Chapter title: A world beyond time

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‌Chapter title: A world beyond time‌

1 May 1986 am in

Archive code:

8605010

ShortTitle:

PSYCHO38

Audio:

Yes Video:

Yes Length:

98

mins Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOUR VISION IS SO BEAUTIFUL, AND MOST OF ALL, SO SIMPLE. BUT WHEN

I THINK ABOUT WHAT MAN HAS TO CLEANSE HIMSELF OF, IT SEEMS TO

GET COMPLICATED. I THINK THE THING HARDEST FOR MAN TO

DROP, FOR

YOUR VISION EVER TO BE, IS HIS SO-CALLED POWER -- WORLDLY AND

SPIRITUAL. TO ME, SUCH PEOPLE WOULD RATHER SEE THEIR WORLD

BLOW UP THAN TO GIVE UP THEIR PRECIOUS POWER. IS THIS SO?

It is so. People are so unconscious that they can do anything to keep their power, their respectability -- even if it means blowing up the whole world. They can risk anything to save their ego. And these are the people who naturally reach to the positions of power, because they are the only seekers of power.

No creative, intelligent person seeks power. No intelligent person is interested in dominating others. His first interest is to know himself. So the people with the highest quality of intelligence go towards mysticism, and the most mediocre go after power. That power can be worldly, political; it can be of money, it can be of holding spiritual domination over millions of people, but the basic urge is to dominate more and more people.

This urge arises because you don't know yourself, and you don't want to know that you don't know yourself. You are so afraid of becoming aware of the ignorance that prevails in the very center of your being. You escape from this darkness through these methods --

lust for money, lust for power, lust for respectability, honor. And a man who has darkness within himself can do anything destructive.

Creativity is impossible from such a person, because creativity comes from your being conscious, a little alert... light, love. Creativity is not at all interested in dominating anyone -- for what? The other is the other; neither you want to dominate anyone, nor you want to be dominated by anyone. Freedom is the very taste of being just a little alert.

But these people are completely asleep. In their sleep they are making atomic bombs, nuclear weapons, not knowing what they are doing. Only one thing keeps them moving, and that is: more power, more power. And whoever comes in their way has to be destroyed. They don't know anything else. They are

barbarians who have not evolved into human beings. Yes, they can destroy the whole world; they are already prepared to do so.

They are all against me because I am exposing them.

And I am surprised: in this big world nobody else is there to join hands with me, because people are afraid of the powerful ones -- they can destroy them. One is fearless only when he knows that he is indestructible; you can kill him but you cannot destroy his being. But such people have slowly disappeared from the earth. We have not nourished them. We kill them and then worship them.

This also has to be understood, why all the people that we have killed -- for example, Jesus, Socrates, Al-Hillaj Mansoor, Sarmad -- are immensely respectable after they have been killed. When they were alive they were condemned by everybody, not only by those who were in power but even by those who were not in power. Those who were not in power condemned them to show to the powerful, "We are with you." And the powerful condemned them because these people were bringing a vision. If it succeeds, then there will be no domination in the world; then there will be human beings -- everybody unique, flowering in his own way.

But all these people are worshipped when they are dead. That comes out of guilt. First people kill them... It is the powerful who kill them, and it is the powerless, the dominated, who support them -- unwillingly, but very fanatically, because they want to show to everybody, "We are more against them than you are, and we are more in favor of the powerful than you are."

But once the man is killed, crucified, poisoned, these are the people who start feeling guilty, because from the very beginning they were not ready to kill the man. They had no problem with the man; he was not destroying any of their vested interests. They simply supported the powerful because they were afraid that if they didn't support, if they remained silent, they would be suspected of supporting the person who has been killed.

A disciple of Jesus was in the crowd when Jesus was crucified, and he was asked

--

because he looked different from others, was not from the same place, was a foreigner, and nobody recognized him -- he was being asked again and again, "Who are you? Do you know this man who is being crucified?" And he said,

"No, I have never heard about him. Just seeing that so many people are going this way, just to see what is happening, I have come." Even he cannot admit that he is a follower of Jesus, because he knows the result will be another cross.

So finally, when these people are crucified, the people who had supported it unwillingly start feeling very guilty, "What have we done against an innocent man, who has done no harm to anybody? And whatever he was saying, he was right." They can understand that these people in power are exploiting everybody.

It is a strange world. You know people now as kings and queens, and if you follow their ancestors, in the beginning, they were robbers. From where did they get their kingdom?

They are great robbers who have killed many people, accumulated money, land, declared themselves as lords of the land, and now they have royal blood. They are in the lineage of criminals -- and not ordinary criminals, big criminals. But they have power, they have money -- naturally their blood is special.

The ordinary people have known all along that they are being crushed, murdered slowly.

They labor hard and they cannot manage even one meal a day. They produce -- but all that goes to those people who are in power. So when they support these people, it is unwillingly. That unwillingness, when the man is dead, turns into guilt; they start feeling that they have been participants in a criminal act. They have not done anything, but they were participants in a way; they were showing that they are in support of the powerful people.

To remove that guilt, worship arises. Worship is simply the removal of the guilt, to wash away the guilt. That's how such big religions like Christianity... otherwise Jesus had not that genius to produce such a big religion. There were hundreds of rabbis far more intelligent, far more scholarly than him, he was just an uneducated young man, but the crucifixion changed the whole situation. Once they crucified him, they made him a god --

god to all those people, who are millions, who had supported the crucifixion. They started feeling guilty.

And you can see it, if you look deeply. Jesus was killed by the order of the Roman emperor, by his viceroy, Pontius Pilate in Judea, with the agreement of

the high priest of the temple of the Jews. Today Rome has been the citadel of Christianity for twenty centuries, but the order to kill that man had come from Rome. There was a day when the whole Roman civilization turned into a Christian civilization. Today the pope has only a small piece of land -- eight square miles -- but it is an independent country. It has been shrinking slowly; once he had the whole of Italy. He was higher than the state.

People were killed in Rome for being Christians. Christ was the first one, then whosoever turned Christian was killed in the same way; hundreds of people were crucified. And this whole crucifixion created so much guilt in people that a great religion came out of it. But such a religion can only be a psychological cover-up; it cannot be a true religion. It is simply covering up your guilt. The more fanatic a religious person is... you can measure by his fanaticism how guilty he is feeling, what he is hiding behind it.

But Christianity became the world's biggest religion for the simple reason that not only Christ but many other people, who had turned Christian, were crucified without any trial.

And the masses were supporting the powerful people but deep down feeling hurt

-- what is happening is simply inhuman, should not happen. But they are poor, they have no power; they cannot do anything except worship.

A real religion is always of meditation. A false religion is always of worship.

Worship is a psychological method of washing from your hands the blood that you can see on your hands. Even Pontius Pilate... the first thing he did after ordering the crucifixion of Jesus was to wash his hands, because he was not willing to kill this innocent man. He had talked to him, he had listened in disguise where he was talking to his disciples, and he had started loving something in that man. He is innocent. He says some crazy things but the way he says them is beautiful. He is uneducated but he speaks poetry. He does not know much, but whatever he knows he presents it with tremendous authority. And he is not doing any harm to anybody: if you don't want to listen to him, don't listen; if you don't want to follow him, don't follow. He is not preaching any dangerous ideas to people.

Pontius Pilate wanted him to be freed. He tried to persuade the priests that he

should be freed because he seems to be innocent. But Jews were not ready to free him -- and they committed a great mistake. They are responsible for creating Christianity. So all the bloodshed that Christianity has done, deep down, Jews are responsible for, and Christianity has taken revenge, tortured Jews, killed Jews, made them homeless. For centuries it has been going on.

Who are the people who became Christians? A few Jews who felt the innocence of the person but were afraid of the priesthood, the religious hierarchy in power. But many more people were crucified in Rome -- and many more Romans became Christians.

It was a convention that every year the Jews were allowed to ask Pontius Pilate to save one life, because it was just before their religious holiday; it was a religious mercy and compassion.

Pontius Pilate was hoping that they would ask -- because there were three people who were going to be crucified -- that they would ask Jesus to be released, because the other two were great criminals. But the priests and the hierarchy of the rabbis shouted, "We want Barabbas!" -- one criminal who had committed seven murders. Even Barabbas could not believe that he was being released, and this poor guy, Jesus -- he knew him --

they were not asking for him to be released. And he had not done anything!

Barabbas was saved. Christians don't talk much about Barabbas but he is a tremendously powerful character, and very important, because the miracle happened to him, not to Jesus. It was expected that God would save Jesus. God missed his target. Barabbas could not believe it. When they released him he looked back again and again -- there must be some mistake. He was such a criminal; there was not any crime that he had not done --

rape, murder... And he was always drunk, he was a drunkard.

But the face of Jesus remained in his mind and tortured him. He also started feeling guilty, "I should not have been released. It was perfectly right for me to be on the cross.

That poor man... I have taken his place and he has taken my place." He felt a soft corner for Jesus. And within six months he committed a rape, he committed a murder, and he was caught again.

But this was the rule, that once the Roman emperor releases somebody from crucifixion, he cannot be crucified again. So they had to find an alternative for such people, because those people are bound to do something if they are such diehard criminals. In Rome they had a dangerous coal mine; they used to send those people to that coal mine to dig coal. It has reached to such places that once in a while it used to collapse, and thousands of the people who were working under it would be killed. That was their way of avoiding crucifixion.

Barabbas was sent to the coal mines in Rome. Within three months the coal mine collapsed. There were at least three thousand people; only Barabbas remained alive, everybody else was dead. That was the second miracle! He could not believe what was happening! He had been hanged on the cross and then brought down. He could not believe it that day; he was completely ready to be crucified, and he knew that he had done so many criminal things that it was perfectly right; there was no question of his being released.

Now what had happened? Three thousand people had died and only he was saved. Even the emperor of Rome, the empress of Rome, became aware that this man seems to be a man of God -- twice he has returned from death. So he was called to Rome. He had become so famous that people started touching him. He had become almost divine; just to touch him was a great experience. Even the empress wanted to touch Barabbas.

But the emperor said, "One test more; these two things may have been just accidental."

And the last test was... Every year they had games in which criminals were thrown without any weapons before hungry lions, to fight with them. Barabbas was thrown before a hungry lion, and he managed a third time: he killed the hungry lion. Then even the emperor thought, "Now it cannot be an accident." He had never seen before... All criminals were eaten by the lions! This was the first time that a man had killed the lion; unscratched, he was victorious.

He was freed, he was given citizenship. He was no longer a slave -- because in those days there were two categories of people, slaves and citizens. He was given citizenship. That was a great honor, and especially for a criminal... but he had proved three times that he can come back from death.

Christians have so much difficulty in proving that Jesus is a man of miracles.

Barabbas is a man of miracles. They prove hard that Jesus is the only begotten son of God. It seems there is some mistake -- Barabbas seems to be the only begotten son of God!

But all these years he was carrying the innocent Jesus' face, and feeling guilty that he was saved: "There has been some mistake. And I have been saved thrice!" He started meeting Christians in underground caves, where they used to meet so that nobody would know.

He listened for the first time to what Jesus used to say -- and he became a Christian. The day he became a Christian he was caught and crucified, and then no miracle happened! It is a very strange story.

But the Roman people, who are now Italians, started feeling: Thousands of people are being crucified just because they are getting involved with Jesus and his teachings. The Roman empire disappeared, and the whole land of the Romans became Christian. And from there Christianity started moving all over the world.

A guilt feeling is very basic for being a Christian, for being a false religious person. Real religiousness arises not out of guilt but out of silence, out of love, out of meditativeness.

These people who are in power are almost on the brink of destroying the world, rather than lose their power. I can understand their logic -- they may not be aware of it. Their logic is: We are going to die anyway, so what if the whole world dies? Our death is certain, so why should we bother about whether the world lives after us or not? We should live in power as long as we are here, and there is no need to be bothered about what will happen if the world explodes into a third world war.

The inner logic is: the day one is dead, the whole world is dead for him. You were not here one day; whether the world was here or not would not have made any difference to you. You will not be here one day; whether the world is there or has been blown up by nuclear weapons will not make any difference to you. What makes the difference to them is that they are in power, and they want to prove to the whole world that they are the most powerful people.

Now the competition has reached to a suicidal point, and America is in a hurry for the third world war to happen. Russia wants to delay it a little, because

America has evolved certain microwave patterns around the whole country -- billions of dollars have been put into it. You cannot see it, it does not obstruct anything; it only obstructs nuclear weapons.

If a nuclear weapon is fired at America, if a missile comes to America, it will be returned; it cannot enter the country. So America is feeling safe. That's why this Libya episode happened.

The Soviet Union has not yet been able... they are working hard to create a protective armor around the country. Their country is big, vast; their finances are not as great as American finances, but still they are preparing -- there is no other way.

Those two nuclear powers are preparing their protection. Then America can send missiles to the Soviet Union, and they will also be returned. Now, where they will fall, nobody knows -- they will fall somewhere. But those two countries are protected, and the whole world is unprotected. So the whole world is in danger. Right now the Soviet Union is not ready with its protection; Libya was just a way to check whether Russia is ready or not. If they had been ready, the third world war would have been on.

The Soviet Union is ready to support Libya but is afraid to, for the simple reason that it does not yet have any protection for its own country; it needs some time. That's why the Soviet leaders are talking about cutting the production of nuclear weapons in such a way, step by step, that by the end of this century all production completely stops -- and the whole world is impressed by it.

America cannot accept it because it has put billions of dollars into the protective armor that will be useless... billions of dollars into nuclear weapons, and no chance to use them.

America is in a hurry; it wants any excuse. And the gap is not big; perhaps within one year the Soviet Union will be ready. So if the war has to happen, America wants it quickly.

