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Chapter title: Untry and untry again
23 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
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8704235
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GOLDEN03
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Yes Length:
104
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
MANY YEARS AGO, IT SEEMS, I USED TO BE ABLE TO MEDITATE -- I THINK.
A BEAUTIFUL, SILENT, TRANSPARENT STATE WOULD ARRIVE FROM
SOMEWHERE; I PRESUMED THIS WAS MEDITATION. NOW, NOTHING COMES
EXCEPT A RACING MIND. WHAT HAPPENED?
Prema Veena, it always almost happens this way. The days when you were feeling a kind of meditation happening to you were the days you were not looking for it -- it was happening to you. Now you are trying to make it happen, and that makes all the difference. All the things that are really valuable in life only happen; you cannot make them happen, you cannot do them. It may be meditation, it may be love, it may be blissfulness, it may be silence.
Anything that goes beyond your mind is beyond your capacity to do it; you can only do things which come in the territory of the mind.
The mind is the doer, but your being is not a doer. Your being is just an opening, and a deep acceptance of whatever happens, with no complaint, with no grudge -
- just a pure gratefulness. And that, too, is not done by you; that is also part of the happening. We have to make this distinction very clear; almost everybody gets confused. Something happens to you -- it is so beautiful, so blissful -- the mind starts immediately desiring that it should happen more, that it should happen more often, that it should go deeper. The moment mind comes in, it disturbs everything. Mind is the devil, the destroyer.
So one has to be very aware that mind should not be allowed to interfere in things of the beyond. Mind is perfectly good as a mechanic, a technician. Give your mind what it can do, but don't let it interfere in things which are beyond its capacity. But one of the problems is that mind is nothing but desiring -- desiring for more. As far as the world of doing is concerned, you can have a bigger house, you can have a better house, you can have better furniture -- you can do everything better; it is within the capacity of the mind.
But beyond the mind... mind can only desire, and each desire is going to be frustrated.
Instead of bringing more meditation, it will bring you more frustration. Instead of bringing you more love, it will bring to you more anger. Instead of silence and peace, it will bring more traffic of thoughts -- and that happens to almost everybody. So it is something natural that one has to grow out of.
You are saying, "Many years ago, it seems, I used to be able to meditate. A beautiful, silent, transparent state would arrive from somewhere; I presumed this was meditation."
Neither were you expecting it, nor were you desiring it; it was just a guest, like a breeze that comes to you. But you cannot keep it, and you cannot order it to come. It comes when it comes. And once you understand this, you stop trying.
You have heard the expression,"Try and try again. I would like to say to you: Untry and untry again. Whenever the idea of trying arises, immediately drop it. It is going to lead you into failure, into frustration, and if you can drop it... and everybody can drop it, because it never brings anything. What is the problem in dropping the failure, frustration, despair and hopelessness? Just drop them and forget all about meditation.
One day, suddenly, you will find a window opens, and a fresh breeze with new rays has filled your heart. Again, don't commit the same mistake! Be thankful for what is happening, but don't ask for more -- and more will be coming. Don't ask, "Come again" --
your asking will become the barrier.
It will come again, it will come more often. Slowly, slowly it becomes your heartbeat; waking, sleeping, it is always there, it never goes. But it is not your doing. You cannot brag that "I have done it." You can only say, "I have allowed the unknown to do it to me." It is always from the unknown that great experiences enter into our small hearts, and when we are trying hard to get them, we become so tense that the very tension prevents them.
When you are not trying, and you are relaxed -- you are not even bothered about meditation and things like that -- you suddenly find the footsteps of the unknown, something from nowhere, approaching you. Look at it with wonder, not with desire. Look at it with gratitude, but not with greed.
You are saying, "Now, nothing comes except a racing mind. What happened?" You became aware of the unknown. A little taste of meditation, and you became greedy, desirous. Your desire, your greed spoilt the whole game. Still, everything can be put right. You see the mind continuously racing; let it race -- you simply watch, just be a bystander, an observer.
Just watching the mind is one of the greatest secrets of life, because it does not show that it works -- but it works! Just as you watch, indifferent, uninterested, as if it has nothing to do with you, those thoughts start getting thinner; there is less traffic on the track of the mind.
Slowly, slowly there are small gaps, and in those gaps you will have a glimpse of what you used to have. But don't jump upon it, don't be greedy. Enjoy it, it will also pass; don't try to cling to it. Thoughts will start coming again; again a gap will come, a bigger gap.
Slowly, slowly bigger gaps will be happening when the mind will be empty.
In that empty mind the beyond can enter into you, but the basic condition is that you should not cling to it. If it comes -- good; if it does not -- good. Perhaps you are not ripe, perhaps it is not the time -- still, be grateful. One has to learn watchfulness and gratefulness. Even when nothing is happening that you deep down want to happen, still be grateful. Perhaps it is not the right time for you, perhaps it will not help your growth.
I have often told you the story of a Sufi mystic, Junnaid. He was the master of Al Hillaj Mansoor and because of Mansoor he became very famous. Mansoor was killed by the orthodox, traditionalist fanatics, and because of Mansoor, Junnaid's name also became famous -- Mansoor was Junnaid's disciple.
Junnaid used to go for a pilgrimage every year to the Mohammedan holy place, Kaaba. It was not very far from his place, and Mohammedans are expected by their tradition at least once in a life to go to Kaaba; otherwise they are not complete Mohammedans. But Kaaba was so close to his place that every year he used to go with his disciples. He was the revolutionary kind of saint. In fact, any kind other than the revolutionary are not saints -- just facades, actors, pretenders, and hypocrites.
The people in the villages where Junnaid had to pass were very angry with him. A few villages were so angry that they would not give him anything to eat, or even water to drink and would not allow him to stay in the village.
It was Junnaid's usual prayer -- Mohammedans pray five times a day -- and after each prayer he would raise his hands to God and he would say, "I am so grateful to You. How should I express my gratefulness? You take care of me in every possible way; Your compassion is infinite, your love knows no bounds."
The disciples were tired because five times every day, and in situations where they could see there is no care taken by God -- they have not received food, they have not received water, they have not received shelter from the hot sun in the desert.… Once it happened that for three days continually they were thrown out,
stoned, given no food, no water, no shelter; but Junnaid continued his prayer the same way.
On the third day, the disciples freaked out. They said, "Enough is enough. Why are you saying, `You are compassionate', `Your love is great', `You take care of us in every possible detail?' For three days we have not eaten a single thing, we are thirsty, we have not slept under shelter, we have been sleeping in the desert, shivering in the cold night.
For what are you being grateful?"
The answer that Junnaid gave to his disciples is worthy of being remembered. He said,
"For these three days, do you think I cannot see that food has not been given to us, that we have been thrown out, that we have been stoned, that we are thirsty, that for three days we had to remain in the open desert...? Don't you see that I am also aware of it? But this does not mean that he is not taking care of us. Perhaps this is the way he is taking care of us; perhaps this is what we need at this time.
"It is very easy, when life is going comfortably, to thank God. That thankfulness means nothing. These three days I have been watching. slowly, slowly, all of you have stopped thanking Him after the prayer; you failed the test. It was a beautiful test. Even if death comes to me, I will die with gratefulness. He gave me life; He took it away. It was His, it is His, it will be His. Who am I to interfere in His affairs?"
So there will be times when you will not find any moment of peace, silence, meditation, love, blissfulness. But do not lose hope. Perhaps those moments are needed to crystallize you, to make you strong. Be grateful not only when things are going good, but be grateful when everything is going wrong. A man who can be grateful when everything is going wrong is really grateful; he knows the beauty of gratefulness. For him, things can go wrong forever, but his gratefulness is such a transforming force, it is going to change everything.
So don't be worried about the racing mind; let it race. Allow it to race as fully as possible; don't prevent it, don't try to stop it -- you just be a watcher. You get out of the mind and let the mind race, and soon, without fail, as a natural law, gaps will start happening. And when gaps happen, don't get too happy that, "I have got it." Remain relaxed. Enjoy those gaps also, but without greed and without
desire, because they will disappear; and they will disappear soon if you become greedy. If you are ungreedy, undesirous, they may stay longer.
