I am continuing to be as disobedient as ever, but now he never complains.”

Soon he figured out the strategy. One day the old father and Nasruddin were both crossing the river with their donkey, and on the donkey was a big bag of sugar. The bag was leaning more towards the right, and there was a danger that it might slip and fall down into the river.

The father was behind and he knew,
”If I say, ‘Move the bag towards the left,’ I have got such a strange son that he will move it immediately towards the right, and the bag will fall into the river and all the sugar will be lost.”

So he shouted, ”Nasruddin, move the bag towards the right,” hoping that he was going to move it to the left according to the old experience.

But by this time Nasruddin had also figured it out. He said,
”Okay,” and he moved the bag towards the right and the bag fell into the river!

The father said, ”What happened, are you no longer disobedient?”

He said, ”Now I will decide each time whether to be obedient or not. I will not have a fixed philosophy but I will move according to the situation, because you have been cunning with me, you have been cheating me. I’m your son and still you have been cheating me! You have been ordering me in such a way that I should disobey. From today onwards be alert – I may obey, I may disobey. From today I am not going to be predictable, controllable, in your hands anymore.”

The nonconformist is always in the hands of the society and the establishment. The establishment just has to be a little more clever and cunning, and then he can use the nonconformist very easily, without any difficulty.

His focus is not on the establishment his ,His focus is on a potential possibility. He acts out of his freedom. His consciousness.

That is the difference between reaction and action

reaction is always determined by your enemy. Perhaps you have never thought about it – that in reaction the enemy is in a dominating position, he is deciding your action.
What you are going to do, the enemy can decide.

To be a nonconformist is so cheap.

Look at the punks – these are nonconformists – who have cut off their hair on both sides, just keeping a small line of hair in the middle, and that too they have painted in psychedelic colors. Young men, young women...  young men with half their mustaches shaved off and the other half painted, or the full mustache painted in the whole rainbow of colors –

these are the nonconformists! It is very easy.

You can have the buttons of your pants in the back, and you are a nonconformist. It will be a little difficult, it will need a little discipline, but it is very cheap – and very stupid, too.



the crowd

man in the crowd has always behaved blindly. If you pull the same man out of the crowd and ask him,

”What were you doing? Can you do it alone, on your own?” he will feel embarrassed.

And you will be surprised to hear his answer:
”On my own I cannot do such a stupid thing, but when I am in a crowd something strange happens.”

For years lived in a city which was proportionately divided, half and half, into Hindus and Muslms. They were equally powerful, and almost every year riots happened. I used to know a professor in the university where I was teaching. I could never have dreamed that this man could put fire to a Hindu temple; he was such a gentleman – nice, well educated, well cultured.

When there was a riot between the Hindus and the Muslms I was watching, standing by the roadside. Muslm were burning a Hindu temple, Hindus were burning a Muslm mosque.

I saw this professor engaged in burning the Hindu temple. I pulled him out and I asked,
”Professor Farid, what are you doing?”.

He became very embarrassed. He said, ”I’m sorry, I got lost in the crowd. Because everybody else was doing it, I forgot my own responsibility – everybody else was responsible. I felt for the first time a tremendous freedom from responsibility. Nobody can blame me. It was a Muslms crowd, and I was just part of it.”

On another occasion,

a Muslm s watch shop was being looted. It was the most precious collection of watches. An old Hindu priest... The people who were taking away those watches and destroying the shop – they had killed the shop owner – were all Hindus.

An old priest I was acquainted with was standing on the steps and shouting very angrily at the people, ”What are you doing? This is against our religion, against our morality, against our culture. This is not right.”

I was seeing the whole scene from a bookstore, on the first story in a building just in front of the shop on the other side of the road. The greatest surprise was yet to come. When people had taken every valuable article from the shop... there was only an old grandfather clock left – very big, very antique.

Seeing that people were leaving, the old man took that clock on his shoulders. It was difficult for him to carry because it was too heavy. I could not believe my eyes! He had been preventing people, and this was the last item in the shop.

I had to come down from the bookstore and stop the priest. I said to him, ”This is strange. The whole time you were shouting, ‘This is against our morality! This is against our religion, don’t do it!’ And now you are taking the biggest clock in the shop.”

He said, ”I shouted enough, but nobody listened. And then finally the idea arose in me that I am simply shouting and wasting my time, and everybody else is getting something. So it is better to take this clock before somebody else gets it, because it was the only item left.”

I asked, ”But what happened to religion, morality, culture?”
He said this with an ashamed face –

but he said it: ”When nobody bothers about religion, culture and morality, why should I be the only victim? I am also part of the same crowd.

I tried my best to convince them, but if nobody is going to follow the religious and the moral and the right way, then I am not going to be just a loser and look stupid standing there. Nobody even listened to me, nobody took any notice of me.” He carried that clock away.

I have seen at least a dozen riots in that city, and I have asked individuals who have participated in arson, in murder, in rape, ”Can you do it alone, on your own?”

And they all said, without any exception, ”On our own we could not do it. It was because so many people were doing it, and there was no responsibility left. We were not answerable, the crowd was answerable.”

Man loses his small consciousness so easily into the collective ocean of unconsciousness. That is the cause of all wars, all riots, all crusades, all murders.

Individuals have committed very few crimes compared to the crowd. And the individuals who have committed crimes, their reasons are totally different – they are born with a criminal mind, they are born with a criminal chemistry, they need treatment.

But the man who commits a crime because he is part of a crowd has nothing that needs to be treated.... All that is needed is that he should be taken out of the crowd. He should be cleaned – he should be cleaned from all bondages, from any kind of collectivity.

