22

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 22

26 June 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin had written a letter about relationship with his girlfriend, who was living in London, and who wished to be married to him. He was uncertain as to what was the best thing to do as he had reservations about marriage but was in love with her.]

One thing – don’t get married. That will be very destructive. You will never be able to forgive her – that will be the destructive element in it – and you will start taking revenge.

There is no need to get married, but you should start feeling a sort of commitment, that’s another thing. There is no need to get married, but because there is no need to get married there is a great need to feel committed, and more than when one gets married.

In marriage, in fact, you can avoid commitment. Marriage is an avoidance. Legally, formally, you are committed, that’s right, but the responsibility is avoided. When you are not married to a woman, commitment is greater because there is no legal bind in it. Responsibility is deeper because she simply trusts you.

So marriage and commitment are not both the same thing. Marriage is an avoidance of commitment, of real commitment. It is a bogus commitment, a pseudo-commitment, just to show that one is committed. If you avoid marriage then you are able to take the whole responsibility personally. Then the society is not in it; the law and the court and nobody else are in it. It is absolutely personal, and the commitment is very great.

I suggest that you don’t get married – not because I would not like you to be committed, but because I would like you to be committed really deeply.

Her attitude is understandable. A woman always wants to belong. That has nothing to do with any particular individuals; it is something to do with the very nature of womanhood. It is part of the

feminine mind to lean to somebody, to possess and to be possessed. So it is not a question of somebody being like that. All women, more or less, are like that. That is their intrinsic quality. And when a woman loses that quality, she loses something of her womanhood. Then she is not worth much. She is almost like a man; she has a male mind. You will not feel that softness, that fragileness that gives grace and beauty to a woman.

It is just like a creeper. The creeper needs some tree to belong to, to creep upon, to be supported by. The creeper cannot stand on its own. But that is one of the most beautiful experiences – that somebody belongs to you and you belong to somebody. Belonging is one of the most desired states of the human mind. You feel rooted when you feel that you belong to somebody.

Now many things have disappeared in the world which used to give a feeling of belongingness – the nation, the church, the society. Those are in fact gone; only shadows are existing. Nobody is english now in the sense of being english two hundred years ago. Nobody is indian in the sense that people used to be indian. That looks sort of foolish. Man is man. Nobody is white and black. Even if it persists it persists just as a habit, but it has lost its grip.

So all other belongings have disappeared. Now the only belonging is personal, a personal love. Otherwise one feels very lonely – and woman more so, because her whole love is receptive, passive. She waits... but she is not aggressive. If there is nobody to belong to, then waiting simply becomes waiting for Godot. It is a waiting and waiting and waiting, and it is heavy.

So her attitude can be understood. She is perfectly right, but she is in a deep misunderstanding – as almost all are. She thinks marriage will be a commitment. That’s where she is wrong. So you have to write to her from me about everything that I am saying to you. But give her your commitment. Make her feel that she belongs to you and you belong to her.

Two months of the year is not enough to spend with her [as the sannyasin had suggested in his letter]. Make it at least six months. Two months is not enough. By the time you start going deep, intimate, you are gone and she simply hangs there. That can become very miserable. Then you come again but the gap is big and before you become acquainted again, the time to go has come.

So you come and go but you never establish roots with her and she cannot have time to be really intimate with you. More time is needed. So if you are not going to England more often then make your home in Poona, but be here for at least six months. Or be in England, but make it at least six months you are with her and then for six months you can be a wanderer. You can come and be with her for two months and then go for one, but be with her for at least six months in the year.

By and by, you will also need a home. By and by, you will feel the need arising more and more. As one becomes older one needs it. When one is young it is very simple to be a wanderer; it fits. But as you become a little older you would like some place to rest, to be yourself, and not to be bothered by so many things which one has to go through if one is travelling and going here and there. You will need a home.

