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CHAPTER 7
Even in your deepest sleep I am there
7 June 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A sannyasin who is leaving says she is afraid she will forget Osho.]
You will not slip back... and you will not forget me; don’t be worried. But the fear comes to everybody. It is natural. Here you live in a different climate: for twenty-four hours you are thinking of me, remembering me. You are with my people, surrounded by them, mm? – the whole atmosphere has a certain vibe to it.
Naturally the fear comes. Going back to the West, you will be in a foreign land, and the old mind can pull you back. But it does not happen. The fear is natural but it doesn’t happen, because you have not chosen me out of some forced thing. You have not been forced to choose me; you have chosen me on your own accord.
For example, you were a christian but that was not your choice. You can forget christ – you cannot forget me; I’m your choice. When we choose out of love, it abides, because only love is eternal in life; everything else is non-abiding.
Your parents made you a christian or a hindu or a mohammedan. That was not your choice; it was forced on you. In fact you were waiting to rebel against it. It was not so with the people who had directly chosen jesus, mm? – the immediate disciples. It was not so with them: it was their choice. They had chosen jesus against the whole world; they had sacrificed everything that they had for jesus. They were real christians.
But out of tradition, out of conditioning, out of the family, it is just accidental that you become a christian, somebody becomes a mohammedan. But you have never thought about it; you have never fallen in love with Jesus or Mohammed.
So in fact, all remembrance is superficial. You pray and sometimes you go to the church and sometimes you look in the bible, but it is never enough; it is so-so. It is never intense, it has no soul in it... it is a formality, so you keep on forgetting.
You cannot forget me; I am your choice – nobody has forced you to come to me. In fact, you have chosen me against the whole world. It is a sacrifice to choose me. It is out of your own courage and out of your own adventurous spirit that you have joined hands with me. How can you forget?
It is natural that the mind starts thinking... but it never happens. Mm? – I am sending so many people to the West; it never happens. It can happen only if somebody has chosen me for some other ulterior motives.
For example, perhaps your boyfriend was here with me and you were simply dragged in because the boyfriend insisted, because you wanted to be with him; so you took sannyas. Then it is bound to happen: you will forget, because you never really remembered.
We forget only that which we have not really remembered. Once the remembrance has happened, really, authentically, forgetfulness is not possible. You cannot forget me even in your deepest sleep. Even then I am there.
If somebody comes for some other reason – somebody is ill, thinks that if he takes sannyas, his illness may go – then there is a possibility, every possibility in fact, that he will forget me; he had never chosen me. You need not remember your doctor, mm? When your illness is okay, you forget your doctor.
These are ulterior motives. When you choose out of love, you choose without any motive, unmotivated. You simply love me; that’s why you have chosen me. How can you forget it?
Go and try! Try to forget, and you will not succeed!
[A sannyasin with kidney stones had gone to a psychic healer in the philippines. He thought he had been healed until he returned and found the stones were still there.]
I knew it from the very beginning but I didn’t say anything to you because you were so keen on it, and it is better to learn by experience.
Out of one hundred healers, ninety-nine are bogus. Yes, it is not that nobody is a true healer; there are a few healers who are true healers, but it is very rare to find them, almost impossible. And the pretenders can pretend so well. Sometimes they can pretend even better because they are pretenders. They learn the whole trip very well.
But it is good, mm? It was a good experience. You had to pass through it – some karma! Now have a normal operation, mm? And don’t be afraid of it. Because of that fear you went there; it was unnecessary.
Whenever it is a question between science and magic always choose science. It is better to choose science – more reliable. Even if sometimes magic works, it only works rarely.
[Osho says that he should have conventional surgery done now. If there had been only one stone it might have passed out by itself, but seven are too many to leave in so it is better to have them removed. But you enjoyed the trip, says Osho, chuckling. And someone had to go; now nobody else will need to!]
[A sannyasin, leaving for the West, says he is confused.]