Kaddafi's daughter died because America bombed his houses -- even his tent in the desert they did not leave -- and Kaddafi was silent, taking no action. On the contrary, he said that if America bombs anywhere else, their whole strategy will be to bomb the place and blame Libya for it. Libya is a small country, but Libya is just an excuse to provoke the Soviet Union. And Kaddafi said, "Next time

Libya is bombed then be certain, that will be the beginning of the third world war." But why next time? The Soviet Union needs a little time.

If the world has some intelligent people in it, they should protest together to the U.N.:

"Now it is intolerable. Patience has a limit, and all nuclear weapons should be banned, should be thrown in the oceans, or some way should be found that they are made useless or turned into some creative force."

Perhaps we are not far away now, not even ten, fifteen years... America is in such a hurry, and the hurry has a reason... before the Soviet Union completes its project of protection, because after that protection those two countries will be safe. Then everybody else will be killed who is not fighting, who has nothing to do with the fight, who is out of the war but they don't have any protection. The returning nuclear missiles will fall all over the world.

The intelligentsia of the world has to create an atmosphere in the world that now it is a question not of the Soviet Union and America; it is a question of the whole world.

Because the whole world is going to suffer, the whole world should unite against both these nations and force both these nations to stop this mad race of nuclear weapons and power.

But there seems to be no protest, there seems to be no worry. The world goes on in a routine rut. It seems people don't have any alertness, don't have any clarity about the problem.

I can see clearly that there is more possibility of the world blowing up than being saved, because nothing is being done to save it and everything is being done to blow it up. And because I speak against it, America is against me, the Soviet Union is against me. This is a rare phenomenon; otherwise it happens that if America is against me, the Soviet Union will be favorable to me. And vice versa too is true. But both are against me, because I am not really against America or the Soviet Union; I am against this game of power, which is simply idiotic.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

WE HAVE EXPERIMENTED WITH COMMUNES IN BOTH THE EAST AND THE

WEST THAT DID NOT LAST. BUDDHA AND OTHER ENLIGHTENED MASTERS

CREATED COMMUNES THAT DID LAST. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Gautam Buddha and other masters never created communes the way we have created them. Buddha had followers, but not staying in one place... moving continuously.

Mahavira had followers, but not staying in one place... moving continuously. So nobody has created the way we created communes. Five thousand people living together is a totally different experience than five thousand Buddhist monks moving from one place to another place, only staying three days at one place. And even in that, man's cunningness comes in.

Jaina monks have to move continuously, except during the rainy seasons. In India, before atomic experiments started, the seasons used to be very fixed. Even dates and days were fixed -- on what day the rains will begin and on what day the rains will stop -- and there were three clear-cut seasons, four months each. So for four months in the rainy season they had to stop. But that also does not mean that thousands of sannyasins will be stopping in one place, but wherever they are.

But the cunningness of man's mind is such that I have seen Jaina monks who have lived their whole life in Bombay -- somebody is there for fifty years... I enquired, "How is it being managed? -- because it is against their basic rule and discipline. After three days they have to move."

And I was told that in Mahavira's time there were not such big cities as Bombay. Now the Jaina monk moves from one part of Bombay to another part of Bombay, and in this way he goes on moving around Bombay, inside Bombay, from one place to another place. But he remains in Bombay; he never leaves Bombay. Clever idea! From one suburb he will move to another suburb; that is another place. And in Mahavira's time there were no such big cities these suburbs would have been different cities, different towns, so..."We are moving!"

And they go on circling.

Bombay has a population of the daily population is nearabout ten million people. Forty million people come every day to work, from nearby towns, and they return in the evening. Sixty million people are living in the town. They are logically right, that there was no city in Mahavira's time of such population. But the whole point is missed. The point was simply that you don't become attached to a certain place, that you don't start having friendships, likes, dislikes. In three days you cannot do much. One day you come, just one day you really stay, and the third day you have to move. It is not enough time to get into any politics, or any local problems. To avoid power politics, to avoid local problems, attachments, the device was created that you move after three days.

But after three days they go on moving in the same city -- for fifty years, sixty years.

They have immense contact with people. They are almost residents of Bombay! The people who like them come to listen to them wherever they are.

Nobody had any commune the way we tried, and both the experiments have given great insights into human nature, so nothing has been a failure. We have learned much. So now I am not going to create a commune. I am going to create a totally different thing: a mystery school... forty, fifty people will be there to take care of the school, and two hundred, three hundred, five hundred people can come for a one month course, or a two month course, or a three month course, and move on. And slowly, slowly we can train people so that they can open mystery schools around the world. A school is a different thing. You come for three months to learn something, to go through some experiences, and then you are back in the world, to your work, to your job.

The commune experiment has made it clear that if five thousand people are living in a commune, they will have to do many things -- make roads, make houses, make other facilities for five thousand people, and for the guests who will be coming for festivals.

These people will not have any time left for the real search they had come for in the first place. They will not have time for meditation. They will not have time to go within themselves, to find techniques and work upon them, because the work is such that you cannot just work five hours a day, five days a week; it will

never be completed. You have to work ten, twelve hours a day seven days a week. You are tired -- and moreover, what you are doing is only the necessary facilities for yourself. Soon you will have to start production; otherwise from where are you going to get your food, your clothes? So this is a vicious circle.

And when five thousand people are there, then there is bound to be power politics. Then you have to find group leaders, coordinators. It is not possible to give freedom to five thousand people: "Do whatsoever you like" -- because they will all go swimming and trekking and playing their guitars, but then who will make the roads and the houses and do the farming? And how are your food and your clothes to be arranged? How long can we depend on donations? Sooner or later you will have to make factories and you will have to create something. Then this commune becomes just an ordinary world -- so why make so much unnecessary trouble? Our basic reason was to give you an insight into yourself. That is completely forgotten in unnecessary trivia.

So my new phase of work is a mystery school. You work in the world, where roads are already there, houses are already there, you need not make them. Factories are already there... in thousands of years the world has created all that. So you can manage -- five hours work five days a week is enough. On the weekend you can meditate, you can go into silence or you can go to some isolated spot and just relax. And in a year you will be able to earn so much money, save so much money, that you can come here for one month, two months, three months... as much as you can manage.

Then being with me has no connotations of work. Then being with me is simply joy, celebration, meditation, singing, dancing. Those three months are simply holiday. You forget the world for those three months. They are pure search for the truth. And after three months, whatever you have learned, continue it at home; there you have time. Five hours you work -- you have enough time; you can get at least two hours for yourself.

Not only this... when you start living with me there is a possibility that you may start taking me for granted, that I am always here. Nine months being away will bring you closer to me, because distance creates longing, creates love, creates understanding. So each year you will be coming, then going. Whatever you can manage... you can come twice. You will not be a burden on anybody, and there is no need for anybody to dominate you; there is no need for any strict discipline -- work needs that. There is no need for coordinators, so we can avoid the power

trip.

But both our communes have helped to bring us to this point where we can start a mystery school. Without those two communes it would have been impossible. This is my way of looking at things. Even failures bring you closer to success, because each failure gives you insight into what went wrong, how it went wrong. So both the experiments have been immensely significant.

Now we are in a position to create a totally different kind of place, which is simply a festival all the year round. People will be coming and going. They will take whatever they learn and they will practice it in the world, and they will come again to renew, to refresh, to go further, deeper. Only a skeleton crew will be here to take care of you.

Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,

I'VE BEEN HERE WITH YOU NOW FOR TWO WEEKS, AND FIND MYSELF NOT

THINKING OR TALKING ABOUT THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE I WAS WITH

BEFORE. IF FEELS AS IF I HAVE BEEN HERE FOR THREE MONTHS OR MORE, SO MANY THINGS HAVE HAPPENED. HOW COME THAT TIME LOSES ALL ITS

MEANING WHEN WE ARE WITH YOU?

Time is a relative phenomenon. It is nothing absolute, so in different contexts it will have different meanings. You are in pain -- time will look longer. Your tooth is hurting --

seconds will look like minutes, minutes will look like hours. It depends how much the tooth is hurting! In pain you want to finish it, finish this pain, somehow to get rid of it.

You don't want to prolong it, so time seems to be long.

Christians have never been able to explain why their hell is eternal, and they cannot explain it because the grounds on which they have made it eternal are foolish. If it is punishment, then it is absolutely impossible to prove that somebody has committed so many sins that his punishment is going to be eternal.

Bertrand Russell, one of the genius minds of our times, wrote a book, WHY I AM NOT

A CHRISTIAN, and this is one of the points that he makes clear, "I am absolutely against the idea of eternal hell, because as far as I know, if all my sins in my long life" -- and he lived long, almost a century -- "can be accumulated, and even those sins which I have not committed but only contemplated, those sins which I have dreamed of but I have not really committed... Combine all of them and the hardest judge cannot give me more than four to five years in jail. Now, eternal hell? It is so absurd and illogical -- that puts me off." And he recounts other points. The Christians have not been able to answer, for the simple reason that they have based their argument on wrong things.

My answer would have been that because hell is the idea of suffering, immense suffering... it may be only for a single moment but it will appear as eternal, unending. It is a relative concept. And Bertrand Russell would have immediately understood it, because he wrote a book, THE ABC OF RELATIVITY. He understands the idea of relativity: when you are joyous and happy with a friend, with a lover, time becomes short; it seems to go faster. Hours pass, and suddenly you see that so many hours have passed but it seems only a few minutes have passed. In pain time becomes long -- it is very elastic. In pleasure it becomes very short.

But to be with me is something more than pleasure; it is peace, it is silence. It is something that is beyond the words. But my presence can make you feel it: time can disappear completely. It can be felt as if time has stopped. This is a beautiful experience.

Time stopping means you are entering into a world beyond time. And that's what I am trying to do.

To be available to you, to call you here to be with me, simply means that I want to give you some taste of that which is higher than pleasure. And in that

moment, time comes to a standstill. Beyond Psychology

Chapter #39

Chapter title: Your mind is not yours 1 May 1986 pm in

Archive code:

8605015

ShortTitle:

PSYCHO39

Audio:

Yes Video:

Yes Length:

117

mins Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHY IS IT THAT WESTERN SOCIETY REACTS SO STRONGLY TO ANY INDIVIDUAL DEVIATING FROM THE NORM, PARTICULARLY AS FAR

AS HIS

MENTAL STATE IS CONCERNED? IT LOOKS ON THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN

BELOW THE MIND IN SUCH A WAY AS TO CAST A STIGMA ON THEM, AND

REGARDS THE POSSIBILITY OF GOING BEYOND THE MIND --

ENLIGHTENMENT -- -WITH SKEPTICISM. IT DOES ALLOW A SLIGHT MARGIN

OF DEVIATION IN ITS CREATIVE PEOPLE AND GENIUSES; HENCE SUCH

PEOPLE ARE EXCUSED FOR THEIR "ECCENTRICITIES."

IT IS AS IF THE MIND IS THE TOUCHSTONE OF ONE'S ADJUSTMENT TO

SOCIETY, AND ANY ABERRATION THAT MIGHT THREATEN THE STATUS

QUO IS REGARDED WITH FEAR. WHAT IS THAT FEAR? -- BOTH OF THE SICK

MIND AND THE ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND?

The mind is within you, but it is really a projection of the society inside you. It is not yours.

No child is born with a mind. He is born with a brain. The brain is the mechanism; the mind is the ideology. The brain is fed by the society, and every society creates a mind according to its own conditionings. That's why there are so many minds in the world. The Hindu mind is certainly separate from the Christian mind, and the communist mind is certainly separate from the Buddhist mind.

But a fallacy is created in the individual that the mind is yours, so the individual

starts acting according to the society, following the society, but feeling as if he is functioning on his own. This is a very cunning device.

George Gurdjieff used to tell a story... A magician deep in the mountains had many sheep, and to avoid servants and to avoid looking after the sheep and going in search of them every day when they were lost in the forest, he hypnotized all the sheep, and told each sheep different stories. He gave different minds to each sheep.

To one he told, "You are not a sheep, you are a man, so you need not be afraid that one day you will be killed, sacrificed, like other sheep -- they are only sheep. So you need not be worried as far as returning home is concerned." To some he said, "You are a lion, not a sheep," and to some, "You are a tiger." And since that day the magician was at ease: the sheep started behaving according to the mind that was given to them.

He could kill a sheep -- every day he used to kill sheep for his own food, his family's food -- and the sheep who believed that they were lions or men or tigers would simply look and giggle, "This is what happens to sheep." But they were not afraid, not like in the old days.

When he killed a sheep before, all the sheep were trembling, afraid, "Tomorrow is going to be my day. How long can I live?" And that's why they used to escape in the forest -- to avoid the magician. But now nobody was escaping. There were tigers, there were lions...

all kinds of minds had been implanted in them.

Your mind is not your mind -- this is something basic to be remembered. Your mind is an implantation of the society in which you have accidentally been born. If you were born in a Christian home, but immediately transferred to a Mohammedan family and brought up by the Mohammedans, you would not have the same mind; you would have a totally different mind that you cannot conceive of.

Bertrand Russell, one of the geniuses of our times, tried hard to get rid of the Christian mind, not because it was Christian, but simply because it was given to him by others. He wanted his own fresh outlook about things. He did not want to see things from somebody else's glasses; he wanted to come in contact with reality immediately, and directly. He wanted his own mind.

So it was not a question of being against the Christian mind; if he had been a Hindu he would have done the same, if he had been a Mohammedan he would have done the same, if he had been a communist he would have done the same.

The question is whether the mind is your own or implanted by others -- because the others implant a mind in you which does not serve you, but serves their purposes. Now in the whole Soviet Union, each child is being brought up with a communist mind.

