23

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‌CHAPTER 23

7 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin asked Osho if the religious movement he was involved in in America was doing anything generally positive for the spiritual development of the world, and whether he should remain in it.

He said that on the positive side he felt the people involved in it were really interested in bringing God to people, but on the negative side he felt they were rather moralistic and had rigid and fixed characters.

Osho said that these were not in fact two different things... ]

People who are interested in bringing God to others are always narrow-minded, always moralistic, puritans.

In fact they are not concerned with God at all, God is just an excuse. They want to condemn, to torture people. These God-loving, so-called God-loving people, have created hell. They are sadists, and their morality has nothing to do with morality. It is an ego-trip.

You cannot hide negative things if you don’t have something positive to hide behind, so real positivity has to be understood – whether it is pure, whether it is not hiding something behind it.

It is very simple and easy to watch a person who is really religious. If he is religious he will never have a narrow mind, or a moralistic mind. This is one of the basic qualities of the religious mind – that he will not have a condemnatory attitude. He will love so deeply that he cannot condemn, he cannot call anybody a sinner; that is impossible for a really religious person.

But religious people have been calling the whole world a world of sinners, and have been very inventive about how to torture people.

If you can give freedom to the other, only then can you love. If you can accept the being of the other as it is, only. then you have love. If you can accept the divinity of the other without forcing anything on top of it, then only you are in love – otherwise not.

Love needs no theology, and knows no ideology. These are tricks, and the mind has been playing tricks for so long and you don’t understand even now.…

Just watch the people whom you call religious. They may develop a certain character, they may even try to be moral, but the whole thing is an ego-trip. It is just to condemn others, to feel higher than others, better than others, superior. In their eyes you can see a tremendous condemnation. They will go on becoming holier and holier – and if you look at their holiness only, you will miss the whole point.

A real saint may not look like a saint at all, because he will be so ordinary. He will not have any programme Of how to reform the world. All those programmes are political, they are nothing to do with religion. All the churches and temples and so-called prophets create more politics and more war and more violence. But these are the seeds – and the trouble is they are altruistic. They are great God-lovers, and so concerned with the welfare of the world that anyone can become a victim.

This has always been so. Mohammedans have killed so many people, and so have Christians. They are all trying to do good, and they are all trying to help people, but they are not aware of their own unconscious ego-trip. It is not a question of wanting to change the world and helping people – these are nonsensical things. One should understand that these games have been played long enough, and be aware of them. But human stupidity is such that again and again we fall into the same trap.

A really religious person will not in any way be forcing anything on anybody. He Cannot be moralistic, cannot have any idea of sin. He will accept you on your terms. He won’t have any terms, any conditions, saying that if you fulfill these then you enter heaven, and if you don’t fulfill them you will be thrown into hell.

Any religious person will not be fanatical at all – because there is nothing to be fanatic about! He will be a wideness, an open sky. You cannot find any boundaries, any limitations to him.

So if these are the negatives, whatsoever you call the positives are bogus! If these positives are real, then these negatives cannot exist. So you sort it out. You may have a certain fascination for the positives, but that alone is not enough – because the path of hell is lined with good wishes.

[The sannyasin answers: They don’t seem to be authentically human, fully integrated It seems like their spirituality is built on a weak foundation; it doesn’t permeate their whole being.]

In fact spirituality is not something separate from your being. It is your fullness of being. It is not something that you have to attain over and above you. It is you, a flowering. It is you, relaxed, integrated, total. Spirituality is not a goal. If it is a goal, then you will always find a superstructure of spirituality, and somewhere deep down, the crippled human being. All that sort of spirituality is just rot.

Be a total human being. When I say total I never mean perfect. A total human being can never be perfect, because he will always be growing; it is a process. Totality is a process and never comes to

any perfection; or, every moment it is perfect, and goes on attaining to so many types of perfection. It becomes more and more perfect, perfecter than perfect, but it is a process. A perfect man is a dead man. A total man is an alive process, a dynamic force.

Spirituality is not something over and above humanity. It is just the fragrance of humanity. If you are really human, you are spiritual. We can drop the word spiritual – there is no need for it. There is no need to give it a special name, but the separate name helps the ego. You start fighting with your humanity, repressing your humanity, and trying to create a superstructure on top of it. It is a mere decoration and remains skin-deep.

So if you look deep into your saints, you will find very paralysed, crippled human beings; not flowering at all – stinking!

A spiritual being means an innocent being, and innocence requires that you should not be divided. So there should be no goal and no idea of becoming somebody or something else, but just a deep acceptance and a delight in whatsoever you are, and a celebration – so that you can flow, you can be. In unknown ways you become spiritual – not that you try; it is a consequence of being total.

If you see a crippled human being under a spirituality, then know that something has gone wrong. If you can find a man who is totally human, alive, dynamic, flowing – he may not have even heard the word spirituality, may never have been to any temple, read any bible or geeta – there is the man. Bow to him, and touch his feet, because something has flowered there.

To be religious is not to impose a structure; rather, on the contrary, it is to reveal the being that you are already.

So go and think about it. It is up to you. Whatsoever I say is not meant to direct you. If you feel like being in that group, remain in it; it must be giving you something. You may need to be in it a little while longer. But if you feel that it is not worthwhile, if you feel that you have to sacrifice something – then sacrifice and get out of it. To be in anything that you start feeling is wrong is to be suicidal, because by and by you become hypocritical. Never be in any situation where you cannot be total. Escape from it; it is dangerous because it is dividing you.

I know a catholic missionary who is fed up with his work and can see the whole nonsense of it – but he cannot get out of it! He is on a good salary, has a good house to live in, a car, prestige. Now this I see as very dangerous. There can be some security, some comfort and convenience in it, but one has to gather courage to be true to oneself.

If you feel it is wrong, get out of it. But never sell your soul for any comfort whatsoever.

[Another sannyasin says: Last time I was here I took sannyas. I was not sure I wanted to take it, but I took your advice. I took sannyas, and I’m glad. It’s been good... I think I need to accept... you talk about being total, and I don t feel I’m a total sannyasin.]

It will become total. You have taken the first step, the other things will follow. You do this group – it will be very very helpful; it will bring many things to your consciousness. And after the group you will feel very very relaxed.

So in the group, don’t be shy and don’t feel embarrassed. Whatsoever is the truth, allow it and accept it. Don’t condemn it and say that ‘this is not good, I should not say that, I should not accept that this is true in me’.

If hate is there, accept it. If there is no love, accept that there is no love. Things that are, people go on pretending they are not, and things that are not, people go on thinking they are. That’s how we become divided. Acceptance means that vou will automatically become one. When you accept yourself however you are, there is no division.

There is nobody standing inside you condemning you; there is no top-dog and under-dog.

These things are natural and you cannot drop them so easily. The only easy way is to hide them, to pretend that they are not. You can keep them in the background so you don’t see them, and then by and by you forget them. But they remain part of you, and they go on influencing you. Your whole life, by and by, will be in the hands of the unconscious, and you will become a slave, a puppet.

Accept, so that you need not keep any dark corner, and you can move into your basement of being. You can look at everything because you don’t have any condemnation. Once you accept, you become one. The constant conflict disappears, and you simply become natural.

Remember, to be natural is the only virtue. There is none other but this.

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