My suggestion is that you make it Poona, so that for six months you are with me too, and then for six months you can go anywhere you want and do your thing. She will also feel happy here and she will not miss you because I will be here. But make some arrangements.

She loves you, and if she is forced to marry somebody else she will never be happy. You also will not be happy about that. That too will create a problem deep inside and again you will not be able to forgive yourself. You will feel a little guilty that she was ready to be with you and you could not allow it.

If you get married you will not be able to forgive her. If you don’t marry and you are not committed and she has to marry somebody else, you will not be able to forgive yourself; you will feel a certain guilt. Guilt can become a very great problem. There is no way then to go back. Once she is married to somebody, there is no way to go back and then things become very complicated.

So my understanding is that there is no need to get married – legally, that is. No need to make any formal commitment, but make a deep commitment so that she doesn’t feel a lack of commitment and she is not just hanging in the air. Women become more afraid as they get older that their charm, their beauty, will be lost – and who will love them in their old age? Who will be there to love them when they are not so lovable? That fear creeps inside the mind of a woman.

If you don’t get into a commitment with her she will be forced to marry somebody else, but she will not be able to love them. You will haunt her and she will haunt you, and both your lives will be destroyed in a subtle way.

I understand that there is no romance now in it, no fantasy in it, but that’s how it should be. My understanding about two people getting into deep waters is that it is only possible when the honeymoon is over, not before it. If my suggestion someday becomes prevalent, then people should go on their honeymoon before they get married. The honeymoon should precede marriage, and when a love relationship has survived the honeymoon then people should get married, otherwise not. My understanding is that ninety-nine marriages are finished by the time the honeymoon is over. So it is just foolish to be committed, and to be in a hypocritical relationship is a pseudo-pretension.

It is good that your honeymoon is over. Now there is no emotional urge to be committed. There is no fantasy around it. Things are simple and natural. Now you are no more in a fever, a passion, and neither is she. You are both alert. To be committed in a feverish state of mind is almost as if you are drunk and you get committed to something. By the morning when you come back to your senses you don’t even remember, and you cannot believe that you have given your word.

When two people are deep in fantasy, in a romantic mood – as it always happens in the beginning – it is not time to get committed. It is the worst time to get committed, and people get committed then! They talk about things which are just foolish, and they say, ‘We will be together forever and forever.’ When the fever is gone and their normal temperature has returned, then they will not be able to believe what they have done. But then it is too late.

So it is good that in this moment your relationship is no more moving in the peaks or the valleys. It is just on the plain ground. This is the right time to take any decision. So think over it – no marriage, but great commitment. And at least six months are hers. More, if you can manage – good – but not less.

And write to her.

[The sannyasin answers: She wants to have babies and she will want them to be legitimate. And she wants to settle down.]

That I can manage. When she comes I will manage it that she does not ask for babies. It is not good right now. Later on if it feels good and she is ready to become a mother, then we will see, but not now. It will be an unnecessary burden.

If you both need to grow, it is good to remain without children. If you don’t want to grow, then there is nothing else to do – have children. That’s one of the most easily available occupations for people who don’t know how to be more creative in any other way. That is the simple course: to become a father or mother and get worried about children so that one day they can become mothers and fathers and the whole nonsense continues.

But I will manage that; don’t you talk about it at all. And if she talks about babies, tell her that when she comes here, that is up to me. If I say have babies, then something can be done. But right now I don’t see that it will be good for you both.

... Just bring her here. You are not to say anything about babies, otherwise she will not accept it. That has to be left completely to me. When she comes I will talk to her. I have my own powers over women, don’t be worried. I manage quite a lot.

[A sannyasin said that in his work he was afraid of losing confidence in himself.] In fact, we don’t need as much confidence as we think we need.

Confidence can either be a great quality or it can be a disquality to some. For example, foolish people are always more confident than intelligent people. Stupidity has a certain confidence to it. Foolish people are more stubborn, and because they are blind, because they can’t see, they rush anywhere – even where angels fear to tread.

