over together to find out. When you say, “I love my family, husband, wife or the
girl or the boy,” what does it mean? Without finding out for yourself really,
deeply what that word means, how can you ever find out the meaning and the
depth of death? Is love a matter of time, something to be cultivated, something to
be practiced? Do you think it is to be practiced, that it is something your guru
will tell you to do and at the end of it you will achieve love? Is it the result of
thought, time, a process? Why have human beings throughout the world given
such tremendous significance to sex, which they call love? Have you noticed in
your own life why sex has become such an all-consuming and important thing?
Why? Do answer it.
To find out, you have to ask why our life, the daily living with all its conflict,
suffering, the agony of everyday brutality, has become so mechanical. Isn’t your
life very mechanical? Going to the office every day, following tradition every
day, establishing certain patterns of activity, certain beliefs—God or no God,
higher-self, lower-self, all that nonsense—and going on with them for the rest of
your life. You get into a habit and repeat, repeat, repeat. You know, it would be a
marvelous thing if you said to yourself, “I will never repeat anything that I do not
know,” and if you would not repeat what you yourself have not completely
understood. To repeat what somebody has said, or the Gita, the Koran, the Bible,
or your favorite sacred book, has also become a habit, a routine. Do try it and
see; find out.
When you observe you will see that your life has become extraordinarily
mechanical. We are discussing, please, sharing this problem. There is nothing to
be ashamed about; it is a fact whether you like it or not. And sex is the only thing
that you have which is free; and that soon also becomes a habit. And all this you
call love: love of God, devotion to your guru, to your idol, a hero. The hero, the
guru, the thing is yourself to whom you are devoted. All this you call love. Is it
love? The truth of that beauty will be found only when you have completely
dropped everything that is mechanical.
What is death, of which we are all so dreadfully frightened? Simply put, it is
coming to an end. I have lived for forty, fifty, twenty, eighty years; I have
accumulated so much, so many things, so much money; I have made certain
activities, ugly and beautiful; I have gathered so much experience; I have
cultivated virtue; I have identified myself with my family, and I cry when I leave
not knowing what’s going to happen to them; I am afraid of my own loneliness—
which is yourself. I am not describing myself; it is yourself, and it must end. And
you want to find out if, when this ends, there is something after. This movement
of life that has been a battle from the moment you are born till you die, this thing
called living that is not living at all, this endless battle that you call life, will that
struggle continue next life? Or do you say to yourself that there is something
permanent in you, the Atman, the ego, whatever you like to call it? Please listen
to this carefully, because it’s part of your tradition, not only here but right
through the world, that there is a permanent something inside you that will take
shape in a next life. Is there anything permanent?