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Part V : Osho's interaction with Hindus
In Jaipur there was a Hindu conference and one of the shankaracharyas....
There are four shankaracharyas in India and they are equivalent
to the pope; each one ruling one direction - for the four
directions, four shankaracharyas. One of the shankaracharyas belonged
to Jaipur, he was born in Jaipur. He was basically an astrologer,
a great scholar, so when one shankaracharya died, he was chosen
to be the shankaracharya of Jaganath Puri.
I had known him before he was a shankaracharya and this conference
was the first time that I had met him since he had become the
shankaracharya. I asked him, "Now you must have become infallible.
And I know you perfectly well - before you were not. Can you
tell me on what date, at what time you became infallible?"
He said, "Don't ask inconvenient questions in front of
others. Now I am a shankaracharya and I am supposed to be infallible."
I said, "Supposed to be?"
He said, "That is for your information. If you ask me in
public, I am infallible." ignor11
You will be surprised to know that in the twentieth century,
one of the Hindu leaders - the most respected Hindu leader,
Swami Karpatri - was teaching. I was present in the meeting,
and I had to contradict him and I created thousands of enemies
because of that. A new dam was being got ready just a few miles
away, and this place was going to be the most benefited because
of the dam, because their lands were dry and the rains were not
certain, and they would be getting as much water as they wanted.
And what the man was saying to them was, "Don't accept that
water, because before giving you the water they take the electricity
out of it."
Now, to the people he was saying that that water is impotent;
its whole potential has been taken out. "It is dangerous
for you to take that water - refuse." And the people
looked convinced, because without education they don't understand
that electricity is not something you take out of the water, it
is not something like sexual potentiality that you can take out
of a man and he becomes impotent. But this simile convinced them,
and they were raising their hands in support.
I had to stand up and I asked him, "Do you understand what
you are saying? And what do you understand about electricity?
What do you understand when electricity is produced by a hydro-electric
plant?" And I told the people, "The only argument against
this man will be to this year accept the water and see your crops.
Those crops will prove this man your enemy. There is no other
way. If crops don't come, if you drink the water and the thirst
does not go, then of course he is right." He was very angry;
he was so angry he wrote a whole book against me about everything.
These people are responsible for poverty, for dying children;
and all the religions of the world have been preaching poverty
in some way or other throughout their whole history..
I want to change this whole approach. I'm all for comforts, luxury,
richness, wealth, technology, science. I'm not for renunciation;
I'm for rejoicing. I want people to live in all dimensions as
richly as possible. last205
It is an old logical strategy to describe, to destroy, to criticize
your enemy, that first you impose a certain doctrine on him which
is not really representative of the person - it may be similar.
So first you impose a similar doctrine on the person's name, knowing
perfectly the loopholes because you are imposing the doctrine,
and then criticize it. Then whosoever reads your book will find
your criticism is perfectly right. This has happened to me, that's
why I know.
One of the great Hindu monks, Karpatri, has written a whole book
against me; and when I saw it I wondered how he managed. Statements
that I have never made he makes in my name, and then criticizes
them. Now, anybody reading his book will think that he has finished
me completely. He has not even touched me.
His secretary has written the introduction to the book, and seems
to be an intelligent man because in that introduction he says,
"We are obliged to Osho because he created this opportunity
and the challenge for all those who think to reconsider everything
and not just to accept anything without reconsidering it."
The secretary is a follower of Karpatri, so he thanks Karpatri
for doing a great job in accepting the challenge of Osho and criticizing
him. He came personally to give me the book. I looked in it here
and there and I asked him, "You are the secretary to Karpatri" - he
was a Hindu sannyasin himself - "Have you not noticed
that these statements are not mine? Most probably the book was
dictated to you."
He said, "I was afraid that you were going to say that."
I just looked here and there in the book and I told him, "This
statement is not mine. Not only is it not mine, it is contrary
to me, absolutely against my statements. You are an educated person:
how did you allow it to happen? You should have prevented it,
because this book is absolutely false and whosoever reads it will
have a totally wrong concept of me."
So you cannot trust these people ignor20
Once I happened to stay in Allahabad. I was attending a Hindu
world conference. Somebody by mistake had invited me thinking
that I was a Hindu. They found out, but it was too late. By that
time I had disturbed everything that they were planning: how to
convert the whole world into Hinduism.