He should be made an individual again –
just as he had come into the world.

The teacher is asking three boys in her class,

”What was your mother doing when you left for school this morning?”

”Doing the washing,” says Tom.

”Cleaning the bedroom,” says Dick.

”Getting ready to go out and shoot ducks,” says Harry.

”What! What are you talking about, Harry?” asked the teacher.
”Well miss,” says Harry, ”my dad has left home, and she threw her knickers on the fire and said she was going back to the game.”

People are imitators. People are not acting on their own grounds; they are reacting. The husband has left her; that brings a reaction in her, a revenge – she is going back to the game.

It is not an action out of consciousness, it is not an indication of individuality.

This is how the collective mind functions
 – always according to somebody else. Either for or against,
it does not matter either conformist or nonconformist,
it does not matter. But it always is directed, motivated, dictated by others.

Left to himself, he will find himself utterly lost – what to do

acts out of freedom with consciousness it is certainly risky, dangerous. It is only for those who have the lion’s heart, who have guts and who have the dignity of human beings. It is not for all.

A man who lives without danger does not live at all. The only way to live is to live dangerously, always moving on a razor’s edge. Then life has a freshness, youthfulness, and a moment to moment intensity, a moment to moment totality, because the next moment is not certain at all.

Those who are living conveniently, comfortably, a middle-class life... the term ”middle-class” is abusive; one should not live a middle-class life. Their convenience is more valuable than sincerity. Their so-called middle-class comforts are more valuable to them than a life lived with intensity and fire. taking initiation to become a flame, with a longing to live dangerously, dropping all conveniences, comforts, moving always into the unknown.

But the beauty is that when you live dangerously and you don’t have any certainty, any guarantee, any insurance for tomorrow, you live today to its fullest extent. You squeeze the juice of every moment to its totality, knowing perfectly well you may not have another chance.

Certainly these are dangerous paths. But those who have followed these paths have enjoyed life in its absolute glory, have lived life in utter ecstasy. Those who have remained middle-class sheep, crowds, their life is so lukewarm that it is neither hot nor cold. It is just a kind of tea which you would not like to drink – neither hot nor cold, just lukewarm.

Don’t live a lukewarm life.

Harry’s strong-minded wife, Martha, took him shopping to buy a pair of trousers.

”Do you want buttons or a zipper?” asked the shop assistant.
”Zipper,” replied Harry quickly.

”Very good, sir,” said the assistant. ”And do you want a five inch zip or a ten inch?”
”Ten inch,” Harry said before Martha could interrupt.

When they got outside, Martha was furious. ”You,” she said, ”you and your ten inch zip! Why, you remind me of the man who lives next door to my father. Every morning he goes down to his garden, unlocks his garage, opens the eight-foot double doors and then wheels his bike out.”

Don’t live a life on a bike.

feeling of insecurity ?.  But what is security ? Is there anything secure in life ? Does security exist at all, or is it just an idea, a consoling idea that man has created for himself?  What security is there?

The people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had gone to bed with absolute security; I don’t think even a single person amongst those two big cities, two hundred thousand people, had gone to bed with any idea of insecurity. And by the morning there were only fires and dead bodies. Not a living thing was left, not even trees, not even birds, no animals, no man. All life simply disappeared. What security is there?

Do you think those six million Jews had ever thought that the gas chambers would be their end, that within a minute they would simply be going out of the chimneys as smoke in the sky? What security is there?

There has never been any security. Death can come any moment, and it always comes without any notice, without any warning. Still, we go on living with the idea of security, and whenever the idea of being a rebel, a rebellious spirit, arises, immediately we think of security. But you don’t have any security!

understands it there is no security – hence, don’t ask for it. Live in insecurity, because that is an actual fact of life. You cannot avoid it, you cannot prevent it, so there is no need to bother about it. Don’t waste time unnecessarily.

In the days when Disraeli and Gladstone were political enemies, the British houses of Parliament rang with their heated debates. Once Gladstone shouted at the prime minister,

”Sir, you will come to your end either upon the gallows or of a venereal disease.”

Disraeli adjusted his monocle and replied with unruffled calm,

”I should say, Mr. Gladstone, that depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.”

Take life at ease. Be unruffled

Just look around life. It is so ridiculous, so humorous. Only people who are blind can be serious

with eyes, it is impossible to be serious. Just be watchful, look all around and you will be surprised how many beautiful things you are missing.

”Harry,” asks his wife, ”if we had a four-minute nuclear warning, what would you do?”
”Make love to you,” answered Harry.

”Yes,” said his wife, ”but what about the other three minutes?”

Take life as a beautiful joke. There is nothing to be serious about.

strange combination

This century has given birth to only one philosophical school, and that is existentialism. In existentialism, boredom is the central theme – not God, not whether existence consists of matter or consciousness, not heaven and hell. The main theme is boredom.

It is not a small matter that the best thinkers of this age are finding that man’s most essential need today is how to get out of this boredom. It is becoming heavier and heavier, like a black cloud, and destroying all joy; making life meaningless, creating a situation in which it seems that to be born is a curse, not a blessing. The philosophers are saying that life is a curse, a meaningless boredom, an unending anguish which serves no purpose at all. You suffer so much, you sacrifice so much, and the end result is simply nothing.

The politicians have brought the nations into a state of continuous war – sometimes cold, sometimes hot but the war continues; and

scientists have provided the means to destroy this earth at least seven hundred times. That calculation of seven hundred times is almost ten years old. Within these ten years, they must have become able to destroy the earth at least seven thousand times –

so many nuclear weapons!