One of my friends, Rahul Sankritayana, was visiting the Soviet Union. He went to see a school and he asked a small boy, "Do you believe in God?" The small boy looked at him in shock and he said, "At your age, in this century, you ask such a question! In the past when people were ignorant they used to believe in God. There is no God." Now this child will believe for his whole life that this is his voice. It is not so. It is the voice of the society, and it serves the purposes of the vested interests of the society.

You are prepared by the parents, by the teachers, by the priests, by your educational system to have a certain kind of mind, and your whole life you go on living through that certain kind of mind. That is a borrowed life. And that is why there is so much misery in the world: because nobody is living authentically, nobody is living his own self; he is simply following orders implanted in him.

Bertrand Russell tried hard and wrote a book, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN. But in a letter to a friend he wrote, "Although I have written the book, although I do not believe that I am a Christian, I have dropped that mind, still, deep down... One day I asked myself, `Who is the greatest man in history?' Rationally I know it is Gautam Buddha, but I could not put Gautam Buddha above Jesus Christ.

"That day I felt that all my efforts have been futile. I am still a Christian. I know rationally that Jesus Christ stands no comparison with Gautam Buddha -- but it is only rational. Emotionally, sentimentally I cannot put Gautam Buddha above Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ remains in my unconscious, still affecting my attitudes, my approaches, my behavior. The world thinks I am no longer a Christian, but I know... It seems difficult to get rid of this mind! They have cultivated it with such acumen, with such craftsmanship."

And it is a long process. You never think about it. A man lives at the most

seventy-five years, and for twenty-five years he has to be in the schools, colleges, university; one third of life is devoted to cultivating a certain mind. Bertrand Russell failed because he had no knowledge of how to get rid of it. He was fighting, but groping in the dark.

There are absolutely certain methods of meditation which can take you away from the mind, and then it is very easy if you want to drop it. But without first becoming separate from the mind it is impossible to drop it -- who is going to drop whom?

Bertrand Russell is fighting with one half of his mind against the other half, and both are Christian -- it is impossible. And now it has been proved scientifically. One of the most important scientific contributions is from Delgado. He has found seven hundred centers in the brain. Each center is capable of containing an immense quantity of knowledge; it is just like a recording. And his experiments are very shocking: he touches a certain center in the brain with an electrode, and the man starts speaking. He takes away the electrode and the man stops. He puts the electrode back on the same center, and the man starts speaking again -- from the very beginning.

Delgado himself has not been able yet to figure out how the tape gets reversed -- because the man always starts from the beginning. Wherever you leave him makes no difference.

It is not that he starts where you left him. Some automatic process in the mind will be discovered...

Some electrode can be implanted in the mind, permanently, and it can be controlled from far away by remote control. Delgado exhibited it in Spain, in a bullfight. He planted an electrode in the mind of the toughest bull, and he stood in the field showing a red flag.

The bull rushed towards him ferociously, and the people almost stopped breathing: "The bull is going to kill one of our best geniuses!" But they did not know that he had a remote control switch in his pocket -- just a small box with a switch.

Just when the bull was about to attack, from one foot away, he pushed the button and the bull stopped, just frozen. And he did it many times. Again and again the bull came with the same ferocity, and again and again he stopped whenever

Delgado pushed the button.

Delgado says, "Sooner or later, this discovery can either become a blessing to humanity, or it can become a curse."

Every child's mind can be easily implanted with an electrode. You will have very obedient people; you will not have any rebels, you will not have any revolutionaries, but the whole charm of life will be gone. People will be simply vegetables, enslaved scientifically. And they will not know, because the remote control unit may be in the capital, in the hands of the government.

It can be useful -- criminals can be prevented, murderers can be prevented, thieves can be changed, rapists can be transformed -- but it is dangerous also. Anybody who is in power can make the whole country just a crowd of slaves. And you cannot do anything, because you don't know. Remember one thing, inside the skull, where the brain is, you don't have any sensitivity. Even if a stone is put inside your skull, you will never know; you just don't have sensitive nerves there which can inform you.

This came to be known in the second world war. A man was shot with a bullet, and somehow the doctors thought that the bullet was not inside him, but had missed, just touching his head. So they treated the wound, it healed and the bullet remained inside his head for ten years -- and he was never aware of it. It was for some other reasons that he was being x-rayed, and they were surprised to find that there was a bullet inside him.

Then the wound was opened and the bullet was found. That made it clear that anything can be planted in the mind.

Delgado's mechanism is scientific, but society has been doing the same by planting ideas... It is an old bullock cart method. It takes so long, twenty-five years, and it is not foolproof, because a few revolutionaries escape, a few rebels are still born. And it is good that there are people who escape from the enslaving structure of the society, because these are the people who have advanced knowledge, who have given all scientific progress, who have changed all superstitions.

But the society wants you simply to be a carbon copy, never an original.

The strategy to create a mind in you is to go on repeating certain things

continuously.

And even if a lie is repeated continuously it starts becoming a truth; you forget that it was a lie in the beginning.

Adolf Hitler started lying to the German people that all the misery of their country is because of the Jews. Now this is such an absurd thing -- like somebody saying that all the misery of the country is because of bicycles, so if we destroy all the bicycles all the misery will disappear.

In fact the Jews were the very backbone of Germany, they had created all the wealth of Germany. And they had no other nation, so any nation -- wherever they were -- was their nation. They had no other alternative in their minds; they could not betray, and they had been doing all the things that any other German was doing for the welfare of the country.

But Adolf Hitler in his autobiography writes, "It doesn't matter what you say, because there is no such thing as truth. Truth is a lie that has been repeated so often that you have forgotten that it is a lie." So the only difference, according to him, between truth and a lie is that the lie is fresh and truth is old; otherwise there is no difference. And he seems to have some insight in it.

For example, Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism -- these three religions repeat to their children, "There is a God." Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, three other religions, say

"There is no God." The first group of three religions have a certain mind. Their whole life is filled with the idea of God, hell, heaven, prayer. The second group of three religions has no prayer because there is nobody to pray to, there is no God. And the very question does not arise.

Now, half of the world is communist. They don't believe even in the soul of man, and every child is continuously told that man is matter, that when man dies he simply dies, nothing remains; that there is no soul -- consciousness is a by- product. Now half of the humanity repeats it -- as the truth.

Adolf Hitler cannot be accused of being absolutely absurd. It seems to be the case that if you repeat anything to people, they will slowly, slowly start believing it. And if it has been repeated for centuries, it has become a heritage.

Your mind is not yours. And your mind is not young; it is centuries old -- three thousand years old, five thousand years old. That's why every society is afraid of anybody creating a doubt about the mind.

That's my crime: that I create a doubt in you about your mind. And I want you to understand that it is not your mind, and your search should be to find your own mind. To be under somebody else's impact is to remain psychologically a slave. And life is not for slavery. It is to taste freedom.

There is something like truth, but with this mind you can never know it, because this mind is full of lies, repeated for century after century. You can find the truth when you put this mind completely aside and look at existence with fresh eyes, like a newborn child; then whatever you experience is truth. And if you remain constantly alert not to allow others to interfere with your inner growth, there comes a moment when you become so attuned with existence, so one with existence...

Only this experience is religious experience. It is not Jewish, it is not Christian, it is not Hindu. How can any experience be Jewish, Hindu or Mohammedan? You never see its ridiculousness. You eat something and you say it is delicious, but is it Christian, or Hindu, or Buddhist? You taste something and you say it is sweet, but is it communist? --

is it materialist or spiritualist? These questions are nonsense. It is simply sweet, it is simply delicious.

When you feel existence immediately, without any mediator, with no mind given by anybody else to you, you taste something which transforms you, which makes you enlightened, awakened, which brings you to the highest peak of consciousness.

A greater fulfillment there is not. A higher contentment there is not. A deeper relaxation there is not.

You have come home.

Life becomes a joy, a song, a dance, a celebration. And I call this life religious.

I want everybody to be religious, but I don't want anybody to be Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, because those are the barriers which will never allow you to become religious. And you can see it clearly: Gautam Buddha is not a Buddhist, he never heard the word Buddhist; Jesus Christ is not a Christian, he never heard the word Christian and certainly he is not a Jew; otherwise Jews would not have crucified him.

If Jews decided to crucify Jesus, that simply means he has dropped the mind that they have given him to carry his whole life, that he is saying things that are not part of their given mind. And Jesus continuously reminds them of it. He says, "It has been said by the old prophets" -- and who were those old prophets? all Jews

-- "it has been said, Àn eye for an eye is the law.' But I say unto you that if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other cheek too."

This was not part of the Jewish mind. The Jewish God declares, "I am not a nice person! I am a very angry God, I am very jealous. Remember that I am not your uncle." These are actually the words: "I am not your uncle, I am not nice, I am jealous, I am angry." And Jesus says, "God is love."

I am trying to show you that he has dropped the Jewish mind, and that's the reward he got

-- the crucifixion. The crucifixion was the reward for dropping the Jewish mind. He was dangerous in the sense that he would create doubt in other people's minds: "Our God says he is angry, jealous -- he will destroy those who are against him, and Jesus is saying that God is love. He is going against our vested interest."

He was killed -- he was not a Jew; he was not Christian because the word

`Christian' does not exist in the Hebrew language, the word `Christ' does not exist in the Hebrew language. He was called the messiah -- that is equivalent tòChrist.' `Christ' is a Greek word. It was three hundred years later that Jesus' sayings were translated into Greek; then messiah became Christ, and the followers became Christians.

What I am trying to say to you is that Gautam Buddha was not a Hindu. He was born in a Hindu family, but he has renounced it; he renounced it the very day he started his search for truth. See the simple point: the Hindu need not search for the truth; the Hindu has already got it ready-made. It has been given by the

tradition, by the religion, by the scriptures; he need not go in search.

The day Gautam Buddha went in search for truth, he dropped the Hindu mind. And of course he was not a Buddhist; that was a name his followers were given later on by Hindus, to keep a distinction. But he had his own mind.

To have one's own mind in the world is the richest thing possible. But no society allows it; every society keeps you poor. On your account every society, particularly those who are in power -- either through money or through politics or through religion or through knowledge, or for any reason -- those who are in power don't want people to have their own minds. It is dangerous to their interests. They want not men but sheep, not individuals but crowds, who are always in need of being led, who are always in need of being told what to do, what not to do; who don't have their own minds, their own insights, their own consciousness. They are always dependent.

The fear of anybody being different, being a stranger, being an outsider, is always the same for the simple reason that no society will have the courage to accept you -- because that society has not made your mind, and that society cannot trust that you will always be obedient to it, that you will never object about anything, or create doubt about anything, or be skeptical about anything.

For example, in India the cow is worshipped as the mother. Anybody who has not been brought up as a Hindu is simply going to be skeptical, "This is nonsense!" And this is not all. Hindus do things that nobody can even conceive of: they drink the urine of the cow because it is holy, they eat cowdung because it is holy.

And it is not only the villagers or the uneducated, or the uncultured. In Mahatma Gandhi's ashram there was a man, a professor, who lived for six months only on the urine of cows and cowdung -- not eating anything else, not drinking anything else. And Mahatma Gandhi praised him, saying that he is a saint.

Now, Hindus are angry at me because I cannot accept this kind of stupidity -- that it can make somebody a saint. It simply proves that man was an idiot! But Mahatma Gandhi is a politician; he is also not a saint. If he was a saint he would also have said, "This is nonsense. You cannot become holy by eating cowdung." But he is a politician par excellence, in the garb of a religious saint. Saying that this man is a saint, he has satisfied the whole Hindu community; now he is the

sole leader of all the Hindus. Anybody who has not been brought up by the Hindus will not be able to accept it.

So any deviation from the norm in any society... There are many people who you call mad, but they are not mad. They are simply not agreeing with your madness; they have a private madness of their own. You have a collective madness.

Now, for example, if all four hundred million Hindus accept without any question the idea that drinking the urine of cows makes you holy, and somebody starts drinking the urine of a horse, they say he is mad. I simply say that he is privately mad, you are collectively mad. But you both are mad!

I would like that man more than this collective madness; at least he has the courage to do something private, individual. It will look foolish to all the Hindus, but they will not look foolish to themselves, to their own mind.

No society wants strangers, outsiders. Why is the whole world afraid of me? I am not a terrorist; I am not making bombs and killing people. I am a nonviolent person. But they can accept terrorists.

In Germany it actually happened at the same time... They prevented me from entering Germany, passed a resolution that I am a dangerous man and I should not be allowed any entry into Germany, and at the same time they allowed all the terrorist groups of Europe to have a world conference.

I was simply amazed! All the terrorist groups that have been murdering people, that have hijacked airplanes, that have bombed embassies, that have kidnapped people -- their international conference is allowed, but I cannot be allowed four weeks of being a tourist in the country.

Those terrorists are not of a different mind.

It is a very strange phenomenon. When Pontius Pilate had asked... Three people were being crucified the same day as Jesus, and it was the convention that one can be forgiven

-- and it was the people's decision. And Pontius Pilate was absolutely certain that they would ask, "Release Jesus." He was innocent; he had done no harm to anybody. But the Jews shouted, the high priests shouted, "We want Barabbas" -- and Barabbas was a confirmed criminal. He had committed seven murders,

rapes... any kind of crime you name and he had done it.

But you should not be surprised, because Barabbas belongs to the Jews. He may be a murderer, but his mind is still of a Jew. This Jesus may be innocent, but his mind is no longer that of the Jews; he is an outsider, he is dangerous. Barabbas is not dangerous.

What can he do? A few more murders at the most. But this Jesus can destroy the whole structure of the society, because it is standing only on superstitions.

