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CHAPTER 5
I accept you as you are. I love you.
5 June 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A sannyasin says: I’m going back to pursue my study of astrology and to try to use it as a medium to communicate with people – not for its predictative qualities but just as a psychological tool.in
pointing out blocks and indicating how best we can use our energy.]
Just remember a few things, mm? It will be good for you and good for people; you can go into it as totally as possible.
One thing which is very fundamental has to be remembered, and that is: whenever we are doing anything – astrology, future suggestion, horoscope-readings, palmistry, i ching, tarot – anything that is concerned with the future, it is basically a reading of the unconscious of the person. It has nothing much to do with the future. It has more to do with the past, but because the future is created by the past it is relevant to the future too.
Because people live like mechanical things, the predictation is possible. If you know the past of the person, unless the person is a buddha, you will be able to predict his future because he is going to repeat it. If he has been an angry person in the past he is carrying the tendency to be angry: that tendency will have effects in the future.
Ordinarily, an unconscious being goes on repeating his past again and again: it is a wheel-like phenomenon. He repeats it – he cannot do anything else: he cannot bring any new thing into his life, he cannot have a breakthrough. That’s why all these sciences work. If people are more aware, more alert, they won’t work.
You cannot read the horoscope of a buddha or read his hand because he is so free of the past and he is so empty in the present that there is nothing to read!
It happened in buddha’s life that a great astrologer came across him... and in a very strange situation. The astrologer was one of the most famous, and he had devoted his whole life to astrology. He was returning to his village from varansi. On the way, when he was passing a river, he was surprised to find on the wet sand the footprints of somebody who should be, according to his astrology, the king of the whole world. What was the king of the whole world doing here in this small village on this small river bank? And why should the king of the world be walking on the bank, barefooted?
In indian astrology they say that on the feet of a ‘chakravartan’... chakravartan means the emperor of the whole world, one who rules all the six continents; chakra means wheel, one whose wheel moves all over the world, whose chariot nobody can stop. So, on such a man’s feet there appears a chakra, a wheel. Mm? – you must have seen the wheel on the indian flag. That is the wheel that appears on the feet of the great emperor who rules the whole world; that was on Buddha’s feet. And it rarely happens: only after millions of years does a person have that symbol, according to astrology. And the wheel was so clear on the wet sand; this astrologer could not believe his eyes!
He followed those footprints – he forgot about going to his own village – and he found Buddha sitting under a tree. He was a beggar, he had a begging bowl by his side and he was sitting in meditation! The astrologer looked at Buddha’s feet: yes, the wheel was there. He looked at his face: yes, he should be the world emperor; all thirty-two indications were there.
He looked at him from every angle. Buddha fitted the description exactly – as if the books had been written after observing him; there was not a single flaw. What was he doing here, sitting under this tree, this poor tree in this poor village, with not even an attendant to look after him? Why should he be carrying a begging bowl?
The astrologer sat there, waited. When Buddha opened his eyes he said, ‘Sir, I am puzzled. You have destroyed my whole life’s effort! My science must be wrong, utterly wrong; I have wasted my life! I am carrying these ancient scriptures with me. If you say that they are wrong I will throw them in this river and get rid of them... the sooner the better! What is the point of them? – because you have all the indications of a chakravartan, of a great emperor. What are you doing here? You go against my whole science!’
Buddha laughed and he said, ‘Yes, there were two possibilities: either I would have become a chakravartan or a buddha... and this is far better! But remember that your books are applicable only to a man who is not awakened. If I had been asleep, I would have been an emperor. I am no more asleep. I have become fully enlightened. About me your scriptures are meaningless, but there is no need to throw them because there is almost no possibility of you coming across a buddha again. About others your predictions will be right. You can go and you can practise.’
All these sciences about the future are basically concerned with the past, and because people live through the past and the past goes on being repeated in the future, your yesterdays go on becoming your tomorrows. And all your yesterdays are contained in your unconscious. If you fall in tune with a person, if you are really en rapport, any astrology, eastern, western, will do, because they are just devices.