It is a strange combination

philosophers giving the idea of suicide as the only way out of this mess, and

politicians creating communism, democracy, socialism, fascism, all kinds of ideologies –

not for man, but man is there to be sacrificed for these ideologies.

And the scientists have created the right weapons in the right time, so that at any moment all of life on this planet can disappear.



the third world war

Albert Einstein was asked,
”Do you have something to say about the third world war ?”

He said, ”I am sorry. I cannot say anything about the third world war, but if you want to know about the fourth, I can say something.”

The man who had asked the question simply could not believe it. If he could not say anything about the third, what could he say about the fourth?

He asked him, unbelievingly, ”Okay, what can you say about the fourth?”

And Albert Einstein said,
”The fourth will never happen – that much can be said about the fourth!
About the third, nothing can be said.”

Lust for power is the foundation of all wars.

The whole society has been conditioned to live in a reactionary way, it has been conditioned to be slaves not masters. Hence, when a few people revolt against the powers – to change the power structure, and replace the old establishment with themselves –

only then do they find that what the old establishment was doing,
they, too, have to do otherwise, there will be immense chaos.

But then it is too late to understand.

And slowly slowly, they themselves turn into the same kind of people that they have thrown out – in fact, worse, because now they know the taste of power, and  they also know how they have thrown out the people who were in power before them. Soon there will be a new generation coming, which will start talking about revolution – because nothing has been changed.

They are more alert to repress any possibility of revolution because they know how they threw out the old power structure they are not going to be thrown out in the same way. They will not allow freedom of speech, which is a basis for any revolution to happen, and they will crush every individual who does not follow their structure.

For sixty years in the Soviet Union, the communist regime has proved far worse than the regime of the czars that it had revolted against. At least in the regime of czars, it was possible to create a revolution; but under a communist regime it is almost impossible. They don’t allow it from the very beginning.  All publications are government owned, radio is government owned, television is government owned.

In fact, now, in the name of communism, private property has been taken over by the state. So to call the Soviet Union a communist country is not right – it is state capitalism.

In America, there are many capitalists, and their large number gives a certain feeling of movement and change, and the possibility of revolution.  In the Soviet Union, there is only one communist, and that is the state itself. All power, all wealth, all land, everything belongs to the state man has been denuded completely of all ownership.

The educational institutions are all run by the government. You read only what the government wants you to read, you listen only to government radio stations, and on the television you see only what the government wants you to see.

You cannot have another political party in opposition to the Communist Party because it is not a democracy – it is a dictatorship of the proletariat. It is just a name, dictatorship of the proletariat; but in the name of the proletariat, it is the Communist Party which is the dictator. It is the same small group of people who have been ruling for sixty years, and total power is in their hands.

Joseph Stalin, who established communist rule in Russia, killed at least one million people in his own land. These were the same people for whom the revolution was preached and of these million people, most of them were revolutionaries. He had to kill them because now those revolutionaries were a risk.

To let them live was dangerous because they were asking continually,
”What happened to the revolution?”

Only the people in power had changed, but the revolution seemed to be happening no where all was the same. Instead of many capitalists, now there was only one capitalist, the state, which certainly made it immensely powerful and there was no opposition party, there was no question of any opposition.

It is well known – there is no evidence to prove it, but there is every possibility of its being true –

that as the revolution succeeded, Lenin, the leader of the revolution, and Trotsky, his second in command, his right hand, Commeneau, Zinoviev, and other great communist revolutionaries were killed one by one.

Lenin was given small doses of poison every day, under the pretext of giving him medicine. It was his wife who confessed it – that Stalin never allowed any other doctor except his own to take care of Lenin; and his condition went on worsening. Stalin did not want him to die immediately because, in Lenin’s name, he first wanted to establish himself securely. Stalin was only the secretary of the party; his contribution to the revolution was not much, he was not a well-known figure in the nation or internationally.

Lenin was the founder of the revolution, and Trotsky was the most influential leader – even Lenin was not such a charismatic leader. Stalin kept Lenin alive, but at most half-alive. While slowly slowly poisoning him on the one hand, on the other hand he went on taking more and more power into his own hands.

When Stalin was completely in control, Lenin was finished.  Lenin never ruled over Russia. After   the revolution he was continuously sick; he was kept sick. Then Commeneau was caught,  Zinoviev was assassinated, and Trotsky, who was the defense minister, escaped Russia fearing that now Lenin was dead his number was going to be up.

And you cannot conceive the inhumanity of man to man. The day Stalin’s assassins reached Trotsky’s house... he had already left the Soviet Union just a few hours before. They found only his dog in the house, and it seems almost unbelievable,  but Stalin ordered the dog to be assassinated immediately –

just a mad mind corrupted by power.  And he sent professional murderers to find where Trotsky was, he had to be killed – he could not be left alive anywhere in the world. And Trotsky had escaped to an unknown part of Mexico, far away from the Soviet Union, at the other end of the world.  But they finally found him, and he was brutally murdered by being hit on his head repeatedly with a hammer. His whole skull was broken into pieces.

He was writing a biography of Joseph Stalin so future generations would know that just to change the people in power is not enough – Stalin had proved to be far worse than the Czars. It is a big volume, almost one thousand pages; and a rare biography written by an enemy, so sincere, so truthful. When he was hit on his head from behind with a hammer, he was just finishing the last line of the biography. His blood is on the last pages of the book. The book is still kept in some museum in Mexico, his handwritten book with his blood on it.

All the other leaders who had been the great revolutionaries were killed, one after another, because these people were dangerous. They were still talking about revolution, and Stalin recognized the fact that no revolution was possible.  It was good to talk about it before the revolution, but now that the responsibility has fallen on your own shoulders, you have to forget all about revolution. You have to establish yourself and your party in power with such force that nobody can destroy your power.