Even Barabbas could not believe it. He thought something must have gone wrong: "There is not another criminal in the whole country who can compete with me, and this poor Jesus, who has never done anything except talking to few people here and there... And nobody is asking for him." Not a single voice shouted for Jesus to be released, and thousands of people shouted, "Barabbas! We want Barabbas!"

If you go into the psychology of it, it is very simple. All those terrorists having a conference in Germany are acceptable: they have the same mind, the same politics. They belong to the same rotten society.

But I cannot be allowed. Against me they have the idea that I will corrupt people. The same was their condemnation of Socrates -- that he corrupts people -

- and all that Socrates was doing was teaching people to have their own mind.

All the great masters in the world have been saying only one thing down the centuries,

"Have your own mind and have your own individuality. Don't be a part of the crowd; don't be a wheel in the whole mechanism of a vast society. Be individual, on your own.

Live life with your own eyes; listen to music with your own ears."

But we are not doing anything with our own ears, with our own eyes, with our own minds; everything is being taught, and we are following it.

Deviation is dangerous to the rotten societies. And particularly in the West -- where no idea of enlightenment has ever existed -- it is more so, because enlightenment simply means going beyond the mind. And going beyond the

mind you will be yourself.

The West has never nourished the idea of enlightenment. It is against the society, against the religion; they have never bothered about it.

Think about truth -- that is allowed! That's why in the West philosophy has grown to great heights and depths. But it is always thinking about truth. It is like madmen thinking about sanity, blind men thinking about light. However the blind man tries to think about light... he may create a big system of thought about what light is, but it is not going to be anything like light. For light, you need eyes.

You cannot think about truth, because thinking will be done by your mind -- which is full of lies, nothing but lies. How are you going to think about truth? Truth can be found only when you have put the mind aside.

In the East we say truth is the experience that happens in the state of no-mind or in the state of beyond mind. But in the West the very idea has not existed. And that will make one thing clear to you: philosophy is a Western thing. In the East there is nothing like philosophy.

It is very strange: the East is far older, at least ten thousand years old, but there is nothing like philosophy in the East. What is called Eastern philosophy is a wrong name. In the East it is called darshan -- darshan means "to see." It has nothing to do with thinking. The very word darshan means "to see."

I had to coin my own word for it: I call it philosia, as against philosophy, because philosophy means "to think," and philosia means "the love of seeing."

Philosophy means

"the love of thinking" -- but what can you think? Just to avoid the danger of people going beyond mind, and becoming dangerous to the society, a substitute, a toy has been created.

That is philosophy.

No philosopher comes to experience anything. No philosopher becomes enlightened or awakened; he remains on the same ground as you are, as unconscious as you are.

Darshan -- philosia -- is a totally different approach. It's approach is by witnessing your mind, not by thinking but just becoming a watcher of your mind and creating a distance between you and your thoughts. Just seeing them, as if you are on a hill and the whole mind and its traffic is going on down in the valley, a moment comes when thoughts start disappearing, because their life is in the identity. Their life is the life of a parasite; they suck your blood.

If you are far away and you are not giving any juice to your thoughts, they start shrinking and dying. And when there are no thoughts around you but immense silence, tremendous nothingness, just a watcher and nothing to watch... this is the moment you are freed from the fetters of the mind. And this is the moment of the beginning of a new life.

But you may look mad to people, because from this moment your behavior will be different. From this moment you will have an originality; you cannot be part of the crowd. People will think you have gone wrong somewhere. It is strange -- the people are wrong! But in a way it is not strange. If you go into a society of blind people with eyes, nobody is going to believe that you have eyes. You must be having some mad illusion --

eyes don't exist. Nobody has eyes, how can you have?

The enlightened person in the West will be condemned as mad.

The people who are mad in the West are mad because you have created so much tension and anxiety and anguish, and you have given them such a rotten mind, that it cannot manage. A point comes when it breaks down. When the mind breaks down, the person falls below the mind; hence psychoanalysis is a Western phenomenon. In the East there is nothing parallel to psychoanalysis.

In the East we have tried for a breakTHROUGH, not for a breakdown. The breakthrough takes you above the mind, and the breakdown simply pulls you to a subhuman level. But for that too society is responsible. It gives you too much ambition, which it cannot fulfill.

It gives you too much desire -- for money, for power -- which it cannot fulfill. It only teaches you how to go on climbing the ladder of success, higher and higher, and tells you to be quick, because you have only a small life, and so much has to be done! There is no time for living, no time for loving, no time for rejoicing.

People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered... more money, more power, more things, more gadgets.

Tomorrow they will love -- today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder -- and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake.

But they cannot even say to other people, "Don't bother to come here -- there is nothing,"

because that will make them look stupid. You have become the president of the country and you are saying, "Here is nothing -- don't bother. This is simply a ladder which leads nowhere" -- you will feel stupid.

So they go on pretending that they have achieved, that they have found; and deep down they are empty, meaningless, and they have wasted their whole life. If they break down under such pressure, the society is responsible. The society is driving people mad.

In the East you will not find so many mad people, so many people committing suicide --

and the East is poor, so poor that people can't manage to have one meal a day. Logically there should be more people committing suicide, more people going mad. But no, they are not going mad, they are not committing suicide. they seem to be in a certain contentment, because ambition is not being part of the mind given by the society; their society also gives them ambition, but for the other world, not for this world. This world is condemned.

You try to understand... Their society also gives them ambition -- ambition to reach to paradise, to realize God -- but that ambition is against the ambitions of this world.

"Renounce this world! Here there is nothing but shadows; it is illusory." For thousands of years they have thought it is illusory, it is worthless to bother about it -- why not look for the real thing? So they don't go mad. In utter poverty, in sickness, in death... but you will not find them tense, anxious, and they don't need any psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy is absolutely Western; it is the need of the Western mind. First the Western mind creates all kinds of desires and ambitions, which are going to create a breakdown sooner or later; then psychotherapy comes in. It is now the most highly-paid profession, but the strangest thing is that psychotherapists commit suicide more than people from any other profession, twice as much as any other profession, and psychotherapists go mad twice as much as any other profession. And these are the people who are helping other people to be sane! It is really a mess.

It can be cleaned up. It is simply a question of understanding that the mind that we have is not capable of encountering reality, because reality is contemporary, and the mind is two thousand years old. The gap is big, and the mind fails to encounter reality. The mind has to go with reality, step by step; it has not to lag behind. And that is possible only if each individual has his own mind, his own individuality.

I am basically an individualist, because only the individual has a soul. No group can claim a soul -- they are all dead arrangements. Only the individual is a living phenomenon. We have to help the living phenomenon to be contemporary, and to remain contemporary, because what is contemporary today will not be contemporary tomorrow, so you have to learn the methods of flowing like a river with existence, each moment. Die each moment to the past, and be born each moment to the new.

Unless that becomes your religion, you are going to be in trouble, and your society is going to be in trouble.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

WHY IS IT THAT IN SPITE OF THE VAST RANGE OF SUBJECTS THAT YOU

COVER IN YOUR TALKS -- PERHAPS A WIDER RANGE THAN ANY MAN WHO

HAS EVER LIVED -- WHENEVER I DISCUSS YOU WITH PRESS AND ANY

OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES, THEY SEEM PREOCCUPIED WITH ONLY ONE

SUBJECT: SEX?

I am reminded of Doctor Johnson. He had made one of the best dictionaries of his times.

It was a very big, voluminous book -- more than one thousand pages. Three old ladies came to him, very angry; they must have been seventy, seventy-five, eighty, they all had glasses. And they said, "Are you not ashamed of your book? There are three words in it which are obscene!"

Doctor Johnson said, "My God, in a book of one thousand pages, in which there are thousands of words, how could you manage at your age, with such thick glasses, to find three obscene words? You are great researchers. You must have been looking for them.

Nobody else has objected to me; nobody has even mentioned them."

I have almost four hundred books in my name. I have not written anything, but these are a collection of my talks. Out of four hundred books there is only one book on sex, and that too is not really on sex; it is basically on how to transcend sex, how to bring the energy of sex to a sublimated state, because it is our basic energy.

It can produce life... That is only one thing that we know about it, but that even animals manage. And scientists say even trees have their own kind of sexuality, so the whole of existence manages some kind of sexual energy. It is only man who has the privilege to change the character and the quality of sexual energy.

The name of the book is FROM SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS -- but nobody talks about superconsciousness. The book is about superconsciousness; sex is only to be the beginning, where everybody is. There are methods that can start the energy moving upwards, and in the East, for at least ten thousand years, there has developed a special science, Tantra. There is no parallel in the West of such a science.

For ten thousand years people have experimented with how sexual energy can become your spirituality, how your sexuality can become your spirituality. It is

proved beyond doubt -- thousands of people have gone through the transformation. Tantra seems to be the science that is, sooner or later, going to be accepted in the whole world, because people are suffering from all kinds of perversions. That's why they go on talking about sex as if that is my work, as if twenty-four hours a day I am talking about sex. Their repressed sexuality is the problem.

A great poet, Heinrich Heine, once got lost in the forest. For three days he could not find the way out. Hungry, tired, worried about wild animals the whole night, sitting in the trees, and the whole day stumbling, trying to find some human being... But for three days he could not meet anyone to show him the way. The third night was a full-moon night.

He was sitting in a tree, utterly exhausted. He looked at the moon, and suddenly he laughed.

He laughed because he had written so many poems about the moon and he has read so many poems about the moon. The moon is such a romantic phenomenon that no poet of any standing can leave it out, no painter can leave it out. Its impact is deep, its beauty is great. So why did he laugh? He laughed because when he looked at the moon, he didn't see all those romantic things that he was talking of in his poems; he saw a round loaf of bread, floating in the sky.

He said, "My God! What has happened to me?" After three days of hunger and tiredness, it is natural, but perhaps his experience was unique: nobody else has ever seen a floating round loaf of bread floating in the sky! He laughed at himself, and for the first time he understood that what he had been saying about the moon had nothing to do with the moon; it had something to do with himself.

So the people who talk about sex and condemn me don't understand that it is their repression. I have been speaking on thousands of subjects, but they are not concerned with them because that is not their repression. Sex has been repressed traditionally all over the world. Naturally it is bound to come up in some way or other. You cannot avoid it.

Even THE HOLY BIBLE has five hundred pages of pure pornography. And it is not an exception -- all other religious scriptures... Hindu scriptures are the worst. They go into such details that you will be worried, "Are these people talking about spirituality, or what?" They have even made temples like Khajuraho,

Konarak, Puri. Each temple has thousands of naked women, naked men, in different sexual postures... temples! If you suppress something in man it is going to come up somewhere or other, in some way or other.

This repression of sex by all the religions has helped the pornographic literature of the world -- magazines like PLAYBOY -- to be read more than anything else. Now PLAYBOY is published in almost all languages, and there are many magazines of the same kind.

When I was in jail in America, in the first jail I was surprised: every inmate had a BIBLE, and one inmate, who was just next to me, every day ritually in the morning, in the evening, would put his head on THE BIBLE, kneel down on the floor -- THE BIBLE on the bed, his head on THE BIBLE -- and pray. He looked really pious.

But I asked him, "This is very beautiful, you are doing good, but why do you have all over the room these pictures of naked women that you have cut from magazines? and not a single picture of Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ among all these nudes would have looked very beautiful."

He was shocked he said, "I never thought about it. I am a very devoted Christian, a fundamentalist."

I said, "You must be a fundamentalist; otherwise how to explain all these pictures? For these pictures to exist, a fundamentalist Christian is absolutely necessary. Don't be worried! They are not contradictory, they are complementary. It is a conspiracy between the churches and the people who are exploiting your mind."

My whole effort has been how to make your sex a natural, accepted phenomenon, so there is no repression -- and then you don't need any pornography; so that there is no repression -- and then you don't dream of sex. Then the energy can be transformed. There are valid methods available through which the same energy that brings life to the world can bring a new life to you. That was the whole theme of the book. But nobody bothered about the theme, nobody bothered about why I have spoken on it. Just the word `sex' was in the title, and that was enough.

That word has created so many rumors that I am really amused! People are thinking that we are having sexual orgies the whole day. People really have

imagination! Just because out of four hundred books, on one book the word `sex' has appeared in the title, their imagination has moved so far away. But it reflects their mind; it has nothing to do with me.

In Khajuraho, the Indian temple, the most famous temple in the world... there are thirty temples -- perhaps it would have taken thousands of years to make those temples. As sculptures they are just the best; you cannot create better. But the sexual postures are so absurd that you cannot even imagine...

Absolutely all kinds of postures that man -- sane and insane, whoever! -- has imagined are there: men are making love to animals, a man and a woman are standing on their heads and making love. Have you ever imagined...? But why has this happened? -- and these people must have worked hard! Repress anything and it will take pervert proportions.

Now there is homosexuality, lesbianism, sodomy, and all kinds of other perversions, and nobody ever thinks about who is responsible. Animals in the wild are never homosexual, but in a zoo, if females are not available, then animals turn homosexual. That gives a clue. It seems we have made our society a zoo, not a natural phenomenon. We have repressed sex so much that now it goes on taking strange shapes.

For example, homosexuality must have been born in monasteries, so I call it a religious thing. In monasteries men are kept separate -- no woman is available. In nunneries women are separate -- no men are available. In Athos, in Europe, there is one monastery, one thousand years old, which you can enter -- but you cannot get out alive. You renounce the world forever: Enter the monastery and the world is finished. In this monastery, not even a six-month-old baby girl is allowed. I sometimes wonder: are monks living inside, or monsters? A six- month-old baby girl is not allowed; no woman of any age has ever entered there, dead or alive.