The basic phenomenon is to fall in tune with the energy of the person, and to fall in tune so deeply that his unconscious, her unconscious, starts revealing itself to you. His or her unconscious starts stirring your unconscious and in your unconscious, things start arising – visualisations. Those visualisations will be meaningful, you can be of great help, but remember you are not predicting the future!
Make it clear to people that you are simply showing the tendencies, the possibilities; these are not certainties. Because what happens sometimes – and that is the thing that I would like you to remember – is that if you say that something is going to happen, you help it to happen, because then the man becomes certain. Then rather than helping him to become aware and get rid of his past, you help his past to be repeated more smoothly.
If you say to a person, ‘You are going to commit a murder’... and you are not saying anything wrong; you are simply looking into his tendencies and this visualisation – that he is going to murder – comes to you. But this has not happened yet and there is a slight possibility that he can get out of it. If he meditates, if he becomes aware, he can get out of it.
But if you say, ‘You are going to commit a murder and it is certain’ – that’s what astrologers and horoscope readers and tarot card readers go on doing – you give a suggestion to him. If the murder was ninety-nine percent possible, now it is one hundred percent possible because now the person accepts the idea. It becomes an auto-suggestion: now he repeats it again and again; now he knows that he is going to do it.
And if he goes to some other – -and every possibility is there that he will, because nobody believes in one person: he will go to some gypsy reader, he will go to some tarot reader – they will all say the same thing.
Now they have different methods, but all methods are devices to fall in tune with his unconscious. They will all read the same thing, and each time it is repeated that you are going to commit a murder it becomes more and more certain. Because maybe one person was wrong but how can seven persons be wrong? Maybe one person was just saying things to befool you, but how can seven persons say it?
They are such different people, they don’t know each other, and their sciences are different; they don’t understand each other’s science. Somebody is looking at a tarot card, somebody is looking into the i ching; somebody is looking into a horoscope according to the ancient sanskrit sources, somebody is looking into something else. Somebody is a crystal-gazer and somebody does nothing – just closes his eyes, feels your pulse or looks at your shadow, measures it and decides accordingly.
Now there are a thousand and one methodsIf this man goes to many people and they all say
the same thing, they are hammering the idea, he is going to commit murder. And he will have this excuse – what could he do? it was predicted, it was predestined. Now all these people have become a part of the murder. If I were the judge, all these seven people would be as responsible for the murder as this man, even more responsible than this man.
So each person who is working in any way with people’s futures should be absolutely aware that when they are predicting something which can go wrong, they should make the person alert that
this is not a must, this is only a tendency; this can be avoided, this should be avoided! In fact, this is the whole point of making you aware that you have a murderous instinct. Now don’t remain unalert, otherwise you will commit murder! Become aware; this can be avoided.
And if you see that there is something good that is going to happen, insist that this is going to happen. Drop the negative: make him alert so he can get out of the negative. Help the positive: insist that this is possible. He should make it certain, should work for it; he may miss it if he doesn’t.
So this is the thing: you have to work with the negative so that it doesn’t happen, and you have to work with the positive so that it happens. And make it absolutely clear that nothing is absolutely certain: all are just possibilities, probabilities. If you don’t do anything they will happen. If you go on living in an unconscious way, the way you have been living up to now, they are going to happen.
So if you can use this for making people more alert and meditative, more responsible for their lives, more clear that this is their past – the future has not happened and the past will try in every way to make the future almost like the past; now they have to escape from the clutches of the past – you can be of great help, you can be a blessing to people.
And you have the energy – start working! Get into it as deeply as possible.
[To a sannyasin leaving for the West, Osho suggests he start a centre in his own home. People are thirsty, thirstier than ever, Osho is saying; man has never been in so much suffering and yet so affluent. Both these things make it possible for modern man to take a quantum leap into the unknown. Osho gives him a box and a special meditation to be done with it.]
Whenever you need me, just hold it in your hand. Don’t put your hands on it very tightly – just loosely so the box is inside there and a space is around it.
Then close your eyes and just feel yourself rooted in the earth like a tree, mm? – your roots are in the earth. Feel very grounded, and then start feeling that your branches are in the sky; a great wind is blowing and the tree is swaying.
