< Previous | Contents | Next >
CHAPTER 26
To me, this and that world are not separate
28 June 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A visitor said he had been, for a short time, in a seminary in rome monastery in Thailand.]
... This is also good, mm? – nothing is bad, everything helps. Do a few groups here – that will help you to come out of the monastery. Because it is very easy to escape from the monastery but to escape from the monastic mind is not so easy. That you are still carrying inside; it has to be taken out of your system.
When you strive very hard for something it gets into your blood and bones. You can escape, but something of it will continue in your system. That has to be thrown out, otherwise one day you can again become a victim of something.
And enlightenment is not attained by striving for it – no. Striving itself is the greatest impediment. You don’t attain it by making effort; you attain it by relaxing all efforts. It happens. It is not an attainment really, it is not an achievement... and the achiever’s mind never reaches it.
It is a relaxation: when you are not striving for anything, not thinking to achieve anything, not even thinking about enlightenment, then it happens. It takes you always unawares: when you are really looking for it hard, it goes on eluding you. That is not the way to get to it. It is very elusive, mercury- like.
When you are simply sitting open, living your ordinary life – eating when hungry, and sleeping when feeling sleepy, loving when love arises; when you are living a very very ordinary life, with no hankering that you have to become this and that, that you have to become a buddha, when you are
not trying to become anything, when you are happy the way you are, when you are immensely at ease with yourself – then it happens!
It is a happening; it is not a doing. Nobody ever attains it. In fact it attains you, not that you attain it. When you are available it simply jumps on you, surrounds you, overwhelms you, overfloods you and takes you away... and you are gone!
... You have come from there [the buddhist monastery]; that is very good. There you would have been striving and striving... there you would not have ever been able to relax.
Buddhists monasteries no more follow Buddha, buddhism no more belongs to Buddha. They have all become ego-trips. That’s how it happens to every religion: when the master is gone it becomes corrupted... and the master has been gone so long, two thousand years have passed. Great corruption has happened; it is no more Buddha.
If you want to find Buddha never go to a buddhist monastery. You can find him anywhere else but never in a buddhist monastery. If you want to find christ never go to a christian monastery. You can find him anywhere else but not in a christian monastery; that’s how things are.
Do a few groups, start meditating here. Vipassana is good – you have learned it, that is good – but it should be done in a totally different atmosphere. The method is of tremendous importance but before one can do vipassana one should go through some cathartic methods so all poison has been thrown out. When there is no poison, do vipassana and great things will be possible through it. But you have learned, that’s good; it will be used!
Whatsoever you have learned there will not be lost – it will be used in some higher synthesis; don’t be worried, mm? Do a few groups.
[Osho suggests cathartic groups and the visitor says he feels misunderstood.]
No, no, not at all... not at all, not at all! I have understood. You may not have been able to say what you wanted to say but I have seen what you want to say.
[The visitor answers: I did not want to say anything.]
Then perfectly good! Then how can one misunderstand you, mm?
... If you don’t want to say anything, then there is no problem... but as I see it you have strived hard, and striving always fails.
... It has not left you yet! You may have left it – that I am not saying – but that doesn’t matter: it is there!
Do you think everything has gone from your mind?
... It is there. It has to be dropped, it has to be completely cleaned. Be here – it will be cleaned, mm?
And think of sannyas. Whenever the idea comes, think of it, mm? But this is a totally different kind of initiation. It has nothing to do with Leaving the world; it is not a renunciation. It is a different way of living in the world: going nowhere else, being here, but being in a totally different way. It only changes you, it doesn’t enforce any change in your circumstances. You can be a householder, you can be a husband, you can be a father; whatsoever you decide to be, you can be. This sannyas does not exclude anything; it is not monastic. It is very ‘this-worldly’ because to me this and that world are not two separate worlds; there is just one world.
One can live rightly in it and then one grows; one can live wrongly in it, then one does not grow. One can look rightly into it and one finds god herenow. One can go on being blind and one goes on missing god. Then people start projecting god as being somewhere else – some heaven, some nirvana, some moksha, somewhere else... but it is here!
This world is nirvana and there is no other world and there is no other nirvana.
So if you want to become a sannyasin,, think about it, or if you are ready right now, take a jump right now.
[The visitor says: I am already there! There is no jump to take.] Then why have you come here? For what?
[The visitor answers: Just for fun.]
But I don’t have time for fun. There is no need to come here. Why? You should ask whether I want to have fun with you or not.
There is no need to come. If you are there already, perfectly good! I am happy about your being there. Remain there happily! There is no point – even being here has no point, mm? Then that’s good.
< Previous | Contents | Next >