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Chapter title: Ten Non-comandments
25 October 1986 pm in
Archive code:
8610255
ShortTitle:
ENLIGH23
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
117
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
TODAY, AFTER A YEAR, I AM COMING TO SEE YOU, TO BE WITH YOU. AND
SINCE I AWOKE THIS MORNING I HAVE BEEN AWARE THAT MY HEART IS
BEATING HARDER AND QUICKER THAN USUAL, AND THAT THERE IS
A HOLLOW, STAGE FRIGHT FEELING IN MY BELLY. TEARS ARE CLOSE TO MY
EYES, BUT THERE IS NO SADNESS. ON ONE HAND I CAN SEE IT AS FEAR, NERVOUSNESS. ON ANOTHER IT IS EXCITEMENT, ANTICIPATION, AND ON
YET ANOTHER IT IS ENERGY, PURE AND SIMPLE -- LIFE, PULSATION.
BELOVED FRIEND, IT CERTAINLY DOESN'T FEEL TO BE A PROBLEM, BUT
COULD YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE PHENOMENON OF THE DISCIPLE COMING
CLOSER TO THE PHYSICAL BODY OF THE MASTER?
There are very few moments in man's life more magical than the feeling of love and trust from a disciple towards the master.
It is a relationship not of this world, because it is a ladder to the beyond.
Coming closer to the master certainly gives a new pulsation to the life energy, to your receptivity, to your openness. It gives you a dance, your heart starts singing a song. It is a moment of rejoicing.
It is the same moment as when a river comes to the ocean, dancing, to disappear into the ocean -- but the disappearance is only from the side of those who are standing on the bank. To the river itself, it is becoming bigger, vaster, oceanic.
Coming closer to the master is a way of becoming a master -- and what can be more rejoicing, more joyful?
There are many kinds of love, but the love that exists between the master and the disciple is the purest: unpolluted by any expectations, by any demands, by any conditions. The master accepts you as you are, with no desire to make something else of you. You love the master because he gives you, for the first time in your life, in all your relationships, freedom to be yourself -- without fear, without guilt.
Your experience is natural.
It has happened to every disciple, it is a cosmic experience.
But it cannot happen if you are only a student. If you have come here only to learn, to accumulate knowledge, then this kind of miracle is not possible.
If you have come here to expand your consciousness, to make your being more integral, then you have not come to increase your knowledge but to be reborn. You have come to become a child again; you have come to get back the purity, the fragrance, the beauty of your innocence.
I am not a teacher, and this is not a place where knowledge is important. I am just a presence to inspire in you that which is dormant, to allow you to recognize yourself.
I am not here to impose any religion on you. I am here to make you completely weightless -- without religion, without ideology -- just a profound silence, a serenity, a depth, a height that goes to the stars.
This is a place of a master, and the function of this place is magic -- not ordinary magic, but magic that creates Gautam Buddhas.
And naturally, when you are coming out of your darkness towards the light of becoming a Gautam Buddha, it is impossible not to be thrilled, not to be ecstatic, not to be in a dance.
If you are alive, stars will be born out of you, flowers will be blossoming in you. But if you are dead, as most of the people on the earth are, then nothing will happen to you --
nothing happens to the dead.
There is a beautiful story in Mahavira's life.
Mahavira went to Vasali, one of the great cities of those days. In Vasali there was a great thief. He had only one young son whom he was training in his art. He said to him,
"Listen, you are free to do everything, but don't go close to that man Mahavira. I
am a master thief, but I also avoid him, because that man is dangerous. Something magical surrounds him, and once you are caught in it there is no way out. So remember, go everywhere else, but avoid the campus where Mahavira is staying."
The son was very obedient. He avoided Mahavira's campus for many days, but the temptation was natural.… Here is a man who his father fears so much that just to be close to him seems to be dangerous It is worth testing.
So one day he went just a little closer to the campus -- not inside the grove where Mahavira was staying with his ten thousand disciples, but outside the grove. And he heard only one sentence. Mahavira was saying that in paradise, the angels and the female angels are tremendously beautiful, but just one thing is wrong: their feet are pointing in the opposite direction. The angels are going one way, but their feet are going in the opposite direction.
Being afraid that his father might come to know, the boy escaped. But he thought, "There was no danger there, and Mahavira was just telling a fictitious story."
But that very night he and his father were both caught stealing. It was impossible to get any information from the father; hence, the king said, "Don't bother about the father, concentrate on the son. There is a possibility that we may be able to find out all the information that we need."
And the strategy was that he was given intoxicating drugs, so he slept for hours, completely unconscious. He was taken to the most beautiful room in the palace, and all the beautiful girls were serving him, bringing food, drinks. As he came back to consciousness, he thought, "My God, I am dead. I am in paradise. This is the paradise that fellow Mahavira was describing, and the girls are really beautiful. Everything is great."
But then he looked at their feet, and immediately he understood that there was some conspiracy -- "This is not paradise, because their feet are just like our feet."
The women tried in every way to persuade him, "You are dead and you are in paradise."
And they were saying, "This is just the reception. Before you enter the permanent paradise, you have to tell everything about your life. This is the rule.
Everything will be written, recorded, and then you will enter permanent paradise."
They wanted him to confess all the sins that he and his father had been committing, all the thefts, murders, and things for which they had never been caught. But now he would simply smile.
He said, "Forget all about it; I have heard from Mahavira himself. Your feet have given me the clue that this is the palace of the king. And this is a strategy. Tell your king to try to befool somebody else. I am a disciple of Mahavira."
They said, "Strange. When did you become the disciple of Mahavira?"
He said, "Just passing by I heard one sentence, and that one sentence has saved me today."
And because there was no proof, finally they had to be released.
He told his father, "I am not going to listen to you at all. If I had not disobeyed you and had not listened to Mahavira, we would both be hanging on the gallows. Just one sentence -- and that too, a small part of a story -- has saved me. I am going to the man.
His magic has caught me."
He became a great disciple of Mahavira.
He said, "You have saved me. Now give me a new life, because I don't want just to be saved and continue to be a thief and a murderer. It was good that I was caught, a discontinuity has happened. You start my life from scratch; accept me as a child."
Coming to the master is coming in search of your innocence, in search of your lost childhood, in search of your originality... in search of your individuality, in search of freedom.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
ONE DAY -- IT WAS FRIDAY, WHEN ORTHODOX JEWS ARE PREPARING FOR
THE SABBATH -- A MAN WHO DIDN'T LIKE JEWS MET AN ORTHODOX
RABBI ON THE STREET. IN AN ATTEMPT TO TORMENT HIM, HE ASKED HIM
TO EXPRESS THE ENTIRE PHILOSOPHY OF JUDAISM WHILE HE STOOD ON
ONE FOOT.
THE RABBI STOOD ON ONE FOOT AND SAID, "DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU
WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU. THAT IS THE LAW -- THE REST IS
COMMENTARY."
IF I WERE TO BE MET BY A TORMENTOR AND ASKED TO STAND ON ONE
FOOT AND EXPLAIN IN ONE SENTENCE WHAT YOUR TEACHING IS, WOULD
I BE CORRECT IN SAYING THAT IT IS FREEDOM FROM SUPPRESSION?
It will not be so easy.
First, you don't know the name of the rabbi. His name was Hillel. He is the most famous Jewish philosopher, and he certainly condensed the whole philosophy of Judaism into a single sentence.
The incident is true. He was asked to stand on one foot and answer in the shortest way what the essence of Judaism is. And what he said is beautiful, but not without flaw. He said: Do unto others what you would like to be done to you by them. This is the essential Judaism, the rest is commentary. All great scriptures of the Jews, the TORAH, the TALMUD... all are just commentaries on
the single, small, seedlike statement: Do unto others what you would like to be done to you by them.
As far as Judaism is concerned, no Jewish thinker has raised any suspicion about it.
Neither has any non-Jewish philosopher raised any question about it.
But I am more concerned with human reality than just with philosophical arguments.
And looking at human reality, the statement is not correct -- because my taste and your taste may be different.
To do unto others what you would like to be done to you by them can be right only if everybody's taste is the same. And that is not the case.
For example, somebody is a masochist; he likes to be beaten, he likes to be tortured. Now what should he do with you, torture you? According to the principle, he should beat you, he should torture you, because that's what he wants you to do to him.
Perhaps Hillel or the Jewish philosophers were not aware that there are people who love to be tortured and there are people who love to torture.
It is the latest contemporary psychological insight that there are sadists who like to torture, and there are masochists who like to be tortured; hence, it is said that the best couple in the world is if by chance a sadist and a masochist get married. Then they are living in paradise, because one wants to be tortured and the other wants to torture. Both are enjoying.
But it is very difficult. No astrologer thinks about it, no parents think about it. In fact, whether somebody is a sadist or a masochist is not considered at all when people are thinking about marriage. Before you fall in love, remember the first basic inquiry: if you are a sadist, then find a masochist; if you are a masochist, find a sadist.
The best places to find such people are the offices of psychoanalysts. Just sit outside there; you will find all kinds of people.
But this statement will not be applicable.
And you want to know if somebody asks you about my philosophical standpoint.… It is not going to be that easy, because I see man as a multi- dimensional being. You will be able to state it standing on one foot, there is no need for sentences, but you will have to state ten non-commandments.
The first: freedom.
The second: uniqueness of individuality. The third: love.
The fourth: meditation. The fifth: non-seriousness. The sixth: playfulness.
The seventh: creativity. The eighth: sensitivity. The ninth: gratefulness.
Tenth: a feeling of the mysterious.
These ten non-commandments constitute my basic attitude towards reality, towards man's freedom from all kinds of spiritual slavery.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
AT RAJNEESHPURAM IN 1983 SOMETHING FROM THE BEYOND ENTERED
INTO ME. SINCE THEN I HAVE NOT BEEN THE SAME PERSON ANYMORE. MY
OLD GOALS AND DESIRES HAVE FADED AWAY. THINGS WHICH
WERE
MEANINGFUL TO ME BEFORE HAVE LOST THEIR IMPORTANCE.
BUT WHEN I TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT MEDITATION, SILENCE, AND WHAT
KEEPS US AWAY FROM IT, A GREAT NEW ENERGY AND CLEARNESS
STARTS RISING IN ME. EVERY CELL OF MY BODY BECOMES ALIVE. I MYSELF BECOME A LISTENER TO WHAT IS SAID THROUGH ME, AND I FEEL
GRATEFUL AND VERY LOVING TOWARDS THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM I CAN
SHARE.