Start swaying. Forget that you are man: simply remember that you are roots and branches and a great tree. Keep this in your hand and go on swaying.
It will give you tremendous energyand you will feel me there immediately. And start this small
centre, so help peopleAnd when you help people, you are helped.
[A sannyasin says: I used to relate to you as an authority who was going to tell me what to do, and that’s still there somewhat. But when I relate to you in that way, there’s a big no in me. I don’t want that but nothing has really come to replace it.]
That happens: if you look to me as a great authority, one day or other you will rebel against me and the no will come. Don’t look to me as a great authority – I am not!
The very word ‘authority’ is not right for me; I am not authoritative at all! I am not giving you any commandments, I am not saying to you to do this and not do that; if you do this you will be praised,
rewarded and if you do that you will be punished and thrown into hell. I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that if you do this you will be virtuous and if you don’t do that you will be a sinner. I’m not condemning, I’m not judging you at all. How can I be authoritative?
I accept you as you are; my acceptance is utterly total. I love you. I am not an authority. If I suggest something it is out of love, not out of my authoritativeness.
And it is up to you to accept that suggestion or not. If you accept, good if you don’t accept it is as good as the other. If you don’t accept my suggestion I am not angry. It is your choice, it is your freedom to accept it or not to accept it.
An authoritative person is one who if he says something and you don’t do it, you go against him, he is angry; he will punish you.
In the old testament the jewish god said ‘I am a very angry god and if you don’t follow me I am going to crush you!’ That angry god gives ten commandments to the jews, and says ‘I am not only angry, I am very jealous! If you worship other gods, then I will be very bad to you. You will have to suffer much: I will throw you into eternal hell!’ Now this is authoritativeness.
The eastern world is totally different. A buddha says ‘Be a light unto yourself. The buddha says, ’At the most I am a friend. I can indicate the way; I cannot force it on you. If you choose, you choose out of your freedom, and when you choose the responsibility is yours.’ That has to be remembered!
With an authoritative person there is one good thing: you are not responsible, he is responsible. That’s why people like authoritative persons – because you can throw all responsibility you have just to follow the orders. If he says go this way, you go that way; if something goes wrong, he is responsible.
That’s why people want authorities – somebody to tell them that this is to be done, this is not to be done. They want leaders. They want leaders like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung, who are very arrogantly authoritative, who think that they are infallible. Mm? that is one of the concepts of christian popes – that they are infallible.
But people want these people. Why? because they can throw their responsibility; they can become just slaves. Then there is no problem for them, there is no anxiety; the leaders will look after everything.
People don’t want to be free, they want to be slaves. Whatsoever they say, deep down they want to be slaves, so they are searching for authorities. But when you fall into the hands of an authority, this dichotomy will arise.
One part of you wants me to be authoritative so that you can throw the responsibility. Another part of you, your real part, your authentic part, wants to be free, so it says no! So this conflict will be there... but I am with your ‘no’, because that is more beautiful.
So listen to me but there is no necessity to follow me. And when you are not forced to follow you can listen better because then there is no problem; you are just listening. If the thing appeals to you,
good, but when it appeals to you, you will be following your own mind – because it appealed to you. You will not be following me and the responsibility will be yours.
My whole effort here is to make you as responsible as possible. I don’t want to make you cripples, I don’t want you to become dependent on me. How can I want that? I love you! I love you so much I would like you to be as independent as possible, pure independence, because then only is a person beautiful; then he has a soul!
So just because of your idea of authoritativeness the ‘no’ is coming. Drop that idea and the no will disappear. Do you understand what I am saying? Drop that idea. I am not an authority at all! Once you drop that idea then from where will the no come? There is no possibility for the no then; I am just a friend.
It is for you to listen or not to listen; it is for you to do accordingly or not. But whether you do or not, if you listen to me lovingly your understanding will go on growing... and that’s the real point. And you will be acting out of your understanding. How can you act otherwise?
That’s why I go on speaking: morning and evening I go on speaking. My whole effort is to make your mind more clear, more understanding, so that you can act on your own.
Nothing to be worried about.But I am with your no – remember that!