This is the whole training of meditation. Soon, the day comes when the mind is completely silent, filled with great joy, silence. But remember, it is not your doing. If even for a single moment you think it is your doing, it may disappear. Always remember that you are the doing of existence. All that is great is going to happen to you not by your effort, but by your relaxed openness, availability.
Just keep your doors open.
The guest will come -- it has never been otherwise The guest always comes.
Pat's son became an actor, and one evening rushed home to his father in a state of great excitement, "Guess what Dad," he announced, "I have just been given my first part. I play a man who has been married for twenty-five years."
"Keep it up my son," said Pat, "someday you may get a speaking part, too."
In the case of Veena, it is just the opposite. Right now you are in the speaking part; just keep on, someday you will certainly get the silent part too. But there is nothing to be worried about. Life has to be taken very playfully, with a great sense of humor. In good times and bad times, when things are happening and when things are not happening, when the spring comes and when, sometimes, the spring does not come to you.…
Remember, we are not the doers as far as things beyond mind are concerned; we are only receivers. And to become a receiver, you have just to become a watcher of your mind because through watching those gaps appear. In those gaps your door is open. And through that door stars can enter into you, flowers can enter into you. Even when stars and flowers enter into you, don't be greedy, don't try to keep them in. They come out of freedom and you should remember, they will remain with you only in freedom. If you destroy their freedom, they are destroyed too. Their freedom is their very spirit.
It is my continual experience of thousands of people that when they come for the first time to meditate, meditation happens so easily because they don't have any idea what it is. Once it has happened, then the real problem arises -- then they
want it, they know what it is, they desire it. They are greedy for it; it is happening to others and it is not happening to them. Then jealousy, envy, all kinds of wrong things surround them.
Always remain innocent as far as things beyond mind are concerned. Always remain amateur, never become an expert. That is the worst thing that can happen to anybody.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
A FEW DAYS AGO, I HEARD YOU SAY THAT THE VOICE SPEAKING INSIDE
OF US IS ALWAYS THE MIND, SO I WONDER WHO IN ME IS HEARING THIS
VOICE. WHEN I TRY TO FIND THE ANSWER, I ONLY FIND SILENCE.
Chidvilas, the moment you look into your self you only find silence. But are you not aware that you are also there? Who finds the silence? Silence itself can not find itself; there is somebody as a witness who is finding the silence. Just your focus is wrong; you are still focusing on the object. It is just an old habit, perhaps cultivated for many, many lives, that you always focus yourself on the object, and you always forget yourself.
An ancient Eastern story is that ten blind men crossed a stream. The current was very strong, so they took hold of each other's hands because they were afraid somebody may be taken away by the current. They reached the other shore, and somebody amongst them suggested, "It is better we should count because the current and the stream were really dangerous. Somebody may have slipped, and we may not even be aware."
So they started counting. It was a great shock, and they were all crying and weeping; everybody tried, but the count was always nine -- because nobody was counting himself.
Naturally, he would start counting, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.…
My God, one has gone!" So they all were crying.
A woodcutter was watching all this drama and he said... he had never seen ten blind men together, in the first place. Second, what a stupid idea these people had. What was the need to cross the stream when it was so strong and flooded? And, above all, now they were counting, and crying and weeping for someone -- they did not know who, but certainly someone had been taken away by the current. Watching them counting, he was simply amazed how was it possible that they were ten persons, but the count always came to nine?
Some help was needed, so he came down from his tree and he said, "What is the matter?"
They all said, "We have lost one of our friends. We were ten, and now we are only nine."
The man said, "I can find your tenth man. You are right, you used to be ten, but there is a condition."
They said, "We will accept any condition, but our friend "
He said, "It is not a very big condition, it is a simple condition. I will hit on the first man's head; he has to say "one." Then I will hit on the second person's head two times; he has to say "two." Then I will hit on the third person's three times; he has to say "three." As many times as I hit, the person has to speak the number."
They said, "If this is the way to find the lost friend, we are ready."
So he enjoyed hitting very much, and he hit them in turn. When he had hit the tenth man ten times he said "ten." All the nine said, "You idiot, where have you been?
Unnecessarily we have all been beaten! Where you have been hiding up to now?"
He said, "I was standing here, I was myself counting, and it always came to nine. This man seems to be a miracle man; he managed to find the tenth man."
The story is significant for the simple reason that it has become our habit not to
count ourselves. So when you are watching your thoughts, inside, you are not aware that there is a watcher too. When you are watching silence, you are not aware that you cannot watch silence if you are not there.
Chidvilas, you are asking, "A few days ago I heard you say that the voice speaking inside of us is always the mind, so I wonder who in me is hearing this voice?" Certainly I am not hearing it, and as far as I know nobody else is hearing it. You must be the guy who is hearing this voice.Everybody else has his own problem!
"When I try to find the answer I only find silence." But then too the question arises: Who finds the silence? It is the same guy who was hearing the voice. His name is Chidvilas.
You have to become more subjective, more alert to yourself; we are always alert to everything around us.
Pat followed his friend Mike's example and left Ireland to work in England. Though they had since lost contact, Mike had mentioned how easy it was to get a job at Whipsnade Open Zoo, so Pat applied. Unfortunately they had no keeper's jobs available; there was not even the position of a sweeper vacant.
"But I tell you what, Pat," the manager said, "the gorilla died a couple of days ago, and what is a zoo without a gorilla? But we have kept his pelt entire; now if you crawl into that skin and take over his enclosure, we will feed and house you, and pay you handsomely as well."
Pat had a look over the lovely field that was the gorilla enclosure; he surveyed the comfortable gorilla house, and tested the bed provided. He agreed to take the job. Very soon Pat had become a great favorite with visitors to the zoo. Being a bit of an extrovert, he would always put on a good act -- tumbling, chest- thumping, and growling. But the climax of his performance was most popular. Whenever there was a good crowd, Pat would scale a large oak tree at the side of his enclosure where it adjoined the lion's pen and pelt the lioness with acorns. The big-maned lion, in particular, would roar with rage and stamp about, and the crowd would roar with delight.
One public holiday a particularly large crowd had gathered, and Pat was aloft and reaching the peak of his performance. He had just finished off the acorn pelting with a bit of chest-thumping when the branch he was balanced on broke;
he fell to the ground at the lion's feet. Pat jumped up, shouting for help, and was about to scarper when the lioness whispered, "Hold your tongue Pat, sure do you want to lose us the best jobs we have every had?"
Here, everybody has different skins only; inside is the same consciousness. Whether you are hearing a voice, or you are hearing silence, remember more about yourself -- who is the watcher? who is the witness?
In every experience, when you are angry, when you are in love, when you are in greed, when you are in despair, it is the same key: just watch -- are you really in danger, or are you only a witness. Here we are, just sitting. Deep down, who are you? Always a witness.
Whatever happens on the outside -- you may be young, you may be old, you may be alive, you may be dead -- whatever happens on the outside, inside is the same witness.
This witness is our truth. This witness is our ultimate reality, our eternal reality.
So all your work is concerned with shifting your focus from the object to the subject.