BELOVED MASTER, HAVE I BECOME A FLUTE, AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE
BEYOND? OR IS MY EGO PLAYING A HORRIBLE JOKE ON ME? PLEASE
COMMENT.
It certainly has changed your life. You have become a flute to the divine -- because if it was a projection of the ego, the ego would not have allowed you to ask the question.
And the ego never becomes a vehicle, a medium, a flute. It is not a hollow bamboo. The ego is very solid, does not allow itself to be used by higher forces. It can exist only in the very mundane world.
To allow the higher forces means you are entering into the sacred, going beyond the mundane. The ego cannot go outside the mundane world. And its very fabric is to praise itself, to brag about itself even when it is not valid.
For example, a poetry descends in you but the ego grabs it and proclaims to the whole world that "I have written it."
No great poetry has been written by any ego; nothing great can come out of it. The great comes only when the ego gives way, when it is not obstructing, when it is absent, on leave.
It is said about Rabindranath that whenever he would be writing, he would close his door and inform the house that unless he opens the door, nobody is allowed even to knock on it.
It was a big family. Rabindranath's grandfather was given the title of raja by the British government, although he was not a king -- but he was so rich and he had so much land that he could have purchased a few maharajas. His family was very big; almost one hundred members were living in the palace.
And it was a very strange family. Rabindranath has written in his memoirs, "We have seen strangers coming into the family as guests and then never leaving. And my grandfather was such that he would say, Ìt does not matter. He must be some distant relative. Perhaps we have forgotten, he has forgotten, but destiny has brought us together.
Let him live here.'"
So the family went on growing. Anybody could come and say, "I am related to you, a far off, distant relation." And he was received not only as a guest, but... once he entered the house it was against the culture to ask him, "When are you going to leave?" It was not asked.
It is not the culture of Bombay. In Bombay, the first thing people ask is, "When are you going to leave?" You have not even settled in the chair, your luggage is still in the taxi, and they are asking when you are going to leave -- because tickets have to be advance-booked.
Those were different days, and a different kind of people.
So nobody ever asked when you were going to leave. And why should one leave? --
living in the palace of a king, living like kings... every need was fulfilled.
So a man used to go with a bell, all over the palace, announcing that nobody is to disturb Rabindranath. And all his brothers, his mother, father, grandfather, they
were all concerned while he was inside his room -- sometimes it would be three days, four days, and he has not eaten, he has not come out.
They asked him, "What is the matter? You can come out, you can eat, you can go back again. Nobody is going to prevent you, nobody is even going to ask you any question."
He said, "It is not a problem for me to come out. The problem is that when something is descending in me, if I leave the room just to take a shower or just to drink a cup of tea, the process stops. And it is not in my hands to start it again. Then I don't know when it will start again; it is something falling upon me, falling through me. I am just a passage. I don't want anybody to disturb me because I don't want to disturb the process."
Every great poet, painter, singer, dancer has been aware of the fact that he has been great only in the moments when he has not been. It is not a contradiction.
The greatest dancer of this age was Nijinsky. He went mad because he was born in the West; in the East, he would have become a Gautam Buddha. In the West there was no background to explain what was happening to him, and it was a weird experience -- while dancing... once in a while when he would forget himself completely, would become so much absorbed in the dance that there was only the dance and no dancer -- he would jump so high that it was against gravitation. No scientist had any explanation. Man cannot jump that high, it is simply not possible.
And that was not the whole story.
When he would come back down... anything when falling, the gravitation of the earth pulls it forcibly. But when Nijinsky would be coming back down, he would come so slowly... just like a dead leaf falling from the tree, moving slowly, or like a feather. That was even more difficult to explain.
And when people asked him, "What you do?" he said, "Whenever I try to do it, it never happens. Finally I give up, and then one day suddenly it happens -- but it happens only when I am not, when I am not the doer. It is something of the beyond."
So don't be worried.
If you are feeling silent, peaceful, loving... these are not the ways of the ego. The ego cannot feel silent, the ego cannot feel peaceful, the ego cannot feel loving.
Your meditation has ripened. You have come to a maturity. Rejoice, and be grateful.
Existence is very compassionate. If we are ready to open our hearts without holding anything back, then immense treasures become available to us.
In the beginning such doubts may arise: "Perhaps it is ego." Don't give a place to such doubts.
Remember: ego can create misery, ego can create anguish, ego can create hate, ego can create jealousy. Ego can never become a vehicle for the divine, it can never become the passage for the beyond.
Question 4 BELOVED OSHO,
WHY DO I ALWAYS COMPROMISE?
One compromises because one is not certain about one's truth, one is not certain about one's own experience.
The moment you have experienced something, it is impossible to compromise. There is no possibility at all. You compromise only because your idea is only a mind thing, a borrowed thought. You don't know whether it is right or wrong, so even if half proves to be right, it is not a bad bargain.
There is an ancient story in Egypt. Two women came to the court of the king with a small child. They contended -- both of them -- that, "The child belongs to me, he is my child."
And each woman was persistent -- "The child is mine."
The king had to decide, and it was very difficult -- how to decide? The husbands
of both women had died in war, in the service of the king.
Finally he asked his master, an old wise man. The master came and he said, "It is very simple. Bring the child."
The child was brought to the master, who asked the king to cut him in two, and give half to each woman. "What is the problem? They both say the child is theirs. There being no other evidence, no witness, justice demands that the child should be divided into two."
The king was shocked. He said, "What are you saying?"
But before the king could say anything more, the master drew the king's sword out of its sheath. And one woman ran forward and said, "No! Give the child to the other; he is not mine."
The master gave the child to the woman who had run forward and said he was not hers.
The king said, "What is happening? I don't understand. The woman is saying the child is not hers."
The master said, "Only the mother couldn't stand to see the child cut in two. The other woman is withstanding it perfectly well, without any difficulty -- if the child is cut in two, it is cut, there is no harm, it is not her child. She is ready to compromise, even if half a dead child is given to her. But the other woman is not ready to compromise -- either the whole child or no child."
When you have a truth, you are almost like a mother -- you have given birth to an experience. Either you would like to have it total, or you would not like to have it at all.
But you cannot be ready to cut it in two, because any living experience cut in two becomes dead.
All compromises are dead.
Nobody in the whole history of man who has known anything about truth has ever compromised. Rather, he has been ready to die for it.
It happened with al-Hillaj Mansoor. His master Junnaid loved him very much -- he was a man worthy to be loved -- and he tried to persuade him for years, "In your room you can shout Ana'l hag -- Ì am God' -- but don't do that in the streets. You know that the people are fanatic, I also know the fact."
But al-Hillaj said, "You only know the fact. I have experienced it. You have compromised with the society, you are a respected teacher. I don't want any respectability, but I will not hide my truth. Truth is like fire, you cannot hide it. I have to shout it from the housetops."
And in a Mohammedan country -- where fanaticism is the rule, not the exception
-- he was immediately caught, and brought before the caliph because "This is against our religion; there is only one God, and he is in the heavens. You are just a mortal being.
Even Mohammed has not said, Ì am God.' He simply says, Ì am the messenger of God.'
And you are saying that you are God. Are you mad? Either stop it, or death is the only punishment for it."
al-Hillaj said, "Death is accepted, but I cannot compromise on this point. It is my experience, I am god. And I say you are also god -- but your god is asleep and my god is awake."
Junnaid again came into the jail to persuade him, "This is foolish. You are such a beautiful young man, with a great future. You can become a great teacher. I know that what you are saying is right, but can't you compromise?"
al-Hillaj said, "With all honor I want to say to you, you don't know. That's why you have compromised. You have heard -- I have seen. You have read -- I have been. Death does not matter, but compromise is simply out of the question."
And the day he was crucified, thousands of people came to throw stones, to condemn him. Junnaid also came; he loved him, he was his student, and he knew that he had immense possibilities of growth. And he had understood perfectly well that he himself was only knowledgeable, and al-Hillaj had experienced.
But this is how compromise works.
Everybody was throwing stones -- not to throw a stone was to risk that people may think,
"This man is in favor of al-Hillaj." So he brought a roseflower so that when so many people in the crowd are throwing stones he could throw the roseflower; people will see that he has thrown something, but who knows that he has thrown the roseflower?
The mind of compromise... nobody should suspect that he has not thrown a stone. So he is compromising on two grounds: one with the people, that he has thrown a stone... and he is compromising with al-Hillaj also. Because al-Hillaj must be looking out for Junnaid, to see whether he has come or not, and it would be very cowardly not to go.
al-Hillaj was smiling when stones were showering on him, hurting him, and blood was flowing all over the body. But when the roseflower of Junnaid hit him, he started crying.
Tears came to his eyes.
Somebody asked, "What happened? So many stones and you continued to smile, and somebody has thrown a roseflower and tears have come to your eyes."
al-Hillaj said, "Yes, because the people who are throwing stones don't know me. And the person who has thrown the roseflower knows me, knows my truth. But he is a coward, and I am ashamed that I have been a student of this man. Stones don't matter. But this roseflower has hit me hard."
Compromise simply means you are on uncertain ground.
Rather than compromising, find grounding, roots, individuality. Find a sincerity of feeling, the support of your heart. Then whatever the consequence, it does not matter.
The man who knows, knows perfectly well that no harm is possible. You can kill him, but you cannot harm him.
And the man who does not know is always trembling, always worried. In that worrying and trembling, that anguish, he goes on compromising with everybody
-- just to be safe, not to be harmed.
But what are you trying to save? You don't have anything to save. Those who have something to save don't compromise.
A man like Socrates is given an opportunity by the judges, that if he leaves Athens... he can live outside of Athens and in this way he can avoid the death penalty. Anybody would suggest that "This is a simple compromise, you can just live outside the boundary lines of Athens" -- because in those days in Greece there were only city-states; every city was a state. Just outside the boundary you were outside the state. He could have lived almost in the suburbs.
But men like Socrates are impossible.
He said, "I would rather die than escape. And anyway, I am old. How long I am going to live? And if the most cultured city of these days cannot tolerate me, who is going to tolerate me? It is better to die in Athens than anywhere else -- at least I have the consolation that I am being killed by the most cultured people."
The judges were really trying hard somehow to save him, because he had not committed any crime. It was just that the mob wanted him to be killed -- he was corrupting the youth.
Now, anybody who brings new thoughts to the world can be blamed because he is corrupting the youth -- because he is bound to be against the old ideas, he is bound to fight against the old. You can call it corruption: "He is corrupting our tradition, our religion, our culture."