A man who is intelligent is bound to have a little hesitancy in him. Intelligence is hesitant. That simply shows that there are millions of opportunities, millions of alternatives, and one has to choose. Every choice is arbitrary so a certain lack of confidence is bound to be there. The more intelligent you are, the more you will feel it.

So not all confidence is good. Ninety-nine percent of confidence is foolish. Only one percent is good, and that one percent is never absolute. That one percent is always hesitant because there are really so many alternatives. You are always standing on the cross-roads, not knowing which road will really be the right one. How can you be confident? Why do you expect to be confident?

All roads look almost the same but one has to choose. It is a gambler’s choice. But that’s how life is – and it is good that it is that way. If everything was clean-cut, preplanned, prefabricated, and you were just given instructions – ‘Move right and left and do this and that’ – there would be confidence but of what use would it be? The thrill would be lost. There would be no light in life then. It would be a dead routine.

Life is always thrilling because each step brings you to another cross-roads... again so many roads, again you have to choose. You start trembling. Will the choice be right or not? How to be rightly

confident then? To h rightly confident is to think about all the alternatives and whatsoever you feel is a little better than the others.…

Don’t ask for absolutely good and absolutely wrong. In life there is nothing like that. It is only percentage; one is only a little better than the other, that’s all. Life is not divided like two polarities – good and bad. There are a thousand and one situations between good and bad. So just look around objectively, silently, feelingly, see every possibility, unworried, and whatsoever feels a little bit better than others, move on it. Once you decide to move, forget about other alternatives, because they don’t matter now. Then you move confidently.

This is really intelligent confidence. It does not destroy hesitation completely. It uses hesitation. It does not destroy alternatives. Alternatives are there. It consciously broods and contemplates over all the alternatives as silently as humanly possible. Intelligence never demands anything inhuman.

These are the paths. Many are moving to the right; they think it is better. You still feel that to move to the left is better, so of course there is going to be hesitation because you know that many intelligent people are moving in the opposite direction. How can you be confident? You are not alone here. Many intelligent people are going that way and still you feel that this is right for you.

Stand on the cross-road, think, meditate, but once you decide then forget all other alternatives – move. Once you decide to move, your whole energy is needed there. Don’t be split and don’t let half of your mind think about alternatives. This is how one has to use hesitation.

And there is no certainty that you are bound to be right. That I am not saying. There is no way to be certain. You may be wrong, but there is no way to know it unless you goon the road to the very end, all the way.

But my understanding is that one should think rightly. The very thinking gives you growth. You move on the road – right or wrong is irrelevant. The very movement gives you growth. To me it is not a question of where you go. To me the most important thing is that you are not stuck, but going.

Even if this road comes to a dead end and it leads nowhere and you have to come back, nothing to worry about. It is good that you went. The very movement has given you much experience. You have known a wrong road. You are acquainted with wrong now more than before. Now you know what is false; it will help you to find out the truth.

To know the false as false is a great experience because that is the only way that one comes by and by to know what truth is. To know truth as true, the path moves from the experience of knowing false as false. And one has to move on many wrong roads before one comes to the right one.

So to me, even if you are going towards hell, I bless you, because there is no other way to know hell. And if you don’t know hell you will never be able to know what heaven is. Go into the dark because that is the way to know light. Go into death because that is the way to know life.

The only thing that is important is not to be stuck somewhere. Don’t just stand on the cross-road, hesitating, not going anywhere. Don’t make hesitation your habit. Use it – it is a good device. Think about all the alternatives. I’m not saying don’t think, don’t hesitate at all, move like a stupid man and

run with closed eyes, blindfolded, so there is no problem and you don’t know that other roads exist. That’s why stupid people are more confident, but they have done much harm in the world. The world would be better if there were less confident people.

