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Chapter title: Love: the purest power
25 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8704255
ShortTitle:
GOLDEN07
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
63
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
WHEN YOU SPOKE ABOUT NIETZSCHE'S CONCEPT OF WILL, IT WAS SO
MUCH THE OPPOSITE POLE TO THE CONCEPT OF WILL THAT THE NAZIS
DEVELOPED FROM THE SAME SOURCE, AND THAT IS STILL SO
PREVELANT
IN THE WEST. COULD YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE?
Prem Pankaja, it is the destiny of the genius to be misunderstood. If a genius is not misunderstood, he is not a genius at all. If the common masses can understand, that means the person is speaking at the same level where ordinary intelligence is.
Friedrich Nietzsche is misunderstood, and out of this misunderstanding there has been tremendous disaster. But perhaps it was unavoidable. To understand a man like Nietzsche you have to have at least the same standard of consciousness, if not higher.
Adolf Hitler is so retarded that it is impossible to think that he can understand the meaning of Nietzsche; but he became the prophet of Nietzsche's philosophy. And according to his retarded mind he interpreted -- not only interpreted, but acted according to those interpretations -- and the second world war was the result.
When Nietzsche is talking about "will to power," it has nothing to do with will to dominate. But that is the meaning the Nazis had given to it.
"The will to power" is diametrically opposite to the will to dominate. The will to dominate comes out of an inferiority complex. One wants to dominate others, just to prove to himself that he is not inferior -- he is superior. But he needs to prove it. Without any proof he knows he is inferior; he has to cover it up by many, many proofs.
The really superior man needs no proof, he simply is superior. Does a roseflower argue about its beauty? Does the full moon bother about proving its gloriousness? The superior man simply knows it, there is no need for any proof; hence he has no will to dominate.
He certainly has a "will to power," but then you have to make a very fine distinction. His will to power means: he wants to grow to his fullest expression.
It has nothing to do with anybody else, its whole concern is the individual himself. He wants to blossom, to bring all the flowers that are hidden in his potential, to rise as high as possible in the sky. It is not even comparative, it is
not trying to rise higher than others
-- it is simply trying to rise to its fullest potential.
"Will to power" is absolutely individual. It wants to dance to the highest in the sky, it wants to have a dialogue with the stars, but it is not concerned with proving anybody inferior. It is not competitive, it is not comparative.
Adolf Hitler and his followers, the Nazis have done so much harm to the world because they prevented the world from understanding Friedrich Nietzsche and his true meaning.
And it was not only one thing; about every other concept too, they have the same kind of misunderstanding.
It is such a sad fate, one which has never befallen any great mystic or any great poet before Nietzsche. The crucifixion of Jesus or poisoning of Socrates are not as bad a fate, as that which has befallen Friedrich Nietzsche -- to be misunderstood on such a grand scale that Adolf Hitler managed to kill more than eight million people in the name of Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy. It will take a little time.… When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and the second world war are forgotten, Nietzsche will come back to his true light. He is coming back.
Just the other day, sannyasins from Japan informed me that my books are selling in their language at the highest rate and next to them are Friedrich Nietzsche's -- his books are also selling. And just a few days earlier the same information came from Korea. Perhaps people may be finding something similar in them.
But Friedrich Nietzsche has to be interpreted again, so that all the nonsense that has been put, by the Nazis, over his beautiful philosophy can be thrown away. He has to be purified, he needs a baptism.
Little Sammy tells his grandfather about the great scientist, Albert Einstein, and his theory of relativity.
"Ah yes," says the grandfather, "and what does the theory have to say?"
"Our teacher says that only a few people in the whole world can understand it," the boy explains, "but then she told us what it means. Relativity is like this: if a man sits for an hour with a pretty girl, it feels like a minute; but if he sits on a
hot stove for a minute, it feels like an hour -- and that's the theory of relativity."
Grandpa is silent and slowly shakes his head, "Sammy," he says softly, "from this your Einstein makes a living?"
People understand according to their own level of consciousness.
It was just a coincidence that Nietzsche fell into the hands of the Nazis. They needed a philosophy for war, and Nietzsche appreciates the beauty of the warrior. They wanted some idea for which to fight, and Nietzsche gave them a good excuse -- for the superman.
Of course, they immediately got hold of the idea of superman. The Nordic German Aryans were going to be Nietzsche's new race of man, the superman. They wanted to dominate the world, and Nietzsche was very helpful, because he was saying that man's deepest longing is "will to power." They changed it into will to dominate.
Now they had the whole philosophy: the Nordic German Aryans are the superior race because they are going to give birth to the superman. They have the will to power and they will dominate the whole world. That is their destiny -- to dominate the inferior human beings. Obviously, the arithmetic is simple: the superior should dominate the inferior.
These beautiful concepts... Nietzsche could not ever have imagined they, would become so dangerous and such a nightmare to the whole of humanity. But you cannot avoid being misunderstood, you cannot do anything about it.
A drunk who smelt of whiskey, cigars, and a cheap perfume, staggered up the steps into the bus, reeled down the aisle, then plopped himself down on a seat next to a Catholic priest.
The drunk took a long look at his offended seat partner and said, "Hey father, I have got a question for you. What causes arthritis?"
The priest's reply was cold and curt, "Amoral living," he said, "too much liquor, smoking and consorting with loose women."
"Well, I'll be damned!" said the drunk.
They rode in silence for a moment. The priest began to feel guilty, that he had reacted so strongly to a man who obviously needed Christian compassion. He turned to the drunk and said, "I am sorry, my son. I did not mean to be harsh. How long have you suffered from this terrible affliction of arthritis?"
"My affliction?" the drunk said, "I don't have arthritis. I was just reading in the paper that the pope had it."
Now, what can you do? Once you have said something, then it all depends on the other person, what he is going to make of it.
But Nietzsche is so immensely important that he has to be cleaned of all the garbage that the Nazis have put on his ideas. And the strangest thing is that not only the Nazis but other philosophers around the world have also misunderstood him. Perhaps he was such a great genius that your so-called great men also were not able to understand him.
He was bringing so many new insights into the world of thinking, that even just a single insight would have made him one of the great philosophers of the world
-- and he has dozens of insights which are absolutely original, which man has never thought about. If rightly understood, Nietzsche certainly could create the atmosphere and the right soil for the superman to be born. He can help humanity to be transformed.
I have tremendous respect for the man, and also a great sadness that he was misunderstood -- not only misunderstood, but forced into a madhouse. The doctors declared that he was mad. His insights were so far away from the ordinary mind that the ordinary mind felt very happy in declaring him mad: "If he is not mad, then we are too ordinary." He has to be mad, he has to be forced into a madhouse.
My own feeling is, he was never mad. He was just too much ahead of his time, and he was too sincere and too truthful. He said exactly what he experienced without bothering about politicians, priests and other pygmies. But these pygmies are so many and this man was so alone, that they would not hear that he was not mad. And the proof that he was not mad is his last book, which he wrote in the madhouse.
But I am the first man who is saying that he was not mad. It seems that this whole world is so cunning, so politically minded, that people say only things that
bring reputation to them, which bring applause from the crowd. Even your great thinkers are not very great.
The book that he wrote in the madhouse is his greatest work, and is an absolute proof because a mad man could not write it. His last book is THE WILL TO POWER. He did not see it printed, because who is going to print a madman's book? He knocked on many publishers' doors, but was refused -- and now everybody agrees that that is his greatest work. After his death, his sister sold the house and other things to publish the book, because that was his last desire, but he did not see it in print.
Was he mad? or are we living in a mad world? If a madman can write a book like, THE
WILL TO POWER, then it is better to be mad than to be sane like Ronald Reagan, who is piling up nuclear weapons -- there are thousands of people employed in creating nuclear weapons twenty-four hours a day. You call this man sane, and you call Friedrich Nietzsche mad?
An old Indian was sitting in a bar, when a long-haired, bearded, dirty hippy stormed into the bar and ordered a drink. The hippy's raunchy insults drove everyone else out of the bar, but the old Indian sat calmly watching. Finally the old hippy turned to him and said,
"Hey, red man, why the hell are you staring at me? Are you crazy, or something?"
"No," the Indian replied, "twenty years ago I was arrested for making love to a buffalo. I thought you might be my son."
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
WHEN YOU TALKED ABOUT THE SUPERMAN, YOU SAID THAT THE CAMEL
HAS TO BECOME A LION. I FEEL VERY ATTRACTED TO THAT LION, BUT I AM STILL AFRAID TO GET IN CONTACT WITH IT. I HAVE THE FEELING THE
LION IN ME HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH MY POWER. HOW CAN I USE MY
POWER WITHOUT LOSING MY LOVE? HOW CAN I USE MY POWER AND
STILL STAY WITH AN OPEN HEART? TO ME, LOVE AND POWER SEEM TO BE
CONTRADICTORY. IS THIS SO? CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, PLEASE?
Dhyan Agni, the question that you are asking is exactly the same as the question that Pankaja asked. You also have the same misunderstanding, although it is not related to Friedrich Nietzsche.
You are basically asking, "How can I use my power without losing my love? How can I use my power and still stay with an open heart? To me, love and power seem to be contradictory."
That's your misunderstanding.
Love and power are not contradictory. Love is the greatest power in the world.
But you have to understand again: by power I don't mean power over others. Power over others is not love; power over others is pure hate, it is poison, it is destructive.