Don't be bothered about anger, or silence, or love. Be concerned about whom all this is happening to, and remain centered there. This centering will bring you the greatest experience of your life. It will make you a superman.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
ELEVEN YEARS AGO, WHEN I FIRST SAT IN FRONT OF YOU, I WAS SO OVERWHELMED BY YOUR ENERGY, BY YOUR LOVE, BY YOU, THAT I
COULD DO NOTHING BUT CRY AND BOW DOWN TO YOUR FEET IN SILENT
EXPRESSION; AND YET I FELT VERY MUCH UNDERSTOOD BY YOU. AT
THAT TIME YOU TOLD ME TO KEEP MY ENERGY INSIDE AND BRING IT TO
MY HARA. SINCE THEN THIS SUGGESTION STAYS WITH ME, AND MY
BELLY HAS BECOME MY BEST FRIEND, AND THE PLACE BELOW MY NAVEL
A MIRROR OF MY FEELINGS. IN ALL THIS TIME TEARS AND LAUGHTER OF
JOY AND GRATITUDE FOR BEING ABLE TO SPEND THIS LIFE WITH YOU
HAVE KEPT BACK MOST OF MY WORDS. MY BELOVED MASTER, I FEEL
THAT BEHIND THIS SMALL SUGGESTION OF YOURS LIES MORE THAN I CAN
IMAGINE. WOULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT THE HARA, AND GUIDE ME FURTHER?
Deva Radhika, hara is the center from where a life leaves the body. It is the center of death. The word "hara" is Japanese; that's why in Japan, suicide is called hara-kiri. The center is just two inches below the navel. It is very important, and almost everybody in the world has felt it. But only in Japan have they gone deeper into its implications.
Even the people in India, who had worked tremendously hard on centers, had not considered the hara. The reason for their missing it was because they had never considered death to be of any significance. Your soul never dies, so why bother about a center that functions only as a door for energies to get out, and to enter into another body? They worked from sex, which is the life center. They have worked on seven centers, but the hara is not even mentioned in any Indian scriptures.
The people who worked hardest on the centers for thousands of years have not mentioned the hara, and this cannot be just a coincidence. The reason was that they never took death seriously. These seven centers are life centers, and each
center is of a higher life. The seventh is the highest center of life, when you are almost a god.
The hara is very close to the sex center. If you don't rise towards higher centers, towards the seventh center which is in your head, and if you remain for your whole life at the sex center, then just by the side of the sex center is the hara, and when then life will end, the hara will be the center from where your life will move out of the body.
Why have I told Radhika this? She was very energetic, but not aware of any higher centers; her whole energy was at the sex center, and she was overflowing. Energy overflowing at the sex center is dangerous, because it can start releasing from the hara.
And if it starts releasing from the hara, then to take it upwards becomes more difficult. So I had told her to keep her energy in, and not to be so expressive: Hold it in! I simply wanted the hara center, which was opening and which could have been very dangerous, to be completely closed.
She followed it, and she has become a totally different person. Now when I see her, I cannot believe the expressiveness that I had seen at first. Now she is more centered, and her energy is moving in the right direction of the higher centers. It is almost at the fourth center, which is the center of love and which is a very balancing center. There are three centers below it, and three centers above it.
Once a person is at the center of love, there is very rarely a possibility for him to fall back down, because he has tasted something of the heights. Now valleys will be very dark, ugly; he has seen sunlit peaks, not very high, but still high; now his whole desire will be.…
And that is the trouble with all lovers: they want more love, because they don't understand that the real desire is not for more love, but for something more than love.
Their language ends with love; they don't know any way that is higher than love, and love does not satisfy. On the contrary, the more you love the more thirsty you become.
At the fourth center of love, one feels a tremendous satisfaction only when energy starts moving to the fifth center. The fifth center is in your throat, and the
sixth center is your third eye. The seventh center, the sahastrara, is on the top of your head. All these centers have different expressions and different experiences.
When love moves to the fifth center then whatever talents you have, any creative dimension, is possible for you. This is the center of creativity. It is not only for songs, not only for music; it is for all creativity.
Hindu mythology has a beautiful story. It is a myth, but the story is beautiful, and particularly for explaining to you the fifth center. Indian mythology says that there is a constant struggle between evil forces and good forces. They both discovered that if they made a certain search in the ocean they could find nectar, and that whoever drank it would become immortal. So they all tried to find it.
But as life balances everywhere, there too.… Before they found the nectar they found poison which was hiding the nectar underneath it. Nobody was ready to test it; even the very sight of it created sickness. One of them thought that the first hippie of the world, perhaps might be willing -- he was the god Shiva. So they asked Shiva, "You test it." He said, "Okay."
He not only tested it, he drank it all, and it was pure poison. He kept it just in his neck, at the fifth center. The fifth center is the creative center. It became completely poisoned, and Shiva became the god of destruction. So Hindus have three gods: Brahma who creates the world, Vishnu who sustains the world, and Shiva who destroys the world. His destructiveness came from his creative center being poisoned. And the poison was so great that it cannot be a small destruction; he can only destroy the whole of existence.
When Vishnu is tired of maintaining it, Shiva destroys it. By that time Brahma has forgotten -- millions of years have passed since he created the world; he again starts creating
it -- just an old routine! Brahma is the creator god, but in the whole of India there is only one temple devoted to Brahma, because who cares about him? He has done his work; it is futile to say anything to him. Vishnu has millions of temples, because he is the sustainer god. Krishna and Rama are all incarnations of Vishnu.
But nobody can compete with Shiva. Shiva has more shrines to him than anybody else.
He is a hippie, so he does not need very great temples or anything -- just anywhere, under any tree. Just put a round stone, oval shape, and he does not ask much -- a few leaves, not even flowers. A few leaves you can drop there, a few drops of water on his head, just to keep him cool... so people have created devices; they just hang a small pot on top of his head with a small drip, drip, drip. It keeps him cool, so he does not get annoyed with anybody and destroy the world.
Everybody is afraid of him, so naturally he has many more worshipers, many more temples, and many more shrines. In every small village you will find at least a dozen Shiva shrines, because they cost nothing; any poor man can afford it. And he has to be concerned about it because Shiva can destroy. Keep him satisfied! And he does not ask much; just keep his head cool. Flowers are costly, but any two leaves and his worship is finished.
Shiva became the destroyer of the world because his fifth center had accumulated the whole poison of existence in it. It is our creative center, that's why lovers have a certain tendency to creativity. When you fall in love, you suddenly feel like creating something -
- it is very close. If you are guided rightly, your love can become your great creative act.
It can make you a poet, it can make you a painter, it can make you a dancer, it can make you reach to the stars in any dimension.
The sixth center which we call the third eye is between the two eyes. This gives you a clarity, a vision of all your past lives, and of all the future possibilities. Once your energy has reached your third eye, then you are so close to enlightenment that something of enlightenment starts showing. It radiates from the man of the third eye, and he starts feeling a pull towards the seventh center.
Because of these seven centers, India never bothered about hara. Hara is not in the line; it is just by the side of the sex center. The sex center is the life center, and hara is the death center. Too much excitement, too much uncenteredness, too much throwing your energy all over the place is dangerous, because it takes your energy towards the hara. And once the route is created, it becomes more difficult to move it upwards. Hara is equally parallel to the sex center, so the energy can move very easily.
It was a great discovery by the Japanese: they found that there was no need to cut your head off, or shoot your brains out to kill -- they are all unnecessarily painful; just a small knife forced exactly at the hara center, and without any pain, life disappears. Just make the center open and life disappears, as if the flower opens and the fragrance disappears.
The hara should be kept closed. That's why, Radhika, I had told you to be more centered, to keep your feelings inside, and to bring it to your hara. "Since then this suggestion stays with me, and my belly has become my best friend, and the place below my navel a mirror of my feelings."
If you can keep your hara consciously controlling your energies, it does not allow them to go out. You start feeling a tremendous gravity, a stability, a centeredness, which is a basic necessity for the energy to move upwards.
You are asking, "I feel that behind this small suggestion of yours lies more than I can imagine." Certainly, there is much more.…
A Pole is walking down the street, and passes a hardware store advertising the sale of a chain saw that is capable of cutting seven hundred trees in seven hours. The Pole thinks that it is a great deal and decides to buy one.
The next day he comes back with the saw, and complains to the salesman, "The thing did not come close to chopping down the seven hundred trees that the ad said it would."
"Well," said the salesman, "let us test it out back." Finding a log, the salesman pulls the starter cord, and the saw makes a great roaring sound.
"What is that noise?" asked the Pole.