Look at the Adolf Hitlers – they are very confident. They think God has given them great work to change the whole world. They are stupid people but very confident. Even Buddha is not as confident as Adolf Hitler, because Buddha is not stupid. He understands the complexity of life. It is not so simple as Hitler thinks, but he just rushes and people follow him.

Why do so many people follow such stupid leaders? Why do so many people go on following politicians? What happens? Rarely it happens that a politician is intelligent – because if he is intelligent he will not be a politician. Intelligence never chooses such a stupid thing. But why do so many people follow them?

The reason is that people are not very confident. They don’t know where to go, so they are just waiting for some messiah, somebody to tell them that this is the right path and to tell them with such certainty, with such obsessive certainty, that their fears are dissipated. So they say, ‘Yes, here is the leader. Now we will follow him. Here comes the right man – so confident!’

That confidence of the leader – which is because of stupidity – helps him to gather a great following, because people are lacking in courage, in confidence. They are stuck. They are afraid to move. They are almost paralysed because of their hesitations. They need somebody who can become a torch and who is so confident that their own fear and unconfidence does not trouble them. Now they can move with this man. They can say, ‘Yes, we are not confident, you are. Your confidence becomes a substitute for- us.’

So confidence is not always a virtue. Intelligence is always a virtue. So insist on intelligence. Sometimes it will make you very hesitant, nervous. It has to be so... it is natural. Life is so complex and one is moving in the unknown continuously. How can one be confident? The very demand is absurd.

So make intelligence your goal and then hesitation, nervousness, everything, can be used in a creative way.

[The sannyasin answers: I was making results my goal.]

No, try to become more intelligent, because the results may never happen. Intelligence is herenow. Results may frustrate you. Intelligence never frustrates. Even if you do wrong, you become more intelligent. So make such a goal which is never frustrated, mm ? Good !

[The Aum marathon is present.

Osho has recently described the emphasis in this group as being on allowing rather than doing.]

... To the western mind, doing comes very easily. Allowing comes with difficulty because we have been trained to do so many things. Even things which cannot be done we have been taught to do. The whole emphasis is on allowing things to happen to you, so the basic effort is not positive but

negative. The basic effort is not to debar anything, but just to remain receptive and open. Wherever energy is moving, move with it, unafraid, fearless.

The greater the venture, the greater is the pay-off. The more you go with the energy, wherever it leads, the more you become capable of coming back home, thrilled with new energy, because for the first time the constant pressure of doing dissolves and you start floating – not even swimming. You start floating in the stream, and the stream takes you over and takes you to the farthest sea. You simply go with it. No effort is needed of your own.

[The group leader said: I dropped expectations and just tried to be there and help.] Mm mm, that’s how it should be.

... It always helps. If you are happy and doing the thing that you like to do, you always create a climate where others start feeling happy and accepted and feel that they can do or be whatsoever they are. That makes the group very relaxed.

If the leader is very tense and trying to perform something, he creates tension all around. Tremendous tense vibrations are created and people are very susceptible. They catch them and then they become tense. When they are tense, they start defending themselves. When they start defending, you try to perform more and you start becoming aggressive. Then you set a trend which is self-defeating, suicidal.

When the leader is relaxed, at home, at ease, he helps others to relax. When others are relaxed, they don’t resist, they don’t defend. They are not in any way afraid of you. In fact they fall in love with you. They feel accepted... they come close, and then much can be done without any effort. Much happens without your doing it.

You looked good and relaxed... very good. Remember this... don’t forget it.

[The group leader then asks: I see around all the time indian people with open hands, and when I don’t give them anything, when I say ‘No!’ I feel angry. I’m wondering if this is my projection or if I’m holding onto something. But it makes me very nervous sometimes.]

Again you have some expectations from yourself, so whenever you are not filling your expectations, you will feel this tension.

For example, someone is begging. Now your super-ego thinks that [you are] a very sharing person; a giver, always ready to give and help people. You don’t give because you see that if you go on giving to these people, you are not helping anybody. They have become just exploiters. They are exploiting your super-ego.