There is a beautiful story....

When Stalin died and Khrushchev became the prime minister, his first speech was to the highest inner circle of the Communist Party, called the Presidium. While he was speaking, he said,

”Now I have to confess that Stalin was one of the greatest criminals. He knew only one thing: either you are for him or you are his enemy. And for the enemy, there is nothing other  than death.”

Somebody in the back of the auditorium shouted,

”You have been with him for all these forty years. Why did you remain silent?”

Khrushchev laughed and said,
 ”I would like the honorable comrade to stand up, so that I can see who is raising the question.”

Nobody stood up, and Khrushchev said,
”Do you understand ? If anybody stands, tomorrow he will be dead. After tomorrow, he will never be heard of again anywhere in the universe. I was also in a similar position.”

The whole country became a concentration camp. And they have used methods against human beings which have never been used by any other government or any other power. First, they would make an arrest if there was any suspicion... if a man had talked to someone against the Communist Party, against the government; or he had written a letter to someone indicating a slight difference with the Communist Party – he would be arrested immediately.

And these procedures would be followed for fifteen days he would be in police custody, and the police would not allow him to sleep they would inject him so that he could not sleep, not even a wink. They would inject chemicals to disturb his mind, to erase his memory; they would create a false madness in the man. And then after fifteen days, the man would be produced before the court.

The government attorney would say,
”He has been arrested because he is not in his right senses – he is insane.”

Such a beautiful facade... and then the court would go through its procedures: the judge would ask the man,

”What is your name ?” And the man would look all around, because he has forgotten everything, his memory has been erased. And naturally, the judge has to declare him mad. He has to be sent into a madhouse where he will be killed; nobody will ever know what happened to him in the madhouse. Or people will be sent to Siberia where life is worse than death. Death is a rest... Siberia is not a place to live, it is a place to suffer.

This has continued up to now the revolution has utterly failed. And this was the greatest revolution as far as history is concerned the greatest experiment, on the largest scale, with a profound philosophy to support it.

The same happened to the French Revolution and to the Chinese Revolution. The very mechanism of revolution is such that its success is almost impossible. If you want to remain in power, you have to be violent, destructive – particularly destructive of those people who have revolutionary ideas. Those ideas were great and good against the older regime, but they are not good against the new regime in which you are powerful. And all the promises have to be forgotten completely because they prove to be utopian.

They were against nationalism before the revolution, but afterwards Soviet Russia became a holyland. Now they wanted their power to become more and more spread all over the world. They were now imperialists, no longer against nationalism, although they continued to speak beautiful revolutionary language.

They were very articulate before the revolution they had learned all that language. Now they started talking about an international communism but ”international communism” was to be nothing but a Soviet imperialist state

Before the revolution in China, Mao Zedong, the leader of the revolution, was a follower – very intimate follower – of Joseph Stalin. But once Mao came into power, there was immediately a conflict because Stalin wanted China also to be part of one communist block.

That meant Mao’s own lust for power had no place – China would also become one of the republics of the Soviet Union. Mao resisted it and they became enemies. China and the Soviet Union, both communist countries, became so antagonistic to one another that one can see why it is difficult to have an international government.  Some nation will try, in the name of international government, to exert its own lust for power and rule over the whole world.



Lust for power is the foundation of all wars.

If you look at human history... the whole of human history is nothing but a history of wars, man killing man. Reasons have changed, but the killing continues. It seems reasons are only excuses. The real fact is that man enjoys killing.

In one of Aesop’s fables – and those are some of the greatest fables in the world, so simple and so significant – a small sheep is drinking water from a mountain stream of crystal-clear water.  A great lion comes and naturally becomes interested in the sheep – it is breakfast time but he has to find an excuse. So he says to the sheep, ”You are dirtying the stream.  Don’t you understand that I am the king of the jungle?”

The poor sheep said, ”I know, but your highness, the stream is not going towards you. I am standing below you and even if it becomes dirty by my drinking water, the water is going downwards – not towards you. You are making it dirty and I am drinking that dirty water.  So your logic is not right.”

The lion saw the point and became very angry. He said,
 ”You don’t have respect for your elders. You have some nerve arguing with me.”

The poor sheep said, ”I have not argued, I have simply said what was factual. You can see that the stream is going downwards.”

The lion was silent for a moment and then said,
”Now I remember. You belong to a very uncultured, uneducated family. Your father insulted me yesterday.”

The poor sheep said, ”It must have been somebody else, because my father has been dead for three months, and you must know that he is within your belly. He is no longer alive. You have made a lunch of him.  How can he behave disrespectfully towards you?  He is dead!”

That was too much. The lion jumped and caught hold of the sheep saying, ”You don’t know manners, you don’t know etiquette, you don’t know how to behave.”

The sheep said,
”The simple fact is, it is breakfast time. You simply eat me there is no need to find any excuse.”

In such simple parables,
Aesop has done miracles. He has said so much about man.

Crisis identity

People are afraid to relax. People are afraid to trust. People are afraid of tears. People are afraid of anything out of the ordinary, out of the mundane. They resist, and in their resistance they dig their own grave and they never come to juicy moments, to ecstatic experiences, which are their right they just have to claim them.

A Jewish man living in Los Angeles goes to see a psychiatrist. He introduces himself as Napoleon Bonaparte, even though his file card shows his name to be Hymie Goldberg.

”So what seems to be the problem?” asked the doctor. 

”Well, Doc, actually everything is great. My army is strong, my palace magnificent and my country is prospering. My only problem is Josephine, my wife.”