But to me, and to anyone who knows, love itself is power -- and the greatest power, because there is nothing more creative than love. There is nothing more fulfilling than love, there is nothing more nourishing than love. When you are in love, all fears disappear, and when you become love yourself, even death becomes irrelevant.
Jesus is not very far away from the truth when he says, "God is love." Certainly God is power, the greatest power. I want to improve upon Jesus: I don't say God is love, I say love is God. To me God is only a symbol and love is a reality.
God is only a myth -- love is the experience of millions of people. God is only a word, but love can become a dance in your heart.
Your misunderstanding is that you think power means power over others. And it is not only your misunderstanding, Dhyan Agni, it is the misunderstanding of millions of people. And because of this misunderstanding they destroy the whole beauty of love.
Instead of creating a paradise out of it, they create a hell for each other, because everybody is trying to dominate everybody else in the name of love -- but deep down is the desire to dominate.
Love in itself is unconditional. It knows only giving, sharing; it does not know any desire for getting something in return. It does not ask for any response. Its joy and its reward is in sharing. And its power is in its sharing. It is so powerful that it can go on sharing with millions of people, and still the heart remains overflowing with love -- it is inexhaustible.
That is its power.
You are asking, "How can I use my power without losing my love?" If you want to dominate, then certainly you will have to lose your love. But if you want to love, you can love as powerfully as you want.
There is no contradiction between power and love. If there is a contradiction between power and love, then love will become powerless, it will become impotent, uncreative, weak; power will become dangerous, destructive -- it will start to enjoy torturing people.
Love and power separate are the misery of the world. Love and power together, as one energy, can become a great transformation. Life can become a blissfulness. And it is only a question of dropping a misunderstanding.
It is just as if you were thinking two plus two is equal to five, and then somebody points out to you that you are calculating wrongly: two plus two is not five, two plus two is four.
Do you think many austerities will be needed to change your misconception? Will you have to stand on your head for hours to change your idea that two and
two are four, or five? Or you will have to go on a fast unto death to change your misconception? Or you will have to renounce the world and all its pleasures because your calculation is wrong and you have to purify your soul first; otherwise how can you calculate rightly?
These are simple calculations, and a man of understanding can change them within a second. It is just a question of seeing where you have gone astray. Bring yourself back.
"I had the strangest dream last night," a man was telling his psychiatrist. "I saw my mother, but when she turned around to look at me, I noticed she had your face. As you can imagine, I found this very disturbing; and in fact I woke up immediately and could not get back to sleep. I just lay there in bed waiting for the morning to come and then I got up, drank a coke and came right over here for my appointment. I thought you could help me explain the meaning of this strange dream."
The psychiatrist was silent for a few moments before responding, "A coke? You call that breakfast?"
The poor fellow has come to understand the dream, why his mother's face has turned into his psychiatrist's face; but that is not the problem to the psychiatrist. To him the problem is: "A coke? You call that breakfast?"
But just watch people talking, and you will be amazed -- everywhere there is misunderstanding. You are saying something, something else is understood; somebody else is saying something, you understand something else.
The world would be a more silent and peaceful place if people were saying only five percent of what they are saying now -- although that five percent will cover absolutely everything that is essential. And I am not taking a very minimum point, that is the maximum. You can try it: speak only the essential, as if you are giving a telegram, so you have to go on choosing just ten words. And have you watched? Your telegram means more than your long letter, condensed. Be telegraphic and you will be surprised that in the whole day there are very few times when you have to speak.
One retired mathematician used to live in my neighborhood in a city. His whole life he had been a teacher, and it was very difficult for him to suffer retirement. His wife had not been on talking terms with him for years; "Because" she said,
"He is such a bore! It is better not to talk with him. He immediately goes into mathematics."
No other neighbor was welcoming to him; one of my neighbors was worried about me because he used to come to me for hours. He was worried that that old fellow must be torturing me. He came to give me a suggestion.
He said, "I give you a suggestion how to get rid of this old man. Whenever you see him coming, just take your umbrella, stand on the door as if you are going somewhere, and he will ask, 'Where are you going?' and you can say that you are going somewhere."
I said, "You don't know that man! If I say I am going somewhere, he will say, Ì'm coming along,' and that will be more torturous. It is better here. And it is not a torture, I enjoy it, because I have nothing to say, I simply sit silently. He alone does everything. He talks and he goes on and on, and finally he thanks me and says, `You are such a good conversationalist.' and I say, Ì am nothing compared to you, but I am learning just a little bit from you.'"
People don't want you to speak, they want you to listen. And if you learn a simple art of listening to people, so much misunderstanding in the world will be avoided.
The very elderly couple were listening to a religious revival on the radio. The preacher ended his stirring speech by saying, "God wants to heal you all. Just stand up, put one hand on the radio, then place the other on the part of the body that is sick."
The old woman tottered to her feet, put one hand on the radio and the other on her arthritic leg. The old man put one hand on the radio and one hand on his genitals.
The old woman snapped at him, "Fred! This preacher said God would heal the sick, not raise the dead!"
But you cannot avoid being misunderstood.
I don't know who has given you the idea that love and power are contradictory. Change it, because changing it will change you and your whole life.
Love is power, the purest power and the greatest power: Love is God. Nothing can be higher than that. But this power is not a desire to enslave others, this power is not a destructive force.
This power is the very source of creation. This power is creativity.
And this power will transform you totally into a new being. It has no concern with anybody. Its whole concern is to bring your seeds to their ultimate flowering.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #8
Chapter title: You have forgotten the way home 26 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8704260
ShortTitle: GOLDEN08
Audio: Yes Video: Yes
Length:
97
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
IN MY MEDITATIONS, AS I TRY TO LOOK MORE AND MORE INSIDE, I OFTEN
FEEL THAT THERE IS NOBODY. IT IS LIKE FALLING INTO AN ENDLESS
BLACK GAP. AND I FEEL A LOT OF TENSION, AND WANTING TO RUN AWAY.
IF THERE IS NO ME INSIDE, THEN WHOM SHOULD I LOVE? PLEASE HELP ME
FIND THAT LOVE FOR MYSELF, AND THAT TOTALITY THAT YOU HAVE
TALKED ABOUT SO MANY TIMES.
Shivam Annette, the question you have asked is one of the most important questions as far as the people who are meditating are concerned. Before I go into your question, a few necessary distinctions have to be understood.
When I say, "Go inwards," that does not mean that you will find someone there waiting for you. On the contrary, the more you go inwards, the less and less you are an ego. You are, but the feeling of I-ness starts disappearing -- for the simple reason that the I can exist only in reference to Thou. If the Thou is not present, the I starts melting.
Outside you are confronted with many Thous, they keep your I alive. But inside, there is no Thou; hence, there can be no I. That does not mean that you are not. It simply means you are in your purity -- not in reference to somebody else, but
just yourself, without any reference, in your absolute aloneness. Because our whole life we live as an ego, as an I, this disappearance of the I naturally creates fear and an effort to run away. Although it is natural, it is not right.
You have to go through this fear, darkness, anxiety, tension, because your I is dying. Up to now, you have remained identified with the I, so it seems as if you are dying. But just look at a single point: you are watching fear, you are watching the disappearance of I, you are watching tension, you are watching blackness, darkness, you are watching a feeling of nobodiness. This watcher is you.
Going inwards is to find the witness in its absolute purity, unpolluted by anything -- just a pure mirror, not reflecting anything. If mirrors were thinkers -- fortunately they are not --
and if they were brought up always with somebody looking in them, that would have given them an idea of who they are. And for many years, always reflecting somebody, they would have created a certain image of themselves -- that they are the reflectors.
Just visualize that one day suddenly nobody reflects in the mirror. The mirror will feel fear. The mirror will feel as if he is falling into a deep abyss, dark, dismal, into nonexistence -- who is he? His identity is lost just because nobody is looking in the mirror.
The mirror has not changed, in fact the mirror is pure. But with this purity he has never been acquainted; nobody has introduced him to this purity.
Meditation takes you to your purity.
Your purity is witnessing, watching, awareness.
You have not asked, "Who is the watcher?" You are asking, "I find there is nobody."
Who finds it? -- that's you! You will find nothingness, you will find nothing reflected in you; you will find emptiness. You have to change your focus from the object to your subjectivity. One thing is certain: the witness is present, and the inward journey is to find the witness -- is to find the pure mirror of your being.
You say, "In my meditations, as I try to look more and more inside, I often feel that there is nobody." But you are not conscious at all that you are finding that there is nobody. But you are! Do you think you are going to meet yourself as somebody? Do you think you are going to meet somebody who will say, "Hello, Shivam Annette, how do you do?" That will really freak you out -- "My God, I'm not one, I'm two!"
This feeling that there is nobody is absolutely right. You are on the right track. Just go on being alert that you are still there, watching. All these are objects -- the nobody, the darkness, the fear, the tension "It is like falling into an endless
black gap. And I feel a lot of tension and wanting to run away."
Watch all these things. They are just your old habits. You have never been into your own depths; hence the fear of the unacquainted, of the unknown. You have always been going around and around -- but outside -- and you have even forgotten the path to your inner home. In the beginning it will look like an endless black gap. Allow it. Blackness has a beauty of its own. Blackness is deep, is silent -- enjoy it! There is no need to run away from it.
"If there is no me inside, then whom should I love?"