[The sannyasin adds that he lets someone be in control of him and then feels good when he breaks away – then he does not know what to do with his freedom.]
Yes, that’s how it is.
Just see it – that this has become your pattern and this has to be broken. You will have to remain in a vacuum for a few days, only then will it be broken, otherwise not.
This is a trap: you do this, you feel good. Mm? – somebody is your authority and you are following and everything is going perfectly well. Then the problem arises and your inner spirit starts rebelling. Then too it is good because you feel energy, power, in that no also. But that power can be felt only when there is an authority so you are in a double-bind.
Without the authority you cannot say no. If you drop the authority, no disappears. Then again you are at a loss, then there is no more energy. Again you will start seeking authority: when the authority comes, the no comes. You have to see this vicious circle: the authority brings the no, the no brings the authority.
Seeing it you will understand that you have become too much dependent on your parents in your past and that pattern goes on repeating itself. You have not yet been able to be free of them; you have not killed your parents yet.
Just a few days ago in these talks (the morning discourses, currently in hindi) I was talking about Buddha’s sutra. Buddha says to his disciples ‘Do you see that sannyasin?’ One sannyasin was going far away for some work, and Buddha says ‘Do you see this fortunate man? He has killed his father and mother and has become perfectly happy since then.’
Of course the disciples are disturbed and puzzled about what he is saying – ‘He has killed his father and mother and since then he has become very happy.’
So they ask, ‘What are you saying, sir? This is the greatest crime in the world – to kill one’s father and mother! How can he become happy by killing his father and mother?’
And then Buddha explainsIt is not the outside father, not the outside mother, but the impression
inside; he has completely destroyed the parental hold inside.
That’s what Jesus means when he says, ‘Unless you hate your father and mother you will not be following me.’
Christians have never been able to explain that. They always feel a little embarrassed whenever the question is raised as to why Jesus said it. A man like Jesus who talks about love and compassion saying ‘Unless you hate your father and mother’?
My feeling is that he is repeating the same Buddha sutra. He has been here, he has lived in a buddhist monastery, and he has diluted it. Buddha says ‘He has killed his father and mother’, and Jesus has diluted it; he has made it softer. He says ‘Unless you hate’.but he is saying the same
thing.
And my whole approach is that unless you are free of your father and mother they will go on creating problems for you. And they are not wrong; it is simply you, it is a question of you.
It was needed once – it was needed that your father should be authoritative, that your mother should be authoritative – otherwise you would not have grown at all. Mm? – you were simply so unaware of the world and its problems. They had to prepare you.
The child cannot understand reasoning and cannot understand arguments and cannot go deep into analysis and causes and things like that. He has to simply be told ‘Do this!’. You cannot philosophise, you cannot sermonise, and you cannot go into the deep causes of it; the child will not understand. You have to be very clear.
Now psychologists say that because of this, women have become very very authoritative – because they have to deal with children. The father goes to the office or to the factory or somewhere else for the whole day; the mother has to be with the children. She has to become an authority because the children are continuously nagging her. Now, if she goes on explaining she won’t be able to do anything... and explanations won’t help either. She says ‘Keep quiet! Stop! Don’t ask nonsense questions. This is so, and it is so because I say so!’
But by and by the woman learns this idea and then with the husband also she is the same: she has become authoritative. She forgets then that with the husband she has not to be authoritative, but with the husband also she is authoritative. She says ‘I am saying this, so this is so. We have to go to this movie and not to any other place. We have to do this.’
Psychologists have observed that before marriage women’s voices are not so solid, not so certain; there is a certain hesitation. After marriage, and particularly after children are born, their voices become very very solid and very authoritative.
But they have to be authoritative, and because they do it unconsciously they help and harm the child. They help for the time-being, but later on that authoritative voice goes on ringing in the head, and you will always be searching for a father or mother figure – somebody who will take responsibility for you. You will remain a baby, you will not grow. Growth will look like pain... and why grow when you can find a father? But constantly you will feel that you are childish, so there is an urge to grow; how can you drop that urge to grow? – so a conflict continues.
Try to understand it; just look into it and remain in a vacuum. This time drop the idea that I am your authority, and see that as you drop the idea the’no’ starts disappearing. Because it cannot exist without the positive – it is the shadow of the positive – it disappears. Then remain in a vacuum.