”Ah,” says the doctor, ”and what is her problem?” 

Throwing his hands up in despair, the man says, ”She is thinking she is Mrs. Goldberg.”

In his tensions, in his anxieties, in his problems, man loses himself in the crowd. 

He becomes someone else. He knows that he is not the role he is playing; he is somebody else. This creates a tremendous psychological split in him. He cannot play the role correctly because he knows it is not his authentic being, and he cannot find his authentic being. He has to play the role because the role gives him his livelihood, his wife, his children, his power, his respectability, everything. He cannot risk it all, so he goes on playing the role of Napoleon Bonaparte. Slowly, slowly he starts believing it himself. He has to believe it, otherwise it will be difficult to play the part.

The best actor is the one who forgets his individuality and becomes one with his acting then his crying is authentic, his love is authentic, then whatever he says is not just the prompted role, it comes from his very heart – it looks almost real.

I have heard Mulla Nasruddin and his wife had gone to see a movie and the hero hugs his beloved, kisses her, and Mulla Nasruddin’s wife says to him, ”You never do this to me.”

Mulla said, ”You don’t understand. This is just a film, not reality, and this is all acting.” 

The wife said, ”Perhaps you don’t know, but the woman who is playing the role of the heroine is the wife of the hero in real life.”

Mulla Nasruddin said, 

”My God, then he is really an actor! Up to now I was thinking he is just an ordinary actor.

 

He is really an actor... his own wife, and he is showing so much love.”

Cry out of joy

the feelings of crying and laughing are not contradictory. You can cry out of joy, not only out of misery; you can cry out of great blissfulness.

Tears are nothing but an overflow they can be an overflow of sadness, they can be an overflow of joy, they can be an overflow of love. And because your crying and laughter are together, it is absolutely certain that your crying and your laughter are not contradictory. Your laughter is so overwhelming that tears come to your eyes you cannot contain it, it is not finished and exhausted in laughter itself. The joy is so much that it needs your laughter and your tears both to express itself.

So I will not call it a mixture of feelings, but simply a two-dimensional expression of a single feeling

the same thing is the case. Sadness is not necessarily misery, suffering, pain it is associated with those things because we live in misery, in suffering, in pain. That’s why we don’t know other nuances of sadness. A silent man also feels deep sadness, but it is not out of suffering, it is just an expression of silence.

The joy can be so great that it becomes inexpressible. Expression has limitations – how to express joy ? You can dance, you can sing. Because you cannot express your joy, that unexpressed joy comes out as something closer to sadness. But it is not the sadness that people know ordinarily, it is just that joy unexpressed turns into silence and sadness.  There is no contradiction, you need not be worried about it.

And don’t stop your tears, don’t be shy about crying; it is one of the most beautiful experiences. But it has been condemned for centuries by the old humanity. People have been told that it is not manly to cry and weep.

Now, psychological researchers say something totally different. They say women have never been conditioned against crying and weeping for the simple reason that man wanted them to look weak,not to look strong. He himself wanted to look strong, made of steel. Crying and weeping is for the weak, feminine mind. So he has never stopped them. But the ultimate result is that women live five years longer than men. One hundred and fifteen boys are born for every one hundred girls, but by the time they get married, fifteen boys have died off while a hundred girls are still alive; they are stronger, they have more resistance.

Women talk about suicide more than men – almost every day, over any small thing – but they never commit it.  Even if sometimes they commit suicide they commit it with sleeping pills,  just so the husband has to call the doctor and becomes ashamed. And the neighborhood gathers, and humiliates him:

”You should not behave so... you are a barbarian!”
And the woman does not die.

The number of suicides of men is double that of women; the number of murders is twenty times more than those of women. The amount of madness is four times more than women’s. It is very strange, because the women look more crazy – they go crazy about small things. They start throwing cups and saucers... but they always  throw cheap things. I have been watching,  because this is strange:

they never throw costly things. They throw pillows, they don’t really want to hurt – they throw in such a way that it does not hurt the husband.  But they create a tantrum, and the whole neighborhood knows.

And that’s what the husband is afraid of ! So they make a fool of him, and he’s  ready to accept whatever they want. Whichever movie they want to go to, whichever car they want to purchase, the husband will purchase it even if he has to sell himself.  ”Nothing to worry... but don’t make a drama!”

But strangely enough, women don’t go mad as much as men, and the psychological insight is that it is because they are free to cry and to weep. They are free to throw tantrums,  break old, rotten pottery, cups and saucers which anyway had to be thrown.

But in this way, they release their madness in installments – the American way !

Man goes on accumulating, and there comes a point that it becomes too much and he has to do something kill himself, or kill somebody else.

I used to be a neighbor of a Bengali professor, Professor Battacharya. The first day I entered my bungalow at night, there was a great fight between Battacharya and his wife. And the walls were so thin that even if you whispered, still you could hear... and they were shouting! Although I had no idea of Bengali...

but one thing was certain: something was going to happen, they were really furious! Finally, the professor opened the door and went out.

I had to ask the wife, ”I don’t know you people, I have come for the first day to this house, but I cannot resist the temptation to inquire what is happening. Where has your husband gone? And because I don’t understand your language, it has become even more difficult  otherwise, I would have done something. You just tell me – where has he gone in the middle of the night?”

She said, ”You need not be worried. He has gone to commit suicide.”
I said, ”Are you mad? If he has gone to commit suicide... you are telling me not to be worried?”

She said, ”He goes almost every day. You don’t know Bengalis. They are not like Punjabis that if they go to commit suicide, they will commit it. He will come back within five, seven minutes – just wait.”