The judges said, "We have another suggestion: you can live in Athens, but stop talking about truth."
Socrates says, "You are asking me to do the impossible. I will speak about truth and truth alone until my last breath. Do you want me to start speaking lies? Do you want me not to speak at all? -- that too is a lie, because I know the truth and I am not speaking it, and the lie is spreading in people's minds. No, I will be here, and I will speak the truth. It is up to you -- you can kill me. But no compromise on any ground."
Try to find your individuality, your integrity, and make the effort of not compromising.
Because the more you compromise, the less you are an individual. You are only a cog in the wheel, just a part in the vast mechanism, just a small part of the mob
-- not an individual in your own beauty, in your own right.
I am absolutely against compromise. Death is far more beautiful than a life of compromise.
Question 5
THIS IS A JOKE FOR MY BELOVED MASTER:
IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST PROFOUND QUESTIONS
THROUGHOUT THE AGES -- WAS JESUS CHRIST A JEW OR NOT? RECENTLY, SCIENTISTS HAVE MADE SUBSTANTIAL PROGRESS TOWARDS FINDING THE
ANSWER. THE RESULTS OF THEIR RESEARCH WERE FIRST MADE PUBLIC A FEW MONTHS AGO.
JESUS WAS A JEW FOR THREE IMPORTANT REASONS:
(1) HE LIVED WITH HIS MOTHER ALL HIS LIFE;
(2) HIS MOTHER ALWAYS CALLED HIM `THE BEST'; AND
(3) STARTING OUT WITH A GIFT OF JUST TWO PIECES OF WOOD, HE MANAGED TO SET UP AN INTERNATIONAL COMPANY.…
Jews have never been able to forgive themselves for crucifying Jesus for the simple reason that he was their best boy.
They could not conceive that he would create the greatest and the richest international company. Almost half of the population of the world is Christian.
And he certainly created this whole big show out of two pieces of wood -- that's how the cross is made. I never call Christianity `Christianity' -- I call it
`crossianity' because it is really based on the cross. The findings seem to be perfectly true.
And he created a company that has lasted for two thousand years and is still growing.
And the commodity that he produces is invisible.
As far as salesmanship is concerned, Jesus is the best salesman ever. His commodity is not great. Christianity is not a great religion, it is very primitive and third class. But he managed to sell the product to almost half of the world.
And because the product is invisible, it is very difficult to decide its quality.
I have heard that in a New York shop they were selling invisible hairpins for women, and women were certainly excited -- invisible hairpins! And they were charging a lot for nothing. One woman opened the box -- of course invisible pins you cannot see -- and she asked the salesman, "Are you sure that there are invisible hairpins in it?"
He said, "Don't be worried. We have been out of stock for almost three months, but they are still selling -- so we have stopped purchasing, because there is no point. They are invisible -- we cannot see them, you cannot see them, nobody can see them. And people are purchasing them, standing in queues for invisible pins."
God is an invisible commodity which you cannot see. Not for a few months, but for eternity it has been out of stock. Heaven and hell... all invisible things -- and Jesus managed to create a bogus religion on these things like god, heaven and hell.
The religion has nothing in it.
One can argue against Gautam Buddha. At least there is something in it -- you may agree, you may not agree.
But Christianity has nothing in it -- you cannot even argue against it, it is simply baseless.
It is a great hypocrisy. The pope, the archbishops, the bishops, the cardinals and the priests -- none of them have experienced anything; none of them have ever said that they have experienced anything. And they are millions in number, and they are converting others to their religion.
They don't know anything of what religion is.
Perhaps that's why they have such a great appeal for all the idiots. The mediocre mind does not want to experience or even at least to be intelligently convinced. It simply wants to believe, the cheapest thing in the world.
Christianity provides belief. You believe and you are saved. And who are these saviors?
Just the other day, Neelam brought news from a monastery in Europe. It is an old monastery, and now it is divided in two parts. Half of the monks have declared that they are homosexuals -- so they are worshipping separately and they have occupied almost half the grounds and the church.
And you should not think that the other half are celibate; most probably they are not courageous enough to say what the other brothers have said.
When I was in America, in Texas the government passed a law against homosexuality.
Now, Texas is a backward state in America: homosexuality becomes illegal, criminal, and one million people protested against the law. If there are one million homosexuals in Texas, what about California?
In parliament in Holland they discussed why they have not allowed me entry into Holland. And the minister concerned said strange things... but nobody in parliament raised the question: "What nonsense are you talking?"
One can understand.… He said it was because I have been speaking against the pope. To speak against the pope is not a crime -- in no country's constitution, and in no country's law is it a crime to speak against the pope.
But it can be understood.
Secondly he said that I have been speaking against Mother Teresa. But are these crimes?
And thirdly -- the most important -- is that I have been speaking against
homosexuality.
Has the whole of Holland gone homosexual? Then change the name from Holland tòHomosexual-land' -- because in parliament nobody raised the simple question that "This is nonsense; we are not homosexuals." They may be Catholics, they may believe in the pope...
Christianity teaches celibacy, and celibacy is unnatural. It creates homosexuals, lesbians.
And finally it has brought the disease AIDS, which is another name for death -- because there is no medicine, no medical cure for it.
The pope who served just before this pope was a world-famous homosexual. Before becoming a pope, he was the archbishop of Milan, and all of Milan laughed because he was continuously moving around with his boyfriend. When he became the pope, he took his boyfriend also to the Vatican; he became his secretary. And everybody knew -- the whole of Milan knew, the whole Vatican knew, but nobody raised the question.
It seems Christianity has created the most unintelligent people in the world.
I have heard: a man and woman were making love in their bed, and suddenly a car drove into the garage. The woman said to the man, "Wake up, wake up! My husband is coming, it is certainly his car. Just get in the closet."
So the man jumped into the closet.
The husband came in; he had come just for half an hour because he was on his way to some other duty. And the man inside the closet heard a small voice... somebody said, "It is very dark in here."
He said, "My God, who is there? Keep quiet!"
The voice said, "Give me something." So the man gave him fifteen dollars. The voice said, "I am going to scream."
He said, "You seem to be a very strange fellow," and he gave him fifteen dollars
more.
The voice said, "No! It is so dark!" So the man gave him all he had, fifty dollars. He said,
"This is all I have; now you do whatever you want to do -- whether it is dark or not, screaming or not, I don't have anything more."
The next day, the boy said to his mother, "I want to purchase a bicycle." The mother said, "Bicycle? But a bicycle costs fifty dollars at least." He said, "Don't be worried, I have got it."
She said, "Where did you get it from?" About that he remained silent.
The mother said, "You will have to tell me where you got it from. Have you stolen it?"
He said, "No, I have not stolen it. And I am not going to say where it came from. But it is certain that I have not stolen it, and my source of getting it is absolutely moral."
Mother said, "You first go to the church and confess to the priest. If you cannot tell me, you tell the priest where you got the money."
So he went to the confession booth, and the priest came. The boy said, "It is very dark in here."
And the priest said, "You sonofabitch! Don't start it again!" Beyond Enlightenment
Chapter #24
Chapter title: Eastern psychology: The science of the soul 26 October 1986 pm in
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8610265
ShortTitle:
ENLIGH24
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117
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
WHY CAN MODERN PSYCHOLOGISTS NOT THINK OR WRITE ABOUT OR
EVEN CONCEIVE OF ENLIGHTENMENT? IS ENLIGHTENMENT A NEW PHENOMENON BEYOND THEIR CONCEPTION? WILL THEY EVER UNDERSTAND A PHENOMENON "BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT"?
PLEASE COMMENT.
Narendra, modern psychology is in its very childhood. It is just one century old.
The concept of enlightenment belongs to Eastern psychology, which is almost ten thousand years old.
The modern psychology is just beginning from scratch, it is at the ABC stage.
Enlightenment and beyond enlightenment are the very end of the alphabet of human endeavor -- XYZ.
Modern psychology is a misnomer because the word `psychology' originates from the word `psyche'. Psyche means the soul. The exact meaning of the word
`psychology'
would be the science of the soul. But it is a very weird word.
Psychology denies the existence of the soul and still goes on calling itself
`psychology'. It accepts only the physical body and its byproduct, the mind. As the physical body dies, the mind also dies; there is no rebirth, there is no reincarnation. Life is not an eternal principle, but just a byproduct of certain physical material things put together.
You have to understand the word `byproduct'. Even the idea of a byproduct is not very original.
In India, there has been a school of materialists, at least five thousand years old, called charvakas. They describe mind as a byproduct of the body. Their example is very fitting.
Remember, it is a five thousand year-old example. We can find modern contemporary parallels to it.
In India you must have seen people chewing betel leaves, pan. It consists of four or five things -- the betel leaf and three or four things more. You can eat them separately and they will not give the color red to your lips; but if you eat them together they will create the color red as a byproduct. That red color has no existence of its own, it is a byproduct.
In a contemporary example, look at a watch working.
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin, when he retired, was presented with a gold pocket watch by his friends. It was automatic, and from the very beginning he was surprised, he thought what a miracle it was that it went on and on. But after three or four days it stopped. He was very much surprised: what had happened?
When it stopped he opened it up and found a small dead ant inside.
He said, "Now I know the secret! This ant is the driver, and now he's dead how can the watch continue? But those idiots should have told me that there is a driver! -- it needs food, it needs water. And sometimes you even have to change a driver!"
When a watch is running, and if it is automatic, what makes it tick? Is there some immaterial entity like a soul? Open the watch and take the parts apart, and you will not find any soul.
That's what charvakas said five thousand years ago: that if there is a soul, then cut a man open and you should find it. Or when soldiers are cut open in the war -
- so many souls would be flying upwards. Or when ordinarily a death happens naturally in your house, the soul must leave the body.
Charvakas were very stubborn materialists. In five thousand years materialism has not gone even a step further than charvakas. They weighed a dying person, and when he was dead they weighed him again and the weight was the same -- it proves that nothing left the body. Then what was ticking in the body? It was something: a byproduct of the constituents of the body.
And the materialists of all ages -- Epicurus in Greece, Karl Marx and Engels in Germany and England -- continued to repeat the same idea: that consciousness is a byproduct. And modern psychology has accepted it as their basic foundation: there is no soul in man; man is only a body.
Joseph Stalin was able to kill almost one million Russians after the revolution. Anybody who was unwilling to give up his rights to his property was killed mercilessly. The whole family of the czar which had ruled for hundreds of years
-- one of the oldest empires in the world, and one of the biggest -- nineteen persons in that family were killed so mercilessly that they did not even leave a six-month-old baby, they killed that baby too.
