Courage to Stand Alone

FOREWORD

When U.G. invited me in July 1978 to come to Bangalore, where he stayed in his friends' house and from where he arranged his Indian travels in those times, my immediate answer was, "Yes Sir, I would like to." At the same time I reminded him of my invitation to him a year before to come to Amsterdam: "Many people there are waiting to see you, Sir." After five years, U.G. finally came to Amsterdam in 1982, and stayed, much to his own surprise, for 21 days in a beautiful house offered by some former Rajnishis. My own house at that time was neither big enough nor suitable otherwise, as, for one thing, Valentine ("my traveling companion," -- as U.G. calls her), was still accompanying U.G. in all his travels.

U.G. fell in love -- as most foreign visitors do -- with Amsterdam and its beautiful canals and flowers. The city must have affected him, as could be seen in his clear and powerful talks. Many visitors came to see and talk to him. Among them were psychologists and publishers, spiritual journalists and sannyasins, hashish-smoking freaks and `flower' people. One of them was a well-known poet who just won an award for "talking without a break for 24 hours." (U.G. silenced him with one sentence!) So, they were quite a mixed bag. Still, I would say they were `ordinary' people.

These tapes were a gist of U.G.'s dialogues in Amsterdam. Fortunately we had installed a tape recorder, and with U.G.'s permission, almost all his talks (some 24 hours of material) were recorded. I did the recording with great enthusiasm and delight. After U.G.'s visit was over, it occurred to me that I could easily produce an audiotape out of that material, primarily for the use of friends. But there was more material than could be fitted into one tape. So the effort ended up in the "Give Up" series of three cassettes, of altogether four and a half hours duration.

I edited the tapes around September and October of 1982. I felt great and full of gratitude while I was editing the tapes. Since then many copies of these tapes found their way around the globe. People called me from Germany, France, Austria, Australia, Italy and so on -- altogether from more than 14 countries. Many copies were also made in India. And every year after that, whenever we met, U.G. made the remark, "It seems you have done something tremendous: everyone is praising your tapes, wherever I go." In this printed version the title of the series is now changed to The Courage to Stand Alone.

"It is nice of you to come here, but you have come to the wrong place -- because you want an answer, and you think that my answer will be your answer. But that is not so. I may have found my answer, but that is not your answer. You have to find out for yourself and by yourself the way in which you are functioning in this world, and that will be your answer." I hope these words of U.G. which he once said to his visitors, while sitting leisurely outside his chalet in Gstaad in Switzerland, will find you as a `listener' (now a reader) who will have the "the courage to stand on your own solid feet."