Now, you are forcing people... These people will become homosexuals, the nuns will become lesbians, and you go on preaching celibacy! You still go on preaching that monks should be celibate, nuns should be celibate, and they are all reading pornographic literature... of course, hiding it in THE BIBLE!

We are living in a very sick society, which could have been very healthy, and can be healthy immediately... just a question of understanding.

Beyond Psychology Chapter #40

Chapter title: The body does not have beliefs 2 May 1986 am in

Archive code:

8605020

ShortTitle:

PSYCHO40

Audio:

Yes Video:

Yes Length:

100

mins Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

HEARING YOU TALK ABOUT HYPNOSIS THE OTHER MORNING, I REACHED

INTO A VERY QUIET, RELAXED STATE. I FELT TOTALLY SAFE AND

WRAPPED IN A WONDERFUL SOFTNESS.

WHEN I DID A THREE-MONTH DEHYPNOTHERAPY WITH SANTOSH AT THE

RANCH, HOWEVER, I OFTEN FOUND MYSELF IN TOTAL HORROR AND FEAR, REGRESSING INTO MY EARLY CHILDHOOD. WHAT DID I EXPERIENCE WITH

YOU?

Hypnosis is such a simple, innocent experience, that even hearing about it can give you a taste of it. And that's what happened. Even when I am not talking about hypnosis, the same is happening to those who are really listening to me. A softness, a calmness, a silence starts surrounding them. That is a signal that whatever is being said is being heard too, that I am not talking to the walls.

About your experience with Santosh and his dehypnotherapy, I can only say one thing: Santosh knows nothing about dehypnotherapy. He himself is so tense, so continuously worried, has so many problems... but he had studied hypnosis as a student for years in Germany so he knows the technique; but he has never been in those spaces himself.

It is just like... you can read the map of the whole world and you have never been to those places, ever. Knowing where Constantinople is does not mean that you have been there.

Knowing about it is one thing; being there is a totally different phenomenon. And in the schools only the technique, the know-how, is being taught.

So when Santosh came to me he had the know-how of hypnosis. I engaged him in hypnotherapy, and I tried my best to make him understand that we have first to create a state of de-hypnotherapy -- because every child is being hypnotized, from the very childhood. That's how conditioning happens; that's how you get your mind. Your parents may not know, your teachers may not know, your priests may not know what they are doing: they are practicing hypnotic techniques. By the time you leave the university, you know all the techniques for conditioning others. So whoever comes to me is already conditioned.

I was trying to make Santosh understand, "First dehypnotize these people, let

them get rid of what society has forced upon them, and only then will hypnosis be clean, young, fresh, just born."

He was only a student, so he changed the name of his therapy to dehypnotherapy on my suggestion. But what he has been doing is still the same techniques that he had learned in Germany. And those techniques can create horror, because first you are filled with social conditionings, and on top of it you are hypnotized.

In hypnosis you reach to your unconscious mind, where all conditionings exist. You are in a volcanic state. There are going to be horrors because you may remember your childhood, and all that has happened to you since your childhood, which you have repressed. Remember, nobody represses any pleasant experience -- why should one repress a pleasant experience? In fact one tries to exaggerate it, to himself and to others, as much as he can. One represses only things which are unpleasant.

So your unconscious is full of serpents and scorpions and dragons that you have repressed because you did not want to know about them and you did not want others to know about them. Without unconditioning you, if you are lead into hypnosis directly you will reach a hell of your own creation: whatever is repressed will show its true face to you -- and it is natural that you will become terrified.

The problem of these therapists like Santosh is that they have never gone through the process themselves; they have simply studied from a teacher. They have never been part of a mystery school, which would have cleaned them. And in a mystery school the technique is given to you only when you are able to use it, and not get into dark spots, horror spaces, terrible states. They are all imaginary, but when you are in them they are real.

So with Santosh, what happened with you was a nightmare that was repressed, and he opened the bottle and the djinn came out. These kind of people are dangerous. I told him again and again, to the point that he was angry with me... because he used to think that he was a hypnotist, and he had studied for twelve years in Germany -- what more could anybody teach him? I said, "It is not a question of teaching. You have not gone through these spaces into which you are leading other people, and you don't know what will happen to them."

Now all these therapists are befooling themselves. Because the commune has

been destroyed by the American government, it has been a tremendous blessing to the therapists.

We had a property of the commune in Laguna Beach in America, and our sannyasins were running it; we had made a board of directors. It was a three million dollar property.

What Santosh did was, he took three hundred sannyasins from the ranch to Laguna Beach, and all the sannyasins became members of the Laguna Beach commune -- and of course they changed the whole board of directors. Santosh brought his own directors, his own board, and he opened a dehypnotherapy institute in Laguna Beach. My name is not mentioned. He has appropriated the property without thinking of its legal implications.

And we had been fighting for years, four years, to win the case.…

It was a strange case. There used to be a Christian Church, but of a very independent character. The man who was leading the church, the priest, did not belong to any organization; it was independent, it had four hundred members. But the priest became interested in me. He and his wife came to Poona and became sannyasins, and then he went back. Instead of THE BIBLE he started teaching through my books. His congregation could not believe what had happened.

But many of his congregation were thrilled -- they were tired of listening to THE BIBLE, bored. Many of his congregation came to Poona and became sannyasins, almost thirty persons became sannyasins. And then there was a conflict. The conflict was... the non-sannyasins left the congregation because it was no longer Christian, and they had joined it because it was Christian. So they left the congregation; it became purely a sannyasin commune.

Then the old priest retired.… He used to come to festivals in the commune with his wife -

- he was still alive and still had love for me -- but he wanted to retire, he was old. So he retired, appointing sannyasins as the priests of the congregation. When he retired, the people who had left the congregation went to the court, saying that the buildings and the grounds -- and it is a beautiful place, Laguna Beach -- belong to them, and these people are not the owners of it. We had to fight the case for four years continually.

The case was decided in our favor for the simple reason that these people had left the congregation; they were no longer members of it, and they had no right.… They should have remained part of the congregation and appealed to the court, then the situation would have been different. They were the majority, but they had left, and now seeing that sannyasins had captured the whole property and the church, they wanted it back. The court dismissed the case because they had no right any longer. The moment you leave the congregation, you have no right.…

So we were keeping that property, fourteen sannyasins were there, and we wanted to sell it; for the new mystery school you will need money!

Santosh has done a great service to us. Now he is the head priest. He knows nothing as far as experience is concerned, and he will destroy many people. So I have informed our people that something has to be done and Santosh has to be removed from there; or he has to pay three million dollars, and then he can do whatever he wants to do in the property. And our sannyasins have to be informed that his hypnotherapy is not going to help them.

I have told you about a world festival that Teertha, Rajen, Poonam and others were arranging in Italy. Just yesterday the news came that very few people reached there; they have made a great loss of fifteen thousand dollars, and the whole thing was absolutely dead and flat. All these great therapists were on stage, but there was no celebration, there was no feeling that you are in the presence of someone who is enlightened. People left disappointed, disgusted with the whole thing.

I told you just a few days before that they will soon be in trouble. People will desert them, because people were not coming for them -- these therapists had got a wrong idea.

But for fifteen years... one can get easily into a wrong idea, that people are coming for them. Soon they will be lost in the crowd. And it is good that they should be lost; otherwise they will play with people's psychology, no knowing what they are doing and what is going to happen.

Hypnosis is really a very soft method... very mellow music. It can happen just sitting by my side in silence. It can happen just by listening so intently that all your worries, tensions disappear, and you start moving deeper into your being.

But those worries, tensions, anguishes, anxieties should disappear first.

And `hypnotherapy' is an old word. `dehypnotherapy' is my construction. I told Santosh to make it dehypnotherapy, and he never asked, "What will be the difference between dehypnotherapy and hypnotherapy?" He simply made it dehypnotherapy. Now he has become the director of a dehypnotherapy institute, and he does not know what the difference is between dehypnotherapy and hypnotherapy.

The process is going to be totally opposite. Hypnotherapy can take you into a deliberate sleep; dehypnotherapy can take you into a deliberate awakening. But I was puzzled: he did not even ask what the difference between the two will be.

It is unfortunate, but I will have to make my people aware of the dangers of these therapists, because they will exaggerate their claims, saying that they have been with me for fifteen years. But they have not been with me for fifteen seconds. They were playing their own small role of being a guru to a small group of people. They had come for themselves, but they forgot completely. This is what happens to accidental people: they come for one thing and buy something else.

I have heard about a real estate agent who was thought to be the top man in that profession, in a big city. He was part of a big company. The boss was very angry that day and was waiting for the man. And when the man came the boss burst out in anger and said, "This is too much. The man to whom you have sold land at double price has just gone. That we can understand; you are clever and intelligent and you managed that, and that's why we pay you so much. But the man had come to say, Ìt has rained, and now the land you have sold me is under eight feet of water. What kind of company is this? This is really cheating!'"

The salesman said, "Don't be worried boss, I will take care of him. I am going." And after an hour he came back, smiling, and he said, "You have to give me some reward today."

He said, "First you tell me what happened to that man and his land?"

He said, "Nothing happened. We have had two rotten boats for many days; I have sold them to that man. I told him, `You are a fool. Such beautiful land, which becomes a lake in the rainy season... have two boats. Make a house high enough so you will have both things together. When it is the rainy season you

enjoy the lake -- and the boats I have brought with me.' And those boats are so rotten that they will drown the man the first time he sits in them. You don't be worried. They had been lying with the company for no one knows how many years. And we got a good price for them."

The boss said, "This is too much! You have still cheated that man -- and now you have put him in a dangerous situation. Those boats will kill him."

The man said, "This world goes on this way. You don't have to think about what happens to others; you have to just think about your own pockets."

And that seems to be the state of these therapists: they are thinking about their own pockets. They are not worried about what happens to the people. What they are suggesting, they themselves have not lived; it is not their experience. And it is dishonest to tell somebody something that is not your experience, and put him into a state which can drive him crazy.

Hypnosis can be dangerous too. In wrong hands anything can be dangerous; otherwise hypnosis is a simple form of relaxation. But it can be dangerous, because the man, if he is bent upon cheating you, in those states when you are under hypnosis can suggest to you things that you don't want to do. But you will have to do them when you wake up.

I used to work with one of my students. I lived in his house for six months. His brother was my friend, and I was alone and there was no point in getting a house

-- and who was going to take care of it? So he said, "You'd better stay with me." And I discovered really a beautiful medium in his younger brother.

I started hypnotizing him. Just to give an example to you: one day I told him,

"Tomorrow, exactly at twelve o'clock, you will kiss your pillow madly." The second day, nearabout quarter to twelve, he started looking a little strange, afraid, watching everybody, everywhere, and just in front of him I took his pillow and locked it in my suitcase. I could see tears coming into his eyes. I said, "What is the matter? Why are you crying?"

He said, "I don't know, but something like this has never happened to me. It is so strange... I cannot describe." And exactly at twelve he came to me and he said, "Please return my pillow."

I said, "What will you do at twelve? In the evening I will return it." He said, "You have to return it to me right now."

I gave him the pillow and before six other people he started kissing the pillow madly, and looking at people thinking that he must look mad... and he himself thinking that he is mad

-- what is he doing?

I said, "Don't be worried, that's what everybody is doing. When a man is kissing a woman, a woman is kissing a man, that is a natural hypnosis, a biological hypnosis; the biology has hypnotized your chromosomes. It is not that you are doing it... and feeling so awkward, you don't want to do it before others, you want some lonely place of your own.

Don't be worried! It makes no difference whether it is a pillow or a woman. What you are doing, you are not doing -- it is your unconscious which is forcing you to do it."

He said, "That is the trouble. That's what I feel. Something in me says, `Kiss,' and I know that this is stupid. This is only a pillow. Why should I kiss it?"

You can, under hypnosis, manage anything if you are a person who is just trying to cheat people. You can even tell the person to murder someone and he will murder -- and he will be punished. He may be sentenced to death, and he will not have any explanation to give.

And nobody can touch you who hypnotized him, because nobody will ever know what you did in hypnosis, while he was asleep.

Hypnosis can be misused. Everything great can be misused. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why most of the countries and cultures have tried to avoid any entanglement with hypnosis. And the word `hypnotism' has become a condemnatory word. But that is not right; it can do immense good too. Somebody who has some difficulty in any subject can be simply hypnotized and told, "You don't have that difficulty. That subject is simple, and you have enough intelligence to understand it." And the man will start behaving differently from the next day -- his unconscious got it. There is no need to fear.

People can be helped with diseases, because almost seventy percent of diseases are mental. They may be expressed through the body, but their origin is in the mind. And if you can put in the mind the idea that the disease has disappeared, that you need not worry about it, it does not exist any more, the disease will disappear.

I have tried very strange experiments with it. My work was concerned with something else. For example in Ceylon, Buddhist monks every year on the birthday of Gautam Buddha, dance on red-hot burning coal -- and they don't burn. One professor from Cambridge University, a professor of psychology, had gone especially to see it, because he could not believe that it is possible. But when he saw twenty monks just dancing in the flames, and that they were not burned, he thought, "If these people can do it, why cannot I do it?" So he tried... just coming a little closer it was so hot that he ran away. He would have died if he had jumped into the pit where the fire was burning and the monks were dancing. Now, it needs a tremendous effort of hypnosis.

I tried it on the same boy, because he was a good medium. Thirty-three percent of the whole population are good mediums, and you should remember this thirty-three percent.

Thirty-three percent of the people are the most intelligent too, and this thirty- three percent is the more creative, most innovative people too. These are the same people who can go into deep hypnosis; it needs immense intelligence. People with greater intelligence

-- if they are ready to go into it -- can go to very deep layers. And the deeper the layers are, then things can be done which look almost miraculous.