There is certainly no me inside anyone. But there is something else far more important: there is something which can only be called your am-ness, your is- ness -- just your pure existence.
You call it me, because outside you need to refer to yourself.
Have you watched small babies? In the beginning they often refer to themselves by their name, "Johnny is hungry." They are far more accurate. But in a society they will be thought to be insane. "Johnny is hungry?" Why don't you say, "I'm hungry" "Johnny"
gives the idea that somebody else is hungry. Johnny is your name to be used by others.
You cannot use it when you are referring to yourself. Then you have to refer to yourself as Ì', `me', but not your name."
It happened in Thomas Alva Edison's life... he was one of the greatest scientists. As far as numbers of inventions are concerned he is unparallelled -- he invented
one thousand things. It is almost impossible to find a thing which is not invented by Thomas Alva Edison. He was so much respected that nobody mentioned his name, just out of respect.
His colleagues called him Professor, his students called him Sir, and obviously he didn't use his own name.
Then came the first world war, and for the first time rationing was introduced, and he went to the rationing shop. There was a queue; he was standing in the queue and when the man in front of him had left, the clerk shouted loudly, "Who is Thomas Alva Edison?" And Thomas Alva Edison looked here and there, where is Thomas Alva Edison? The clerk was also a little puzzled, because this man ought to be Thomas Alva Edison; it was his number. And the whole queue was also puzzled. They were looking at each other, what is the matter?
Finally one man from the back of the queue said to him, "Sir, as far as I remember, I have seen you. You are Thomas Alva Edison."
And Edison said, "If you say so, perhaps I am." The clerk said, "Are you insane or what?"
He said, "Not insane, but I have not heard this name for almost thirty years. I have forgotten it. Nobody calls me by the name. My father died when I was very young, my mother died. Now it is a far, faraway memory. I can remember that something like Thomas Alva Edison used to be my name, but for thirty years nobody has mentioned it. It is good that that man recognized me; otherwise I don't think that on my own I would have been able to recognize it myself."
It is a rare case, but thirty years is a long time, particularly for a man like Edison whose life is so full of creativity. His thirty years are almost three hundred years in your life.
It is simply a social invention that you refer to others by their name, and you refer to yourself by I, me. But inside there is no other, and with the other gone, the me, the I, is gone.
But there is no need to worry. You will not find your I, but you will find something greater: you will find your is-ness, your existence, your being.
When I say "Love yourself," this is for those who have never gone inside, because they can always... they are bound to understand only a language of duality. Love yourself --
that means you are dividing yourself into two, the lover and the loved. You may not have thought about it, but if you go inside you will not love yourself, you will be love.
You will be simply the energy called love.
You will be loving; you will radiate love. Love will be your fragrance.
Goldstein, who looked Jewish, was walking down a street in Berlin just before the war, when he accidentally collided with a stout Nazi officer.
"Schwein," bellowed the Nazi.
"Goldstein," replied the Jew with a courteous bow.
Sometimes you may need your name also; life gives strange situations. Goldstein did well. Rather than being offended, he introduced himself, just as the Nazi had introduced himself. But all these names can be used only on the outside.
Inside you are nameless, you are egoless. Inside you are just a pure existence -- and out of that pure existence arises the aroma of love.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
BEING WITH YOU, SEEING YOUR BEAUTY, HEARING YOUR COZY VOICE, FEELING YOUR PRESENCE -- THIS ALL UNCOVERED AGAIN THE DEEP
LONGING IN ME FOR THAT WHICH ZARATHUSTRA CALLED `THE GREAT
NOONTIDE'. IS THAT ENOUGH? DOES THAT LEAD ME TO THE ULTIMATE?
Shantu Abhinava, this is not enough. This will not bring you to what Zarathustra calls,
"the great noontide", but it is a good beginning.
You are saying, "Being with You, seeing Your beauty, hearing Your cozy voice, feeling Your presence -- this all uncovered again the deep longing in me for that which Zarathustra called `the great noontide'. Is that enough? Does that lead me to the ultimate?"
It is not enough, and it will not lead you on its own to the ultimate. You will have to understand something deeper on each point that you mention. "Being with You" is not enough; you have to be with yourself. Being with me may give you a taste, but that is not going to be enough nourishment. You have to learn, from that -- being with yourself.
"Seeing Your beauty"... these are good indications, but when are you going to see your beauty? I can only be an arrow. But the arrow is always pointing towards your center.
The arrow may be beautiful, you may appreciate it, that was not the purpose of the arrow.
The purpose of the arrow was for you to move to where it was pointing. You have to see your beauty.
You have not only to hear my voice; you have to hear the still, small voice of your own being.
It is a good beginning to experience my presence, but one should not stop at it. You have to experience your presence. That will bring in you what Zarathustra calls `the great noontide'.
The master is just a milestone, on every milestone there is an arrow showing you
-- move on, you are coming closer to the goal. And when you come to the milestone where there is no arrow but zero, you have come home. That is the great noontide.
This is not going to happen just by itself; you will have to move a little, make a
little effort. And the effort has to be very relaxed -- that is the secret. We know efforts, but they become tensions, anxieties, worries.
You have to learn a different kind of effort -- what Lao Tzu calls effortless effort
--
utterly relaxed, because you are not going anywhere. You are simply relaxing within yourself. You are not going to find some goal, some achievement far away which creates worries -- whether you are on the right path or on the wrong path, whether you are moving in the right direction, whether the goal really exists or it is just a fiction that you have heard from others. With me one thing is clear -- that you are not a fiction.
God may be a fiction and paradise may be a fiction. You are a reality.
Relaxing within yourself simply means not going outwards, withdrawing all your energy which generally goes on moving outwards. Don't go anywhere -- just be now and here.
There is no question of tension, there is no question of any worry.
Silently you will slip into your own being and you will feel a great presence and you will hear a soundless sound -- what the Zen people call "the sound of one hand clapping."
You will see the most beautiful space which you cannot imagine, which you cannot even dream of. And it is so close by -- just at the very center of you.
The journey is small, but it has to be done, and done in such a strange way that there is no doer -- almost the way you fall asleep. You cannot be a doer, you cannot make any effort to bring sleep -- that will be a disturbance. This entering into your own being and presence is almost like allowing it to happen.
That is the great effort which is effortless, which will bring the noontide and the ultimate experience. In a single word: meditation is equivalent to total relaxation. Just doing nothing, sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself.
Question 3
BELOVED OSHO,
ONE LINE FROM DOSTOEVSKY'S WORK HAS IMPRESSED ME MUCH IN MY
CHILDHOOD. HE SAYS, "IN SUFFERING LOOK FOR HAPPINESS." I USED TO
THINK THAT NOTHING OF VALUE COULD BE ATTAINED WITHOUT
SACRIFICE AND HARD WORK. AFTER MEETING YOU AND DRINKING YOUR
MESSAGE OF LOVE, LIFE, ENJOYMENT AND CELEBRATION, I REALIZE THAT
MY PREVIOUS IDEA WAS QUITE MASOCHISTIC AND SUICIDAL. I LOVE
DOSTOEVSKY AND ALL HIS WORKS HAVE BEEN OF IMMENSE VALUE TO
ME. BUT NOW I FEEL THERE IS A DEPTH OF SADNESS IN HIM, WHICH HE
SEEMS TO STOP -- AS IF SOMETHING OF THE OPPOSITE IS MISSING. COULD
YOU PLEASE SHED SOME LIGHT ON THIS?
Jivan Mada, Fyodor Dostoevsky is a very special case -- he was a genius. If one has to decide on ten great novels in all the languages of the world, he will have to choose at least three novels of Dostoevsky in the ten.
His insight into human beings and their problems is greater than your so-called psychoanalysts, and there are moments where he reaches the heights of great mystics. But he is a sick soul; he himself is a psychological case.
He needs all the compassion, because he lived in suffering, utter suffering. He never knew a moment of joy; he was pure anguish, angst. But still he managed
to write novels which perhaps are the best in the whole literature of the world. BROTHERS
KARAMAZOV is so great in its insights that no BIBLE or KORAN or GITA can be a competitor to it.
And this is the strange fact about him: that he was writing such great insights as if he was possessed, but he himself was living in hell. He created it himself. He never loved anybody, he was never loved by anybody. He never knew that there is something like laughter; he was sickly serious. I don't see that he ever felt even a single moment of blissfulness. There is nobody else in the whole history of man who was so sick, and yet had such clarity about things. He was a madman with a method.
You are saying, "One line from Dostoevsky has impressed me much in my childhood. He says, Ìn suffering look for happiness.'"
That statement will appeal to many people because many are suffering, and one can tolerate suffering only if one goes on looking for happiness; if not today then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Suffering can be tolerated only through hope. Then one can suffer his whole life, just looking for happiness.
Your being impressed by the statement is dangerous. One should not look for happiness; one should look for the causes of suffering, because that is the way to come out of suffering. And the moment you are out of suffering there is happiness. Happiness is not something that you have to wait for. You can wait for infinity and happiness will not come to you, unless you destroy the causes of suffering.
I will not agree with the statement. I will say, "In suffering look for the causes of suffering." Don't waste your time about happiness; it is none of your business. You are suffering; suffering is your state. Look what is causing it -- jealousy, anger, inferiority complex -- what is causing it?
And the miracle is: if you can go into your suffering as a meditation, watching, to the deepest roots of it, just through watching, it disappears. You don't have to do anything more than watching. If you have found the authentic cause by your watching, the suffering will disappear; and if it is not disappearing, that means you are not watching deep enough.