I was staying with hundreds of other guests in tents by the side
of the Ganges, a beautiful place they had chosen for the conference.
In those tents at least five incarnations of God were present!
In India it is so easy, nobody can object. You can declare yourself
an incarnation of God. About that India is very nice. Who cares?
Who bothers? It is your business: if you think you are an incarnation
of God, good; be an incarnation of God. You are not doing any
harm to anybody. person02
I used to live in a town where a man was very well known, almost
as a saint, and many people had told me, "He is so humble!"
Finally the man came to see me; he touched my feet and he said,
"I am just dust underneath your feet!"
I looked at him - his eyes were saying something else, his
nose was saying something else - so I said, "I can see
you are absolutely right: you are just dust underneath my feet!"
He said, "What?!" He became very angry.
I said, "But I am simply agreeing with you! I have not said
anything of my own! You started it and I have simply agreed with
you, so why are you getting irritated?"
I told him, "Now close your eyes and sit silently and see
the point! This is just another way of your ego trying to fulfill
itself. The ego is there; now it is upside-down, doing sirshasana,
the headstand. But it is the same ego; now it is pretending to
be humble." ultima11
All the religions have exploited your hidden desires.
I was participating in a religious conference in Prayag. I heard
one shankaracharya speaking to thousands of people, saying, "If
you give one rupee in donation, in the other world you will get
one thousand rupees." A good bargain! Good business! But
all Hindu scriptures are full of such promises - "Give
a little here and you will get much as a reward in heaven."
This is not trust. This is not getting rid of your mad desire
for possessions. Here, you are giving one rupee - people will
see: this man is a very religious man, he gave one rupee to a
beggar. But they don't know his hidden desire. He is giving it
as a guarantee so that he can get one thousand rupees after death.
He is depositing in God's bank. But the interest rate seems to
be absolutely absurd!
People give just a little to make sure that in the other world
they will get much. And in this world, they will get recognition,
respectability; people will think of them as religious people....
This is one of the principles I insist on most: that each act
comes with either its reward or with its punishment. There is
no need of any God who is twenty-four hours noting things into
his books about millions of people of this earth... mess110
A man came to me, saying, "I want to learn to meditate."
He was a sannyasin, an old-fashioned sannyasin. So I said, "Good - come
to the morning meditation."
He said, "That is a little difficult."
I said, "Why, what's difficult about it?"
He said, "The difficulty is, I cannot come without this man
who has come with me, because he keeps the money, I don't touch
money. He has to go somewhere else in the morning, so I won't
be able to come tomorrow morning."
This is just hilarious! If you need money, what difference does
it make whether it is in your pocket or in someone else's? And
this becomes another bondage - the one who keeps the money
in his pocket is better off than you, at least he can go wherever
he wants. It is a peculiar situation: unless this man comes along,
you cannot come because you need to have money for the taxi - but
you don't touch money! So you are having this man sin for you?
Commit your own sins. This is great fun - you will ride in
the taxi and he will go to hell for it! Have a little compassion
for him. This is the great connection of the worldly and the yogi!
All your renunciates live bound to worldly people. And your worldly
people also live bound to renunciates, because they touch the
feet of the renunciates thinking, "Today I am not a renunciate,
but at least I touch the feet of one. I get the satisfaction of
having done something! If not today, then tomorrow I too will
become a renunciate. But right now I worship him." mahag108
I have been moving around all kinds of renunciates. Once I was
in Rishikesh in the Himalayas and I was sitting under a tree,
a very beautiful tree. It was a hot, sunny afternoon, and the
tree was so cool, the shadow of it, that although I had to go
I lingered a little longer there.
One old Hindu monk came and said, "What are you doing here,
under my tree?"
I said, "Your tree? You have renounced the whole world and
this tree is yours? I don't see your signboard or.... How
can you prove this tree is yours?"
He said, "There is no need to prove it; everybody around
here knows. For thirty years I have been sitting underneath it."
I said, "You may have been sitting for thirty years, the
tree has been here even before that; now I am sitting under it
and the tree will remain. The tree has no concern with you or
me; the tree has no idea who is its owner. You just get lost!"