With this boy -- his name was Manoj -- I tried putting a hot burning piece of coal on his hand and telling him that it is a beautiful roseflower. He saw it and he said, "So beautiful, and so fragrant," and it did not burn. I tried otherwise also: putting a roseflower on his hand and telling him it is a burning hot piece of coal. He threw it immediately, but it burned his whole hand.

Mind has tremendous power over your body. The mind directs everything in your body.

Seventy percent of your diseases can be changed by changing the mind, because they start from there; only thirty percent of diseases start from the body. You fall

down, and you have a fracture -- now, that fracture cannot be helped by hypnosis saying that you don't have any fracture. You will still have the fracture. The fracture has started from the body and the body cannot be hypnotized. The body has its own way of functioning. But if the process starts from the mind and extends to some point in the body, then it can be easily changed.

Religions have exploited it. There are many religions in India -- Mohammedans do it, Tibetans do it, Burmese do it... dancing in the fire without being burned. But these are not ordinary people, they are monks. For years they have been hypnotized, and this thing has settled in their unconscious -- that fire cannot burn them. But remember, only seventy percent... And that reminds me of a strange phenomenon that physiologists, medical people, and others who are concerned with man's body, are very much disturbed about and have no answer...

Allopathy succeeds only in seventy percent of cases; homeopathy succeeds only in seventy percent of cases; ayurvedic medicine succeeds only in seventy percent of cases; Greek medicine succeeds only in seventy percent of cases; Tibetan medicine succeeds only in seventy percent of cases; Chinese acupuncture succeeds only in seventy percent of cases -- all the methods for curing the body succeed only in seventy percent of cases.

This is a very strange coincidence.

Looked at from the outside it is a mystery. Homeopathy has nothing in it -- just small sugar pills -- but it succeeds, and succeeds to the same percentage. The only factor is: it succeeds if the person believes in homeopathy. The only difference in allopathy is that you need not believe in it and still it succeeds. Naturopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda --

their basic need is that you should believe.

I had one ayurvedic physician, a man of rare intelligence, a nice man. He used to take care of me, and he was very famous in that area. But he became a victim of tuberculosis.

When I heard it, I went to his house and there I found out he was in the hospital. I said,

"This is strange. He is such a great ayurvedic physician, why should he go to allopathy?"

I went to the hospital; I asked the physician, "This is strange behavior. You have helped so many people through your medicines, can you not help yourself with your tuberculosis?"

He laughed and he said, "No I cannot, because the basic thing in ayurvedic medicine is that you have to have faith in it. I don't have faith in it. I know all about it -- it is nonsense. But if people are healed, I keep my mouth shut. I don't say anything to anybody, but one thing is certain, it won't help me. I will die if I take those medicines --

which cured innumerable people, even of tuberculosis! So don't be surprised, and don't tell anybody anything, because if I survive I will have to continue my practice. If I die then you can tell the truth."

But the truth is, you need faith. It is the faith that changes the mind and affects the body -

- but not vice versa. The body is not superstitious, nor is it faithful; it is simply natural. It doesn't care about anything else.

There used to be a sect in America... I think it still survives in a few places, but in the beginning of this century it was very prominent. It was a Christian group, they used to call themselves Christian Scientists. They believed that everything can be cured, you just have to believe in Jesus Christ, and that your diseases are nothing but your beliefs -- you believe that you have tuberculosis, so you have tuberculosis.

One young man met on the road with one old woman and she asked, "I don't see your father in the meetings..." They used to have meetings every Sunday.

He said, "He's sick, very badly sick."

The old woman said, "Nonsense, because we are Christian Scientists. He is a Christian Scientist; he only believes that he is sick."

The young man said, "If you say so, perhaps he only believes that he is sick."

After two, three days, he came across the same woman again and she asked, "What happened?"

The young man said, "Now he believes he is dead, so we had to take him to the graveyard. We tried to shake him and shouted, `Don't believe such a thing. You are a Christian Scientist. Believe that you are alive!' But nothing happened and the whole neighborhood laughed. Now the poor man is in a grave, still believing that he is dead."

The body does not have beliefs or disbeliefs, but the mind has. And mind has immense control over the body.

One of the greatest sincerities in working with people is to take care that what you are saying or what you are doing is not going to destroy them. And I am afraid all those therapists... While they were working in the commune in my presence there was no danger. I could have put anybody back into his right position. But now they are working without any understanding, they can prove to be very dangerous.

All the sannyasins all over the world have to be informed: beware of the therapists. In my presence I allowed them to do anything because there was no problem; if something had gone wrong I would have taken care. But now if something goes wrong -- and it is bound to go wrong because they themselves are wrong -- then who is going to take care?

The master's work is not easy. He has to change you, he has to transform you. But he has not to cripple you, he has not to destroy you. It is almost like walking on a razor's edge, because anything that can be helpful can also be used in such a way that it can be disastrous.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

TRAVELING WITH YOU OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS AND SEEING THE

HARDNESS OF THE WORLD, INSTEAD OF BEING HARDENED IN RESPONSE I FIND MYSELF ONLY BECOMING SOFTER AND SOFTER. WOULD YOU

PLEASE COMMENT?

The ordinary response will be to become even more hard, but you are not in an ordinary situation. Even a small touch of meditativeness, of silence, of love, of compassion, a small touch of the master's presence, will mean you have totally different responses.

Seeing the hardness of the world, you will feel more compassionate towards them, you will feel softer. You will not react violently because that will be joining them in their same stupidity. Being with me, whether you know it or not you are learning thousands of things. One of them is that you cannot react.

The world may be hard -- that hurts. It makes one sad that unfortunately man is still barbarous, but it does not give you the idea to curse them. On the contrary, it gives you the idea to help them, to be compassionate to them, so they can come out of their hard shells. Perhaps they are also suffering in their hardness, and there is nobody to tell them how to get out of this hardness. They are also miserable. It is out of their misery that they misbehave, because they have been mistreated. They know only that violence is power.

Seeing the world you will see that violence is not the real power. The real power is love, and that love will make you softer, forgiving, without any anger; in fact laughing at the whole hilarious situation that this world believes that it is civilized, that Charles Darwin thought that we have evolved from animals. But our behavior shows that we are still animalistic. There has been no evolution at all. Perhaps we have lost the tail, but that is not evolution; perhaps we can stand on two feet, but that is not evolution. We are still behaving so crudely, so cruelly. And nobody is there to say it, because whoever is going to say it will be crushed, will be killed.

And you have chosen to be with a man who is saying it, and who is going to say it to the very last breath.

But as far as you are concerned, this whole experience of world travel, and finding the politicians the same everywhere, finding the nations, governments, the police behaving in the same manner... it seems that we are living in a nightmare. Only someone who is out of it can say, "This is a nightmare!" But when somebody in a nightmare is shouting and screaming, you don't feel hard towards him; you feel soft, you want to help him.

It has been a good experience. Later on when you will recapitulate, you will see

it has given you a maturity which takes lives to gain. Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

IT SEEMS THAT MASTERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN BETRAYED BY THEIR

CHIEF DISCIPLE. THE SAME HAS HAPPENED TO YOU, WITH THOSE TO

WHOM YOU HAVE GIVEN SO MUCH LOVE AND ATTENTION, AND ON WHOM

YOU HAVE WORKED SO HARD. OSHO, IS IT THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE MORE

POTENTIAL GO HIGHER AND THEN CAN FALL EVEN LOWER THAN THE

ORDINARY HUMAN BEING? YOU HAVE BEEN HARASSED BY THE POLICE

AND THE BUREAUCRACY. I FEEL THEY ARE NOT DOING RIGHT, BUT THEY

CAN'T DO OTHERWISE; BUT WHEN I HEAR ABOUT OLD SANNYASINS' BEHAVIOR, MY HEART CRIES AND IT HURTS ME DEEPLY.

The sannyasins I have worked harder on are not the ones who have the best potential --

they were the worst; hence they needed hard work. Those who are the best I have not worked on at all. Just my presence has been enough for them, just my love has been enough for them.

So it is not that I worked hard on them because they had more potential to go high, and then to fall even below the ordinary. I worked on them because they had no possibility to go high. Even with hard work, at the most I could bring

them to the normal. And they are behaving normally -- I am not disappointed in them.

Whenever a person of higher potential has come to me, he has received my love, but there has been no need to work on him. He needs just a slight push, and he will be flying in the sky. None of those people have fallen, or will fall down, because one who has known the freedom of the sky cannot go back to the state where he was not even aware of his wings, and he cannot be disgraceful towards the master who helped him. It is impossible, simply impossible.

His gratitude will grow more and more because the master has not only made him aware of his wings but has pushed him into the sky and has given him total freedom. How can you be ungrateful to a person who has given you total freedom to be yourself, who has not tried in any way to impose any image, any ideal on you? Most of the sannyasins are feeling more loving than ever, more grateful than ever -- and it is really a time of difficulties, when your mettle is tested.

Those who have fallen from grace were expected to. They never reached to the point where they could open their wings. If they are not grateful towards me, the simple reason is that they have not experienced anything that would make them grateful towards me.

They have remained closed in their own darkness, in their own ego.

Vivek goes on asking me again and again, "Why don't you work on me?" And it is difficult to explain that there is no need of any work on her. She has to work for me, and in that work, in that care, she is growing, she is maturing.

It is a very complicated situation. I have to choose to work on the worst; they need the attention. Even if they can grow a little bit it will be good. I don't hope that they will become enlightened. Even with hard work they will not become enlightened, because the work on the worst people has a difficulty: they fight with you. While working on them, they are continually fighting you! On each single step they don't want to grow; you are doing something against them. With the best quality people it is different. They want to grow.

You need not do any hard work. Just looking in their eyes is enough, just being with them is enough; it is nourishment. It is nourishment to open their wings -- and they will be grateful.

The people on whom one has to work hard are not going to be grateful; they will be revengeful, because you were working against them. They never wanted to fly.

I remember an old story of a man who loved freedom immensely, who had made his country free from foreign rule, but was so much in love with freedom that he would not take the reins of the government in his own hands. Once the country became free, he left the country towards the mountains. He said, "My work is done."

The last stop was a caravanserai. It had a beautiful parrot, and the owner of the serai was also in love with the idea of freedom. If he had really been a lover of freedom he would have made the parrot free, but the parrot was in a golden cage. His idea of freedom was just a mental luxury. Because he loved freedom so much -- just the idea -- he had taught the parrot to repeat the word, "Freedom, freedom, freedom." The whole day, the parrot would suddenly burst into shouting, "Freedom, freedom!" He knew only one word. And this man who had fought for the freedom of his country, had been in jails, had been in dangers, he was staying there.

He thought, "This poor parrot wants freedom. He is not happy in this golden cage, nobody listens to him. The whole day he is shouting `Freedom!'" He decided that in the night he would open the cage and let him be free, so in the middle of the night he came to the cage, opened the door of the cage, and tried to pull out the parrot. But the parrot was hitting the man with his beak, and with one of his legs he was holding onto the cage.

The man could not understand: the door was open, and he was still shouting, "Freedom!"

But the man was also a strong fighter for freedom; he somehow pulled the parrot out of the cage and threw it into the sky. He had damaged both of his hands; there was blood on both of his hands where the parrot had scratched. But he was happy that the poor parrot who longed so much for freedom was at last free.

He went to his room, went to sleep, but in the morning he woke up with the sound of the parrot who was shouting, "Freedom!" He said, "Strange! Where is the parrot?" He opened the window: the parrot was sitting in the cage and the door was open, and he was repeating his routine: "Freedom... freedom!" It was

just a word.

The owner came out; he knew this famous man. He looked at his hands, he looked at the open cage. He said, "You don't understand, he is only a parrot. I have taught him the word `freedom' because I like the idea of freedom. He is a parrot; he does not even know the meaning of freedom. You should not have unnecessarily tried and got harmed. A few other people have tried it before, but he always comes back. Who wants to leave the golden cage?

"As far as I am concerned, it is only an idea; otherwise I would have thrown him out of the cage and removed the cage. But I love to hear the word `freedom'. It is my idea; I don't want to do anything about it, it is simply philosophical -- neither does the parrot want to do anything about it. For him it is not even philosophical, for him it is simply a recording, memory... not even mind. You are a man who has sacrificed his whole life for freedom. You are in a different category. You should not have bothered about this parrot

-- he is an idiot. It is just that he has learned the word."

The sannyasins who think they have betrayed me.… They have not betrayed me: they have betrayed themselves. How can they betray me? I had no involvement of any kind. I was not in any way expecting anything from them. I worked because I enjoyed, loved it.

They cannot betray me, they can only betray themselves. It does not affect me, it will only affect their lives. They will get again into their cages and start shouting, "Freedom, freedom!" and the door will remain open.

Beyond Psychology Chapter #41

Chapter title: Times of crisis are just golden 2 May 1986 pm in

Archive code:

8605025

ShortTitle:

PSYCHO41

Audio:

Yes Video:

Yes Length:

107

mins Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

AS SOCIETY'S HOLD ON PEOPLE'S MINDS BEGINS TO DISINTEGRATE, IN

TIMES OF SOCIAL CRISIS SUCH AS NOW THERE SEEMS TO BE A TENDENCY

FOR AN INCREASING NUMBER OF PEOPLE TO FALL BELOW THE MIND INTO

MADNESS. ALSO, IS IT TRUE THAT THIS IS PARALLELED BY A TENDENCY

FOR PEOPLE TO LOOK AT THE POSSIBILITY OF GOING BEYOND THE MIND

INTO ENLIGHTENMENT?