You can give something to them; they will give you some ego in return. So the problem is between your reason and your ego. Your reason says, ‘Don’t give, because this is foolish,’ and your ego says, ‘Now you will not get in return the good image that you have of yourself.’

Yes, so something is inside you. It has nothing to do with the beggars. The beggar is just a situation. The beggar is trying to exploit you. The beggar says, ’The one who gives is a great man, moral,

religious, a real sannyasin.’ If you don’t give, then his eyes have condemnation for you and he thinks you are a miser, a materialist. So the beggar is playing tricks with your ego.

And now if you give, you feel bad. If you don’t give, you feel bad. If you give, you feel you have been cheated. You give and you feel that this man has been very cunning. You know – it is so clear! All his praise and everything is just out of cunningness, just diplomacy. He would touch your feet and say things in your praise – that you are a very superior human being – just for one rupee !

If you don’t give him that one rupee then he will look at you as though you are not even a man. You are just a dog. So he is creating a situation. Now the question is that if you have a super-ego you will be caught. If you don’t have a super-ego you will not be caught. It is a game and you are not caught in it. And then there is a possibility that if you see somebody who is really in need, then you can give

The problem arises when somebody is really in need and you give – but not because of your super- ego. Then it is good, virtuous, to give. If you give because of the super-ego then it is criminal to give, because you are strengthening your ego and nothing else.

If the person does not need it and you give, you are destroying the person. You are giving him a bad habit, a bad structure. He will never work. If you give to somebody who is really in need, then you are not destroying that person; rather, you are helping him to come out of his critical situation. You are putting him back on his feet so that he can work again, he can move again. And he is human and needs all help that can be given to him.

But now deep inside you the centre is different. You give because of compassion, love, but not because of the ego. When you give because of love and compassion – because you feel that the situation is that whatsoever you can do, you have to do, and you are not trying to enhance your ego in any way – then it is beautiful to give. Give it and forget all about it. You are not obliging anybody. You are simply doing something that is human.

But out of a hundred beggars, you will find only one who is in real need. Ninety-nine are playing a game with you. So don’t be caught in that game. But if you are, then just try to contemplate more about your ego. You have a certain ego, mm? A beggar really creates a great problem inside. If you give to him you feel bad. He is a dilemma. If you give to him, you know that he has cheated you. He played a trick with you and you are defeated.

If you don’t give, then you feel bad. Your image is not fulfilled and so you feel fallen in your own eyes. So you start thinking. ‘Vedanta, what are you? You can’t help a human being? And he was not asking for a kingdom – he was just asking for a cup of tea, and you could not give even that. So what about your great ideas about yourself?’ So a beggar creates a dilemma.

But one has to be very alert. In every situation one has to be very intelligent and very alert. Then you will find a way. Nothing to be worried about, mm? Good.

[One of the assistants says: I feel I go on smiling when I don’t want to smile, giving when I don’t want to give.]

For one month, be as false as you can... no effort to be true. This is your sadhana – be as false as you can. Find situations where you can be false. Pretend as much as you can, lie as much as you can. If you are feeling happy and somebody comes, become unhappy immediately – because happiness is true. If you are feeling unhappy and somebody comes, become happy, smile, laugh. Just give the impression of that which you are not in that moment.

For one month it will be hard but it will be a tremendous learning. Just be false, because that is the beginning of being true. First one has to be perfectly aware of how false one can be – and there is no other way to know it other than to be it. So for one month, consciously, deliberately.…

Up to now you have been false many times but that was not deliberate. You cannot get rid of anything which is not deliberate, which is unconscious. What can you do about it? So first make it deliberate. So when you are not feeling loving, love. When you are not angry, become angry. It has to be all the way and in all sorts of things. When you are talking to somebody and you find that you are being true, immediately drop it. Bring in some falseness.