Killing was easy: because of the philosophy, nothing is killed, it is almost like breaking a chair.
Otherwise it would be difficult for any man to kill one million people and not feel any prick in his conscience. But the philosophy was supportive of all these murders --
because nothing is murdered, only the physical body. There is no consciousness which is separate from the body.
Modern psychology is still behaving stupidly because it is still clinging to the five thousand year-old primitive idea of charvaka, that consciousness is a byproduct. Hence, all that modern psychology can do is a mechanical job.
Your car is broken down. You go to the workshop and a mechanic fixes it.
The psychologist is a mechanic, no different from a plumber. He simply fixes nuts and bolts in your mind which get loose once in a while; he tightens them here and there...
somewhere they are too tight, somewhere they are loose. But it is a question of nuts and bolts.
The question of enlightenment does not arise for the modern psychologist because enlightenment is based on the experience that mind is not your whole reality.
Beyond mind there is your consciousness, and going beyond mind is what enlightenment is all about.
At the moment you cross the borders of the mind, there is enlightenment, a world of tremendous light, awareness, fulfillment, rejoicings.
But there is a possibility to go even beyond that -- because that is your individual consciousness. If you can go beyond it, you enter into the cosmic consciousness.
We are living in the ocean of cosmic consciousness, just as a fish lives in the ocean and is not aware of the ocean. Because it is born in the ocean, it lives in the ocean, it dies in the ocean, the fish knows only the ocean. If a fisherman pulls it out of the ocean, throws it in the sand on the beach, then for the first time it becomes aware that something had been surrounding it, nursing it, and giving it life -- and that without it, it cannot remain alive.
It is easy to give a fish the experience of being out of the ocean. It is very difficult to give man the experience of being out of the cosmic consciousness. Because the cosmic consciousness is everywhere -- there is no beach, there are no boundaries to the cosmic consciousness. So wherever you are, you are always
in an invisible ocean of consciousness. Modern psychology stops at the mind.
Mind is only an instrument, and it is a instrument of the physical body -- so they are not wrong in saying that it is a byproduct. But mind is not all. Mind is only a biocomputer, and the day is not far away when the function of the mind will be almost taken over by computers.
You will be able to keep just a small computer in your pocket containing the whole ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANICA. Any information about any subject will be immediately available -- there is no need to remember it, there is no need to read it, there is no need to study it.
Your mind is going to lose its job very soon.
But the psychologist is concerned only with the mind. And there are people called
`behaviourists' who say there is no mind either, that man is only a physical organism.
In the Soviet Union they don't accept the mind. The Soviet psychology is even more primitive; it accepts only the behavior of your body. There is nothing which you can call mind; hence in the Soviet Union there is nothing parallel to pscyhoanalysis. There is no question: if somebody's mind is behaving in an abnormal way then medicine is needed, not psychoanalysis. Then he has to be hospitalized; he is suffering from a sickness just like any other sickness.
At least in the West they have taken the first step beyond the body -- not a very big step, very small, very negligible, but still a step accepting that there is something like mind, that although it is a byproduct, it functions on its own as long as the body is alive.
And now it is a great profession: psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists; they are all fixing people's minds -- because everybody's mind is in trouble.
There are only two kinds of people in the world: normally mad, and abnormally mad.
Normally mad means you are mad, but not beyond limits. You are mad just like everybody else.
You can see these normally mad people watching a football match. Now can a sane person watch a football match? They need some nuts and bolts... Because with a few idiots on this side and a few idiots on that side throwing a ball, and millions of idiots so excited in the stadium and at their television sets, glued to their chairs for six hours so they cannot move... as if something immensely valuable is happening because a ball is being thrown from this side to that side. And millions more, who are not so fortunate to be able to see, keep a transistor at their ears, at least listening to the commentary.
You call this world sane?
There are boxing matches: people are hitting each other, and millions of people are so excited.
In California, the University of California has been researching... whenever a boxing match happens in California the crime rate immediately rises by thirteen percent; and it remains thirteen percent higher for seven to ten days afterwards -- rape, murder, suicide.
And now it is confirmed by other studies that boxing is simply our animal heritage.
The one who gets excited in you is the animal -- it is not you. You also want to kill somebody -- many times you have thought of killing somebody -- but you are not ready to take the consequences.
In a boxing match there is a psychological consolation; you get identified. Every boxer has his own fans. Those fans are identified with him. If he hits the opponent and the opponent's nose is dripping blood, they are rejoicing. What they have not been able to do, somebody else is doing on their part, on their behalf.
In any world which is sane, boxing would be a crime.
It is a game, but all your games seem to be primitive... nothing of intelligence, nothing of humanity.
These normally mad people are always just on the boundary line. At any time they can slip. A small accident -- the wife dies or goes away with somebody else
-- and you forget the normal boundary, you cross it. Then you are declared mad, insane, and immediately you have to be taken to the psychiatrist or the psychoanalyst.
And what is his function? His profession is the highest paid profession in the world.
Naturally he makes people normal again, he pulls them back, he keeps them from going farther away from the normal line.
His whole expertise is how to put you back and make you normally mad.
Naturally the people who are functioning as psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists are in danger because they are constantly dealing with mad people.
Naturally more psychologists go mad than any other profession -- the number is twice as many. More psychologists commit suicide than any other profession -- the number again is twice as many. And once in a while every psychologist goes to another psychologist to put himself back into the normal world, because he is slipping out.
One would expect that at least the psychologist should be a sane person; he is trying to help other insane people. But this is not the case. They behave more insanely than anybody else, for the simple reason that from morning till night they are constantly coming in contact with all kinds of weird, strange people with weird ideas.
One man was brought to a psychoanalyst... The man was convinced that he was dead.
Everybody had tried to tell him: "Don't be foolish, you eat perfectly well, you sleep perfectly well, you talk perfectly well, you go for a morning walk -- and you say you are dead?"
He said, "Who says that dead people don't go for a morning walk? Every day I meet many dead people going for a morning walk."
The family was very much puzzled -- what to do with the man?
When they found it impossible to convince him... Because he wouldn't go to the shop.
His argument was clear: "Dead people don't run businesses. I have never come across a single dead man. If you can convince me by bringing a dead man who runs a business, I will go to the shop. I will do only things which dead people are supposed to do -- nothing else."
They told the psychoanalyst the whole story: "This man is in a poor state." The psychologist said, "Don't be worried, I will fix him."
He took a needle and asked this madman: "What do you think about the proverb that
`Dead people don't bleed'?"
He said, "It is absolutely right. I heard it when I was alive: `Dead people don't bleed.'"
The psychologist was very happy. The family was very happy also -- listening, thinking that the psychologist is really great: he is catching him on the first point.
The psychologist pushed the needle into the dead man's hand and blood came out. He looked at the dead man and said, "What do you say now?"
The man said, "That means that proverb is wrong -- dead people do bleed. I had only heard it; now it is my own experience."
If you come across such people the whole day long, in the night you will dream of the same people. Naturally, psychologists don't live a very sane life.
And they cannot live a sane life until and unless they accept that there is something beyond mind.
The beyond is the rest, the shelter. Mind is a continuous chattering, it is twenty- four hours chattering. Only beyond mind is peace and silence. In that peace and
silence sanity is born.
Enlightenment is the ultimate peak of sanity -- when one becomes perfectly sane, has come to a point where silence, serenity, consciousness are twenty-four hours his, waking or sleeping. There runs a current of tranquility, blissfulness, benediction which is a nourishment, food from the beyond.
Eastern psychology accepts mind as the lowest part of human consciousness -- dismal and dark.
You have to go beyond it.
And enlightenment is not the end, because it is only individual consciousness.
Individuality is still like two banks of a river. The moment the river moves into the ocean, all banks disappear, all boundaries are annihilated. You have gone beyond enlightenment.
Modern psychology has to learn much from the Eastern experiment. It knows nothing.
All that modern psychology is doing is analyzing dreams, fixing people to somehow carry on their normal business and repressing their abnormalities. But it brings no transformation.
Even the founders of modern psychology -- Freud or Jung or Adler or Assagioli
-- are not people who you can put in the category of Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu. You cannot put these people with the seers of the UPANISHADS, with Kabir and Nanak and Farid. These are the sanest people humanity has produced, and they have not bothered about dreams, they have not gone through psychoanalysis for years together.
It is such a strange phenomenon: in the whole world there is not a single person who has completed psychoanalysis -- because it goes on and on, ten years, twelve years. There are people who have been in psychoanalysis for twenty years, wasting millions of dollars.
In fact, just as everywhere ladies talk about diamonds and emeralds and rubies, in America ladies say: "How long have you been in psychoanalysis? I have been in it for thirteen years!"
It is a criterion of wealth: it shows you can afford to pay millions of dollars.
The poor man, the psychoanalyst, has to listen to all kinds of garbage. No wonder that they start going mad, they start committing suicide, they jump from the window of a thirty-story building or hundred-story building! Just listen to a woman's dreams for twenty years.… It is a great relief for the husband, he is perfectly happy that she throws all her garbage and tantrums and everything on the psychoanalyst -- it is not too costly, he can manage to pay -- but for the poor psychoanalyst... Twenty years of listening to one woman and her stupid dreams? If one day he suddenly jumps out of the window, you cannot condemn him -- he needs everybody's sympathy.
But it is big business.
Just the other day I was telling you that Jesus founded a big business, Christianity.
Another Jew, Sigmund Freud, founded another business, psychoanalysis. Another Jew, Karl Marx founded another business, communism.
Jews are strange people. Whenever they do something, nobody can compete with them.
Now half the world is communist in one Jew's hands; the other half is Christian, in another Jew's hands. And who knows? -- maybe both are partners.
Jews are always business minded; they don't bother about Christianity, they don't bother about communism. Sigmund Freud is dead, Karl Marx is dead. Wherever they are -- in hell or in heaven -- they may be enjoying the fact that their businesses are going well; they may have even joined with Jesus. This would be the real trinity: three Jews running the whole world.
Modern psychology will not accept meditation because meditation will destroy their business.
A man of meditation needs no psychoanalysis. The deeper his meditation goes, the saner he becomes and the further beyond the mind is his flight.
Meditation is the greatest danger for psychoanalysis, for psychologists. They have to insist that there is nothing beyond mind because if there is something
beyond mind, then their whole business can flop.