So he must have been cutting by hand and it was an electric saw!
Radhika, your hara center has so much energy that, if it is rightly directed, enlightenment is not a faraway place.
So these two are my suggestions: keep yourself as much centered as possible. Don't get moved by small things -- somebody is angry, somebody insults you, and you think about it for hours. Your whole night is disturbed because somebody said something If the hara can hold more energy, then naturally that
much more energy starts rising upwards.
There is only a certain capacity in the hara, and every energy that moves upwards moves through the hara; but the hara should just be closed.
So one thing is that the hara should be closed. The second thing is that you should always work for higher centers. For example, if you feel angry too often you should meditate more on anger, so that anger disappears and its energy becomes compassion. If you are a man who hates everything, then you should concentrate on hate; meditate on hate, and the same energy becomes love.
Go on moving upwards, think always of higher ladders, so that you can reach to the highest point of your being. And there should be no leakage from the hara center.
India has been too concerned about sex for the same reason: sex can also take your energy outside. It takes... but at least sex is the center of life. Even if it takes energy out, it will bring energy somewhere else, life will go on flowing.
But hara is a death center. Energy should not be allowed through the hara. A person whose energy starts through hara you can very easily detect. For example, there are people with whom you will feel suffocated, with whom you will feel as if they are sucking your energy. You will find that, after they are gone, you feel at ease and relaxed, although they were not doing anything wrong to you.
You will find just the opposite kind of people also, whose meeting you makes you joyful, healthier. If you were sad, your sadness disappears; if you were angry, your anger disappears. These are the people whose energy is moving to higher centers. Their energy affects your energy. We are affecting each other continually. And the man who is conscious, chooses friends and company which raises his energy higher.
One point is very clear. There are people who suck you, avoid them! It is better to be clear about it, say goodbye to them. There is no need to suffer, because they are dangerous; they can open your hara too. Their hara is open, that's why they create such a sucking feeling in you.
Psychology has not taken note of it yet, but it is of great importance that psychologically sick people should not be put together. And that is what is being
done all over the world.
Psychologically sick people are put into psychiatric institutes together. They are already psychologically sick, and you are putting them in a company which will drag their energy even lower.
Even the doctors who work with psychologically sick people have given enough indication of it. More psychoanalysts commit suicide than any other profession, more psychoanalysts go mad than any other profession. And every psychoanalyst once in a while needs to be treated by some other psychoanalyst. What happens to these poor people? Surrounded by psychologically sick people, they are continually sucked, and they don't have any idea how to close their haras.
There are methods, techniques to close the hara, just as there are methods for meditation, to move the energy upwards. The best and simplest method is: try to remain as centered in your life as possible. People cannot even sit silently, they will be changing their position. They cannot lie down silently, the whole night they will be turning and tossing.
This is just unrest, a deep restlessness in their souls.
One should learn restfulness. And in these small things, the hara stays closed. Particularly psychologists should be trained. Also, psychologically sick people should not be put together.
In the East, particularly in Japan in Zen monasteries, where they have become aware of the hara center, there are no psychologists as such. But in Zen monasteries there are small cottages, far away from the main campus where Zen people live, but in the same forest or in the same mountain area. And if somebody who is psychologically sick is brought to them, he is given a cabin there and he is told to relax, rest, enjoy, move around in the forest -- but not to talk. Anyway there is nobody to talk to! Only once a day a man comes to give food; he is not allowed to talk to that man either, and even if he talks, the man will not answer. So his whole energy is completely controlled. He cannot even talk; he cannot meet anybody.
You will be surprised to know that what psychoanalysis cannot do in years, is done in three weeks. In three weeks time the person is as healthy as normal people are. And nothing has been done -- no technique, nothing. He has just
been left alone so he cannot talk. He has been left alone so he can rest and be himself. He is not expected to fulfil somebody else's expectations.
Radhika, you have done well. Just continue whatever you are doing, accumulating your energy in yourself. The accumulation of energy automatically makes it go higher. And as it reaches higher you will feel more peaceful, more loving, more joyful, more sharing, more compassionate, more creative.
The day is not faraway when you will feel full of light, and the feeling of coming back home.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #4
Chapter title: Patience is the way of existence 24 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8704240
ShortTitle: GOLDEN04
Audio: Yes Video: Yes
Length:
74
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
I KEEP GOING WHERE YOU ARE AND CAN'T MOVE AWAY. STILL,
SOMETHING IS MISSING. AT THE JUNCTION OF TWO PATHS, THE INNER
ONE AND THE OUTER ONE, WITH TEARS IN HIS EYES, THE STUBBORN
DONKEY IS STARVING. THE OUTER PATH DOES NOT ATTRACT HIM MUCH
ANYMORE, AND WHEN IT DOES THE HOPE IS QUICKLY SMASHED. SEEING
YOUR FINGER POINTING TO THE MOON, STILL HE IS NOT GOING VERY
MUCH ON THE INNER PATH. I DO NOT KNOW QUITE HOW TO SPEAK TO
HIM. DISGUSTED WITH TUNAFISH SANDWICHES, HE BECAME ACCUSTOMED TO STARVATION. IS THIS JUST FEAR, LAZINESS,
IMPATIENCE? DOES HE JUST NEED A JUICY JOKE? BELOVED OSHO, GIVE
HIM A LITTLE PUSH.
Uttama, it is one of the significant things to understand that unless you attain the ultimate, the feeling of something missing is going to remain with you. And this
feeling is not against you; this feeling is a kind of reminding you that you have not reached yet, that you have to go on and on.
Don't take the feeling of missing as negative; it is healthy and positive. It shows that you are aware of where you are and you are also sensitive to where you should be, and between the two, the gap is the feeling of missing.
I would like to read your question: "I keep going where you are and can't move away."
I have been aware of it. For the whole year I have been moving from one place to another place and you have remained constantly moving with me. It is not just attachment with me -- it is something more. It is not a question of being with me: it is a question of being in the same state of being as I am.
You don't want to miss any opportunity, any single moment. And one never knows --
your time may come and you may be far away from me.
Still something is missing. It will go on missing for a little time more. You are growing, but to reach to the flowers, to reach to the fruits, it takes a long time to grow. And spiritual growth is not like seasonal flowers; they come within weeks and they are gone.
The spiritual growth is of the eternal: once it comes, it remains -- remains forever.
Naturally, compared to eternity our time scale is very small. A few days pass or, a few months or a few years; we start feeling, is there something wrong? Am I doing right?
And these are natural feelings. But I have been watching you. Nothing is wrong, everything is as it should be. You are silently growing. All growth is silent, it makes no noise. And suddenly one day... the flowers appear.
Just by the side of Chuang Tzu hall there were no flowers three days ago. Then one day the storm came and the rains came, and in the morning suddenly there were beautiful sunflowers -- just in one night. I had seen the place; in the evening there were no flowers, in the morning there were flowers.
It takes time for the growth, but when the right moment comes it is an explosion.
Suddenly, all over, is the spring. And it is good that until it happens you go on feeling that something is missing. You should not forget for a single moment that something is missing. That will be dangerous.
Millions of people have forgotten it completely. They are absolutely content and feeling that all that they need they have -- nothing is missing. They are the poorest people in the world. They don't have a longing for higher reaches, they don't want to climb mountains, they don't want to go to the stars -- in their dark caves they are perfectly comfortable.
One should have compassion for them. Their contentment is their spiritual death.
You need a spiritual discontentment which constantly moves you, like an arrow, towards faraway goals.
"At the junction of two paths, the inner one and the outer one, with tears in his eyes, the stubborn donkey is starving. The outer path does not attract him much anymore, and when it does the hope is quickly smashed. Seeing your finger pointing to the moon, still he is not going very much on the inner path."
The inner growth is very still and very silent. You cannot hear your own footsteps.
You only become aware when you reach a certain stage. And it is a surprise because all the time you were thinking nothing is happening... suddenly, the flowers have come. This is what I mean by patience.
