present

Heart to Heart Talks

I don’t think anybody has spoken

really spontaneously the way I am speaking

And I was not aware

that my spontaneity

would have such a tremendous effect on people

I am not an orator; I have never been

trained for oratory

I am just talking the way I talk

when you see me personally

I don t see any difference

But one man who was the first to introduce me to the West

Aubrey Menen

He is an Anglo-lndian journalist

but he lives in England

a very famous journalist, one of the topmost

He was the first man to introduce me to the West.

He wrote the first book which mentioned me.

The book’s name is The New Mystics.

Not only did he mention me, he has my picture on the cover.

I could not believe what he had written about me.

He wrote that he has heard the greatest orators of this century

Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Jawaharlal Nehru,

President Kennedy – he has listened to all these people,

sitting very closely, in the front row, because he was a top journalist.

And he says that he was never influenced by anybody

the way he was influenced by me.

I could not believe my eyes.

I said, “What is this man talking about? Adolf Hitler was a great orator,

Kennedy was a great orator, Jawaharlal was a great orator,

Winston Churchill was a great orator;

and he is comparing me, who is not an orator at all,

What has impressed him?

He says,

“What has impressed me is

I could see simply that this man is absolutely unprepared.

He does not know what he is going to say next,

but somehow even, thing falls in line.

His sentences are small, conversational,

as if he is talking man to man,

not to a crowd.”

When you are talking to a crowd,

you are talking to the walls:

you are not human in your talk.

Winston Churchill said that

when he started talking

and became

an orator,

he was very nervous.

Later he said, truthfully, he was still nervous

when he stood on the podium;

he still felt the same first nervousness he had felt sixty years before.

But the same trick always helped.

And what was his trick? This must be the trick of many

great orators. He says, “the first thing that I

repeat in my mind is that all these people are idiots;

you need not be afraid of them.

And once

I settle it in my mind that these are all idiots, then I start speaking.

Who is afraid of idiots?

And then one word leads to another

and then gathers momentum;

then one is just

going like a computer.”

All your great orators

are just

repeating speeches

already written

by their secretaries.

Jawaharlal’s secretary, told me that all his speeches were written by him.

Not only has he told me, he has written in his memoirs

that all those great speeches that Jawaharlal was famous for

were written by him.

And before going,

Jawaharlal would have a look

at the speech,

and figure out

how he was going to manage it.

But

with me it is a totally different matter.

You are not idiots.

I am speaking to people

who are potentially enlightened beings;

I am speaking with immense respect

and love.

And I have never felt any kind of nervousness because

I am not an orator,

I am just

conversing with you.

Hence, many times it is bound to happen:

I will tell only half a story,

and then,

wherever the wind blows,

my cloud starts moving.

I have never made any effort

that things should be otherwise.

I want to remain absolutely spontaneous.

And I want you also to hear me spontaneously.

In the same way I don’t know what I am going to say,

you should also be

in that emptiness

where you don’t know what you are going to hear.

Then there is a possibility

of a transmission

of something which is not in the words

but follows the words like a shadow

or an aroma.

Then the word will be there;

you will hear the word,

but the fragrance, the shadow,

will enter your being

and will stir your heart.

My whole effort is not to convince your intellect:

It is to have a little love affair with your heart.

These are heart-to-heart talks,

not oratory:

Not great

lectures,

but just simple, human talks.

So forgive me,

I am going to remain the same way

but you can always

remind me

that I have left something out in the middle.

I can always complete it.

I would love to complete it but what can I do?

There is so much to say – and nothing to say.

You can understand my problem:

so much to say

that even if I go on for lives

it will still be there

and nothing to say,

because that which I want to give to you

is not something which can be said.

I am living in this dilemma

but trying

for some middle way;

and

I have the feeling I have found the middle way.

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