He said, "What are you saying? You have been here for just
a few hours and you become the possessor, and I have been here
for thirty years."
I said, "I am not going to possess the tree, I will be moving
soon; but not in this way. You will have to apologize to the tree.
You have not purchased it, you have not planted it, you have not
watered it. On what grounds have you become its possessor? - just
because you have been here for thirty years bothering the tree
day and night?
"You owe something to the tree, the tree owes nothing to
you. The tree has been kind to you, and you have become the possessor
of it! And this 'possessing' is what you had left behind. Nothing
has been left behind.
"You are even ready, right now, here, to fight with me. Thirty
years before you would have been fighting for a house, for a small
piece of land: 'This is my wife, this is my house, this is my
religion, this is my country....'
"Now all that has become concentrated on this poor tree.
Your whole possessiveness has become concentrated on this poor
tree. It does not matter whether you possess a whole kingdom or
just a small tree; possessiveness has nothing to do with quantity,
it is an attitude." misery22
Strangely, it happened that I was staying in a rest house with
a shankaracharya. And I told him, "Celibacy is an absolutely
unnatural idea. Only an impotent person can be celibate. If you
are potent then you cannot be celibate. You tell me what you are,
potent or impotent?"
He said, "I am celibate."
I said, "Then I will take you to the hospital this very moment."
He said, "You seem to be a strange man. It is a question
of ideology. Where does the hospital come into it?"
I said, "It is not a question of ideology. Do you know how
your sexual energy is created? Do you have any scripture in which
it is described? Do you have any control over it - not to
create it, to prevent it? You don't have any control over it,
just as you don't have any control over your blood, you don't
have any control over your hair. Your organism has not left anything
essential in the hands of your mind. And celibacy is part of your
organism - the most important part. Biology cannot leave it
in your hands."
He said, "I don't want to be in unnecessary trouble."
I said, "Trouble or not, I can bring a doctor here."
He said, "But I don't want to argue with you."
I said, "You are arguing, because you are saying that you
are celibate."
Not a single religious person - there are thousands of monks:
Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina - not a single monk has been
to the people who can check whether he is celibate or not. But
this ideal of celibacy has been created by very good people. They
have not committed any crime - Mahavira or Gautam Buddha.
They have not committed any crime, but they have created something
which goes on creating immense crime. hari14
I have seen many saints, and I have been looking into the lives
of your past saints. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them are
simply abnormal - neurotic or even psychotic. But they were
respected - and they were respected for their misery, remember.
The more misery they lived through, the more they were respected.
There have been saints who would beat their body with a whip every
day in the morning, and people would gather to see this great
austerity, asceticism, penance. And the greatest was one who would
have wounds all over his body - and these people were thought
to be saints!
There have been saints who have destroyed their eyes, because
it is because of the eyes that one becomes aware of beauty, and
lust arises. And they were respected because they had destroyed
their eyes. God had given them eyes to see the beauty of existence;
they became blind by their own decision.
There have been saints who cut their genital organs. And they
were respected very much, tremendously, for the simple reason
that they had been self-destructive, violent with themselves.
These people were psychologically ill.
There have been saints who have been worshipped because they were
capable of fasting for long periods, were experts in fasting.
It is a certain expertise, you need a little training. Not much
intelligence is needed; the training is very ordinary and any
stupid person can go through it and learn it. You just have to
be able to enjoy suffering - and only the ill person enjoys
suffering....
But these things simply created miserable people and a miserable
society. Look into your misery and you will find certain fundamental
things are there. One: it gives you respect. People feel more
friendly towards you, more sympathetic. You will have more friends
if you are miserable. This is a very strange world, something
is fundamentally wrong with it. It should not be so, the happy
person should have more friends. But become happy and people become
jealous of you, they are no more friendly. They feel cheated;
you have something that is not available to them. Why are you
happy? So we have learned down the ages a subtle mechanism: to
repress happiness and to express misery. It has become our second
nature. wisdom20
In the East there are many pathological people who are thought
to be mahatmas. And in the West many real mystical people are
put into mad asylums because they are thought to be pathological.
Both attitudes are wrong. That's why I say this matter of spiritual
experience is a delicate one. In the West there are many mystical
people who are in the hospitals being treated, being given electric
shocks, insulin shocks, because it is thought that they are hysterical....