So it is a very simple process and with a criterion: if your watching is deep enough... just the way you pull out a plant to look at its roots, it dies, because the roots outside the earth cannot survive. In the light is their death.
Suffering can exist only if its roots remain in the unconscious of your being. If you go deep down searching and looking for the roots, the moment you become conscious of the roots of suffering, suffering disappears. The disappearance of suffering is what you call happiness.
Happiness has not to be found somewhere else; it was always with you, but the cloud of suffering was covering it. Happiness is our nature.
To say it in other words: for suffering you have to make much effort, for happiness you don't have to make any effort. Just stop making the effort to create suffering.
"I used to think that nothing of value could be attained without sacrifice and hard work."
That is the disease Christianity has been spreading all over the world. In fact, everything of authentic value is achieved by relaxation, by silence, by joy. The idea of sacrifice and hard work will create more suffering for you. But once the idea gets settled in your mind, your mind will go on telling you that you are suffering because you are not working hard enough, that your sacrifice is not total.
Hard work is needed to create things. Sacrifice is needed when you have something of value, truth, love, enlightenment. And when there is an attack by the mob on your experience, one is ready to sacrifice, but not to compromise.
Sacrifice is not in finding the truth; sacrifice is when you have found it -- then you will be in trouble. Sacrifice is not in finding love, but when you have found it you will be in trouble. Then either compromise or sacrifice. The cowards compromise. The people who have guts sacrifice -- but sacrifice is not a means to attain anything.
"After meeting you and drinking your message of love, life, enjoyment and celebration, I realized that my previous idea was quite masochistic and suicidal."
It is good that you understood something very significant. All your saints who
have been sacrificing and working hard and torturing themselves, are just masochistic and suicidal.
And because they are worshipped, they go on continuing more and more masochistic torture to themselves.
And the people who are worshipping them also have the same desire, but not the courage; they also want to be saints, perhaps in a future life. At least in this life they can worship the saints.
The whole past of humanity has been dominated by masochistic, sadistic, and suicidal people. That's why there is so much misery. To be blissful in this world looks as if you are committing a crime; to dance with joy amongst so many dead people all around... you cannot be forgiven.
I have always thought that Christianity became the greatest religion of the world because Jesus was on the cross. Just think, if he was with his girlfriend on the beach there would not have been any Christianity, although he would have enjoyed.…
And why did it become the greatest religion? Almost half of humanity is Christian.
Because he represents your deepest desire. You also want to be crucified, and in different ways you are crucifying yourself; in the name of duty, in the name of nations, in the name of the religion.…
Jesus says, "Everybody has to carry his cross on his shoulders." But why? this will look very awkward -- wherever you go you will be carrying your cross. But nobody has objected to it. Nobody has said, "Why?" And if I say that everybody has to carry his guitar they all condemn me! The whole world is against a single man who is not saying anything sick.
This is a sick idea, carrying your cross. Can't you carry anything else? Just a flowerpot?
If you are determined to carry... then there are more beautiful things in the world. A cross is not something... just a bamboo flute will do, light in weight. And you can do something with it. You can play on it -- a beautiful tune, a song; you can dance. What are you going to do with the cross? -- except crucify yourself. So
why carry it. Why not crucify it here and now? Unnecessarily carrying such weight.…
Jesus was only thirty-three years of age, and he fell three times while he was carrying the cross -- the cross was so heavy. And naturally, if it becomes the fashion that everybody has to carry his cross, you will see that people will be carrying heavier and heavier crosses, heavier than everybody else! You will feel embarrassed if you are carrying a small cross -- are you childish or what? A heavy cross is needed so that you fall on the road many times and have many fractures.…
But Christianity is masochistic. It does not know anything about enjoying life. It knows only about sacrificing life -- sacrificing for some stupid fiction. It knows nothing of singing and dancing and celebration.
You say, "I love Dostoevsky and all his works have been of immense value to me. But now I feel there is a depth of sadness in him, which he seems to stop -- as if something of the opposite is missing."
There is not only sadness in him, there is absolutely suicidal instinct; he is tired and bored with life itself. In his best book, BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, one of the characters, Ivan Karamazov, makes a very significant statement. Perhaps Dostoevsky himself is speaking through him.
Ivan Karamazov says, "If there is a God and I meet him, I am going to return his ticket and ask him, `Why did you send me life without asking me? What right do you have? I want to return the ticket to you.'" This is a suicidal instinct.
He lived very miserably and has always written that existence has no meaning, that it has no significance, that it is accidental, that there is nothing to find -- no truth, no love, no joy. All his conclusions are wrong. But the man was tremendously capable, a great genius. Even if he writes things which are wrong, he writes with such art and such beauty that millions of people have been influenced by him -- just like you, Jivan Mada.
The danger is: the words can be beautiful and the message can be poison, pure poison.
His insights are deep -- but they are always deep -- to find more suffering in life, more misery in life. He is determined in all his works to prove that life is an
exercise of utter futility. He influenced the contemporary philosophical movement of existentialism -- he became a pioneer.
I also love him, but I also feel sad and sorry for him. He was a man who could have danced, who could have loved, who could have lived with tremendous totality and intensity. But he served death rather than life. Read him -- there is nothing better to read -
- but remember you are reading a psychopath, a man who is deeply sick, incurably sick.
His whole work is just a dark night which knows no dawn. Okay Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #9
Chapter title: I want you to become the dance 26 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8704265
ShortTitle: GOLDEN09
Audio: Yes Video:
Yes Length:
93
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
NIETZSCHE'S MAXIM: "ONE IS PUNISHED MOST FOR ONE'S VIRTUES" I SEE
THE TRUTH OF MOST CLEARLY IN YOU. BUT EVEN A MAN WHO IS
VIRTUOUS BY SOCIETY'S STANDARDS IS SUBTLY PUNISHED TOO, ISN'T HE?
-- PUNISHED BY JEALOUSY AND CRITICISM. IT IS AS IF ONE IS ONLY
MEANT TO STRIVE TOWARDS; TO ATTAIN IS AN ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT
MATTER. IS THIS SO?
Maneesha, Friedrich Nietzsche's maxim: "One is punished most for one's virtues" has a very deep and different meaning from what you have seen in it.
The man of virtue is not in any way a hypocrite; he is sincere, truthful. Society consists of hypocrites; they want virtue also to be a hypocrisy, and they have created false virtues which have no relation at all to any authentic virtuousness.
The people who conform to the society's idea of virtues are never punished; they are rewarded, they are respected. They are not stoned to death, they are not crucified. They are crowned as saints, as sages, as wise people; every kind of honor is given to them. But the basic condition is that they should conform to the idea of the society. They should not bother whether it is really virtuous; they should not even inquire.
Absolute surrender is needed by the society, a total enslavement. Only then the society gives respectability -- only to the slaves, only to those who have committed spiritual suicide. They are not really virtuous people. Just look around in different societies so that you can have a sense of how real virtue and the so-called virtue of the societies are diametrically opposite.
In India you will find Hindu monks all getting fat and ugly because it is thought by the Hindus that to eat milk products is a virtue, because the cow is a holy animal. So the Hindu monk goes on eating milk products, goes on gathering fat -
- bigger the belly, bigger the saint. If you want to measure the height of the saint you have to measure his belly.
The Jaina monks eat only one time a day -- and that too, standing. To make everything as uncomfortable as possible is a virtue. Now I cannot conceive what sin there is in sitting comfortably and eating. And because they have to eat only one time a day, they eat as much as possible -- to compensate, because then they have to wait twenty-four hours again. So their bodies become thin and their bellies become big -- but it is respected.
One of the sects of the Jainas believes that a saint is perfect only when he starts living naked. But what is the virtue in being naked? All the animals are naked. First these monks torture their bodies in every way. They cannot use anything except their own hands; for eating they will have to make a cup of their hands, they cannot use a plate.
That is thought to be renunciation, great renouncing of the world and worldly things.
Then it goes to the extreme of stupidity. They cannot use razor blades, so they have to pull out their hairs with their own hands. It is such an ugly scene. Thousands of people, men, women, children, gather to see -- this is a very special occasion, a very holy occasion -- when a Jaina monk pulls out his hairs, beard, mustache. Tears are coming from his eyes. He is standing naked, surrounded by people; his whole body is a skeleton except the belly, and all these people are looking at the scene with such respect. They will take those hairs and make lockets of them -- they are holy hairs. They will kiss the ground on which the saint was standing -- it is holy ground.
But I don't see that there is any virtue in it. Certainly the man who is doing this
act, performing this stupidity, is a masochist -- and the people who have gathered there to see him do it are certainly sadists. They love to see people being tortured, and when somebody is torturing himself, that is a delicacy. Both are sick. But the masochist becomes a great saint and the sadists become followers.
Authentic virtue is a totally different thing. It needs a deep exploration of your own being, living according to your own insight, even if it goes -- and most often it will --
against the social norms, the ideals, and the conditioning.
Friedrich Nietzsche is saying, "One is punished most for one's virtues." But the virtues have to be your own, they have to be your own discoveries. And you have to be courageous and rebellious enough to live them, whatever the cost.
Socrates was asked by the judges, "We can forgive you if you stop speaking completely.
What you think is truth is not accepted by the people amongst whom you have to live.