To grow cedars of Lebanon one needs great patience. They are not seasonal flowers and you cannot see the growth. It is happening every moment, all these trees are growing every moment. But existence functions very silently.
You are growing, and even you cannot be aware of it unless something totally new happens and makes you aware that you have reached some space that was unknown to you. And that can happen any moment.
On your part great patience is needed, and a trust that the whole existence is in support of all those who are trying to grow spiritually. It is not you who are
trying to grow spiritually; it is existence who, through you, is trying to reach to its utmost heights.
"I do not quite know how to speak to him. Disgusted with tunafish sandwiches, he became accustomed to starvation. Is this just fear, laziness, impatience? Does he just need a juicy joke?"
It is a combination of many things. Fear is always there, and will remain until you come to know that there is no death. Fear is the shadow of death. When death disappears the shadow disappears.
There is impatience, but you have to use your impatience not against your growth, but in favor of it. Be impatiently very patient. Your impatience should only show your longing.
It should not be against your patience; it should be simply a tremendous desire of your being to crystallize, to reach somewhere where life becomes meaningful, blissful, where fear disappears, death disappears, where one becomes acquainted with one's own immortality.
And it is not laziness. It appears so, because you don't see every day new spaces; it almost seems as if you are standing, not moving. In the inner journey this has been felt by many many people, by almost everybody. And the reason is the nature of movement.
You are sitting in a train and the train is moving; how do you know that the train is moving? Because you cannot see the wheels; the only idea that the train is moving is given to you by the trees and the houses and the stations that are passing by on both sides.
They are going in the opposite direction; the faster they are going, the faster you feel your train is moving.
Just for a moment imagine that your train is moving in a place where there is nothing on either side, you cannot see anything that is moving backwards. Will you feel that your train is moving? For example if the train is moving in the sky -
- no trees, no houses, no stations -- you will not be able to feel the movement of the train. This is the reason why we cannot feel the movement of the earth. It is moving faster than any train, but there is nothing against which you can feel its movement.
In the inner journey this is the problem. You are alone. There are no trees, no stations, no houses; it is just like the sky. How can you feel if there is any movement happening or not? One becomes aware of the movement only when one comes to certain definite spaces which are different from those with which he is acquainted. Then suddenly one realizes that one has moved very fast. In fact, even if in many lives you can achieve enlightenment, it is too early. But I am saying you can achieve it now; all that is needed is that you don't look at things negatively.
Our mind is a very negative phenomenon. Relaxation it will call laziness, deep longing it will call impatience. Always remember mind is negative. It does not know how to say yes. And that is the meaning of trust: saying yes.
You are in a perfectly good situation, Uttama. Say yes to it, and say yes as deeply and as totally as possible. And any negative thing that mind brings, change it into the positive. It says it is laziness. Tell it, it is not; it is relaxation, it is restfulness. It says it is impatience.
Tell it, it is not; it is a great longing, a great passion to realize oneself, to realize one's treasures -- not to die without realizing oneself.
And you are asking, "Does he just need a juicy joke?"
That I can do! Whenever it needs any juicy joke, you bring your donkey to me.
Patrick's wife lived way out in the country and was taken ill one day, shortly before her child was due. It was quite dark when the doctor arrived and he asked, "Where is the little lady?"
Patrick: "She is over there in the barn where she collapsed." With Patrick holding the lamp the doctor set about his job.
"Patrick, you are the proud father of a little boy." Patrick said, "Doctor, we will have a drink."
"Just a minute, hold the light a little closer. You are the father of two!" "We will open a bottle," said Patrick.
"Wait!" said the doctor. "Hold the light a little closer. You are the father of three."
"And sure it is going to be a celebration and all," said Patrick. "Just a minute," said the doctor, "hold the light a little closer."
"I don't want to be difficult, doctor," said Patrick, "but do you think this bloody light is attracting them?"
Children go on coming as the light is coming closer.…
Uttama, remain joyous, wait with great love. Everything takes its own time, impatience makes no sense. Patience is the way of existence. Remain relaxed, because the more excited you become the farther away is the goal. The experience is going to happen only when you are utterly silent, just a pool of silence... your whole energy so relaxed, as if it is absent.
When you have become just a zero you become a womb. And out of this nothingness is born your original, your authentic reality.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
I FEEL THAT I DON'T LOVE YOU ENOUGH, DON'T APPRECIATE YOU
ENOUGH, AM NOT OPEN ENOUGH. I FEEL LIKE I AM TRUNDLING ALONG IN
A CREAKY OLD BULLOCK CART, WHILE YOU ARE FLYING BY IN ALL YOUR
BEAUTY AND GRACE AND VASTNESS. BELOVED OSHO, I AM
EXASPERATED BY MY STATE OF RETARDATION. WHY IS IT THAT I DON'T
RESPOND?
Prem Veena, it is something intrinsic to love that it always feels it is not enough.
Only a small love feels enough. The greater the love, the more you are aware of the feeling that
"I don't love enough." That is one of the signs of a great love.
If somebody comes and says to me, "I love you very much -- I love you totally," then his love is certainly going to be very small. Otherwise to love totally is a tremendous phenomenon; it will change you entirely.
So there is no need to be worried that your love is not enough. You want to love more, and if your love is great it will never be enough; it will always be something less than you wanted it to be.
And the same is true about appreciation. You say, "I don't appreciate you enough, am not open enough." Just a little appreciation and just a little opening is enough for my purposes. I can sneak in from any small opening! One thing is certain -- you are not a China wall.
I can understand. You have been long enough with me and it is natural to expect.… But you don't know how much you have changed. I remember exactly, photographically, the day you came to me. You had not come for yourself, you had come for a totally different reason. You had brought a young man; you had come for him.
He was a complete crackpot; he wanted to live only on water. And because in one of my lectures I had mentioned that I know a man who has lived for many years only on water, you brought that young man -- because he was moving from place to place, enquiring for somebody who can teach him the art of how to live on water.
You had not said a single word about yourself. You were only concerned that somehow either he drops this idea or he finds some way -- it had become a torture. There are ways people can live... but they need years of training, and they lead nowhere. What is the point? Even if you can live only on water that does not make you spiritual; that does not bring liberation to your being. And it takes fifteen to twenty years' long training to come to the point where you can drop all food, and just air and water are enough for you.
So I told the man, "It is possible and I can give you the address. But if you want my advice I would say don't go there because that man is cracked. You are only
half cracked right now; there is still time to come back. What are you going to gain? Why are you obsessed with the idea?" The obsession was that if you live only on pure water and air, you become physically immortal.
I said, "That is nonsense! Many people have lived on water and air and none of them are alive; not a single one has become immortal. If you really want to become immortal, I can show you the way; because it is not a question of becoming immortal, it is a question of discovering. You are immortal already -- you are just not aware. Awareness has to be brought..." and just as I was talking to the man about awareness and meditation -- he was not interested; he disappeared, he never came again.
But Veena was caught. That was accidental! Since then she has been doing meditation, sometimes successfully, and whenever you succeed in meditation there are moments of failure; there are days and there are nights.
Naturally, after so many years, fifteen or sixteen years, she feels like "I'm trundling along in a creaky old bullock cart, while you are flying by in all your beauty and grace and vastness."
You should be happy, at least you have a creaky old bullock cart! There are millions who don't have even that. And if it is too creaky just ask some Italian sannyasin to make it a little greasy. Sarjano can do it. And to make a flying bullock cart will be a great joy and a miracle -- just take a little care with the bullock cart. Anyway it is moving. Or perhaps you would like it to go on being creaky because that gives you the idea that you are moving. But there is no hurry. You need not fly. Sometimes it is dangerous.
Just the other day I received a letter from Canada. A young woman wants to come here, but the problem is she is very much afraid of flying. Now from Canada to here, coming in a creaky old cart will really take so long. So she has asked me, "First help me to get rid of this paranoia. I cannot enter an airplane."