This matter is delicate. If Ramakrishna had been in the West he
would have been treated. And they have devised such strong methods
to treat people that there is every possibility that they would
have made Ramakrishna normal. But that would have been a great
misfortune.
In the East just the reverse is happening. I have come across
many people. Sometimes they would be brought to me with the idea
that I would recognise their state. But I saw that they were just
hysterical people; this was just hysteria and nothing else. They
were neurotic; they needed some therapy. They had fallen below
the normal. But to fall below the normal or to go above the normal
sometimes looks alike. Only a Master can be decisive about it,
otherwise it is very difficult to decide what is what. But there
are a few things which can be given to you as indications. sufis215
I have known many mahatmas in this country, respected by the
masses like anything. I have been very intimate with these people,
and in their privacy they have opened their hearts to me. They
are more ugly than you will find the ordinary people.
I used to visit prisoners, to teach them how to meditate, and
my observation was.... I was surprised in the beginning that
prisoners - even those who have been sentenced for their whole
lives - are far more innocent than your saints, are far better
people than your saints, far simpler, far more innocent. Your
saints are cunning, clever, and your saints have only one quality:
that they are able to repress themselves. dh1008
You ask me: Do you really mean your criticism of saints like
Muktananda, Nityananda?
I really mean it!
Muktananda is a very ordinary person; I have met him. I was passing
by his ashram and his disciples invited me, just for a few minutes'
stay, to take a cup of tea. So I said, "Okay."
The man was so flat, just like a flat tire, nothing in him, nothing
of any worth, not even junk. And it was not only apparent to me:
one of my disciples, a woman follower, Nirmala Srivastava, was
with me - even she could see, even she proved to be far more
intelligent than Muktananda. We stayed only fifteen minutes; it
was a sheer wastage of time. And the moment our car moved away,
Nirmala told me, "This man is absolutely common, very ordinary.
Why did you waste your time? - even fifteen minutes is an
unnecessary wastage!"
I looked at her, and immediately I knew that some idea had entered
into her head - and it had entered. The idea was: "If
such a fool like Muktananda can become a saint, then why can't
I become a saint?" And the idea worked out well. Now Nirmala
Srivastava is a great saint, is traveling around the world, having
many devotees. That day it transpired, looking at Muktananda.
Now she is 'Her Holiness, the World Mother - lagajjanani - Mataji,
Nirmalaji Deviji Srivastavaji.' Now she has many followers, doing
the same thing that Muktananda is doing - raising people's
kundalini. Once she could see that this fool can raise people's
kundalini, then "Why can't I raise it?" And she is certainly
far more intelligent than Muktananda, far more capable, far more
skillful, far more intellectual. Muktananda is not a saint.
But this has not happened only once. ultima15
I have known people...for example Muktananda's master, Nityananda.
He could not do anything other than lie down flat because his
belly was so big; and to carry it here and there, it was such
a heavy load a crane must have been needed! So he used to just
lie down flat; and when I saw him, I could not believe my eyes.
His belly was so big - almost like a mountain - with a
small head on this side, and two small legs joined on the other
side.
I inquired of the man who had taken me there - he was a minister
in Maharashtra. He was Nityananda's follower and he was insisting
that I see his master, so I agreed. I said, "Okay, I am going
that way. His ashram is just on the way, thirty miles from Bombay.
So I will stop there; I would love to see him for a few minutes."
I asked him, "Just tell me one thing: whether Nityananda
has this belly or the belly has Nityananda? - because the
belly is so big and Nityananda is so small, almost negligible!
The belly is everything."
And I said to him, "People who go to climb Mt. Everest, Edmund
Hillary and others, unnecessarily waste their time there. They
can just come here and climb on Nityananda's belly. And keep a
photographer here - whoever climbs first will become an historical
figure, because it seems to be very slippery!"
He was continuously polished, massaged - oil was poured on
him. And those who were his worshippers were massaging him. Nobody
even knew how to massage.... rebel10
All the mahatmas in India have big bellies and they are teaching
people, "Don't eat with taste." And they themselves...