They are offended by your truth. If you promise -- and we can trust you, we know you are a man of your word -- if you promise not to speak again, to just be silent, you can save your life."
The answer that Socrates gave is to be remembered forever by all those who, in some way, are interested in truth. He said, "I'm living only to speak the truth. Life was given to me by existence to experience truth, and now I'm repaying life by spreading the truth to those who are groping in the dark. If I cannot speak then I don't see any point -- why should I live? My life and my message of truth are synonymous. Please don't try to seduce me. If I am alive I will speak."
The judges were at a loss. One of the judges said, "You are too stubborn, Socrates."
Socrates said, "It is not I who is stubborn; it is truth, it is virtue which is stubborn. Truth knows no compromise. It is better to die than to be condemned forever because I compromised for a small life. I'm already old; death will come anyway. And it is far more beautiful to accept death, because then death also becomes meaningful. I'm accepting it on the grounds that even death cannot stop
me from speaking."
Society has virtues. There are hundreds of societies in the world, so naturally there are hundreds of different kinds of virtues. Something is virtuous in one society and the same thing is unvirtuous in another society.
For example, the whole world economy depends on the system of charging interest. A society becomes richer if the money moves faster and does not remain stuck in one hand, but the money can move faster only if there is some incentive. Why should I give my money to somebody else unless I can earn something out of it? Interest is nothing but a strategy to make the money move from one hand to another hand. And the faster the money moves, the richer the society becomes.
Mohammedans are poor because interest is condemned by their religion as a sin. To take interest or to give interest is a great sin. Now Mohammedans can never be rich; or if they become rich, they have to be condemned by the society. They cannot take loans from the banks because interest will have to be paid. Mohammedanism is the world's second largest religion after Christianity, and they have remained poor for a single reason: that interest is thought to be a sin.
No other society thinks interest is a sin. What is the sin in it? You take somebody's money, you have to pay something; otherwise why should he give his money to you?
Interest is just a kind of rent. But the Mohammedan considers interest to be so unvirtuous that anybody who commits the sin loses all respect in the society. The same person will gain respect in any other society because he will become richer
-- and richness is respected.
The vegetarians are not willing to see a simple fact, that not a single vegetarian has received, up to now, a Nobel prize. Forty percent of Nobel prizes go to the Jews, which is simply out of proportion to their numbers; sixty percent go to the rest of the world and forty percent to the Jews alone. And why have vegetarians not been able to find a single Nobel prize? The reason is in their food, because it lacks a few vitamins which are absolutely necessary for intelligence to grow. It is virtuous, in a vegetarian society, not to eat meat -- but you are losing your intelligence.
Substitutes could have been found and I have been for thirty years continually
telling vegetarians, "You should start eating unfertilized eggs. They are absolutely vegetable because there is no life in them. And they contain all the vitamins that intelligence absolutely needs; otherwise you will remain retarded."
Vegetarians stopped asking me to speak at their conferences; they became my enemies, and I was simply suggesting to them something that is purely scientific and in their favor.
But they would rather listen to their tradition; they will not see the facts.
The virtues that society's concepts create are just manufactured by man's mind. If you agree with them you will be rewarded greatly. But what Nietzsche is saying is not about those virtues which are acceptable to any society, but about those virtues which an individual finds in the clarity of his own intelligence, in the silences of his own heart, in the understanding of his own being -- and follows them. He will be crucified, he will be stoned to death, because he will not be acceptable to the crowd.
You are saying, "Nietzsche's maxim: Òne is punished most for one's virtues' I see the truth of most clearly in You. But even a man who is virtuous by society's standards is subtly punished too, isn't he? -- punished by jealousy and criticism."
No, Maneesha, he is not punished by jealousy or criticism. He is certainly punished by his own virtue -- that is another thing -- because he will have to do something stupid, he will have to torture himself, he will have to go against his own intelligence. Only then can he fulfill the demands of the society that he should be virtuous.
But these saints and virtuous people are not punished by jealousy and criticism. Criticism is for those who are not following the virtuous; jealousy is for those who are enjoying life and are not being ascetics. The virtuous people are punished, they are punished by their own virtue, but their egos are so immensely satisfied that they are ready to do anything --
they can even commit suicide.
Jainism is the only religion in the world where even suicide is considered a virtue. Of course it has to be done in a certain methodological way: one has to fast unto death. It is a very torturous, long awaiting, because a healthy person can live without food for ninety days. And those ninety days, continuous hunger
and waiting for death... and people around him are singing religious songs and worshiping him. His pictures are printed in the newspapers with great respect, as though he is doing something very spiritual; he is leaving the condemned body. And even today, people do it.
So they are punished, but by their own virtue, not by others. Do you think anybody will feel jealous that somebody is committing suicide? Do you think somebody will criticize him? His worshipers will kill whoever criticizes him.
"It is as if one is only meant to strive towards; to attain is an altogether different matter."
That's true. Society talks about, scriptures talk about, great virtues of truth, of love, of silence, of peace, of brotherhood. But they are only to be talked about; you are not supposed to practice them. Yes, in the name of love you can kill as many people as you want. Millions of people have been killed in the name of Christian love; millions of others have been killed in the name of peace, by the Mohammedans.
These beautiful words are just decorative. They give you a good feeling that you have such a beautiful philosophy to live by, such beautiful, distant stars to reach
-- but don't try to reach to those stars, because a man of truth will not be acceptable in society!
The society lives by lies, so many lies that the man of truth is going to expose it -
- he is a danger. The man of love cannot be acceptable because the society lives by hate: one nation hates another, one religion hates another, one color hates another. There are so many groups, sects, cults and they are all hating each other and are ready to destroy each other. Just talk about love, write about love, but don't practice -- because a man of love is dangerous. That means he will be against you whenever he sees any hatred, any anger.
For a man of love, nationality is nothing but a beautiful name for hatred. Religious organizations are nothing but sophisticated ways of hating others who don't belong to your organization, to your herd, to your crowd.
Friedrich Nietzsche is right; his whole life's experience is condensed in that small statement. He suffered for his virtues.
The Italian priest was preaching about sex and morality to his congregation.
"Sex is-a dirty", he shouted. "I wanna see only good-a girls today. I wanna every virgin in-a church to-a stand up."
Not a soul moved. Then after a long pause a sexy looking blond holding an infant in her arms got to her feet. "Virgins is-a what I want," said the outraged priest.
"Hey father," she asked, "you expect a two month old baby to stand by herself?"
I was in Greece and one of my sannyasins, Amrito, who was my hostess, told me that virginity is the most important quality preached by the Greek Orthodox church. I said,
"But are there virgins in Greece?"
She said, "That is a different matter. I have not come across any virgins."
As a doctrine it is beautiful, but in reality virginity should not be a virtue; it is going against nature. In fact, a man who has any intelligence should not marry a girl who is a virgin; you should expect some experience.
When you employ a servant you ask, "What are your qualifications? Bring all your certificates." You are going to marry a woman for your whole life; you should at least think that if she has remained a virgin that means no man was attracted to her up to now, so why are you being stupid? First ask how many people she has been in love with. The more experienced she is the better companion she will prove to be, because experience is always valuable. Experience is a virtue in every field!
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
WHILST YOU WERE SPEAKING ON KAHLIL GIBRAN AND ZARATHUSTRA, YOUR WORDS SEEMED TO PENETRATE WITHOUT MY INTERPRETATION
DIRECTLY TO THE CENTER OF MY BEING. I EXPERIENCED AN ATTUNEMENT, A COMMUNION HAPPENING AS NECTAR THAT WAS
FILLING
MY BEING. SOMETIMES, WITHOUT SOBBING, TEARS SIMPLY POURED FROM
MY EYES, AND AFTER ALMOST EVERY DISCOURSE I FELT FOR A LONG
WHILE IN TOUCH WITH SOMETHING FAR BEYOND WHAT I KNOW OF AS
MYSELF. WITH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I STILL
FEEL THAT SPECIAL WHATEVER-IT-IS THAT COMES WHEN SITTING WITH
YOU, BUT NOT WITH THE DEPTH OF INTENSITY I HAVE JUST DESCRIBED.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
Prabodh Nityo, the question you have asked raises many other questions too. I would like to cover all the implications in short, because it is important not only to you but for everyone else here.
The first thing: as far as I am concerned, the question-answer sessions are more significant because they relate to you, they relate to your growth. Certainly you are groping in darkness, trying to find a way. You cannot ask questions of the heights of Zarathustra, of Kahlil Gibran -- and I have to answer your reality.
Listening to Zarathustra and Kahlil Gibran is a good and great entertainment: you may sob and you may have tears and you may feel great, but it is all hot air! You remain the same -- nothing changes in you. I speak sometimes on Buddha, on Chuang Tzu, on Zarathustra, just to give you an insight into the heights people have reached, just to make you aware of those distant stars. They are not so distant as they look -- people like us have reached there. It is within your grasp.
That is the reason why, on Zarathustra and Buddha and Bodhidharma and a
thousand others, I have spoken: to create a longing in you. But just the longing is not enough. Then I have to give you the path; then I have to sort out the mess that you are, and put your fragments, which are spread all over the space... to find out where your legs are and where your head is and put them all together, and somehow push you on the path.
The question-answer sessions are concerned with you, your growth, your progress -- the place where you are. And the discourses on Zarathustra or Kahlil Gibran are concerned with the places where you should be -- but you are not yet there.