I said, ”Okay, but my feeling is that I should go and find him.”
She said, ”Don’t be worried, he will be just five or seven minutes at the most.” And within seven minutes, he was back!

I asked him, ”You had gone to commit suicide?”
He said, ”Yes, I had gone to commit suicide, but the train comes only one time a day. It comes in the morning at eight o’clock, and to pass the whole night in the cold, lying down on the rails ... it is too much.  I will rest in the house, and I will see in the morning.”

His wife said, ”Look, do you think this man will ever be capable of committing suicide?”

And then it was every day, but by and by I became accustomed. One day he came back because it started raining.  A man who has gone to commit suicide does not come back because it is raining!

What does it matter when you are going to die? But any excuse... and his wife was absolutely certain that there was no need to be alarmed: ”In Bengal, no Bengali commits suicide. They talk about it.”

One day things came to such a great crisis that he told his wife, ”You prepare my tiffin.”

I was listening – they were fighting. Suddenly he said, ”You prepare my tiffin. I’m going to commit suicide.” And I saw him going out with his umbrella and tiffin. I asked Battacharya, ”Have you decided firmly this time?”

He said, ”Absolutely!  Just because the trains arrive late, I’m taking the tiffin with me. I’m not going to come back. Enough is enough.”

But the train was very late. And the first thing he did – because I followed him.... The station was not far away from the university, just half a mile. I followed behind him to see what he did. The first thing he did, sitting under a beautiful tree – he ate his breakfast, and inquired when the train would come. It was six hours late, so he went back.

I met him on the way. I said, ”What happened?”
He said, ”It is too late. And in six hours, I will again feel hungry. So it is better to go home, and if I decide to commit suicide, I will have to bring the tiffin again.”

But this may be a special characteristic of the Bengalis!

Generally, around the world,  men commit suicide four times more than women, but more in countries which are countries of warriors. For example, in Japan, the ratio is ten times more. A Japanese can commit suicide for the slightest reason – such a trivial thing that you would not think that it was worth committing suicide over. In Germany, seven times more men than women do it.

The warrior races....  Man is trained to prove himself as if made of steel, and a man made of steel does not cry. The psychological investigations show that it is crying and weeping that makes women stronger in many ways – they live longer, they have more resistance against weaknesses, sicknesses. Men become sick more. Women have more resistance against pain, misery, poverty, than men, and the whole credit goes to their tears – because they can cry wholeheartedly.

enjoy crying and laughing together  that is what is expected of every madman. Only madmen laugh and cry together, sane people do only one thing at a time. They always remain rational. They think crying and laughing are contradictory, so if they want to cry and laugh, they separate them  sometimes they can cry, sometimes they can laugh, but they miss the joy of the harmony of both.  Neither is laughter by itself so juicy as it is with crying and tears, nor are tears so dancing as they are with laughter. Each misses something.

Always remember  that you have the full orchestra within you. without any fear.  Let the world think you are mad. If you are enjoying it, it is right! If you can dance and sing and cry altogether,  simultaneously They are together. In the deepest silences of your heart, they are together. Express them as they come naturally, and don’t be ashamed of anything.

Never be ashamed of your nature be respectful of your nature. Never have any condemnatory tone. That’s what all the traditions have given to you as a heritage condemnation of yourself. And in this tricky manner they have taken away your dignity, your self-respect.

Every child is beautiful and lovely

Every child is beautiful, lovely. And this is because he is born with love. But then, by and by, a disorder somehow occurs within him. Every child is so lovely; every child is so beautiful.  Have you ever seen an ugly child?

The beauty of a child has nothing to do with his physical body, it comes from some inner strength. Within him, his lamp of love burns brightly and its rays emanate from every pore of his body, spreading their luster all around. Wherever he looks, he looks with love.

But as he grows he begins to lose this love.  And we help in that process. We do not teach him how to love, we teach him how to guard himself against it, how to be wary of it. We tell him that love is very risky, very dangerous. We teach him to be suspicious, to be full of doubt. We tell him it is necessary to be like this, that people will take advantage of him otherwise.

We tell him there is much cheating, dishonesty and treachery in the world, that it is everywhere, and that unless he is on guard people will rob and cheat him. We tell him there are thieves everywhere. We are totally unaware of the fact that  God is everywhere,  yet we never forget that robbers abound!

And so we train children to be on their guard against thieves. If you want to prepare children in this way, then you cannot teach them love – because love is dangerous.  Love means trust; love means faith;  love means accepting – and being suspicious is keeping a look-out so no one can steal from you it is being on guard, remaining constantly alert, as if there could be an attack at any moment from any quarter.  So, before any attack comes,  you yourself become the aggressor.  You see this as the best way of protecting yourself. We train our children to be like sentries. And this is how we do it.

As a child grows he becomes involved in protecting himself – with money, with a house, with all sorts of things.  He makes every possible arrangement to secure himself  from attack, no matter from which quarter it might come. But in the midst of all these arrangements we forget that we are closing all our doors,  that we are even barring the entry of love.  Our protection may now be complete

To be insecure is to be alive.

And, of course, living like this there is no safety. A stone is safe and a flower lives in danger – but a stone is dead and a flower is full of life! If a storm comes, the flower will fall but the stone will remain where it was. Mischievous children may come and pick the flower, but the stone will remain where it was. When the sun sets in the evening the flower will wither, but the stone will remain unaffected, will remain in its place.

Would you prefer to be a stone simply because it is safe from such dangers ?  That is the condition you have chosen! You have become like stones. The flower is always in jeopardy. Love is a flower. And there is no greater flower, no more important flower in this world than love. There is also nothing that is in greater danger

We prepare children to live so-called ”safe” lives, and the result is that love starts to wither. Then we teach them to be dishonest, and love withers even more. Then we show them how to be egoists, and love dies. There is only one way to be full of love, to be loving, and that is to love onese lf.