I said, "Where does this belly come from? Stand up! Show
your belly to the whole people. You are eating too much and the
country is hungry. And I know that because of this belly you cannot
make love to a woman. So now you are teaching everybody not to
make love to any woman. It is because of this belly, not because
of your religion." Such bellies I have seen, you would not
believe it....
One very famous mahatma, Shivananda, who had many followers in
the West, used to be a doctor. And that a doctor should do such
stupid things to himself makes it more difficult to understand.
He was eating so much that he could not walk without two persons
holding his hands. He even could not raise his hand. His hand
was so heavy, so fat, that one person would take one hand, another
person would take his other hand and then the small walk would
be done.
And he was telling people, "You have to follow the five great
principles of Hinduism. The first is aswad, no taste."
What happened to this man? And he was a doctor! I told him, when
I went to Rishikesh and saw him, I told him, "What kind of
doctor are you? It seems your certificate is bogus. You can't
even take care of your body; you have become a monster. You cannot
raise your own hand, it has become so heavy."
Everything was out of proportion: a big belly, big fat hands,
the legs elephant legs, and this person is teaching the whole
world, "You are not the body, you are the soul." And
who are these monsters? Just bodies, with no soul at all. I can't
see any space in them; they are so filled up with junk that I
don't think they can have a soul also. gdead04
I used to know Swami Prabhupada, who created the movement of
Hare Krishna. He was one of the greatest idiots, and had a great
talent for attracting idiots. If you want to find a gathering
of idiots you can find it in the Hare Krishna movement....
I have criticized Krishna. That's why they are angry. Prabhupada
was very angry, because I had called him a dodo. But he was a
dodo.
He was teaching those people celibacy which necessarily brings
sexual perversion. He was teaching these people begging. He was
teaching these people that you need not do anything except repeat
continuously "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama".
This is a sure way of destroying anybody's intelligence. These
are the methods of programming.
Now if somebody thinks that this is enough to transform your consciousness,
that whatever you are doing you go on chanting inside, loudly
or silently, "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama", dancing in the
street, "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama" - because only
these two words will be continuously hammered. All your subtle
cells, your whole system of mind, will be spoiled. It is not made
only for two words. It will not be used, and unused those delicate
cells start dying.
So first the idiots get attracted, and if by chance somebody has
some little intelligence, then these methods will destroy it.
These people are continuously chanting - not knowing that
repetition of a single word or a single mantra is going to kill
your intelligence.
Intelligence needs to be sharpened in new areas, new dimensions.
It has to move into the unknown. "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama" - it
becomes stuck there.
Prabhupada was angry because he could not answer my criticism
of Krishna. If he was honest, and if these people are honest - this
Goswami* - then they will call Shri Krishna the greatest scoundrel
ever. He forcibly collected sixteen thousand women as his wives,
without marrying them - and they were all married, they had
children, they had husbands...but he was powerful, fascist.
Any woman he liked was immediately taken to his palace, without
any consideration of what will happen to the children. Sixteen
thousand women! No other man in the whole of history has been
so ugly. transm45
*Note: Shrivasti Goswami: leader of the Hare Krishna movement
at the time of speaking
I don't think there is any need for physical immortality. And
your soul is immortal! Search for that rather than trying to search
for physical immortality. But there are fools who go on thinking
in these ways.
Sri Aurobindo's philosophy became world famous for the simple
reason that he was saying to his disciples that physical immortality
is possible. And the day he died, the disciples could not believe
it. In fact, one of my friends who was in the ashram, told me
later on that for three days it was kept secret that Sri Aurobindo
had died, because it was unbelievable. When the Mother was asked,
she said "He has gone into a deep samadhi. It is not death.
How can he die? He is physically immortal." But after three
days when the body started stinking, they had to bury him.
Then they started believing that the Mother was immortal. Then
one day the Mother died. Now those fools are believing that they
have both gone to the other world to bring back some more secrets
and that they will come soon, they will be back. They are hoping
that they will be back with the secrets of physical immortality!
The immortality of the soul is enough. There is no need for your
body's immortality. In fact seventy years is enough - enough
to enjoy, enough to suffer, enough to understand, enough to misunderstand.
In fact whatsoever you want to do, seventy years is enough. And
if you really go on doing things totally, within seventy years
you will be capable of seeing the whole absurdity of being in
the body. You will not ask for an immortal body, you will ask
how to get rid of this whole business of being born and dying
again and again and again, how to get rid of the wheel of life
and death.