I have all kinds of crackpots all over the world! But they are very nice people. Just a day before another woman from Germany asked -- her problem is even more difficult -- her problem is that she is afraid to leave her house. "Help me, I want to come to Poona!"
Now this woman who is afraid of flying can have other means suggested to her: trains, cars, buses, a horse; but the woman who is afraid to leave the house But
I have to suggest something to them -- and just because the suggestion is coming from me, it works. It has nothing in it; I just have to invent suggestions: "Just keep an onion in your mouth, and leave the house and no danger will ever happen to you! And when I am suggesting there must be some great secret in onions... soon the woman will be here, because these fears are all just mind- made, mind-manufactured.
There is no fear in flying, there is no fear of coming out of the house; millions of people are coming out of the house every day, and thousands are flying. And the rate of accidents is not much more than the rate of death which naturally happens, so whether you are sleeping on your bed or flying in an airplane does not make any difference. The rate of death is the same.
In fact, on the bed it is more, because 99% of people die on the bed. If somebody wants to be really afraid of any place, it is your bed. Avoid it! Keep it for show but never sleep on it! In the night close the doors and sleep on the floor, because I have never heard of anybody dying on the floor. And there are people who are trying.…
My legal secretary Anando sleeps in her bath, just to avoid death! -- because nobody has ever died in the bath. She keeps her bed ready; that is just for show. Whenever I ask Shunyo to find her I have to tell her, "Look in her bathroom." And she is sleeping with her blanket and with her clothes in the bathtub. A great device to avoid death!
Veena, don't be exasperated by your state. You are growing. Everybody has his own pace of growth. Some people grow fast, some people grow slowly -- whatever is natural to them -- and there is no question of superiority or inferiority. But if you ask me I will say you are going perfectly right. You are responding to me as deeply as your nature allows in this moment.
Forcing anything is going against nature. Accepting, relaxing, contented, allowing the flow of nature to take you, is what Lao Tzu used to call `the watercourse way.'
Sometimes the river flows fast. Sometimes it flows very slowly. Sometimes it falls with great speed in waterfalls from the mountains to the plains. But one thing is certain: whether slow, fast or very fast, every river reaches to the ocean.
And it does not matter that somebody reaches a little earlier and somebody
reaches a little later. What matters is that one reaches.
Just think of the moment -- your joy, your peace, your centeredness. The more you enjoy them, the more they grow, and faster. But don't think in terms of becoming rich very fast.
Even if the richness is of the inner world, to become rich fast one has to use wrong means
-- and in the inner world you cannot use wrong means. That will not be profitable; that will be a loss. In the outside world, if you want to become rich faster then you have to use wrong means.
But to be with me, at least one thing has always to be remembered: we are not looking for any profit, we are not looking for any reward. Our reward is in this moment. Our profit is our joy in this moment.
Farelli came from Italy, opened a restaurant and became very successful. He still practiced the simplest form of bookkeeping. He kept the accounts payable in a cigar box, accounts due on a spindle, and cash in the register. One day his youngest son, who had just graduated as an economics major, said to him, "Pa, I don't see how you run your business this way. How do you know what your profits are?"
"Well, sonny boy," replied Farelli, "when I got off-a the boat I no have nothing but-a the pants I was-a wearing. Just-a the pants. Today your brother is a doctor, your sister is-a the teacher and you just-a graduate."
"I know, papa, but "
"Your mama and me have a nice-a car, a nice-a house, a good-a business and everything is-a paid for. So you add all-a that together, you subtract-a the pants and that's-a the profit."
Why get into so much unnecessary detail? That poor Italian was doing very well! Now to count all these things and then to subtract the pants-a... and the remaining is all the profit.
On the path there is no need to keep any accounts. Each moment live totally, joyously, and move on. Don't carry even the memory of that moment: that too
becomes a burden, that too prevents you from responding to reality spontaneously. If you want to be spontaneous and responsive then you need a very clean, mirror-like mind. No dust should gather on it.
And Veena, as far as I see you are doing perfectly well. But these are human desires that again and again arise in people -- perhaps things can be done better; perhaps rather than going by a bullock cart I can go by an airplane. These ideas simply create anxiety in you and disturb your natural growth.
Live each moment and don't let it gather in your memory. Keep your memory clean.
And everything that you have never imagined, never dreamt of, is going to happen to you.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #5
Chapter title: Just a little knack of losing yourself 24 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8704245
ShortTitle: GOLDEN05
Audio: Yes
Video:
Yes Length:
89
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
NIETZSCHE WROTE: "HE WHO FIGHTS WITH MONSTERS SHOULD LOOK TO
IT THAT HE HIMSELF DOES NOT BECOME A MONSTER, AND WHEN YOU
GAZE LONG INTO AN ABYSS THE ABYSS ALSO GAZES INTO YOU." THE
LAST PHRASE SEEMS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DESCRIPTION OF THE ART OF
MEDITATION. WOULD YOU COMMENT?
Maneesha, Friedrich Nietzsche is a strange philosopher, poet and mystic. His strangeness is that his philosophy is not the ordinary rational approach to life; his strangeness is also that he writes poetry in prose. He is also a strange mystic, because he has never traveled the ordinary paths of mysticism. It seems as if mysticism happened to him.
Perhaps being a philosopher and a poet together, he became available to the experiences of the mystic also. The philosopher is pure logic, and the poet is pure irrationality. The mystic is beyond both. He cannot be categorized as rational, and he cannot be categorized as irrational. He is both, and he is neither.
It very rarely happens that a philosopher is a poet also, because they are
diametrically opposite dimensions. They create a tremendous inner tension in the person. And Nietzsche lived that tension to its very extreme. It finally led him into madness, because on the one hand he is one of the most intelligent products of Western philosophy, without parallel, and on the other hand so full of poetic vision that certainly his heart and his head would have been constantly fighting. The poet and the philosopher cannot be good bedfellows. It is easy to be a poet, it is easy to be a philosopher, but it is a tremendous strain to be both.
Nietzsche is not in any way mediocre -- his philosopher is as great a genius as his poet.
And the problem becomes more complicated because of this tension between the heart and the mind. He starts becoming available to something more -- more than philosophy, more than poetry. That's what I am calling mysticism.
His statement is of tremendous importance: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."
I have always been telling you that you can choose a friend without being too cautious, but you cannot afford an enemy without being very alert -- because the friend is not going to change you, but the enemy is going to change you. With the friend there is no fight, with the friend there is no quarrel; the friend accepts you as you are, you accept the friend as he is. But with the enemy the situation is totally different. You are trying to destroy the enemy and the enemy is trying to destroy you. And naturally you will affect each other, you will start taking methods, means, techniques from each other.
After a while it becomes almost impossible to find who is who. They both have to behave in the same way, they both have to use the same language, they both have to be on the same level. You cannot remain on your heights and fight an enemy who lives in the dark valleys down below; you will have to come down. You will have to be as mean, as cunning as your enemy is -- perhaps you will have to be more, if you want to win.
Nietzsche is right. "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
The second part of the statement is actually the very essence of meditation: it is gazing into emptiness, nothingness, into an abyss. And when you gaze into an
abyss it is not one-sided; the abyss is also gazing into your eyes.
When I am looking at you, it is not only that I am looking at you; you are also looking at me. The abyss has its own ways of gazing into you. The empty sky also gazes into you, the faraway star also looks into you. And if the abyss is allowed to gaze into you, soon you will find a great harmony between yourself and the silence of the abyss, you will also become part of the abyss. The abyss will be outside you and also inside you.
What he is saying is immensely beautiful and truthful. The meditator has to learn to gaze into things which he wants to become himself. Look into the silent sky, unclouded. Look long enough, and you will come to a point when small clouds of thoughts within you disappear, and the two skies become one. There is no outer, there is no inner: there is simply one expanse.