The East has to assert itself: show that what they are doing is simply foolish.
In a Zen monastery in Japan the same kind of psychological case is treated within three weeks; in the West he would not be treated in twelve years. And in the Zen monastery in those three weeks there is no psychoanalysis. You will be surprised: nothing is done; the person is put in an isolated place -- a beautiful garden, pond. In time food will be provided, in time tea will be sent; but nobody will talk with him, he has to remain silent.
You can see the difference.
In psychoanalysis he has to talk about his dreams continuously, for years, one hour every day, two hours, two sessions a week, three sessions a week -- as much as you can afford.
And here in a Zen monastery they simply put the man in a beautiful, comfortable place.
There are musical instruments available, painting material is available, or if there is anything special he wants to do that is made available; but it has to be something to do --
not talking. And for three weeks nobody will to talk to him.
During the three weeks, people paint, people play music, people dance, people work in the garden, and after three weeks they are perfectly normal, they are ready to go back home.
What has happened? If you ask the Zen master, he would say, "Nothing; these people were working too hard, and their mind got wound up too much. They needed unwinding.
So just three weeks rest and their mind was unwound. They needed physical work so that the whole energy goes into the body, not in the mind." And these people certainly become interested... without doing anything all the strange and weird things that they had been thinking had disappeared. This is a simple way for sick people to unwind the overloaded mind.
For those who are healthy -- not sick people -- the way is meditation. There are different methods for different types. And thousands of people have achieved such luminosity, such glory, such godliness, that all the psychologists of the world should be ashamed.
They have not been able to produce a single person. Even their founders are just very ordinary -- worse than ordinary.
Sigmund Freud was so afraid of death that even the word `death' was prohibited. In his essence nobody should mention the word `death' because just hearing the word he would fall into a fit, he would go unconscious. These are the founders of modern psychology; they are going to give humanity sanity!
And on the other hand.… A Zen monk, just before dying, said to his disciples: "Listen, I have always lived in my own way. I am an independent person and I want to die in my own way also. When I am dead I will not be here, so I will give you the instructions to be followed."
Just as in India, it happens in exactly the same way in Japan too; before he is taken to the funeral, the person's clothes are changed, he is given a bath and new clothes are put on him.
He said, "I have taken the bath myself, I have changed my clothes, you can see. So when I am dead, there is no need for any bath or changing of clothes. And these are the orders from your master, so remember: at least a dying man's wishes should not be denied -- and I am not asking much."
His disciples said, "We will do as you say. There is nothing much in it."
He died, and thousands of disciples were there. When his body was put on the funeral pyre, they all started laughing and giggling -- he had hidden firecrackers inside his clothes. He had made it into a divali, just to make everybody laugh -- because that was his basic teaching, that life should be a dance, a joy, and death should be a celebration.
And people said that even after death he managed it so that nobody should stand around him with a long face, so that everybody was laughing. Even the strangers who had come started laughing; they had never seen such a scene.
These are the people who have understood life and death. They can make death a
joke.
Not Sigmund Freud, for whom the word `death' becomes a fit.
And the same is the case with other great psychologists. Jung wanted to go to Egypt to see the old mummies of kings and queens, dead bodies preserved for three thousand years old. But he was very much afraid of death and dead bodies. He was a disciple of Freud.
He booked the ticket twelve times, and each time he would find some excuse: "I am feeling feverish," or, "Some urgent work has come."
And he knew. He wrote in his diary: "I knew it was all an excuse. I was avoiding going to Egypt, but the more I avoided it the more I was attracted -- as if I had to go, it was a challenge to my manliness. Am I such a coward? So I would book again, and I would gather courage, and I would try to convince myself that there is nothing to be worried about -- they are dead bodies, they cannot do anything to you. And so many people go to see them. They are there in the museums. Thousands of people see them every day. Why are you afraid?" -- but arguments won't do.
Finally, the twelfth time he booked, he managed to get to the airport, but when the plane came on the airstrip all his courage, arguments and everything disappeared. He said, "I am feeling very sick and nauseous. I want to go back home. Cancel the trip." And after that, he never dared book again; twelve times was enough. He never managed to reach Egypt -- which was only a few hours' flight.
He came to India, and he went to all the universities of India. He was here for three months. But he would not go to one man, where he needed to go: He would not go to Shri Raman Maharshi. And in every university it was suggested that he was wasting his time:
"You have come to understand the Eastern approach, but we are all Western- educated psychologists in the Indian universities' psychological departments. You are just wasting your time. These people may be educated in the West or in the East but their education is Western; they know nothing of the East. But by chance there is a man -- he knows nothing of psychology, he is absolutely uneducated, but he represents the East. This man has experienced the ultimate flights of meditation. You just go and sit by his side."
He went up to Madras, but he would not go to see him. It was only a two-hour journey from Madras, but he would not go. And he had come to India to understand what the Eastern attitude to psychology was.
Western psychology -- which is the contemporary psychology -- is very childish.
The East has a ten thousand year-old inquiry into human consciousness. It has touched every nook and corner of human being, within and without, as individual and as universal.
But it is unfortunate that even the Eastern psychologists and professors of psychology have no idea about the Eastern approach. They are just parrots repeating Western psychology secondhand. That too is not their own original contribution. Sometimes even parrots are better and more intelligent.
I have been a professor in the university, and I have been in constant conflict with the professors: "You are parrots and you are agents of the West without your knowing. You are corrupting the Eastern mind because you don't know what you are doing. You are not even aware of what the East has already discovered. You are just carbon copies carrying certificates from Western universities."
I have often told a story in the universities.
A bishop was looking for a parrot. His own parrot had died. He had been a very religious parrot -- religious in the sense that he was able to repeat the Sermon on the Mount accurately, word for word. And whoever heard him was simply amazed. And the parrot had died and the bishop was missing his parrot.
So he went to a very big pet shop, and he looked around. There were many parrots there with many qualities. But he said, "No, my parrot was almost a saint, I want a very religious parrot."
The pet shop owner said, "I have a special parrot -- but the price may be too much. He is no ordinary saint, he is a very special saint. Come inside with me. I keep my special parrots in my house behind the shop, not in the shop itself.
There in a golden cage was a beautiful parrot.
The pet shop owner said, "This is the religious parrot. You have talked so much
about your parrot, but this parrot is unique -- you will forget all about him. Come close and see: on its right leg there is a small thread; if you pull that thread, he will repeat the Sermon on the Mount. There is also a small thread on its left leg; if you pull that, it will repeat the Song of Solomon. So if you have a Jew for a guest, you can make the parrot repeat the Song of Solomon from the Old Testament; or if you have a Christian guest, then the Sermon on the Mount from the New Testament."
The bishop said, "Great; this is really great. And what will happen if I pull both threads together?"
Before the owner could say anything, the parrot said, "Never do that, you idiot. I will fall on my ass!"
Even parrots have some intelligence.
Sooner or later psychology has to inquire into the states created by meditation, into spaces which are beyond mind. And unless it dares to penetrate the innermost core of human beings, it will not become a science. Right now its name is wrong; it has to prove that it is psychology -- the science of the soul.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
DURING DEEP RELAXATION I HAVE EXPERIENCED SOME STRANGE
THINGS. ONE IS THAT I FELT LIFTED FROM THE EARTH, AND THE SECOND
THAT I FELT TOUCHED BY HANDS TRYING TO HELP ME.
EVERY TIME IT HAPPENED I FELT TOTALLY SCARED, DIDN'T DARE TO
OPEN MY EYES, AND DID EVERYTHING I KNOW TO GROUND MYSELF.
OSHO, CAN I TRUST AND JUST LET GO, OR IS THERE DANGER? "I" DON'T
MAKE MYSELF FLY. I DON'T KNOW HOW FAR IT WOULD GO, AND WHETHER I WOULD EVER BE ABLE TO COME BACK.
CAN YOU PLEASE COMMENT?
First, can't you recognize my hands? Open your eyes, and just take a good look! You see my hands every day.
If in meditation you feel two hands appearing, don't close your eyes. And you will be able to recognize my hands.
There is nothing to fear.
In fact, the feeling that you are uplifted from the earth is tremendously valuable. You are not really lifted up, you are on the earth; it is not that your body is really lifted up.
But you have three bodies.
Your physical body will remain on the earth.
And because of meditation your mental body is silent, relaxing.
Only the astral body is capable of rising upwards; it is beyond gravitation. Gravitation has no power over it.
Light is not under the control of gravitation. That's why the flame of a candle can go upwards. Even if you put the candle upside down, the flame will immediately turn upwards. The flame cannot go downwards because the gravitation has no pull on light.
Your astral body is made only of light, of electrons.
It is very indicative that you feel that your body is uplifted. Naturally in the beginning you will be gripped by fear: What is happening?
But open your eyes.
These are the moments when I am really with you in case you need me; hence, you feel two hands because it is a very delicate moment. Any accident is
possible.
Open your eyes and see. You will be surprised, because it will seem as if you are floating above your body and your body is lying down on the floor. But you will see a thin cord as if made of silver, shining, joined with the body lying down on the floor. The point the silver cord is joined to is your navel -- and it is very flexible. You can fly higher, and it will stretch without any difficulty. You can come closer.
But don't be afraid. Don't start thinking, "How am I going to get into my body again?"
You have not come out of the body with your effort. It is your silence, your peace that has helped your astral body move out. The moment you feel like getting back into the body, you will immediately find yourself back in the body. And those two hands that were close to you will disappear the moment you are back in the body.
And just watch my hands closely because these will be the same hands, and naturally you need not be afraid of my hands. My hands have never done any harm to anybody.
In fact, I cannot do anything with my hands -- these must be the laziest hands in the whole world.
But your experience is immensely significant, impeccably beautiful.
And the fear that if you go on and on, how far and where it will lead.… Don't be worried.
Wherever it will lead you is the right place, the right space.
Relax and remain in a let-go. You are not to control its movements because you are far smaller than the energy that you are trying to control. The best way is to simply surrender to existence and allow it to take you wherever it takes you; it has never taken anybody into any wrong space.
It always takes you back home. Question 3
BELOVED OSHO,
OUT ON THE SPARKLING SEAS OF ONENESS, A MYSTERIOUS WIND FILLS
MY SAILS, GIVING DIRECTION TO MY JOURNEY AND BECKONING ME
ONWARDS INTO UNKNOWN WATERS.
MY BELOVED CAPTAIN, WHEN DOES THE UNKNOWN BECOME THE UNKNOWABLE?