So I disagree with you. I can understand that you enjoy the dream that is created when one is hearing about Buddha.… You have nothing to do; you are just listening to great poetry, listening to a great song, listening to great music, seeing a great dance. But you are not singing, you are not becoming the poetry, you are not becoming the dance. And I want you to become the dance; I want you to reach to the greatest heights that anybody has ever reached.
So I have to keep a balance, talking about the dreamlands and then talking about the dark caves where you are hiding, very reluctant to come out in the light. You want to hear about light and you enjoy, but you remain hiding in your dark cave. You want to hear about strange lands, beautiful stories and parables, but it is mere entertainment.
You should be more concerned when I am answering the questions, because they can change your reality. I have to do both jobs: create the longing, give a glimpse of the goal, and then clean the path and grease your parts -- because you have never moved in many many lives, you are sitting in a junkyard -- to put you back on the wheels and rolling.
The second job is difficult, and not very juicy either. But it is absolutely necessary.
Secondly, I have to remind you of one thing. When I was speaking on Zarathustra... it is a very complicated affair, because I was not speaking directly on Zarathustra; I was speaking on a Zarathustra who is an invention of Friedrich Nietzsche. All the great insights are given by Nietzsche to Zarathustra.
Zarathustra... many times his original books have been brought to me, and they are so ordinary that I have never spoken on them. Nietzsche has used Zarathustra
only as a symbolic figure, just as Kahlil Gibran was using Almustafa, which was a completely fictitious name. Nietzsche has used a historical name, but in a very fictitious way. He is putting his insights into the mouth of Zarathustra.
So first you should remember it is Nietzsche's Zarathustra; it has nothing much to do with the original Zarathustra. And secondly, when I am speaking on it, I don't care what Nietzsche means, and I don't even have any way to know what he means; the way he used Zarathustra, I am using him! So it is a very complicated story. It is my Nietzsche, and via Nietzsche it is my Zarathustra. So whatever heights you are flying in have nothing to do with Zarathustra.
I have been speaking on hundreds of mystics, but it is always that I am speaking. And I know perfectly well that if by chance, somewhere, I meet these people, they are going to be very angry. They are going to be really enraged and say, "I never meant that." But my problem is, "How can I know what you had meant?" I can only mean what I mean. So whether it is Zarathustra or Buddha or Jesus or Chuang Tzu, once they pass through me they have my signature on them. You are always listening to me.
When I am answering your questions I am more concerned with your growth, with your actual problems; they are more earthly. So don't be deceived; many people have been deceived. I have been reminding you, but people's memories are not great.
I was speaking on Gautam Buddha in Varanasi and one Buddhist, a very renowned scholar in Buddhism, said to me, "I have been reading the same scriptures. But you have revealed such great depths and heights that I was never aware of; you have confirmed my faith in Gautam Buddha."
I said, "If you don't get angry with me... you should confirm your faith in me." He said, "What?"
I said, "Yes, because whatever you were reading was perhaps exactly what Buddha meant, and the depths and heights I am talking about are my experiences."
But what to do? There are idiots all over the world. If you want Buddhist idiots to listen to you, you just have to say the name "Buddha" and that's enough; then you can say anything you want. If you want Hindus to listen to you, you have to
talk about Krishna.
I am always talking about myself; I cannot talk about anybody else -- how can I? Five thousand years ago, what was Krishna thinking, what was in his mind?... but when they listen to me they think, "My God, we were not aware that Krishna had such depths, such heights." Krishna had nothing. Those heights and those depths are my experiences that I am hanging on anybody; these people function like hooks, I simply hang my idea on them.
And even great scholars... this man was Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap; he was dean of the faculty of Buddhism in the University of Varanasi, a very learned man. But when I said this to him, he became a permanent enemy. I said, "What happened to the heights and to the depths?"
People are much more concerned with names. If I say to you that "Zarathustra said this,"
you listen with great attention. The very name Zarathustra looks so ancient, so prophetic, that he must have said something... and trust me, I know him, he is a poor guy. But don't tell this to anybody! This is just a private conversation with you.
Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was getting tired of lying on his back, so he rolled over and saw an old woman praying, down in the chapel. He leaned over the edge of the scaffold and shouted, "I'm Jesus Christ! I'm Jesus Christ!
Listen to me and I will perform miracles!"
The Italian lady looked up and clasping her rosary answered back, "Shut up-a your mouth. I'm talking to your mother!"
Michelangelo must have been thinking that he was joking with the old woman, but he was at a loss when he heard this. Of course, a mother is a mother, and you should not interfere between two old women talking... just go on and play outside!
So don't be disturbed. If you want I can go on talking about any historical, mythological, fictitious figure; I can create my own fictions. Do you think all the stories that I have told you have happened? They should have happened! -- they
are so significant. But if I tell you that I am just making up this story, you will not be very interested; you will not be flying high.
Once in a while I want you to fly high, but it is just an imaginary flight. Really, I want you to be one day actually on those heights but for that, practical work is needed, pragmatic work is needed.
Just for you to fly a little high.…
Goldstein, a string merchant from New York, was trying desperately to sell some of his goods in Alabama, but wherever he went he kept encountering anti- semitism. In one department store the manager taunted him, "Alright, Goldstein. I will buy some of your string -- as much as reaches from the top of your nose to the tip of your Jewish prick."
Two weeks later, the manager was startled to receive a shipment containing eight hundred cartons of grade-A string. Attached was a note: "Many thanks for your generous order. Invoice to follow. Signed: Jacob Goldstein, residing in New York, circumcised in Kiev."
Okay Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #10
Chapter title: Life is not short life is eternal 27 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8704270
ShortTitle: GOLDEN10
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
94
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
YOU ONCE TOLD ME TO OPEN ALL MY WINDOWS SO I COULD HAVE THE
SUNRISE IN THE EAST, AND THE SUNSET IN THE WEST. I FEEL SO MANY
POSSIBILITIES INSIDE ME THAT I OFTEN DON'T TAKE ENOUGH TIME TO
EXPLORE THEM IN DEPTH; RATHER, I FEEL THAT BY SIMPLY TOUCHING ON
THEM I KNOW THEM ALREADY SO WELL THAT I FEEL THE URGE TO MOVE
ONTO THE NEXT ONE. IT SEEMS LIFE IS TOO SHORT, AND SO MUCH STILL
NEEDS TO BE DISCOVERED AND DEVELOPED. AM I SUPERFICIAL AND TOO
MUCH IN A HURRY? THE ONLY CONTINUITY IN MY LIFE IS YOU, AND I FEEL I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TOUCH YOUR DEPTH.
PLEASE, BELOVED
MASTER, GIVE SOME GUIDANCE TO ME.
Indradhanu, everybody has to go according to his own heart feeling; if you feel at ease to move from one thing to another, it is perfectly right for you. The whole question is that whatever you do should be a deep pleasure, without any tension. If you force yourself to explore any possibility more deeply, you may create tension in yourself. If it feels enough, that touching a certain possibility has given you enough juice to move on, then move on. Perhaps that is natural; to you that is your natural pace.
One should never go against one's nature. That is the only sin, according to me, to go against one's nature; and the only virtue is to go with your nature in total harmony. And never compare yourself with others; everybody is different, and everybody's liking is different. Once you start comparing, thinking that, "Somebody is going deeper into things, moving more slowly, and I am moving faster," then tension will arise in you:
"Perhaps I am hurrying too much." All these tensions arise out of comparison.
Remember one thing: You have to be in tune with your own nature, not in tune with anybody else. So always feel within yourself. If it is pleasant, do it. If it feels tense, forced, then it is not for you. Don't do it.
Always go with the river of life. Never try to go against the current, and never try to go faster than the river. Just move in absolute relaxation, so that each moment you are at home, at ease, at peace with existence.
The second thing you have to remember is that life is not short; life is eternal, so there is no question of any hurry. By hurrying you can only miss. In existence do you see any hurry? Seasons come in their time, flowers come in their time, trees are not running to grow fast because life is short. It seems as if the whole existence is aware of the eternity of life.
We have been here always, and we will be here always -- of course not in the same forms, and not in the same bodies. Life goes on evolving, reaching to higher stages. But there is no end anywhere, and there has been no beginning anywhere either. You exist between a beginningless life and an endless life. You are always in the middle of two eternities on both sides.
Your conditioning has given you the idea of one life. The Christian idea, the Jewish idea, the Mohammedan idea -- which are all rooted in the Jewish conception that there is only one life -- has given the West a tremendous madness for speed. Everything has to be done in such a hurry that you cannot enjoy doing it, and you cannot do it in its entire perfection. You somehow manage to do it and rush to another thing.
The Western man has been living under a very wrong conception: It has created so much tension in people's minds that they can never be at ease anywhere; they are always on the go, and they are always worried that one never knows when the end is coming. Before the end they want to do everything. But the result is just the opposite; they cannot even manage to do a few things gracefully, beautifully, perfectly.
Their life is so much overshadowed by death that they cannot live joyously. Everything that brings joy seems to be a wastage of time. They cannot just sit silently for an hour, because their mind is saying to them, "Why are you wasting the hour? You could have done this, you could have done that."
It is because of this conception of one life that the idea of meditation never arose in the West. Meditation needs a very relaxed mind, with no hurry, with no worry, with nowhere to go... just enjoying moment to moment, whatever comes.