For thousands of years meditators have been gazing at the early sun in the morning, because later it becomes too difficult to gaze into it. But the early sun, just rising above the horizon, can be looked into without any danger to the eyes. And if you allow, then the light and the color that is spread all over the horizon starts spreading within you -- you become part of the horizon. You are no longer just a gazer; you have become part of the scenery.
An ancient parable in China is that an emperor who was very interested in paintings, and had a great collection of paintings, announced a great prize for the best painting. All the great painters of the country arrived in the capital and started working.
One painter said, "It will take at least three years for me." The emperor said, "But I'm too old."
The painter said, "You need not be worried. You can give me the award right now. If you are not certain of your life, I am certain about my painting. But I'm not asking either. I am just saying that I am going to do a job that has never been done. I want to show you what a painting should really be; so forget about your death and forget about the award. You allow me three years and a separate place in the palace. Nobody can come while I'm working; for three years I have to be left alone."
Each day was such an excitement for the emperor. The man was a well-known
painter, and not only a painter -- he was a Zen master too. Finally those three years passed, and the painter invited the emperor... he took him into the room. On the whole wall he had painted a beautiful forest with mountains, with waterfalls, and a small footpath going round about and then getting lost into the trees behind the mountains.
The painting was so alive, so three-dimensional, that the emperor forgot completely that it was a painting and asked the painter, "Where does this footpath lead to?"
The painter said, "I have never gone on it, but we can go and have a look at where it goes."
The story is that the painter and the emperor both walked on the path, entered the forest, and have not returned since then. The painting is still preserved; it shows the footprints of two persons on the footpath. It seems to be absolutely unbelievable, but the meaning is of tremendous importance.
The painter is saying that unless you can be lost in a painting, it is not a painting. Unless you can become part of the scene, something is dividing you; you are not allowing yourself, totally, to be one with it, whether it is a sunrise or a sunset.…
A meditator has to learn in different ways, from different sides of life, to be lost. Those are the moments when you are no more, but just a pure silence, an abyss, a sky, a silent lake without any ripples on it. You have become one with it. And all that is needed is --
don't be just a passer-by, don't be a tourist, don't be in a hurry. Sit down and relax. Gaze into the silence, into the depth, and allow that depth to enter into your eyes, so that it can reach to your very being.
A moment comes when the gazer and the gazed become one, the observer and the observed become one. That is the moment of meditation -- and there are no more golden experiences in existence. These golden moments can be yours... just a little art, or rather a little knack, of losing yourself into something vast, something so big that you cannot contain it. But it can contain you! And you can experience it only if you allow it to contain you.
Friedrich Nietzsche is right; he must have said what he had experienced himself. It was unfortunate that he was born in the West. In the East he would have been
in the same category as Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Bodhidharma or Lao Tzu. In the West he had to be forced into a madhouse.
He himself could not figure it out. It was too much: on the one hand his great philosophical rationality, on the other hand his insights into poetry, and those sudden glimpses of mystic experiences... it was too much. He could not manage and started falling apart. They were all so different from each other, so diametrically opposite... he tried hard somehow to keep them together, but the very effort of trying to keep them together became a nervous breakdown.
The same experience in the East would have been a totally different phenomenon. Instead of being a nervous breakdown, it would have been a breakthrough. The East has been working for thousands of years; its whole genius has been devoted to only one thing, and that is meditation. It has looked into all possible nooks and corners of meditation, and it has become capable to allow poetry, to allow philosophy, without any problem, without any opposition and tension. On the contrary they all become, under meditation, a kind of orchestra -- different musical instruments, but playing the same tune.
There have been many misfortunes in the world, but I feel the most sorry for Friedrich Nietzsche because I can see what great potential he had. But being in a wrong atmosphere, having no precedent and having no way to work it out by himself, alone.… It was certainly too much for an individual, for any individual, to work it out alone.
Thousands of people have worked from different corners, and now, in the East, we have a whole atmosphere in which any kind of genius can be absorbed. And meditation will not be disturbed by genius; meditation will be enhanced, and his own particular dimension --
poetry, literature, science -- will also be enhanced.
Nietzsche was just in a wrong place, surrounded by wrong people who could only think of him as mad.And to them, he appeared mad.
Two kids were playing on the sea beach. One of them asked the other, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
He said, "When I grow up I want to be a great prophet. I'm going to speak of profound truths."
The first boy said, "But they say nobody listens to the prophets, so why become a prophet?"
"Ah," he said, "us prophets are very obstinate."
This very obstinacy became a problem, because the whole society was against him, a single man single-handedly fighting for truths which people cannot even understand, but are absolutely ready to misunderstand. If a man is sincere and if he cannot understand a thing he should say, "I do not understand it." But people are not so sincere. When they don't understand a thing they immediately start misunderstanding it. Misunderstanding is their way of hiding their ignorance.
The people who have come to know some truth are certainly obstinate. You can crucify them, but you cannot change their minds. You can throw them into madhouses, but they will go on repeating their insights. Their insights become more valuable than their lives themselves.
The East, at least in the past, has been the best soil for prophets, for philosophers, for poets, for mystics. It is no longer the case, but still something of the past goes on echoing in the atmosphere. The West has corrupted the East too. The West knows the tradition of Socrates being poisoned, it knows Jesus Christ's crucifixion; the East was absolutely innocent. It was an accepted fact that everybody had the right to say his truth. If you don't agree with him, that does not mean that you have to kill him. Don't agree -- that is your right; at least we can agree to disagree with each other, but there is no need to bring swords when you don't have arguments. Swords cannot become arguments.
But the atmosphere has been changing for almost two thousand years, since this country became invaded again and again by barbarous, uncivilized, uncultured people who had no idea what philosophy was. And finally, for three hundred years the West has tried in every possible way to corrupt the mind of the East through its educational system --
through schools, through colleges, through universities.
Now even in the East crucifixion is possible. Just the other day one of the great Hindu religious leaders, equivalent to the pope of the Catholics, Shankaracharya Svarupananda, was here for a few days. I told Neelam, when she informed me of this, that he would say something against me certainly. But he spoke against me only on the last day, before leaving, so when the information came to me, he had
already gone.
What he had spoken against me is so poor that one feels great pity. What has happened to the great philosophical traditions of the East? -- and these people represent those traditions. He said about me: "He is the most dangerous man, unparallelled in the history of mankind." He has not given any reason why. To me this is a compliment. But at least I have the right to ask what is the reason for giving me such a great compliment --
"unparallelled in the whole history of mankind." And what danger am I?
This was not the way of the East. When I was listening to his statement I remembered about the original shankaracharya, Adi Shankaracharya. He is a predecessor of nearly fourteen hundred years ago. He died a young man, he died when he was thirty-three. He created a new tradition of sannyasins, he created four temples in all the four directions, and he appointed four shankaracharyas, one for each direction. I remembered about him that he traveled all over the country defeating great, well-known philosophers -- that was in a totally different atmosphere.
One great philosopher was Mandan Mishra; he had a great following. Still in his memory a town exists. I have been there many times. It is on a beautiful bank of the Narmada, one of the most beautiful rivers. That is the place where the river descends from the mountains, so it has tremendous beauty. The city is called Mandala, in memory of Mandan Mishra.
Shankara must have been at the age of thirty when he reached Mandala. Just on the outskirts of the town, by a well, a few women were drawing water. He asked them, "I want to know where the great philosopher Mandan Mishra lives."
Those women started giggling and they said, "Don't be worried, you just go inside. You will find it."
Shankara said, "How will I find it?"
They said, "You will find it, because even the parrots around his house -- he has a big garden and there are so many parrots in the garden -- they repeat poetries from the UPANISHADS, from the VEDAS. If you hear parrots repeating, singing beautiful poetries from the Upanishads, you can be certain that this is the house of Mandan Mishra."
He could not believe it, but when he went and he saw, he had to believe. He asked Mandan Mishra -- he was old, nearabout seventy -- "I have come a very long way from South India to have a discussion with you, with a condition: If I am defeated, I will become your disciple, and if you are defeated, you will have to become my disciple.