Another maxim of Murphy: Millions long for immortality who do
not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
theolo05
One yoga teacher, Iyengar, in Poona, has given an interview to
some journalists, and they asked him about me.... He used
to come to listen to my lectures in those old days when they did
not exactly understand my meaning.
He used to come to my meditation camps - there are here witnesses
for it - and he wanted me to do some yoga exercises, because
I was traveling continually, and that would have an adverse effect
on my body.
I said, "I would rather have that adverse effect than learn
some stupid distortions of the body. And moreover, I remember
perfectly how you exploit people."
He was teaching J. Krishnamurti a few yoga postures to help him
overcome his forty years' migraines. Now, a yoga teacher is a
professional; all that he teaches you is certain exercises of
the body. But when he wrote his book on yoga, on the flap paper
he wrote, "I am the guru of J. Krishnamurti."
I told him, "I don't want such exploitation. `Guru of J.
Krishnamurti' - just because you have taught him a few exercises?
Then any idiot who can teach a few exercises, then any doctor
who treats you with medicine, then any psychiatrist, any psychoanalyst,
can claim to be your guru.
"I don't want to be included in your disciples. I am nobody's
disciple. Hence, I have to refuse your offer for teaching me some
exercises. I don't need them." poetry02
Once a follower of Radhaswami, a small sect which is confined
to an area near Agra, came to see me. I was in Agra. He was some
kind of a priest, and he said, "Do you know? - our master
has said there are fourteen planes of existence."
I said, "Just fourteen?"
He said, "What do you mean, 'Just fourteen?' Are there more?"
I said, "Certainly."
He said, "But our master has said there are only fourteen.
Mohammed has reached only up to the third," he said - he
had brought a map - "Kabir and Nanak have reached up
to the fifth. And Mahavira and Buddha up to the seventh,"
and so on, so forth. But there has never been another who has
reached up to the fourteenth except his so-called master.
I said, "I know your master. I have seen him struggling in
the fourteenth. He is trying hard, but he cannot get out of it.
I know it because I exist at the fifteenth. There are fifteen
planes of existence."
He said, "But you are the first man...." And he
was much impressed. When he was leaving he touched my feet and
he said, "You have revealed a new secret."
I said, "Don't be foolish. I was just joking! There are only
two categories of people: the people who are not aware and the
people who are aware. The people who are aware have no hierarchy
that one is more aware than the other, that somebody is at the
fifth, somebody at the seventh, somebody at the ninth, somebody
at the fourteenth. There is no higher and lower in awareness.
Awareness is simply awareness."
But he was not much interested in that. He was more interested
in my being on the fifteenth plane.
People are interested in religious fictions.
Don't waste your time in occultism, unless you are interested
in novels, fictions. Then it is okay, then there is no problem....
dh1008
Once I went to address a conference of theosophists. Now, theosophists
are people who will believe any bullshit - any! The more shitty
it is, the more believable. So I just played a joke on them. I
simply invented something; I invented a society called "Sitnalta."
They were all dozing, they became alert. "Sitnalta?"
I made the word by just reading "Atlantis" backwards.
And then I told them, "This knowledge comes from Atlantis,
the continent that disappeared in the Atlantic ocean."
And then I talked about it: "There are really not seven
chakras but seventeen. That great ancient esoteric knowledge is
lost, but a society of enlightened masters still exists, and it
still works. It is a very very esoteric society, very few people
are allowed to have any contact with it; its knowledge is kept
utterly secret."
And I talked all kinds of nonsense that I could manage. And
then the president of the society said, "I have heard about
this society." Now it was my turn to be surprised. And about
whatsoever I had said, he said that it was the first time that
the knowledge of this secret society had been revealed so exactly.
And then letters started coming to me. One man even wrote saying,
"I thank you very much for introducing this inner esoteric
circle to the theosophists, because I am a member of the society,
and I can vouch that whatsoever you have said is absolutely true."
There are people like these who are just waiting to believe
in anything, because the more nonsensical a belief is, the more
important it appears to be. The more absurd it is, the more believable - because
if something is logical, then there is no question of believing
in it. wisdom03
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