If you can falsify for one month deliberately, then next month I will give you something else, because then that which can be done deliberately can be dropped. There is no problem about it. You follow me? And don’t try to be true. Right now that will not be good. The fellow who said to you that you are gullible... if you are really gullible you have taken his idea.

If you are really gullible and somebody says that you are, you take that idea. Somebody says that you are not true, so you take that idea. Then you start being true, but how can you be? Every effort to be true is going to be a pretension – because truth needs no effort. Truth is that which is there without any effort on your part. So nobody can be true. If you try to be true you will be false. Truth is that which you are without any effort about it. You simply are – that is true. Now people can make you alert that you are false, so you will start being true. What will you do? The very effort will create more subtle layers of falsity. You will become more clever about being false, that’s all. You may become more skillful about being false, that’s all. Never do that.

Start by being false. It will be hard because many times you will slip into the truth. You will forget that you have to be false. I have never come across a man who is not ninety percent true. Almost always every person is near about ninety percent true. The falsity, at the most, is ten percent and that too with very skillful people, because to be false continuously is such a strain that ordinarily it is not possible. Ordinarily you are true. Only rarely sometimes, when it pays to be false, one becomes false.

Whenever you catch yourself red-handed being true, immediately become false. Even when you are alone walking in a street and feeling good, suddenly say, ‘You are being true. This is not right,’ and immediately become unhappy.

[Another group assistant says: I want to be with people and I want to be alone. I want to be with a man and yet I want to be able to stand on my own feet.]

Mm, I understand. That absurd notion is getting into many women’s minds – to stand on one’s own feet, to be independent. Particularly the ‘Lib movement’ is creating that nonsense. It is possible. You can stand on your own feet but you will never be happy because you will never be a real woman; that’s how the trouble will arise.

In fact you stand on your own feet only when you lean on somebody so deeply that you need not stand on your feet alone. Then only do you stand on your feet. That is part of the feminine mind and nothing can be done. It is not a question of politics. It is something natural.

It is just like a creeper. If the creeper tries to stand on its own, it will fall on the ground, that’s all. It may never be able to rise in the sky and to dance m the wind. to enJoy the sun and the and the moon, no. It can be on its own but then it will be Lying down, messed up on the earth.

The feminine mind is made in such a way that it needs to belong to somebody very deeply. Then only is there rest. You can try whatsoever you want, but then you will never be happy. And I have never come across any ‘Lib’ woman who is happy. If you come across one it will be a miracle. They cannot be happy because the whole idea is nonsense. Not that what they say is wrong – man has exploited woman very much, and that exploitation should stop – but they are moving to the very opposite pole, which is foolish.

They can be fulfilled only together. They are half-half and together they become one and whole. So drop that foolishness. That’s what’s troubling you. Find someone to whom you can surrender deeply, mm?

Anybody!... that’s not the point. Remember that deep surrender will be fulfilling to you, otherwise you will always be miserable.

[A sannyasin says: I got in touch with anger which I hadn’t seen since I was a child, but which has always been there.]

Good. The realisation that anger has been there like an undercurrent is a great revelation. A great change starts from that very moment of realisation, because if you can throw some anger that has been there for many years and that you have forgotten about, then you are getting rid of a great poison from the system. Your whole system will feel cleansed, purified, more alive, weightless.

In one effort, one can never throw out the whole of the anger. Many efforts will be needed because anger is a great problem. It goes on spreading inside the whole system. One is never aware of how deep it can go.

It is just like a tree. On the surface you don’t know how many roots there are and how deep and how far they go into the earth. When somebody becomes angry you just see the surface of the tree. You don’t know the roots. Those roots are all inside the whole nervous system.

Once the whole tree can be uprooted, roots and all, you will be a completely different being. You will not be able to even recognise yourself, it will be so new. But it has begun... I can see it.

< Previous | Contents | Next >