Milarepa, your question is very simple.
The mind can be divided into two parts: the known and the unknown.
The known is your knowledge; the unknown is your ignorance. And all your universities and educational systems are trying to do only one thing: to put your mind completely in the field of the known, to dispel the unknown, to dispel ignorance.
Beyond the known and the unknown is what I call `the unknowable'. That is beyond mind. That is the world of the mysterious, the world of the miraculous.
The moment you pass beyond mind, the unknown is left behind, the known is left behind, and you enter into the unknowable. And the unknowable is the field of true religion. You experience it, you live it, you feel it, it becomes your heartbeat, but you can never say you know it.
Knowledge seems to be a much lower category.
The unknowable belongs to the category of being, not to the category of knowing.
The mystics of all the ages, of all countries, are making every effort to push you from the known and unknown into the unknowable, to push you from the mind into the ocean of the mysterious. There you will experience much -- much that you can imagine, much that you can dream about -- but you will not be able to
bring anything from it into the world of knowledge, you will not be able to translate it into words, into language, into anything that can become a symbol for it.
I am reminded of a small child.… And a mystic is almost like a small child. The child was sitting with a canvas with all his colors and brushes, and his father was reading the newspaper. Again and again the father looked at the child... he's not doing anything, just sitting there. He said, "What are you doing?"
The child said, "I am painting."
After half an hour the father said, "But I don't see any painting on your canvas. Haven't you decided what you are going to paint yet?"
The boy said, "No, that's not the point. I have painted it."
The father came close to see. He said, "Painted it? I never thought that you would befool me. A plain canvas; you have not even touched it!"
He said, "No, father; I have done my painting: a cow is grazing the grass." The father said, "A cow grazing in the grass? Where is the cow?"
The boy said, "After grazing the grass, she has gone. What would she do here now?"
The father said, "Okay, where is the grass?"
The boy said, "You are strange; the cow has eaten the grass and gone." The father said, "How did you make this idea up? To befool me?"
The boy said, "No, I am not befooling you. I saw the grass, I saw the cow, I saw the grass disappearing and I saw her go away."
The child is innocent. Perhaps his imagination... And a child's imagination is really powerful -- they cannot make any distinction between the dream and the real. He may have seen a cow and the grass, and when the cow was there and the grass was there he did not paint anything. What is the point of painting on a canvas when there is a cow and grass and everything is already there? But then
the cow eats the grass and the cow goes.…
The father said, "Stop painting from today, and you stop all kinds of imaginations; otherwise you will go mad."
That's what we are doing with every child. We are not allowing the child's imagination to be refined to such a point that it becomes almost real; otherwise, every person would carry a poet in him, a painter in him, a singer in him, a dancer in him.
And finally, the culmination of all that is creative is the mystic. When you have sung the best of your songs, then silence is the song.
When you have danced the best dance, the dancer disappears. And without the dancer, how can the dance remain?
When your poetry is perfect, there is no poet. The poetry has immense significance but no meaning.
In ancient China a Taoist proverb says: "When the archer is perfect, he throws away his bow and his arrows. When the musician is perfect, he forgets all about his instruments."
There is a mysterious world -- illogical to the mind, supra-logical to those who understand the world of the mystic. It surrounds us; we just need the right perception, clear eyes unburdened with knowledge -- innocent, weightless.
We need wings -- wings of love, not of logic.
Logic pulls you downwards. It is under the rule of gravitation. Love takes you towards the stars.
Allow the mystic in you, and you have found all that is worth finding. Beyond Enlightenment
Chapter #25
Chapter title: You are what you are seeking
28 October 1986 pm in Archive
code:
8610285
ShortTitle:
ENLIGH25
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
125
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
FROM TIME TO TIME A BEAUTIFUL STORY YOU TOLD US MORE THAN A YEAR AGO COMES TO MY MIND.
IT IS ABOUT A YOUNG MAN WHO SET OUT TO LOOK FOR TRUTH, AND
AFTER SOME FAILURES WAS GIVEN THE TASK OF LOOKING AFTER SOME
COWS. STARTING WITH JUST A FEW OF THEM ON THE MOUNTAINS, HE
WAS NOT TO COME BACK UNTIL HE HAD SUCCEEDED IN RAISING ONE
THOUSAND OF THEM. YEARS WENT BY, UNTIL ONE DAY THE MAN HEARD
THE COWS TALKING TO HIM, SAYING, "WE ARE ONE THOUSAND!"
EVENTUALLY HE RETURNED TO THE VALLEY, WHERE PEOPLE COULD
HARDLY DISTINGUISH THE MAN FROM THE ANIMALS.
OFTEN, SIMPLY BY RECALLING THIS STORY, TEARS COME TO MY EYES.
THERE IS SO MUCH BEAUTY AND FRESHNESS IN THE END OF THE STORY, THAT FOR A FEW MOMENTS IT BRINGS MY BEING TO A STANDSTILL.
OSHO, I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOU TELLING THIS STORY AGAIN AND
AGAIN: "WE ARE ONE THOUSAND! WE ARE ONE THOUSAND!"
BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE MEANING THIS SMALL TALE IS CARRYING?
WHY DO THESE FEW WORDS FILL ME WITH AWE AND TEARS? WOULD YOU
KINDLY COMMENT?
The story is one of the most ancient stories of the heart, of the world beyond words -- of knowing, not of knowledge; of utter innocence as the door to the divine.
The story contains the very essence of meditativeness.
It has many dimensions, many implications, and it is no wonder that it fills you
with tears of joy. Those tears are indicative that the story has touched your heart, your very being; that you have tasted it although you don't understand what it is. You have felt its beauty, its glory, its depth -- but you find it hard to explain to yourself what it is that you have found.
You have found a world of magic, mystery and miracles.
I would love to tell you the whole story. It needs to be told thousands and thousands of times because each time you will find some new fragrance, some new sweetness, some new height, some new door opening, some new sky with new stars. And there are skies beyond skies.
I used to live in a place... I lived there for twenty years, in Jabalpur. Its ancient name was Jabalpur; it was named after a great mystic and seer of the UPANISHADS, Satyakam Jabal. And this story is concerned with Satyakam Jabal.
Satyakam was a very inquiring child. He did not believe in anything unless he had experienced it. As he became a young man -- he must have been nearabout the age of twelve -- he asked his mother, "Now it is time. The prince of the kingdom has gone to the forest to join the family of a seer. He is my age. I also want to go, I also want to learn what this life is all about."
The mother said, "It is very difficult, Satyakam, but I know that you are a born seeker. I was afraid that one day you would ask me to send you to a master. I am a poor woman, but that is not a great difficulty. The difficulty is that when I was young I served in many houses -- I was poor, but I was beautiful. I don't know who your father is. And if I send you to a master, you are going to be asked what the name of your father is. And I am afraid they may reject you.
But there is no harm in making an effort. You go and tell the truth, in the same way I have told the truth to you. Many men have used my body because I was poor. Just say that you don't know who your father is. Tell the master that your name is Satyakam, your mother's name is Jabala, so they can call you Satyakam Jabal. And as far as the search for truth is concerned, who your father is does not matter."
Satyakam went to an ancient seer in the forest, and sure enough the first question was,
"What is your name? Who is your father?"
And he repeated exactly what his mother had said.
There were many disciples -- princes, rich people's sons. They all started laughing.
But the old master said, "I will accept you. It does not matter who your father is. What matters is that you are authentic, sincere, unafraid -- capable of saying the truth without feeling embarrassed. Your mother has given you the right name, Satyakam. `Satyakam'
means one whose only desire is truth. You have a beautiful mother, and you will be known as `Satyakam Jabal'. And the tradition is that only brahmins can be accepted as disciples. I declare you a brahmin -- because only a brahmin can have the courage of such truth."
Those were beautiful days. The old seer's name was Uddalak.
Satyakam became his most loved disciple. He deserved it, he was so pure and so innocent.
But Uddalak had his own limitations. Although he was a man of great learning, he was not an enlightened master. So he taught Satyakam all the scriptures, he taught him everything that he was capable of, but he could not deceive Satyakam as he had been deceiving everybody else. Not that Satyakam was raising any doubts; it was just that his innocence had such power that the old man had to confess, "Whatever I have been telling you is knowledge gathered from the scriptures. It is not my own. I have not experienced it, I have not lived it. I suggest that you go deeper into the forest. I know a man who has realized, who has become an embodiment of truth, love, compassion. You go to him."
Uddalak had heard about the man, but did not know the man personally. Uddalak was far more famous, he was a great scholar.…
Satyakam went to the other man. This man taught him many new scriptures, and all the VEDAS, the most ancient scriptures of the world. And after years he told him, "Now you know everything; there is nothing more to know. You can go back home."
First he went to see Uddalak. From his window, Uddalak saw Satyakam coming on the footpath through the forest. He was shocked. Satyakam's innocence was lost; in place of innocence there was pride -- naturally, because now he thought he knew everything in the world that is worth knowing. The very idea was so ego fulfilling.
He came in. As he started to touch the feet of Uddalak, Uddalak said, "Don't touch my feet! First, I want to know where you have lost your innocence. It seems I have sent you to the wrong man."
Satyakam said, "To the wrong man? He has taught me everything that is worth knowing."
Uddalak said, "Before you touch my feet, I would like to ask you -- have you experienced anything or it is just information? Has any transformation happened? Can you say that whatever you know is your knowledge?"
Satyakam said, "I cannot say that. What I know is written in the scriptures; I have not experienced anything."
Uddalak said, "Then go back, but now go to another person I have come to know about while you were gone. And unless you have experienced, don't come back. You have come here not more than when I sent you but less. You have lost something of immense value. And what you call knowledge -- if it is borrowed, it only covers your ignorance; it does not make you a knower. Go to this man and tell him that you have not come for more information about truth, about God, about love. Tell him you have come to know truth, to know love, to know God. Tell him, Ìf you can fulfill the promise, only then waste my time; otherwise I will find another master.'"
Satyakam said exactly this.
The master was sitting under a tree with a few of his disciples. After listening to the request, he said, "It is possible, but you are asking something very difficult. There are so many disciples here -- they all want more knowledge. They want to know about and about. But if you insist that you are not interested in information, that you are ready to do anything, that your devotion to truth is total, then I will find a way for you."
Satyakam said, "I am ready to sacrifice my life, but I cannot go without knowing
the truth. Neither can I go to my teacher nor can I go to my mother, who has given me the namèSatyakam'. And the teacher accepted me without knowing whether I was a brahmin or not, just on the simple grounds that I was truthful. Tell me what has to be done."