And we teach our children to save themselves  we never teach them to lose themselves,  to let themselves go. We tell them it is a question of one’s name, of one’s  family, of one’s community, of one’s nation.

Once Mulla Nasruddin’s eldest son ran away from home. The Mulla was very unhappy, but after a while he heard that his son had joined a theatrical company and had become a great actor. Now the Mulla began to praise him.  After some time it was announced that the drama company was coming to the town where the Mulla lived. He bought a dozen first-class tickets and invited all his friends.

He invited me as well. The Mulla wanted everyone to see what a great actor his son had become. He was very excited it was a great occasion for him. On the night of the play we all went to the theater. The play began, but by the time the first act was almost over there was still no sign of the Mulla’s son. The Mulla was perched nervously on the edge of his seat. The first act finished and the second began. The son was not in the second act either.

Now the Mulla began to get a bit upset; he became quite dejected. When the third and final act opened his son was still not on the stage. Near the end of the play, when it was almost time for the curtain and the audience was getting ready to leave, the Mulla’s son appeared on the stage with a gun in his hand. He was playing the part of a sentry. He walked back and forth across the stage in front of a gate. Then the curtain began to fall! He had not spoken a single line!

The Mulla could not take this. He stood up and cried aloud,
”You fool! You may not be allowed to say anything, but at least fire your gun!
The prestige of our house is at stake!”

We educate our children in the ways of prestige, pride and vanity. We admonish them never to do anything that might endanger the prestige of the house, of the family, of the name. How pleased you are when your son stands  first in his class! You teach him not to love, not  to be loving, but when he stands  first at school you receive him with kindness and distribute sweets to your friends and relatives.
Do you know what you are doing?

You tell your son to try always to be first. But only they who know how to be last receive love. You tell him to compete, to fight, to be ambitious, always to be first no matter what the cost. You are teaching your son politics; you are making him into a politician. And now throughout his life, come what may, he will always try to be first. But one day he will realize that he may have stood  first, but that he has lost the real thing: he has lost the ability to love; he has lost the greatest  thing in life.

A politician cannot love anyone. He has no friends. He cannot have any friends. Do you think a politician can have a friend?

How can one who has power and authority have a friend ? All who are near are enemies, awaiting him downfall, always ready to throw her out. That is why a politician makes changes in her Cabinet so often. It is dangerous to keep a person in the same post too long because he will become too sure of himself. Being sure of his position, he will trip him up whenever he gets the chance and knock her down. This is the tactic used by everyone who has ever risen to the top.

How can there be love in politics?

Politics is full of hatred, conflict and competition. When you want your son to be competitive you are indirectly teaching him hatred, antagonism and hostility. You also want your son to amass great wealth – piles and piles of money. But don’t  you know that

the lives of those who acquire great stacks of money are devoid of love? Their lives are empty of  love. Those who have real love in their lives have so much genuine riches they are not crazy enough to pursue this other so-called wealth.

Try to understand this point clearly and carefully. Wealth is a substitute for love, and so you will never find love in the life of a miser. He is a miser because there is no love in him. His substitute for love is his wealth.

If love exists in your life then you know you have spread so much love around that those who have received it will care for you if some difficulty arises in the future. And if there is so much love in your life that it takes the form of prayer, then you know that God will look after you. You will think,

” If He takes such good care of the birds and plants, why should He be displeased with me?”

But if there is no love in your life then you know that there is no one but your bank balance to look after you. Then your only friend is your wealth. If there is no love in your life who will worry about you in your old age? Who will massage your tired feet? Who will help you? Who will support you in your old age? If there is no love in your life, no one will. Then you will only have your money. It will be your only friend. In a miserly, loveless life there is no support, no help but wealth.

So you will find that the heart of a rich man is as lifeless as his grip on his wealth is solid.

Imam Qurthubi bersumpah telah berjumpa dengan Nabi shallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam

Ketika Habib Mundzir mengatakan bahwa beliau tadi malam mimpi bertemu Rasulullah shallahu ‘alaihiwa sallam dan

Nabi berkata kepada beliau

“Jangan engkau katakan kepada tamu-tamuku itu ucapan-ucapan yang menyakiti perasaan mereka. Katakan ucapan yang lembut. Jangan engkau katakan sambil marah-marah didepan orang-orang yang hadir maulid, karena itu tamu-tamuku ! 

katakanlah pada mereka bahwa Muhammad mencintai mereka !
katakan Muhammad rindu pada mereka !
katakan Muhammad menyayangi mereka !

itu ucapan yang patut kau ucapkan di Maulid Nabi Muhammad !”

Beliau mengucapkan itu di kediaman Habib Taufiq bin Abdul Qadir as-Seggaf Pasuruan, kira-kira di tahun 2000/2001, saat itu saya masih nyantri di sana dan kebetulan saya mendengar langsung ucapan beliau karena saya duduk tepat di hadapan beliau. Hati saya ketika itu merasakan kebahagian yang sangat luar biasa mendapat kabar gembira dari Nabi melalui mimpi habib Mundzir al-Musawa.