Naturally, when I become your disciple all my disciples will become your disciples and the same will be true if you become my disciple -- all your disciples will become my disciples."
Old Mandan Mishra looked at the young man and he said, "You are too young and I feel a little hesitant whether to accept this challenge or not. But if you are insistent, then there is no way; I have to accept it. But it does not look right that a seventy year old man who has fought thousands of debates should be fighting with a young man of thirty. But to balance, I would suggest one thing" -- and this was the atmosphere that has a tremendous value -- "to substitute, I will give you the chance to choose the judge who will decide. So you find a judge. You are too young, and I feel that if you are defeated at least you should have the satisfaction that the judge was your choice."
Now where to find a judge? The young man had heard much about Mandan Mishra's wife. Her name was Bharti. She was also old, sixty-five. He said, "I will choose your wife to be the judge."
This is the atmosphere, so human, so loving. First Mandan Mishra gave him the chance to choose, and then Shankara chose Maridan Mishra's own wife! And Bharti said, "But this is not right, I'm his wife, and if you are defeated you may think it is because I may have been prejudiced, favorable towards my husband."
Shankara said, "There is no question of any suspicion. I have heard much about your sincerity. If I'm defeated, I'm defeated. And I know perfectly well if your husband is defeated, you will be the last person to hide the fact."
Six months it took for the discussion. On each single point that man has thought about they quarreled, argued, quoted, interpreted, and after six months the wife said, "Shankara is declared victorious. Mandan Mishra is defeated."
Thousands of people were listening for these six months. It was a great experience to listen to these two so refined logicians, and this was a tremendous experience, that the wife declared Shankara to be the winner. There was great
silence a for few moments, and then Bharti said, "But remember that you are only half a winner, because according to the scriptures the wife and husband makes one whole. I'm half of Mandan Mishra. You have defeated one half; now you will have to discuss with me."
Shankara was at a loss. For six months he had tried so hard; many times he had been thinking of giving up -- the old man was really very sharp even in his old age. Nobody has been able to stand against Shankara for six months, and now the wife says his victory is only half. Bharti said, "But I will also give you the chance to choose your judge."
He said, "Where am I going to find a better judge than Mandan Mishra? You are such simple and fair and sincere people. But Bharti was very clever, more clever than Shankara had imagined, because she started asking questions about the science of sex.
Shankara said, "Forgive me, I am a celibate and I don't know anything about sex."
Bharti said, "Then you will have to accept your defeat, or if you want some time to study and experience, I'm willing to give you some time."
He was caught in such a strange situation; he asked for six months and six months were given. "You can go and learn as much as you can because this will be the subject to begin with, then later on, other subjects. It is not easy," Bharti said, "to beat Mandan Mishra.
But that half was easier! I am a much harder woman. If I can declare the defeat of my husband, you can understand that I am a hard woman. It is not going to be easy. If you feel afraid don't come back; otherwise we will wait for six months."
This atmosphere continued for thousands of years. There was no question of being angry, there was no question of being abusive, there was no question of trying to prove that you are right by your physical strength or by your arms or by your armies. These were thought to be barbarous methods; these were not for the cultured people.
Nietzsche was in a very wrong place in a wrong time; he was not understood by his contemporaries. Now, slowly, interest in him is arising; more and more people are becoming interested in him. Perhaps it would have been better for
him to delay his coming a little. But it is not in our hands when to come and when to go. And people of his genius always come before their time. But he should have his respected place in the category of the Buddhas. That day is not far away.
When all other so-called great philosophers of the West will be forgotten, Friedrich Nietzsche will still be remembered, because he has depths which have still to be explored, he has insights which have been only ignored; he has just been put aside as a madman.
Even if he is a madman, that does not matter. What he is saying is so truthful that if to get those truths one has to become mad, it is a perfectly good bargain.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
RECENTLY YOU SPOKE ABOUT THE WILL TO POWER. YOU EXPLAINED THE
IMPORTANCE OF HAVING THIS WILL, THIS LONGING, TO BECOME A MASTER OVER ONE'S SELF. YOU ALSO OFTEN DECLARE THAT EVERY
DESIRE IS THE BASIC REASON FOR MAN'S FRUSTRATION. CAN YOU PLEASE
EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WILL AND DESIRE?
Gyan Saahaba, the difference between will and desire is great, although they appear almost similar.
Desire is always for things. More money, more prestige, more respectability, more knowledge, more virtue, a better place in the afterlife -- these are all desires. Desires can be millions, because there are millions of things in the world which can become objects of desire. A desire always needs an object.
Will is not objective; it does not want something else to be added to it. Will is simply your very life force, which wants to assert itself in its totality, in its wholeness, to bring all the flowers that are hidden in you, to be yourself.
The will knows only one thing and that is you and your golden future. You, right now, are only seeds. But you can become great trees, reaching to the stars.
Vincent van Gogh, one of the most significant Dutch painters, was also thought of just like Nietzsche -- a madman. He also had to live in a madhouse, and he was not a harmful man; his paintings were just not according to the ideas of people. Strange... in this world you are not even free to paint something according to your own idea, which is not harming anybody.
He had painted his trees so tall that stars were left far behind -- they go above the stars.
Naturally people used to ask him, "This is sheer madness. Where have you seen these trees going beyond the stars?"
And what was always his answer is immensely significant. He used to say, "To me, trees represent the will of the earth. The earth is trying to reach beyond the stars, and you will see one day that the earth has succeeded. It is just the beginning, that's why you don't see the trees that high. But I can see far away in the future."
But we cannot even forgive poets, we cannot forgive even visionaries for their harmless visions. But what a beautiful idea -- that the earth wants to reach beyond the stars. That defines will.
Desire is always for possessions. Will is always for consciousness.
Will is a lifeforce; a flame of your very being. It does not want anything else -- it simply wants itself to be actualized in its totality. It does not want to remain a seed, it does not want just to remain a dream; it wants to become a reality, it wants to become an actual phenomenon.
Gyan Saahaba, I can understand your problem. It may have arisen in many people's minds, because I have always spoken against desire, and while speaking on Friedrich Nietzsche's ZARATHUSTRA I supported totally his idea of the will.
When on a rosebush flowers blossom, it is the will. They were hidden inside the
bush and they were trying to come into manifestation -- just as a Gautam Buddha is hidden in you, or a Zarathustra is hidden in you and is trying to come out. You are a seed. Once this idea settles in you, you will find inside the seed a serpent starts uncoiling itself -- that is the will. Nietzsche has called it will to power. I myself would like to call it will to realization, will to actualization, will to become absolutely yourself.
Desire is a very dangerous thing, because you can get lost in desire and millions are lost.
The jungle of desires is very thick, and there is no end; one after another you will find desires and desires and desires. And no desire is fulfilling. Every desire only gives you a new frustration, every desire gives you a new desire. But this whole process of desiring takes your energy away from becoming a will to realization, a will to bring your potential into flowering, into its ultimate expression.
Desire is going astray from will.
My effort here is to pull you back from your desires to one single-pointed will -- the will that wants to know yourself, the will that wants to be yourself, the will that wants whatever is hidden in you to become manifest.
Mendel saves up for years to buy a really fine tailor-made suit, his very first, but after he has been out in it for an hour or so he notices there are things wrong with it. He goes back to the tailor.
"The arms are too long," says Mendel.
"No problem. Just hold your arms out further and bend at the elbows." "But the trouser legs are too long."
"Right, no problem. Walk with your knees bent."
"The collar is too high; it is halfway up the back of my head." "Okay. Just poke your head out further."
So Mendel goes out into the world with his first tailor-made suit. As he is
passing a couple in the street the woman says, "Look at that poor man, he must have had polio."
The man says, "But what a fine suit he is wearing!"
Your desires may give you a fine suit, but they will also make you suffer from polio; everything will be wrong. Your desires will not allow you to be simply yourself, to be exactly your destiny.
Will is a longing to achieve one's destiny. Okay Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #6
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