In the East, meditation was bound to be discovered, just because of the idea of life's eternity -- you can relax. You can relax without any fear, you can enjoy and play your flute, you can dance and sing your song, you can enjoy the sunrise and the sunset. You can enjoy your whole life. Not only that, you can enjoy even dying, because death too is a great experience, perhaps the greatest experience in life. It is a crescendo.
In the Western concept, death is the end of life. In the Eastern concept, death is only a beautiful incident in the long procession of life; there will be many, many deaths. Each death is a climax of your life, before another life begins -- another form, another label, another consciousness. You are not ending, you are simply changing the house.
I am reminded of Mulla Nasruddin. A thief entered into his house; Mulla was sleeping, not really, just with closed eyes, in between opening them and seeing what the thief is doing. But he did not believe in interfering in people's work.
The thief was not interfering with his sleep, why should he interfere with his profession? Let him do it.
The thief was a little concerned that this man seemed to be strange. As he was carrying everything out of the house, sometimes something fell from his hands and there was noise, but Mulla remained completely asleep. A suspicion arose in the thief's mind that this type of sleep is possible only if a man is awake: "What a strange man that he does not say anything; I'm just emptying his whole house!." All the furniture went out, all the pillows went out, everything that was in the house went out.
And when the thief was collecting everything, binding them to carry home, he suddenly felt, "Somebody is following me." He looked back, it was the same man who was asleep.
He said, "Why are you following me?"
Mulla said, "No, I'm not following you; we are changing the house. You have taken everything. Now what am I going to do in this house? So I am also coming."
This at-easeness is the Eastern way; even with death the East has followed the idea... just changing the house.
The thief was worried; he said, "Forgive me, take your things."
Mulla said, "No, there is no need. I was thinking myself to change the house; it is almost in ruins. You can't have a worse house than this, and anyway I am a very lazy man. I need somebody to take care of me, and when you have taken everything, why leave me alone?"
The thief became afraid that... he had been stealing his whole life. He had never come across such a man. He said, "You can take your things."
Mulla said, "No, there is not going to be any change. You will have to carry the things, otherwise I am going to the police station. I am behaving like a gentleman, I am not calling you a thief, but just a man who is helping me to change the house."
There is no hurry, so your idea of a short life is a dangerous idea. That's why
even though the East is very poor, there is no despair, there is no anguish. The West is rich, but the richness has not brought anything to its spirituality, or its growth; on the contrary, the West is very tense. It should be more relaxed, it has all the comforts of life.
But the basic problem is that deep down the West knows that life is such a short thing; we are standing in a queue, and every moment we are coming closer to death. Since we were born, we started the journey towards the graveyard. Every moment life is being cut --
becoming shorter and shorter. This creates a tension, an anguish, an anxiety. All the comforts, all the luxuries, all the riches become meaningless, because you cannot take them away with you. You will have to go into death alone.
The East is relaxed. First, it does not give death any importance; it is just a change of form. Second, because it is so relaxed, you become aware of your inner riches, which will be going with you -- even beyond life. Death cannot take them away.
Death can take everything that is outside you and, if you have not grown your inner being, naturally there will be fear that you cannot save anything from death; it will take everything that you have. But if you have grown your inner being, if you have found peace, blissfulness, silence, joy, which are not dependent on anything outside, if you have found your garden of being and seen the flowers of your own consciousness, the question of fearing death does not arise at all.
Indradhanu, again I say to you, remember only one thing: You are an immortal being.
Right now, it is not your experience; right now, if you love me, if you have any trust in me, you can accept it as a hypothesis -- not as a belief, but a hypothesis to experiment with.
I never want anybody to accept anything from me as a belief, but only as a hypothesis.
Because I know the truth of it, I need not enforce belief and faith on you. Knowing the truth I can say to you, "It is just for experiment, a temporary hypothesis," because I am absolutely certain that if your experiment, your
hypothesis will change into your own knowing -- not in a belief, not in a faith, but in a certainty. And only certainties can save you. Beliefs are boats made of paper.
One should not think that one can cross the ocean of existence on a boat made of paper.
You need a certainty... not a belief, but a truth that is experienced by yourself. Not somebody else's truth, but your own. Then it is a joy to go into the unknown, uncharted ocean; it is a tremendous excitement and ecstasy.
But always keep in tune with your own nature.
Some trees grow slowly, some trees grow fast; there is nothing special in growing fast or in growing slowly. One thing is similar to both trees -- they are both following their natures. It is only man who looks all around, starts comparing, and gets into unnecessary anxieties.
Whenever you feel a problem, look within your heart. If you are at ease, you are on the right path. Your heart is the criterion. If it is disturbed, that means you have to change the path; something has gone wrong, you have gone astray.
The heart is your guide. When it is completely in harmony with nature, there is a beautiful dance and a music in your heart. When you go away from nature the music becomes just noise, the dance becomes disturbed. These are the signs and the language of the heart to make you aware whether you are going right or wrong.
You don't need any guidance from anybody. Your guide is within yourself. Question 2
BELOVED OSHO,
YES, YOU HAVE DISTURBED MY SLUMBER; NOW, WAKING TO A MORNING
SUN, BIRDS SING AND LEAVES DANCE IN THE BREEZE. SITTING IN YOUR
GARDEN IS SO SWEET. SITTING WITH YOU, THERE IS MORE AND MORE JOY
EACH DAY. IS THIS JUICE IN YOUR PRESENCE INCREASING SO MUCH THESE DAYS, OR AM I JUST NOW NOTICING WHAT'S BEEN HERE ALL ALONG?
Nityanando, what you are experiencing now has always been here, but you were not here.
For the first time you are also here -- that's why you are noticing.
You may have come here many times, but it was only a coming of your physical body.
Your mind was wandering somewhere else, your being was not here. Now you have known the knack to be here and now, and the juice that you are feeling will go on growing, because your presence will go on becoming more and more crystallized.
The juice has always been here, the flowers have always been blossoming here, the cool breeze was always blowing here, the trees and the sun rays... but you were blind.
For the first time you have opened your eyes, for the first time your senses have become alive. The more alive they become, the more profound are the experiences waiting for you. It all depends on your sensitivity, your awareness, your being silently just here and now.
It is possible that there may be somebody else who is not feeling any juice, who is not feeling anything at all, and he will go with the idea that there is nothing. This is how your mind befools you; it never allows you to be aware of your blindness, your unawareness, your unattentiveness. On the contrary, if somebody says to such a person, "You have missed something," he will retort, "You are hypnotized! I am a rational man; you have allowed yourself to be hypnotized and you have forgotten all rationality."
People protect their blindness, protect their unconsciousness, they protect their
misery; anything that is theirs -- it may be hell -- they will protect it.
But to be really with me, you have to put all your defenses away, you have to be vulnerable -- because we are not here to fight with each other. We are here to have a deep rapport, a deep accord, a harmony in which all differences dissolve... and there are not so many people, but a single silence, a single peace that passeth understanding.
Those who cannot put their defenses away need all the compassion. They may think that they are rational beings, but they are really unconscious beings. Eyes don't need reason, because eyes can see light without any reason; only blind men think about light, reason about light -- for or against, believe in light, disbelieve in light -- but the man who has eyes neither believes nor disbelieves, he is neither for nor against. He simply knows: light is there. It has to be enjoyed, not argued about.
Nityanando, you are in a state in which I want everybody to be. But people are so strange! I have heard... a great astronomer was concluding his lecture at the synagogue:
"... And some of my colleagues believe that our own sun will probably die within four or five billion years."
"How many years did you say?" asked Mrs. Siegel, from the back of the room. "Four or five billion," replied the scientist.
"Phew," said Mrs. Siegel. "I thought you said million."
People are very strange... as if she has understood! It does not matter in existence -- four billion or four million -- but perhaps million is the biggest number she knows. If it is four billion, no problem.
If you are listening with your mind there will come many such moments; if you are not listening with the mind but with the heart, there will not come any such moment. And listening with the heart is the only true listening.
Ronald Reagan came home and found his wife Nancy in bed with his very best friend, Edwin Meese.
"Hey, what do you think you are doing?"
"See," Nancy said to Meese, "I told you he was stupid. Now he can see everything and he is asking, `What is going on?'"
Your experiences are fresh. This is the beauty of the inner experiences, that they always remain fresh. You cannot make them mechanical. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, whenever you will be here... the same perfume, the same presence, the same juice -- but with a new taste, with a deeper understanding, with a greater sensitivity.
In the spiritual life nothing becomes old, it always remains fresh. And its freshness keeps you, even to the last breath of your life, young.
The mystic always dies young. His age may be a hundred years or a hundred and twenty years, it does not matter. He always dies young because his sources of life are continuously being refreshed; a fresh breeze is passing through him, fresh rays of the sun are passing through him, fresh moonlight and fresh stars are always arising in him.
Nityanando, you are blessed. Don't lose track. You have come to the right point. Become more and more centered on that point.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE MANAGED TO TIE UP MY CAMEL. THE LION ROARS IN DISTANT, UNKNOWN JUNGLES, THE CHILD IS NOT YET CONCEIVED, AND THE
STUBBORN MULE GOES NOWHERE. CAN YOU COMMENT?
Devaprem, Zarathustra has no idea about a stubborn mule; you seem to belong to a totally different category. You are neither a camel, nor a lion, nor a child -- you are a mule. And with the mule there are many difficulties.