Times of crisis are both dangerous and immensely important -- dangerous for those who have no courage to explore new dimensions of life. They are bound to disintegrate into different kinds of madness, because their mind was made by the society. Now the society is disintegrating, the mind cannot remain; its roots are in the society. It is constantly nourished by the society -- now that nourishment is disappearing.

Because the society is disintegrating, a great suspicion, a doubt that was never there before, is bound to arise in the individuals. And if they were just obedient people who have never gone beyond any limit that society has decided, who have always been respected, honorable citizens -- in other words, just mediocre -

- they will immediately go mad.

They will start committing suicide, they will start jumping from high buildings... or even if they live, now they don't have a mind which can help them to figure out the situation for their life. They will become retarded, stupid, idiotic, may become schizophrenic, split into two persons -- or perhaps a crowd.

In times of crisis, the danger is for those who have enjoyed the times when the society was settled, when there was no problem, everything was at ease, they were honored, respected. These were the people who had enjoyed the obedience of the mind, and these are going to be the sufferers. It is a simple arithmetic. They will go psychotic, they will go neurotic -- and these words don't make much difference.

I have heard a definition. One psychoanalyst was asked, "What is the difference between psychosis and neurosis?"

And the psychoanalyst said, "The psychotic person believes that two and two are five.

And the neurotic person knows that two and two are four, but is not at ease with the fact that two and two are four." So the difference is very fine. Both are in trouble.

But times of crisis are of tremendous significance for those daring souls who have never bothered about society's respectability, its honors; who have never bothered about what others think about them, but have done only that which they felt right to do; who have in a certain way been always rebellious, individualistic. For these people the times of crisis are just golden, because the

society is disintegrating. Now it cannot condemn anybody --

it is itself condemned, cursed. It cannot say to others that they are wrong. It is itself proving wrong; its whole wisdom is proving just foolish, superstitious.

The daring individual can use this opportunity to go beyond mind, because now the society cannot prevent him, cannot hinder him. Now he is free.

It is almost like a situation in a jail... when the doors are open, the guards have disappeared and the jailer is nowhere to be found. The people who have some sense, some intelligence, will use it for freedom. But those who have become so enslaved that they cannot think of freedom -- imprisonment has become their home -- they will simply panic, "What is going to happen today? No guards? No jailer? The doors are open! Who will take care of us? Who will provide food for us?"

There will be people whose slavery has penetrated to their very soul; these people will go berserk. But the people who always were in search of a moment when they can escape from the prison will be immensely happy. This was the time they have been waiting and praying for. They will escape out of the prison into the open sky. Going beyond the mind is going into the open sky, full of stars, the moon, the sun -- the immensity of it... It becomes yours; the whole existence becomes yours.

The mind is a small cage.

So moments of crisis are both... and that is what is happening all around the world. There has never been so intense a search for spiritual growth, for meditation. But there has never been so much madness either. Both are happening because the status quo is no longer powerful; it has lost control.

When Galileo found that the earth moves around the sun, not vice versa as THE BIBLE

says, the pope asked him to be present in his court. Many things happened that day. One was very important. Galileo asked, "What does it matter if one statement in THE BIBLE

is proved wrong? It does not prove the whole BIBLE wrong. I am a devout Christian, a practicing Christian, and I don't see the point that if one statement is

wrong it makes a difference."

But the pope said, "You don't understand" -- and the pope was right. He said, "When one statement is proved wrong then thousands of problems will arise. One -- that God can be wrong. And if he is wrong about one statement, what is the certainty about other statements?" Just one brick taken out of the palace, and the whole palace may collapse.

"I cannot allow," the pope said, "any statement in THE BIBLE to be wrong."

His argument is significant. Today not only one thing about the old mind, the old society, is wrong, but so many things are wrong that it needs an absolute idiot to still believe in it.

Just a little intelligence and it is impossible to be part of the old mind. It has lost credibility -- and not in one place, but all over the world. There are different kinds of old traditions, but they all have come to a point where so many things are scientifically proved wrong.

You will be surprised to know... One Jaina monk had come to see me; he had collected millions of rupees to make a lab to prove that man has not reached the moon. He wanted my support, that I should be the director of his lab. He would give any finance that was needed, but it had to be proved that no man has stepped on the moon.

I said, "Why are you so much worried about it?"

He said, "You don't understand. In Jainism, the moon is a god, not a planet. You cannot walk on a god. And they have not only walked on a god, they have brought stones and other things from the moon to be studied on the earth. It has to be proved that they are deceiving the whole world, that all these things they had taken from the earth, and they have brought them back... Nobody has been to the moon; nobody can have been, otherwise the whole system of Jainism will collapse." I said, "Just for a single thing, that the moon proves to be a planet not a god...?"

He said, "If one thing is wrong, then everything becomes suspicious. We cannot afford anything to be wrong."

I said, "You are too late! Many things have already been proved wrong. You are

not very knowledgeable. You have been simply reading the newspapers, and because it is a recent event, man landing on the moon... otherwise in three hundred years science has destroyed much that all the religions have believed in for centuries."

That man was really in tremendous anguish. And I said, "For you, being a monk, it does not matter whether anything is wrong or right -- your search is for the truth, for peace and silence. And you are getting so much upset. Your very anguish shows that your own mind is shattered. It is not a question of Jaina scriptures, or the Jaina tradition, it is a question of your mind.

"You are collecting all this money, not for Jaina scriptures but to save your sanity; otherwise you would go insane. You have sacrificed your whole life, and now you find that the gods you have been worshipping are not gods but just planets, as ordinary as the earth, and very poor -- no water, no plants, no life. It is your mind that is going to be shattered. How will you account for your whole life...?"

This is the situation of many people of intelligence. Either they are going insane... you can see it -- psychotherapy and other schools of therapies are growing fast. They are the most highly paid people, people are going through psychoanalysis for years at a time. In fact people have started boasting... In women's clubs you can go and hear it, that one woman will be saying, "How many years have you been in psychoanalysis? -- just seven years? I have been in psychoanalysis for fifteen years." It has become something of pride.

But to be in psychoanalysis simply means you are insane; otherwise why are you taking the treatment? And it is spreading.

But the most intelligent people are rushing towards the East to find some way, some method, some meditation -- Yoga, Zen, Sufism, Hassidism. Somewhere somebody must know how to get over this critical stage, how to go beyond the traditional mind and still remain centered, sane, and intelligent. Thousands of people are moving towards the East.

It is very hilarious because thousands of people are coming from the East to the West to study science, medicine, engineering, electronics, and the people who know all these are going to the East, just to learn how to sit silently and do nothing.

But it is a beautiful time. The grip of society is lost. Yes, the mediocre will suffer, but anyway they were not enjoying, they were not really living; they were simply being hypocrites. By being insane at least they will be real, authentic. They won't lose anything

-- of course they won't gain much.…

But the people who will go beyond mind will create the new man, the new mind. And the most special thing to be remembered about the new mind is that it will never become a tradition, that it will be constantly renewed. If it becomes a tradition it will be the same thing.

The new mind has to become continuously new, every day new, ready to accept any unexpected experience, any unexpected truth... just available, vulnerable. It will be a tremendous excitement, a great ecstasy, a great challenge.

So I don't think this crisis is bad; it is good. A few people will lose their masks, and will be actually what they are -- neurotic, psychotic -- but at least they will be true and they will be honest. You may think they are mad; they are not mad, they are simply in a state of very great surprise. They have believed too much in the old mind, and it betrayed them.

But the best of the intelligence will reach to heights unknown before. And if even in a traditional world, a man like Gautam Buddha or Chuang Tzu or Pythagoras is possible, we can conceive that in the atmosphere that the new mind will create, a thousandfold more awakened people, enlightened people will become easily possible.

If the new mind can prevail then life can become an enlightening process. And enlightenment will not be something rare, that it happens once in a while to somebody very special; it will become a very ordinary human experience, that only once in a while some really idiotic person misses.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE HESITATED FOR LONG TO ASK THIS QUESTION BECAUSE IT SEEMS

TO REACH DEEP DOWN INTO MY UNCONSCIOUS, AND THERE IS A LOT OF

FEAR CONNECTED WITH IT.

FOR THE PAST FIFTEEN YEARS I HAVE EXPERIENCED TENSION OF

VARYING DEGREES IN MY HEART AREA, FOR WHICH THERE HAS BEEN NO

PHYSICAL EXPLANATION. IT CAN VARY FROM SHARP, BREATH- TAKING

PAIN, WHICH CAN LAST FOR HOURS, TO A SLIGHT FEELING OF PRESSURE.

IT DISAPPEARS WHEN I LOVE, MELT, LET-GO, AND WHEN I AM IN

HARMONY WITH MY BODY. DOES IT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE

NAME YOU GAVE ME? DO I HOLD BACK?

I WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD THROW SOME LIGHT ON THIS.

The question is from Premda, and his name has certainly to do something with the problem.

It is not physical; it is certainly concerned with relaxation, total melting, forgetting oneself completely. In those moments it disappears, so certainly it is not physical. You have to learn to give more love. This is not only your problem; in varying degrees it is the problem of everybody.

Everybody wants to be loved; that is a wrong beginning.

It starts because the child, the small child, cannot love, cannot say anything, cannot do anything, cannot give anything; he can only get. A small child's experience of love is of getting: getting from the mother, getting from the father, getting from brothers, sisters, getting from guests, strangers -- but always

getting. So the first experience that settles deep in his unconscious is that he has to get love. But the trouble arises because everybody has been a child, and everybody has the same urge to get love; nobody is born in any other way. So all are asking, "Give us love," and there is nobody to give because the other person was also brought up in the same way.

One has to be alert and aware that just an incident of birth should not remain a constant prevailing state of your mind. Rather than asking, "Give me love," start giving love.

Forget about getting, simply give -- and I guarantee you, you will get much. But you are not to think about getting. You are not even indirectly, by the side, to watch whether you are getting it or not. That much will be enough disturbance. You simply give, because to give love is so beautiful that getting love is not so great. This is one of the secrets.

Giving love is the really beautiful experience, because then you are an emperor. Getting love is very small experience, and it is the experience of a beggar. Don't be a beggar. At least as far as love is concerned, be an emperor, because it is an inexhaustible quality in you. You can go on giving as much as you like. Don't be worried that it will be exhausted, that one day you will suddenly find, "My God! I don't have any love to give anymore."

Love is not a quantity; it is a quality, and a quality of a certain category that grows by giving and dies if you hold it. If you are miserly about it, it dies. So be really spendthrift.

Don't bother to whom -- that is really the idea of a miserly mind: I will give love to certain persons with certain qualities.

You don't understand that you have so much... you are a raincloud. The raincloud does not bother where it rains -- on the rocks, in the gardens, in the ocean -- it doesn't matter. It wants to unburden itself. And that unburdening is a tremendous relief.

So the first secret is: Don't ask for it, and don't wait, thinking that you will give if somebody asks you. Give it!

The founder of the theosophical movement, Madame Blavatsky had a strange habit her whole life -- and she lived long, and traveled all over the world and

created a world movement... In fact no other woman has been so powerful in the whole history of man, has had influence worldwide. She used to carry many bags with her, full of seeds of flowers. Her whole luggage was nothing but seeds of flowers. Sitting in the train by the side of the window she would go on throwing seeds outside the window, and people would ask, "What are you doing? You carry so much unnecessary luggage, and then you go on throwing those seeds out of the window for thousands of miles."

She said, "These are seeds of flowers, beautiful flowers. When the summer goes and the rains come, these seeds will become plants. Soon there will be millions of flowers. I will not be coming back on the route and I will never see them, but thousands of people will see them, thousands of people will enjoy their fragrance."

She actually made almost all the railroads in India full of flowers, and people said,

"When you will not see them again, what is your joy?"

She said, "My joy is that so many people will be joyful. I am not a miser. Whatever I can do to make people joyful, happy, I will do; it is part of my love." She really loved humanity, and did everything that she felt was right.

Just give your love to anybody -- a stranger. It is not a question that you have to give something very valuable, just a helping hand and that will be enough. In twenty-four hours, whatever you do should be done with love, and the pain in your heart will disappear. And because you will be loving so much, people will love you. It is a natural law. You get what you give. In fact you get more than you give.

Learn giving, and you will find so many people being loving towards you who had never looked at you, who had never bothered about you.

Your problem is that you have a heart full of love but you have been a miser; that love has become a burden on the heart. Rather than making the heart blossom you have been hoarding it, so once in a while when you are in a moment of love you feel it disappearing.

But why one moment? Why not every moment? It is not even a question of a living being. You can touch this chair with a loving hand. The thing depends on

you, not on the object.

Then you will find a great relaxation and a great disappearance of your self -- which is a burden -- and a melting into the whole.

This is certainly a disease, in the literal meaning of the word: it is a dis-ease. It is not sickness, so no physician can help you. It is simply a tense state of your heart which simply wants to give more and more. Perhaps you have more love than other people, perhaps you are more fortunate, and you are making out of your fortune a great misery for yourself. Share it, without bothering to whom you are giving. Just give it, and you will find tremendous peace and silence. This will become your meditation.

One can come to meditation through many directions; perhaps this is going to be your direction.

Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT I FIND REALLY AMAZING ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD IS THAT, UNLIKE MOST OF US AS CHILDREN, YOU SEEM TO HAVE AN INTRINSIC

AND UNDENIABLE UNDERSTANDING THAT YOUR PARENTS'

INTERPRETATION OF REALITY AND YOUR EXPERIENCE OF REALITY WERE

OFTEN TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. YOU INSIST THAT YOU ARE NO

DIFFERENT FROM US, YET THIS FACET OF YOUR CHILDHOOD ALONE IS

MORE THAN ENOUGH EVIDENCE THAT YOU HOUSE THE MOST UNIQUE

SORT OF INTELLIGENCE.

I WOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR COMMENT.

Every child understands that he sees the world in a different way than his parents. As far as seeing is concerned, it is absolutely certain. His values are different. He may collect sea shells on the beach and the parents will say, "Throw them away. Why are you wasting your time?" And for him they were so beautiful. He can see the difference; he can see that their values are different. The parents are running after money -- he wants to collect butterflies. He can't see why you are so interested in money; what you are going to do with it? His parents cannot see what he is going to do with these butterflies, or these flowers.

Every child comes to know this, that there are differences. The only question is: he is afraid to assert that he is right. As far as he is concerned, he should be left alone. It is a question of just a little courage, which is also not missing in children. But the whole society is managed in such a way that even a beautiful quality like courage in a child will be condemned.

I was not willing to bow down in the temple to a stone statue. And I said to them, "If you want, you can force me. You have more physical force than me. I am small; you can force me, but remember you are doing an ugly act. It will not be my prayer, and it will destroy even your prayer, because you are doing violence to a little child who cannot resist physically."

One day while they were inside praying in the temple, I climbed on the top of the temple, which was dangerous. Only once a year a painter used to climb it, but I had seen the painter and how he had managed. He had put nails at the backside as steps. I followed him and I was sitting on the top of the temple. When they came out they saw me sitting there and they said, "What are you doing there? In the first place, do you want to commit suicide?"

I said, "No, I simply want to make you alert that if you force me, I can do anything that is within my power. This is the answer, for you to remember that you cannot force me to do anything."

They begged me, "Be quiet. We will arrange for somebody to bring you down."

I said, "Don't be worried. If I can come up, I can come down." They had no idea about those nails. I had been particularly watching the painter, how he manages, because everybody wondered -- that this painter was really great. He was painting all the temples.

I came down. They said, "We will never force you about anything, but don't do

such a thing! You could have killed yourself."

I said, "The responsibility would have been on you."

It is not a question that intelligence is not in the children. It is that they just don't use their assertiveness because it is condemned by everybody. Now, everybody condemned my family because I had gone up on top of the temple -- that means beyond their god. That was insulting to their god. And I said, "If a painter can go... And do you know the painter is a Mohammedan? I am at least not a Mohammedan yet."

My father said, "What do you mean, that you are not a Mohammedan yet?"

I said, "Exactly what I have said. If you torture me too much I can become a Mohammedan."

I had even asked the malvi of the mosque nearby, "Are you willing to initiate me into Mohammedanism?"

He said, "You want to be initiated? Your parents... There will be trouble in the town."

I said, "Don't be worried, because you are not forcing me. I am accepting Mohammedanism. I will stand in front of the mosque and tell my parents and to the whole town that I have not been forced."

He said, "This is dangerous. It may create a riot in the city and a few people may be killed."

I said, "Don't be worried, I am not going to be a Mohammedan. You just remember, if my father asks you, you say to him, `Yes, he has come, and if he wants to become a Mohammedan we cannot refuse.' I am not going to come, but this much you have to tell him."

And my father asked him, "Has he come to you?" He said, "He has come, and he is very insistent." My father said, "It is better to leave him alone!

They had a meeting of the whole family, "Leave him alone; he is really dangerous. If he becomes a Mohammedan we will be condemned by the whole city. And he really has gone, and he is insisting, Ìf anything happens again to force me, then I am going to change my religion.'"

That was the last...! They remained silent; they never told me to come to the temple. I never went to the temple. Slowly they learned one thing, that I am not dangerous, just they should not force me into a corner.

Each child has to be assertive, that's the only thing. And what is there to lose? But children are so dependent, and I don't see that they have to be so dependent. They told me many times, "We will stop giving you food."

I said, "You do it. I can start begging -- in this very city. I have to survive, I have to do something. You can stop giving me food, but you cannot stop me from begging. Begging is everybody's birthright."

There is not any difference of intelligence, but I see differences of assertiveness because children who are obedient are honored.

In my family, my other brothers would be called when some guests would be there; my uncles would be called, "He has come first class. He has come this, he has done this..."

And I would introduce myself, "I have done nothing, and all these people are just at a loss what to do with me. They never wanted me to be introduced to you, so I thought I should introduce myself!"

This happened... One member of parliament was visiting the house -- he was a friend of my father. They were introducing everybody, and I was not called; I was simply ignored.

When I came in and I introduced myself to him he said, "But this is strange. Nobody called you."

I said, "Nothing is strange. These are all obedient people. I am disobedient -- and you will have some taste of it soon."

And my father said, "Leave him alone. Why should he have a taste?"

I said, "He is going to speak in my school" -- I was in the ninth class -- "he is going to address my high school, and I am going to create trouble. I am just informing him beforehand that I am going to ask questions, and he should not think that because he is a great orator and a parliamentarian that I will be impressed by these things. Nothing impresses me."

My father told him, "You be aware of him. He will ask something, something that you cannot answer, because he is continuously harassing us. He will never ask anything that you can answer, and he has a capacity for finding... how he finds, we don't know. He asks questions that you cannot answer, and in a public meeting where you are addressing hundreds of people he can make you look a fool."

That man became really afraid. He asked me, "It will be good if you come with me, in the car" -- just to persuade me not to create any trouble.

I said, "Nothing will help. I can come in your car that will simply shock my headmaster, my masters, and the whole school. But there is no way of giving me any bribe."

He said, "You look to be so strong... at this age?"

I said, "I am not strong, I simply ask simple questions and I want their answers. When you come to address the school, I have every right to ask you a few things. You are continually asking in the parliament: I see your name in the newspapers everyday --

questions to the prime minister, to this minister, to that minister -- you should not be so much afraid of a small child. What can I ask?"

But he said, "Your father is so afraid, and we have been colleagues, we have studied together; I trust in his judgment. And you also look dangerous."

We went to the school. He started speaking; I stood up and asked him, "Be honest and tell everybody, why have you brought me in your car? Just be sincere!"

And he said, "Your father was right. You ask questions which cannot be answered."

I said, "This is a simple question. If you cannot answer it I can answer. You know the answer, I know the answer, I want everybody else also to know the answer."

My principal tried to settle the matter saying, "You sit down. He is our guest, and much depends on him for grants and this..."

I said, "That is not my business. I am not the principal of this school, I am simply a student. And I am not asking a very complicated question or any question which is dangerous to the security of the country or anything. I am just asking him why he has brought me in his car. If he accepts it sincerely I will not ask another question."

He said, "I am sorry, but it is true. What he is saying is right -- it was a bribe. I thought that sitting in my car he would feel good and he would not harass me." But he looked so embarrassed saying such small things. When I came back home, my father said, "Did you create any trouble?"

I said, "I did not create any trouble, he himself created it. He asked me to sit in his car. I was going myself, walking to the school. He created the trouble."

Each child, if supported by the parents to be courageous, has the intelligence to make clear that his values are different, his perceptions are different. But nobody supports, everybody tries to repress the child. The only difference you can make is in that... To me anything that was repressive was a challenge. Then I was provoked to do something --

and they had to learn the lesson.

So the next time I was the first to be called to be introduced, because they knew that I would come by myself and then it would become more difficult. It was better to introduce me. But they had nothing to say about me -- what to say about me?

So I told them, "You can say exactly the truth: `He is disobedient; he is a problem. He is continuously creating trouble for the family, for the neighborhood, for the whole town --

teachers, students. And the whole day we are tired of listening to complaints coming...'

You can simply introduce me the way I am. Why are you so afraid, when I am not afraid?

These are true things."

A situation was created that instead of my being afraid, my whole family was afraid of me. And each child can do that... just a little courage. One day my father said, "You have to be back in the house before nine o'clock in the night."

I said, "If I don't come -- then?"

He said, "Then the doors will not be open."

I said, "Then keep your doors closed. I will not even knock on the doors, and I am not going to come before nine. I will sit outside, and tell everybody! Whoever will be passing, they will ask, `Why are you sitting in darkness in this cold night?' And I will tell them, `This is the situation...'"

He said, "That means you will create trouble for me."

I said, "I am not creating it. You are giving this order. I have never thought about it, but when you say, `Nine is the deadline,' then I cannot come before nine. It simply is against my intelligence. And I am not doing anything; I will be simply sitting outside. And if somebody asks, `Why are you sitting...?' And anybody is going to ask. If you are sitting in the road, everybody who will be passing is going to ask, `Why are you sitting here in the cold?' Then I will have to explain,

`This is the situation...'"

He said, "Forget about that limit. You come whenever you want."

And I said, "I am not going to knock. The doors have to remain open. Why should the doors be closed -- just to harass me? There is no reason to close the doors." In my part of India the town is awake up to twelve, because it is so hot that only after twelve it starts cooling down. So people remain awake, work continues. The day is so hot that they may rest in the day and work in the night. I said, "There is no reason to close the doors when you are sitting inside and working. Leave the doors open. Why should I knock?"

He said, "Okay, the doors will remain open. It was my fault to say to you, `Come before nine,' because everybody comes before nine.'

I said, "I am not everybody. If it is suitable for them to come before nine they can come.

If it is suitable for me, I will come. But don't cut my freedom, don't destroy my individuality. Just let me be myself."

It is a simple question of asserting yourself against those who have power. But you have subtle powers that you can use against them. For example, if I said, "I will simply sit in the road," I am also using power. If I am sitting on top of the temple, I am also using power. If they can threaten me, I can also threaten them. But children simply fall in line just to be respectable, just to be obedient, just to be on the right path. And the right path means whatsoever their parents are showing them.

You are right, I was a little different. But I don't think it is any superiority, just a little bit of difference. And once I learned the art, then I refined it. Once I knew how to fight with people who have power -- and you don't have -- then I refined it, and managed perfectly well. I always found out some way. And they were always surprised because they thought, "Now he cannot do anything against this" -- because they were always thinking rationally.

I have no devotion to reason.

My devotion is basically towards freedom.

By what means it is achieved does not matter. Every means becomes good if it brings freedom to you, individuality to you, and you are not enslaved. The children just don't have the idea. They think that their parents are doing everything good for them.

I always made it clear to them, "I don't suspect your intentions, and I hope you don't suspect my intentions either. But there are things on which we disagree. Do you want me to agree on everything with you? -- whether you are right or wrong? Are you absolutely certain, that you are right? If you are not so absolutely certain, then give me the freedom to decide for myself. At least I will have the pleasure of going wrong on my own decision, and I will not make you feel guilty and responsible."

One just has to be alert about one thing: whatsoever your parents say, they cannot do.

They cannot harm you, they cannot kill you, they can only threaten you. Once you know they can only threaten you, their threats don't make any difference; you can also threaten them. And you can threaten them in such a way that they will have to accept your right to choose what you want to do.

I made it absolutely clear to them, "If you can convince me that what you are saying is right, I will do it. But if you cannot convince me then please don't dictate. Then you are teaching me to be a fascist; you are not helping me to be a liberated man, but somebody imprisoned."

So there are differences, but nothing that is special or superior. And children can be taught; they all can do the same, because I have tried that too, even in my childhood.

Students were puzzled: I harassed the teachers, I harassed the principal, and still they could not do anything against me. And they would do something wrong and immediately they were in trouble. They started asking me, "What is the secret?"

I said, "There is no secret. You have to be very clear that you are right and that you have a reason to support it. Then whoever is against you will see. Whether he is a teacher or the principal does not matter."

One of my teachers went in great anger into the office of the principal and fined me ten rupees for my misbehavior. I just went behind him, and while he was fining me I was standing by his side. As he moved away, with the same pen I fined him twenty rupees for his misbehavior.

He said, "What are you doing? That register is for teachers to fine the students."

I asked, "Where is it written? In this register, nowhere is it written that only teachers can fine the students. I think this register is to fine anybody who misbehaves. If there is anywhere else where it is written, I would like to see it."

Meanwhile the principal came in. He said, "What is the matter?"

And the teacher said, "He has spoiled the register. He has fined me twenty rupees for misbehavior."

The principal said, "That is not right."

I said, "Do you have any written document that says that no student can fine a teacher, even if the teacher is misbehaving?"

The principal said, "This is a difficult matter. We don't have any document, it is just a convention that teachers punish."

I said, "It has to be changed. Punishment is perfectly right, but it should not be one sided.

I will pay those ten rupees only if this man pays twenty rupees." Because the principal could not ask him for twenty rupees, he could not ask me for those ten rupees, and the fine is still there! When after a few years I visited the school, he showed me, "Your fine is still there."

I said, "Leave it there for other students to know." One just has to find ways...!

So there must be some difference, but it is not of superiority. It is just a question of using your courage, your intelligence, and risking. What is the danger? What could those people have destroyed? At the most they could have failed me in their class -- of which they were afraid, because that meant I would be again in their class the next year! -- so it was really favorable to me. They wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible. That was the only power in the teacher's hands, to fail a student.

I had made it clear to every teacher, "You can fail me, it doesn't matter. Whether I pass a class in two years or three years does not matter. This whole life is so useless --

somewhere I have to pass my life. I can pass my whole life in this school, but I will make your life hell, because once the fear of failing disappears then I can do anything." So even the teachers who were against me were giving me more marks than needed just to help me move into another class, so I was no longer a burden to them.

If parents really love children, they will help them to be courageous -- courageous even against themselves. They will help them to be courageous against teachers, against society, against anybody who is going to destroy their individuality.

And that's what I mean: the new mind will have these different qualities. The children born under the new mind and the new man will not be treated the way they have been treated down the centuries. They will be encouraged to be themselves, to be assertive, to be self-respectful. And that will change the whole quality of life. It will become more shiny, alive, and more juicy.

Beyond Psychology Chapter #42

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