The master said, "Take all these cows that you see here deep into the forest. Go as deep as possible, so you don't come in contact again with any human being. The purpose is that you forget language, words. Live with the cows, take care of the cows, play on your flute, dance -- but forget words. And when the cows have grown to one thousand, come back."
The other disciples could not believe what was happening -- because there were just a dozen or two dozen cows. How long is it going to take for them to become one thousand?
But Satyakam took the cows, went as deep as possible into the forest, beyond human contact, beyond human context. For a few days it was difficult but slowly slowly, the cows were his only company. And they are very silent people. He played on the flute, he danced alone in the forest, he rested under the trees.
For a few years he continued to count the cows. Then by and by he dropped it, because it seemed impossible that they would become one thousand. And moreover he was forgetting how to count; language was disappearing.
Words disappeared; counting could not be saved. And the story is so immensely beautiful.…
The cows became worried when they became one thousand -- because they wanted to go back home, and this man had forgotten how to count! Finally the cows decided, "We have to speak; otherwise this lonely forest is going to become our grave."
So one day the cows caught hold of him and told him, "Listen, Satyakam, we are now one thousand and it is time to go back home."
He said, "I am very grateful to you. If you had not told me.… I had even forgotten about home or about returning. Each moment was so tremendously beautiful... so many blessings. In the silence, flowers went on showering. I had forgotten everything. I had no idea why I had come here, who I am. Everything
had become an end in itself -- playing the flute was enough, resting under the trees was enough, seeing the beautiful cows sitting silently all around was so beautiful. But if you insist, we should return."
The disciples of the great master saw him coming with one thousand cows. They reported to the master, "We had never believed that he would come back. He is coming, and we have counted exactly one thousand cows. He is coming!"
And when he came, he stood there... just in the crowd of cows.
The master said to the other disciples, "You counted wrong. There are one thousand and one cows; you forgot to count Satyakam! He has moved beyond your world, he has entered into the innocent, the silent, the mysterious. He is not saying anything, he is just standing there as the cows are standing there ."
The master said, "Satyakam, you come out. Now you have to go to your other master who sent you here. He is an old man and he must be waiting. Your mother must be waiting."
And when Satyakam came to Uddalak, his first teacher -- who had not allowed him to touch his feet because he had lost his innocence, he was no more a brahmin, he had fallen, he had become just a knowledgeable parrot... As Uddalak saw him from the window again, he ran out the back door -- because now Satyakam cannot be allowed to touch his feet; now Uddalak would have to touch his feet. Because Uddalak is still a scholar, and Satyakam is coming not as a scholar but as one who is awakened.
Uddalak escaped from the house: "I cannot face him. I am ashamed of myself. Just tell him," he told his wife, "that Uddalak is dead and he can go now to his mother. Tell him I died remembering him." These were people made of different mettle.
Satyakam went back home.
The mother had become very old, but she had waited and waited and waited. And she said, "You have proved, Satyakam, that truth is always victorious. And you have proved that a brahmin is not born, a brahmin is a quality to be achieved. Everybody by his birth is a sudra -- because everybody's birth is the same. One has to prove by purifying himself, by crystallizing himself, by becoming centered and enlightened, that he is a brahmin. Just to be born into the
family of a brahmin does not make you a brahmin."
If you meditate on the story, you will see: the very essence of meditation is to be so silent that there is no stirring of thoughts in you, that words don't come between you and reality, that the whole net of words falls down, that you are left alone.
This aloneness, this purity, this unclouded sky of your being is meditation. And meditation is the golden key to all the mysteries of life.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MASTER EVER -- LIFE HAS GIVEN ME SO
MUCH SINCE I HAVE BEEN WITH YOU -- BUT STILL, EXCEPT FOR MOMENTS
OF BEATITUDE WITH YOU OR IN MY MEDITATION, DEEP DOWN IN MYSELF
THERE IS ALWAYS A DEEP-ROOTED SADNESS AND A LONGING FOR SOME
SPACE THAT I HARDLY CAN REMEMBER. CAN YOU PLEASE COMMENT?
Meditation always opens doors, different doors to different people.
Sadness is not necessarily something bad. Don't judge it as a bad or negative quality.
When a person who has never been silent, for the first time becomes silent, the very silence feels sad because there is no excitement, no firecrackers.
You can misunderstand your first acquaintance with silence as sadness, but it is not sadness. It is just that you have been always engaged in a thousand and one
things and now they have all disappeared. You feel a little lost. Before silence becomes a song, a small period, a transitory period, is absolutely necessary.
You know sadness. And sadness has something of silence in it -- whenever you are sad, you are a little silent. So there is an association between your sadness and silence. When you become silent for the first time, the only thing you can feel from your past experience is sadness.
Allow it to deepen. Don't judge it as sadness, because that very judgment may become a barrier. The moment you say something negative you are trying to get rid of it. Don't say anything negative about it.
Just accept it as a bridge between silence and song.
Just wait a little, and you will start feeling that this silence is not dead, it is not the silence of the graveyard. It is a silence which is very much alive, a silence which is not empty but too full, overflowing.…
Overflowing with what? Again, a new experience is waiting for you. You have known only songs with words. You have never known a pure song without words, music without sound.
Just a little waiting, and the sadness will start turning into a song with no words, into a music with no sounds, into a dance with no movements.
Everything is going perfectly right, just a little bit of patience is needed.
When you are sick, in the hospitals you are called `patients'. Have you ever thought about why? -- because healing takes time, and you have to be patient.
This is inner healing, and you need a deeper patience.
But if silence is there and meditation is happening, then there is no problem at all. Spring will be coming soon with all its colors and all its flowers and all its beauty.
Just wait a little. Question 3
BELOVED OSHO,
I WAS BORN IN THE MOUNTAINS, AND THROUGHOUT MY CHILDHOOD AND
YOUTH I WAS PULLED TO EXPLORE, CLIMB, OR JUST SIT ON THE PEAKS, ON THE STEEP WALLS, OR BY THE SIDE OF A GLACIER STREAM. I LIVED IN
THE MOUNTAINS, AND THEY FED ME, LIKE A MOTHER, WITH SOMETHING
VERY PRECIOUS.
SOMEWHERE I READ THAT THE MOUNTAINS, THE HIGH, SNOW- CAPPED
PEAKS ARE THE VERY ESSENCE OF BUDDHA.
OSHO, THE BEAUTY THAT SURROUNDS YOU, THE COOL BREEZE THAT
HOVERS AROUND YOU, IS LIKE THE ONE COMING FROM THE HIGHEST, THE
WILDEST PEAK IN THE WORLD.
I'VE BEEN WITH YOU FOR SEVEN YEARS, AND IN THIS LAST PERIOD OF
TIME I FELT THAT I WAS PASSING THROUGH THE SAME PASTURES, THE
SAME PLAINS I REMEMBER LEAVING FOR THE HEIGHTS SEVEN YEARS
AGO. I SEE THE STARTING POINT AS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOW: IT IS
SWEET AND BEAUTIFUL, ENOUGH UNTO ITSELF, NO LONGER
AWFUL AND
DISGUSTING AS IT USED TO BE.
BELOVED OSHO, I HAVEN'T COME TO KNOW ANYTHING; THE THOUSAND
SUNS DID NOT SHINE IN MY HEAD. ALL I'VE GOT NOW IS MYSELF, CONTENTED, AT THE SAME POINT FROM WHERE I STARTED MY JOURNEY
SEVEN YEARS AGO.
HAVE I BEEN DREAMING ALL THESE YEARS OF TRAVELING FAR AWAY
WHEN MY FEET DID NOT LEAVE THE BASE CAMP? OR WAS ALL THIS TO
REALIZE THAT WHERE I STARTED FROM IS WHERE I BELONG?
OSHO, PLEASE TELL ME: SOMETIMES THIS DREAM SEEMS TO BE REAL, BUT
NOW MY BEING DOES NOT FEEL AS IF IT IS PULLED TO GO ANYWHERE.
HAVE I BEEN CHEATING MYSELF? OR IS THIS AS FAR AS IT IS ALLOWED
FOR ME TO GO IN THIS LIFE?
WILL YOU TELL ME THE TRUTH? I'M TIRED NOW; BE MERCILESS, BUT
PLEASE SAY WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING TO ME.
It is not only with you but with everybody, exactly the same. You are what you are seeking.
You are standing at exactly the place towards which you have been traveling -- for seven years or seventy years or seven hundred years.
Your reality is within you, it is not somewhere else. But to understand the point, sometimes it takes years. You knock on many doors before you come to your own door...
and then you are puzzled, because this is the house you had left and this is the house you have been searching for.
But the search has not been useless; it has given you the eyes to recognize.
I have often told a Sufi story. A man renounces the world, his wife, his home. He is young and he is going in search of a master.
Just outside his village under a tree, an old man is sitting. The sun is just setting, and darkness is descending. The young man asks the old man, "You look as if you are a traveler; you certainly don't belong to my village. I am a young man and I am in search of a master. You are old; perhaps you have come across a master in your journeys, and will be kind enough to help me with some directives, some guidelines -- because I am feeling at a loss, where to go."
The old man said, "I will give you exact details. The master looks like this" -- and he described the face of the master, the eyes of the master, the nose of the master, the beard of the master, his robe. "And he sits under a certain tree" -- and he described the tree.
And he said, "You will find him; just remember these details. Whenever you find a man who fulfills these criteria, you have found your master."
Thirty years passed. The young man became old, tired. He never came across anybody fitting the description given by the old man. Finally he gave up the whole idea of finding a master: "Perhaps there is no master anywhere."
He went back to his village. And as he was entering the village, under the same tree... It was sunrise, there was more light. The old man had become very old. The last time they had met he must have been sixty; now he was ninety. And because for thirty years the man had been looking for certain eyes, a certain nose, a certain beard, a certain robe, a certain tree.… As he saw the tree and he saw the old man he said, "My God, so you were describing yourself! Why didn't
you tell me? Why did you force me to travel unnecessarily around the world for thirty years searching for you, while you were sitting here?"
The old man said, "First throw out all your tantrums and your anger; then I will tell you the truth. Thirty years ago you were too young. The time was not right; it was sunset, darkness was descending. And you were in such a hurry to go in search, that if I had told you that I was the master you would have laughed and said, `This is strange that you are sitting just outside my village!' And you cannot blame me because I explained every detail, but your eyes were looking far away. You were listening to me, but you were not looking to see that I was describing my eyes, my nose, my beard, my robe, that I was describing the tree under which I was sitting. You were not ripe.