... Remain with yourself. Even if you do something wrong, nothing is wrong, even that is good – but do it on your own. For a few days, for two, three months, simply be on your own. Listen to your heart and go accordingly. Okay, if you commit a few mistakes nothing to be worried about. One has to commit many mistakes to learn; in fact one learns only by committing mistakes. Never commit the same mistake twice, that’s right, but commit new mistakes every day, find out new things to do, and explore new ideas new dimensions. And go on committing mistakes; nothing is wrong in it.
For two, three months, remain in vacuum with yourself, and then the possibility will arise that you can look at me as a friend and not as an authoritative figure. Then I will be of greater help to you because I will not be your enemy, I will not keep you in your childhood: I will be an opening towards your maturity. And that’s the whole function of a master: to help you to be mature. But out of one hundred so-called masters, ninety-nine are simply giving you substitutes for your father.
[It is not just coincidence that ‘pope’ means father, that ‘bapu’ (the name Mahatma Gandhi is known as) means father, that christian priests and god too, are known as father, Osho continues: it is all a projection of the same idea.]
Drop that idea! Let god be your friend.and then there is freedom, and with that freedom is growth.
[A sannyasin asks about her meditation: Lots of times when I’m meditating, I get scientific information more advanced than what we have here.… I see things like ufo’s and new sources of power, and many things like this that come through all the time. I’d like to turn this into useful information that we could use here on earth.]
The first thing: meditation has nothing to do with any information, and that is all just your imagination. I received your letter but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hurt you – and you had just come.
That is just imagination; those advanced masters that are guiding you from the planets are just imagination. If you want to go on playing with imagination, perfectly good. It is your own mind.
Meditation has nothing to do with these things. You can enjoy them – these are ego-trips and very cunning trips – nobody can prevent you, nobody can prove anything against them. You can go on believing in them but finally they lead to madness, nowhere else. These things are pathological, neurotic; I am absolutely against them.
You can believe anything that you want to believe: you can believe in advanced masters guiding you and informing you. And the ego feels very good that they have chosen mandira as a specific channel, a special vehicle on the earth; so you become very special. Your own mind goes on spinning and weaving things and stories. The mind is a great dreamer, it can dream about anything, and down the ages it has been dreaming. The unconscious is a great reservoir: once you are in the mood to receive, then the unconscious starts releasing dreams – but they are not meditations!
Meditation is a state of mind where there is no thought, no vision, no experience, no feeling. Meditation is a state of mind where no content, no object exists. You don’t hear any information, you don’t receive any information. Meditation is an absolute silence. Stars are not speaking. The whole world has fallen into silence, the whole world has stopped. In that stopping is meditation.
But because of your ideas you think that the meditations here are not that much advanced. Now this is just an ego-trip. If you want to enjoy it, you are free to, but I am not a part in it at all.
I was afraid from the very beginning when you came, mm? I could see that that is a possible danger for you but I was waiting for the right moment, then I would tell you. It is dangerous.
There is a very famous sufi anecdoteA man in Bagdad declared that he was the new prophet
and that god had sent him to transform the whole world. Mohammedans were certainly very angry. They couldn’t believe that somebody had come more up-to-date than Mohammed.
And he said ‘Of course I am far more advanced. I am coming after one thousand years and god has improved much upon the last version; I bring a far more advanced gospel to the world!’
So he was caught, thrown into prison, and the caliph who threw him into the prison went to see him after seven days to see what was happening. He had been beaten very much. He was tied to a pillar and kept hungry for seven days; he had not been allowed to sleep either.
He was tortured tremendously and the caliph said, ‘What do you say now?’ He said, ‘What do I say? In fact when god was sending me to the world, he said “Beware! they will torture you; they always torture my prophets!” So this simply proves that I am the prophet!’
And when he was saying this, another man who was tied to another pillar, started laughing very uproariously.
The caliph looked and he said, ‘Why are you laughing?’