You are in confusion... but everybody has to pass through it, so it is not unexpected. Whenever you start changing, each step will be of great confusion.
Confusion simply means that the old is no more true, and the new has not happened yet. If the old were still true there would be no confusion. If the new had happened, then again there would be no confusion. The familiar is no more relevant and the relevant has not yet become familiar. Between this familiar and the unfamiliar, between the known and the unknown, one passes through confusion. But this confusion has to be accepted, almost welcomed, because this is how one grows, evolves.
Scientists say that when for the first time monkeys got down from the tree and walked on the earth, they must have been tremendously confused because they were familiar, accustomed to walking on fours; now they were trying to walk on two. From being four-legged animals they were trying to become two-legged.
Just imagine what confusion they must not have passed through.And all the monkeys must have
laughed at the ridiculousness of these monkeys who were trying to stand on their two legs. Nobody had ever done that. It was ridiculous, it was sheer nonsense! And whenever there was any possibility of forgetting, these new monkeys would again start walking on fours; they would forget.
Whenever there was some strain or some stress situation, they would forget the new and start moving in the old way. If somebody suddenly attacked them, they would run on four legs, not on two, because in that state of fear they would fall back on the old and the known, on the safer. But by and by they persisted, and by and by man became a two-legged animal. And out of that, all that has happened to humanity has happened.
Just by standing on two legs man became a different kind of animal. His vision became vast: he could see far away to the horizon. His hands became free, and because of his hands’ freedom he could invent tools, instrumentsthe whole of science. Arms, att, painting, all became possible
because two hands became free: they were available to be used now for anything he wanted.
With a monkey or any four-legged animal, all his four legs are involved in walking; nothing is free. They cannot paint and they cannot play a guitar and they cannot sculpt, and they cannot do anything. With those two hands freed, the whole humanity came to a totally different kind of existence; a new mind came out of it.
And when man stood on two legs his whole chemistry changed. But it was very very confusing – for thousands of years the confusion remained.
Still, when a child is born, he walks like a monkey in the first stage; he has to learn walking like a man. Just watch a small child walking on two legs, and you will see what difficulties man must have faced.
And the same happens when you start becoming a sannyasin: in a spiritual realm, not in a physical, the same happens. You start working on a state of no-mind. That is a great jump, a great leap.
Man has functioned through the mind. The mind has some capacities, it can do many things, but there are a few things it cannot do. It cannot give you silence, it cannot give you rest. It cannot give you peace, it cannot give you bliss. It cannot give you truth, it cannot give you god. It cannot give you freedom.
So when you start meditating you are again doing something on similar lines – in the inner world Other monkeys are walking on four legs; you start walking on two. This is in the physical body. Other men are thinking with thoughts; you start dropping thoughts so your mind becomes free of thoughts.
When the mind is free of thought it is almost like hands free of work. When the mind is free of thoughts, the mind is free of work, free of occupation. In that freedom many things become possible: the vision becomes clear and absolute, and you can see into the deepest mystery of life.
But before it happens there is bound to be a period of confusion, great confusion, and the old will go on hanging around you. Many times, in stress moments, you will again be caught in the old – because that is safer. You know it, you know how it works; you are efficient with it, you are skilful with it.
So many times when you are too confused you will start catching hold of the old; but remember not to catch hold of it again and again: learn the new! It is hard, certainly arduous, but go with the new, and by and by the new will become familiar. Confusion will go.
Now the confusion can go in two ways: either you settle with the old again – but you will not grow so what is the point of that non-confused state if you don’t grow? – or you become more and more familiar with the new. Then you will not be confused but you will grow.
And this step has to be taken many times in life. Whenever you start becoming settled, take a jump again, become confused again. Live in the chaos again and again till nothing is lost, till you disappear completely into the chaos. That’s what Buddha calls nirvana.
So go, mm? Don’t be worried – I am with you. Continue to meditate, and come whenever you can comeGood.
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