"These thirty years have not gone to waste; they have matured you. Now you can recognize me. Just look; it is sunrise, the right time. And it is not the beginning of your journey, you had already given up. I am meeting you at the end of thirty years of long, arduous effort. That which you can get cheap you cannot recognize. You had to pay these thirty years and all the troubles that you went through just to be mature enough to recognize me.
"I could have told you on that day too -- but it would have been pointless, and you would have missed me.
"And you think you have been in trouble for thirty years? Just think about me -- for thirty years I have been sitting under the same tree, because I described this tree. I have not left it for a single day because I was aware that any moment you might come, and if you didn't find me here I would have been proved to have spoken lies. I have been sitting here for thirty years continuously -- day in, day out; summer, winter, rain, but I have been sitting here. And you see I am old. I was worried that if I died before you came back, it would be a tragedy. So I have been trying to somehow cling to life -- because as far as I am concerned there is nothing left; I have realized myself. Life has given everything that it can give. I have been sitting just for you."
The story is strange, but significant.
It takes time to realize that which you are.
Basically there is no need: you can realize just now, this very moment. But to realize it you will need a certain maturity, a certain centering, a certain
awareness, a certain silence.
Seven years are not long. And don't be worried that you have not seen a thousand suns rising in you; it is not necessary. Everybody experiences his innermost being in his own way.
Somebody experiences it as light, but that is his type.
There are people who have realized it as immense darkness.
You are hearing the firecrackers all around. Two religions in India, Hindus and Jainas, celebrate this festival, the festival of lights. They have different reasons; it is just a coincidence that something has happened on the same day in the history of both religions.
Hindus celebrate it because Rama, one of the Hindu incarnations of God, was victorious over Ravana. He came back after fourteen years of wandering in the forest and the mountains to his capitol, Ayodhya. And because he was coming back after fourteen years, the capitol celebrated with lights and firecrackers and rejoicings. That is the Hindu reason.
For Jainas this is not the reason.
Mahavira became enlightened on the same day, and Mahavira is the most important individual in the history of Jainism. Jainas are celebrating because Mahavira attained liberation. And he attained liberation in a unique way.…
Gautam Buddha became enlightened on a full-moon night. And except for Mahavira, anybody who has become enlightened has become enlightened either on a full-moon night or close to it. Mahavira is unique in that he became enlightened on the night of amawas, no moon, complete darkness. He is alone; there is nobody else who has become enlightened on the night of amawas.
Individual types...
Gautam Buddha was born on a full-moon night. He became enlightened on a full-moon night. He died on a full-moon night. This cannot be just coincidence. His type has something to do with a synchronicity with the full-moon night.
There are saints, mystics... when they become enlightened, they smell some
perfume which is not of this world. Because of this experience, among Sufi mystics perfume has become very significant, and Sufi mystics of different schools use different kinds of perfumes. Because their master experienced a certain perfume, they use something parallel to it. It cannot be exactly the same, but something parallel, on the lowest rung of the same ladder which the master experienced on the highest rung. They use that perfume as a remembrance of their master.
Some have heard unworldly music, anahat nad.
Because people are of different types, their ultimate experience is also going to be of a different type; it is going to have their signature on it.
So don't be worried if you are not seeing a thousand and one suns rising in you.
Kabir has seen them. Gautam Buddha has not seen them. Mahavira has not seen them.
But there are a few other mystics who have seen them.
Just as you are unique in your ordinary life... You know people who have a sensitivity for music, and there are others who don't have any ear for music.
Mulla Nasruddin's wife bought two tickets for a classical concert. Mulla tried hard, but could not escape; he had to go to the concert. It was classical Indian music. So when the musician started doing his aalap, tuning his instrument, Mulla Nasruddin's eyes became full of tears. His wife said, "I never thought you loved classical music so much."
He said, "It is not the classical music. I am crying because this man is going to die!"
The wife said, "What gave you the idea this man is going to die?"
He said, "You wouldn't understand. One night one of my goats started doing exactly what this man is doing. And I said, `What is the matter?' I tried hard to stop her but she wouldn't listen, and in the morning she was dead. I can guarantee that by morning this man is going to be dead; this is the beginning of the disease. This is not music."
He had never heard classical music. Poor fellow had one similar experience... a natural conclusion.
There are people who are sensitive to certain things, for example paintings, and there are a few who are not at all sensitive to paintings.
In the life of Michelangelo there was one incident.…
Just a few years ago, you may have read in the newspapers: a man, a madman destroyed one of the most beautiful statues in the Vatican. It was of Jesus Christ lying in his mother's lap after he was taken down from the cross. That statue was thought to be the best statue in the whole world, and certainly it was so alive. Michelangelo had put all his art into it, it was his masterpiece. And this man simply destroyed it with a hammer because he wanted to become world famous. He became world famous.
This incident in Michelangelo's life concerns the same statue.
Michelangelo went into a shop in the market where there were shops selling marble. Just in front of the shop on the open ground there was a big rock -- a huge marble rock that had been lying there for years. And he asked, "How much is the price?"
The owner said, "There is no price; it has been lying there for almost ten years, and you are the first person even to ask about it. If you can take it away, it is yours. It will be enough payment that our grounds are cleared and we can put out other rocks for show.
That rock is taking so much space. And every artist comes here; no artist has ever seen any possibility for that rock."
And Michelangelo cut from that same rock this statue that was destroyed a few years ago.
When the statue was ready, he invited the shop owner. The man could not believe it. He said, "Where did you get such a beautiful piece of marble?"
Michelangelo said, "This is the same rock that you gave me at no charge."
The man said, "My God, but you have created the most beautiful statue I have
ever seen.
How could you manage to think, looking at that ugly rock, that you would be able to do it?"
He said, "I have not done anything. It was just that Jesus cried out to me,
`Michelangelo, I am encaged in this rock. Make me free.'" This is genius.
Jesus was there, Mary was there. But to see the possibility in that ugly rock, you need a certain insight.
Now, if Michelangelo becomes enlightened, his experience will have something to do with his genius. If Yehudi Menuhin becomes enlightened, his enlightenment will have something to do with his musical genius.
Each individual is unique in ordinary life. The uniqueness becomes even more sharp and clear, crystal clear, when the person becomes enlightened -- because only then his pure genius, his pure individuality, uncontaminated, unpolluted, is revealed.
So never be concerned that what has happened to others should happen to you.
Sometimes it can happen because in this big world, millions of people have lived before and thousands of people have become enlightened; you may have something similar. You may have something which will look strange to others.
Ashok Bharti has asked a question which is unique -- because it happened only once before. Since he has been here -- and he has been singing songs; those who have been here can see that the quality, the joy, the celebration has been growing
-- but something else has been happening that you cannot see.
He has written in his question, "Bhagwan, my breasts are growing like women's breasts.
And feminine qualities which I was not aware of before are becoming more and more expressive." If he says this to anybody else, they will think he is mad: "You just go to some doctor, you have some hormonal disturbance."
But it happened in Ramakrishna's life, and something much more... because after his enlightenment Ramakrishna tried whatever methods were available. He wanted to see whether he could reach the same experience through other methods, because he wanted there to be only one religion in the world. Every religious person should have that desire.
It is ugly to see that there are three hundred religions in the world, continuously fighting and continuously destroying each other; talking about love and killing each other.
In Bengal, there is a small religion which believes that Krishna is the only man and everybody else is a woman. It is a strange kind of idea, and everybody else laughs about it, and particularly at the behavior of those people because they sleep with a statue of Krishna close to their bosom at night, just like a woman sleeps with her husband or her lover.
Ramakrishna tried their ideology also, and in six months time his breasts became just like those of women. But what was even more strange was that he started having a menstrual period. The sincerity of the man, the totality of the man... whenever he followed anything, whenever he did anything he did it completely.
So it is possible: singing songs of love... your mind is the creator of your body, it affects your body.
You can see it happening in the West in the women who are concerned with the liberation movement. Their breasts slowly disappear because they don't want to be women, they want to be men. And they want in every possible way to be exactly like men -- in their dress, in their behavior, in their language.
For example, nowhere in the East will any woman use a four-letter word; that is simply ungraceful. But in the West, that is part of the liberated woman -- to smoke cigarettes and to use four-letter words. One is just waiting for the day when they start pissing standing up. They may start! Equality is equality. One can go to stupid lengths.
But in the West, the breast has suffered immensely.
The Eastern woman is still rich as far as breasts are concerned.
Your mind has immense power over your body. If your mind takes up a certain
idea, sooner or later the body will follow it. The body is slow, but it will follow it.
But even beyond the mind, your individuality is intact. No two individuals' experience is exactly the same. That has been the cause of a great tragedy, because Mohammed experiences something which Mahavira does not experience, and then the followers start making criteria: if they follow Mahavira then Mahavira's experience becomes the criterion; unless somebody experiences the same, his experience is not right. The same is true of the followers of Mohammed or Moses or Zarathustra.
But the truth is -- and nobody has been insisting on it -- that all are unique people, they all grow different flowers. The similarity is in blossoming but not in the color of the flowers or in the fragrance of the flowers. The color and the fragrance is going to be unique -- and it is good, because it makes spiritual life rich; otherwise it will be very monotonous.
So don't be worried about anybody's experience.
And if you are fed up with the journey, perhaps you are coming back to your village and I am sitting there under the tree.
Just recognize me! I have been telling you in every possible way who the master is.
Question 4 BELOVED OSHO,
YOU DESCRIBED IN "THE MUSTARD SEED" HOW RAMAKRISHNA WAS
ADDICTED TO FOOD, AND PEOPLE WOULD NEVER HAVE THOUGHT THAT A LIBERATED MAN COULD BE ADDICTED TO FOOD. BEFORE HE DIED, HE
SAID HE WAS CLINGING TO SOMETHING IMPERFECT IN HIM SO HE COULD
BE HERE AND SERVE PEOPLE.
YOU SAY MANY MASTERS HAVE DONE THIS. THE MOMENT THEY FEEL
THAT SOMETHING IS GOING TO BECOME COMPLETELY PERFECT IN THEM, THEY WILL CLING TO SOME IMPERFECTION JUST TO STAY HERE.
NOW OSHO, WHAT ARE YOU CLINGING TO, OR PLANNING TO CLING ONTO?
I am addicted to you! Beyond Enlightenment Chapter #26
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