He said, ‘This man is just mad – I never sent him!’ (laughter) He was caught a few days before; he had declared himself to be god. He said ‘This man is just a fraud! I never sent him. In fact since mohammed I have never appointed anybody as my prophet.’
Now, you can believe these things and once you believeNow look at this man who says ’Your
torture has proved it!’
These people have always existed – and you have a tendencyYou can enjoy it and you can find
fools who will enjoy it and listen to you. They will think that you are receiving great information from planets and from great masters and this and that.
The whole theosophical movement depended on such sheer nonsense. Madame Blavatsky used to receive written letters from the masters... and later on the house was searched and it was found that in the ceiling they had made a special place. Letters were dropped from the upper room, they would come from the ceiling and suddenly.…
They were from the master, Master KH. Kautami was the name of the master, the highest master, the master of the masters, who lived somewhere on some planet; he was sending those letters. Thousands of letters were received and every kind of information was in them – every kind of information, mm? – from the very mundane to the suprememost: whether you should eat meat or not...
And whatsoever Blavatsky wanted, she manipulated it through those letters. If she wanted you to do certain things, the letter would come next day ‘[You] should do this’. Now KH orders; you have to do it!
These things have always existed in the world. Don’t get into them – get out, otherwise you can go almost mad. And once you start listening to them.They are very very sweet, one can enjoy them
infinitely, and they are very ego-strengthening. Mm? – god is speaking to you!...
One man came to me in Bombay. He brought a very big suitcase with him; he received messages from god every day. He said, ‘Nobody listens to me and people think I am mad. My wife takes me to the psychiatrist. I heard about you and I thought you are the right person; you will understand. Now look!’
He opened his suitcase. There were thousands of pieces of paper. I looked at them – all kinds of nonsense – and he said they were ‘special information’. Two plus two is four – that is special information that has come to him. And anything, whatsoever comes to his mind, he writes, and he thinks it is special information.
Forget all this! It is time to get out of it otherwise you will be wasting your life.
And I was worried because you came with dharma, and dharma also has this kind of nonsense in his mind. He was doing this nonsense here with people before. And there are always gullible people: if you talk to them about these things they will be impressed; they are always there. The world is so full of fools that it is the easiest thing in this world to become a guru, very easy! Here there are so many sannyasins. Anybody can start playing things and directing people, and they become impressed.
You have a tendency. This tendency has to be completely cut; only then will you be able to meditate.
And don’t think these things that you are taught here are not advanced! In fact meditation is neither advanced nor not advanced. Meditation has only one taste. It has no categories, it has no divisions, no steps; it is a jump. A jump into no-mind is what I call meditation.
And these things are just a help: dancing, singing are just to help. Of course they look mundane – dancing, singing. One thinks, ‘How can these be very far advanced meditations?’ They are just devices so that you can throw your body and mind into some act in a total way; then you stop and silence becomes more possible.
The real meditation starts only when the activity has stopped. For example in the morning meditation, breathing is not meditation, just a preparation. Catharting is not meditation; it is again another preparation. The mantra’hoo’ is not meditation. It is again a deeper preparation for it.
Meditation starts when you stop and you fall silent and become frozen. In those few seconds there is a possibility that you may have a little glimpse, a little breeze of meditation. But once it starts coming then you can drop these methods; they are not a must. Once you have known that this space exists, once you have gone into it many times and come back and you have become acquainted with the path that leads to it, then there is no point. You throw the guide, you throw the guidebook, you throw all maps! You know the path: you close your eyes and you slip into it, and whenever you want you can slip into it; then nothing is essential.
But in the beginning when you don’t know this, the map and the guide, music and dance and everything, is helpful; these are just arbitrary helps.
So don’t think that these are meditations. The map is not the real country, and neither are these real meditations. The map is just an indication. Once you have known the path then you can travel it all alone. Then there is no need for anybody and then there is no need to do anything... because meditation is not an act. You cannot do it... it is nothing to do! How can you do it? It is like love: you can be in love – how can you do love?
But my suggestion is, drop those things; they will not be helpful, mm? They can drive you crazy – and crazy in a very wrong sense, crazy in a pathological sense.
Completely cut them off. Listen to me. And don’t listen to people like that; those kind of people are always there.
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