Oleh sebagian kaum sufahaa jongos (lemah akalnya/wahhabi-salafi) cerita ini dianggapnya khurafat dan dusta. Saya tak akan berpanjang lebar untuk menjelaskannya secara ilmiyyah berdasarkan al-Quran dan Hadits,

namun saya langsung akan menampilkan bukti dari imam besar ahli tafsir, yang shaleh, zuhud dan wira’i, yang menjadi rujukan para ulama besar Ahlus sunnah, yaitu imam al-Qurthubi (578-656 H). Beliau dalam salah satu kitabnya BERSUMPAH pernah berjumpa kepada Nabi shallahu‘alaihi wa sallam secara sadar (bukan tidur) yang sebelumnya beliau mimpi terlebih dahulu. Berikut redaksinya dari kitab al-Mufhim karya beliau :

“ Sungguh hal ini (mimpi lalu menjadi kenyataan) SERING terjadi padaku beberapa kali, di antaranya :

Ketika aku sampai ke Tunis, bermaksud untuk berangkat haji, aku mendengar kabar buruk tentang negeri Mesir dari musuhnya yang telah menguasai Dimyath. Maka aku rencanakan untuk menetap sementara di Tunis hingga sampai selesai dari urusan musuh. Kemudian aku bermimpi berada di masjid Nabi dan aku duduk di sisi Mimbarnya.

Dan beberapa orang memberi salam kepada Nabi shallahu ‘alaihiwa sallam. Tiba-tiba seseorang mendatangiku dan menegorku “ Berdirilah dan ucapkan salam kepada Nabi “. Maka buru-buru aku ucapkan salam kepada Nabi dan aku terbangun dari tidurku dan lisanku masih mengucapkan salam kepada Nabi.

Maka Allah memberikan kemudahan kepadaku dan hilanglah rasa takutku terhadap musuh di luar sana.

Kemudian aku bersafar (pergi) hingga sampai di Iskandariyyah dengan perjalanan selama kurang lebih 30 hari dalam keadaan selamat. Dan aku mendapati Iskandariyyah dan kota-kota Mesir dalam keadaan mencekam, susah dan banyak musibah. Aku menetap di sana sepuluh hari dan Allah telah memecahkan pasukan musuh dan menetapkan kota aku tempati dengan tanpa gangguan sedikit pun dari musuh dengan kelembutan Allah yang Maha Pengasih dari Dzat yang Maha Pengasih.

Kemudian Allah menyempurnakan kebaikan-Nya kepadaku dengan mentaqdirkanku sampai ke makam Nabi shallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam dan masjidnya setelah melakukan haji,

DAN SUNGGUH DEMI ALLAH,

AKU MELIHAT NABI DALAM KEADAAN SADAR PERSIS KEADANNYA SEBAGAIMANA AKU MELIHATNYA DALAM MIMPIKU TANPA ADA TAMBAHAN DAN PENGURANGAN SEDIKIT PUN “.

(AL-Mufhim lima asykala min talkhish kitabMuslim, juz 5 hal. 24-25, cetakan Dar Ibn Katisr dan Dar al-Kalim ath-Thayyib,Beirut)

Sungguh benar sabda Nabi shallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam :

من رآني في المنام فسيراني في اليقظة ولا يتمثل الشيطان بي

” Barangsiapa melihatku dalam mimpi, maka dia akan melihatku di waktu terjaga, dan syaithan tak bisa menyerupaiku ” (HR. Bukhari no: 6993)

Masihkah kaum Sufahaa ul Ahlaam (wahhabi-salafi jongos ) memungkiri kisah di atas dan mengatakan imam Qurthubi telah berdusta dan melakukan khurafat ???

sungguh mereka tidak menyadari telah mendustakan hadits Nabi shallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam tersebut,
naudzu billahi min dzaalik…

Ibnu Abdillah Al-Katibiy
Kota Santri, 13-05-2013


Nota

jongos adl tambahan dr penulis blog harap maklum

Untuk artikel lengkap sila rujuk
http://warkopmbahlalar.com/6911/imam-qurthubi-bersumpah-telah-berjumpa-dengan-nabi-shallahu-alaihi-wa-sallam/

artikel warkopmbahlalar.com tdk bermakna blog tersebut bersependapat dengan penulis blog harap maklum

Jangan Jual Nama Agama


Janganlah engkau mencari makan atas nama agama
Makan atas nama agama menjual agama namanya
Buruk sangat sebutannya atau bunyinya

Janganlah engkau menentang agama atas nama agama
Itu adalah munafik namanya
Ditakuti jatuh kepada kekufuran secara tidak sedar

Janganlah engkau menentang ahli-ahli agama kerana engkau lemah mengerjakannya
Lantas engkau hasad dengki dan menentangnya
Sungguh besar dosanya
Mungkin engkau akan menjadi munafik

Sepatutnya engkau kesal di atas kelemahan engkau
Dan engkau bergembira di atas kemampuan orang lain
Dan engkau minta pertolongan Allah Taala agar dapat mengerjakannya
Lebih-lebih lagi janganlah engkau menyesatkan orang
kerana kurangnya ilmu engkau terhadap amalannya
Ditakuti orang itu tidak sesat, tapi engkaulah yang sesat
Kerana pengetahuan agama itu bukan setakat apa yang ada pada engkau
Banyak lagi engkau tidak tahu apa yang orang lain tahu

Janganlah engkau sombong dengan ilmu engkau yang sedikit itu
Kemudian merasa sudah banyak memiliki ilmu
Apabila berlainan sahaja amalan orang lantas engkau menyesatkannya
Padahal dia beramal dengan pengetahuan,
sedangkan engkau menghukumnya atau menuduhnya tanpa pengetahuan

Takutilah Allah!
Berhati-hatilah membuat tuduhan
Ditakuti engkau sudah sesat lantaran menyesatkan orang
Bukan orang itu yang sesat


Ustaz Ashaari Muhammad
20.8.2003 – 1
Menjelang Zuhur