Have you ever thought that the mule cannot conceive a child? Mules don't give birth to children; they are cross-breeds between donkeys and horses. They have all that is the worst in donkeys and all that is worst in horses. But one thing is
good about them: they don't leave a new generation, they simply die.
I would like you to consider again. Look into a mirror... because Zarathustra has absolutely categorized, and there is no place for the mule. You will find a camel in the mirror.
And you say, "I have managed to tie up my camel." If you have managed to tie up your camel, then the only criterion to prove it will be the lion's roar. But you are saying, "The lion roars in distant unknown jungles." The camel has to become the lion... the camel has the capacity to become the lion.
These are metaphors that Zarathustra has used. The moment the camel rebels against slavery, he becomes a lion, and suddenly there is the roar! One of the most beautiful experiences is to hear the lion roar. And the process is such that if the mule becomes the lion... the lion is only a passage, a bridge. The child is always there. It is not a question of conceiving a child; everybody is pregnant, born pregnant with the child, just the right opportunity.…
In the camel the right opportunity is not there; in the lion is the right opportunity for the child to be born. But rather than going the simple way, you are stuck with some mule, a stubborn mule. Do you know any other kind? All mules are stubborn, that is their great quality.
But recognize exactly where you are. No man is a mule, because man is not a crossbreed. You have to begin with the camel. And you are not supposed to hear the lion roar faraway, "in distant unknown jungles." That lion's roar will not help. The roar has to come from your deepest heart. And in that very roar you will become, for the first time, aware that the child is coming.
The child is our destiny.
One has to become, finally, as innocent as a child, full of wonder and surprise, full of trust and love, absolutely in tune with existence. That's what is meant by the child. These are metaphors. But I can understand what you mean by, "the stubborn mule goes nowhere."
The pope stood before a hushed crowd of attentive Italian villagers. "My flock, you musta not use-a the pill," he warned.
Just then a beautiful young Signorina stepped forward and said, "Look -- you no
play-a the game, you no make-a the rules!"
A simple thing: You don't play the game -- you don't have the right to make the rules.
This is the quality of the mule; he does not like to move even an inch, wherever he is. In that sense our minds can be compared to mules.
You can watch your mind; it does not want to change anything. Every change means difficulty, readjustment, rearrangement -- but no change signifies death. I would like you to remember that the mind is a dead machine, it is simply a biocomputer. It resists all change, it is against evolution, and all the evolution that has happened in the world has happened through the people who were courageous enough to put the mind aside.
Putting the mind aside is what I mean by meditation. Mind is a mule; meditation is an eagle, flying to the farthest horizon across the sun, always ready to go into the unknown.
Devaprem, if the mule goes nowhere, get down from the mule. What is the need to go on sitting on the mule and looking stupid? Get down from the mule! It is better to walk on your own feet -- at least you can move, you can evolve to a better state of consciousness.
The whole religion can be condensed in one single word, and that is meditation. And meditation is a simple way to get down from the mule, to get down from the mind. Let the mind remain where it is; you start moving without it. And once you are not thinking through the mind, you will be able to understand Zarathustra's categories. You will find yourself first a slave in thousands of ways
-- a slave of your tradition, a slave of your education, a slave of your religion, a slave of all kinds of superstitions. You will find so many slaveries. Just a little courage, and let the camel revolt against any enslavement.
All the great teachers of the world have been insisting for a revolution against the slavery that keeps your spirit in a status quo. And once the slavery is thrown away, the camel goes through the metamorphosis, becomes a lion. He had always been a lion; he became a camel because of the slavery.
And the moment he becomes a lion -- courageous and brave, ready to go into the unknown, ready to be alone -- the child is not faraway. The second
metamorphosis will happen; you will find the lion turning into a child. And the child is the ultimate state of liberation.
The innocence of the child is his wisdom; the simplicity of the child is his egolessness.
The freshness of the child is the freshness of your consciousness, which never becomes old, which always remains young. It has passed through thousands of bodies: they became young, they became old, they died. But the consciousness continues, a young river, fresh, dancing towards the ocean. The wondering eyes of the child is the opening of your being to all the great mysteries of existence.
The scientist also tries to discover the mysteries and their secrets, but his method is violent; it is more a rape than a love. He dissects, he attacks. The behavior of the scientist with nature is not human; it is very inhuman.
The child and the sage also come to know the mysteries of existence, but in a way that can be called only playfulness, that can be called only loving radiation. And existence itself is eager to open its heart to the loving child, to open its secrets to the wondering eyes of the child.
Lao Tzu says, "The moment you drop knowledge, you become wise."
The moment you stop inquiring into the mysteries of existence, existence itself opens up all its doors, invites you. And to enter the mysteries of existence as a guest is dignified.
To attack nature, to force nature is barbarous. Science is still barbarous, and science will remain barbarous unless it learns to be meditative too. Only meditation can change the barbariousness of science and can make it an innocent love affair with existence.
That will be a golden future: when science becomes a love affair with existence -
- not a struggle, not a conflict, but a deep harmony, a friendship.
Up to now, even the greatest thinkers like Bertrand Russell talk in terms which are barbarous. He has written a famous book; the title is THE CONQUEST OF NATURE.
The very idea of conquering nature is ugly. We are part of nature; how can the
part conquer the whole? Can you conceive that my left hand can conquer me? And we are such a small part of existence that the very idea of conquering it is quixotic.
But a different science is certainly needed; this science has failed. The old religion has failed. It has not delivered salvation to humanity, it has not brought what it has promised
-- blissfulness, benediction, godliness. All its promises have proved lies.
And now I want to say, science has also failed. In conquering nature, it has only created destructive weapons, atomic energy, nuclear missiles. Rather than conquering nature, it has succeeded in preparing a graveyard of the whole planet. Science has failed. It has not been able to serve life for the simple reason that the very idea of conquering is barbarous and violent.
We have to find a new religiousness and a new scientific approach, and they cannot be two different things. They can be two sides of one coin: Applied to the inner consciousness, it becomes religiousness; applied to the objective world, it becomes science.
But the basic reality is innocent, wondering, and loving eyes... a friendship, a harmony, a love affair.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #11
Chapter title: The sacred makes you speechless 17 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8705170
ShortTitle:
GOLDEN11
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
84
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT GAUTAM BUDDHA'S WORK CAME TO AN
END WHEN HE BECAME ENLIGHTENED, AND YOU STARTED YOUR WORK
AFTER YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT. COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT
THIS?
Prem Pankaja, one of the most important things to be remembered by all is the way you have started your question. The question is, "I have heard You say." Usually, people drop the first part. They simply say, "You have said this." And there is such a great difference between the two, such an immense difference that it is unbridgeable, and needs a great understanding.
Whatever you hear is not necessarily the thing said; what is said is not necessarily what you hear. The obvious reason is that I am speaking from a different space of being, and you are hearing from a totally different space. In the transmission, many things change.
It is always a sign of understanding to remember that whatever I have said may be totally different than what you have heard. Your question should be about what you have heard, because how can you ask a question about something which you have not heard?
Gautam Buddha, in his whole life, never allowed people to write down what he was saying. His reason was that if you are writing it down, your attention becomes divided.
You are no longer total. You have to hear and you have to write, and what he is saying is so subtle that unless you are total, you are going to miss it. So rather than writing it down, try with your totality and intensity to approach your heart, to let it sink within you.
He spoke for forty-two years continuously. After his death, the first question was to write down whatever the disciples remembered; otherwise it would have been lost to humanity.
They did a great service, and also a great disservice. They wrote down... but they came to see a strange phenomenon -- that everybody had heard something different. Their memory, their remembrance, was not the same.
Thirty-two schools sprang up, proclaiming, "This is what Buddha has said." Only one man -- a man to be remembered forever, his closest disciple, Ananda -- who was not even enlightened before Buddha died Just out of his humbleness,
knowing, "I was unenlightened, how can I hear exactly what comes from an enlightened consciousness? I am going to interpret it, I am going to mix it with my own thoughts, I am going to give it my own color, my own nuance. It cannot carry within me the same meaning it has brought, because I don't have yet those eyes that can see and those ears that can hear."
Out of this humbleness, the memories that he remembered and wrote down became the basic scriptures of Buddhism. They all start with "I have heard Gautam Buddha say."
And all the thirty-two philosophical schools -- they were great scholars, far greater than Maitreya, than Ananda, far more capable to interpret, to bring meanings to things, to make systems out of words -- those thirty-two schools slowly, slowly became rejected.
And the reason for their rejection was that they had missed a single beginning: "I have heard " They were saying, "Gautam Buddha said" -- the emphasis was on
Gautam Buddha.
Ananda's version is the universally accepted version. Strange... there were enlightened people, but they remained silent because what they had heard was not possible to be expressed. And there were unenlightened philosophical geniuses who were very articulate, and they wrote great treatises -- but they were not accepted. And the man who was not enlightened, not a great philosopher, but just a humble caretaker of Gautam Buddha, his words have been accepted. The reason is these beginnings -- "I have heard.…" I don't know whether he was saying it or not. I cannot impose myself on him.
All that I can say is what echoed in me; I can talk about my mind -- not the mindless silence of Gautam Buddha."
Buddhist scriptures, in this way, are the only scriptures in the world which have this quality of the great difference between the master and the disciple, between one who has arrived and one who is trying to arrive.
You are asking, Pankaja, "I have heard You say that Gautam Buddha's work came to an end when he became enlightened, and You started Your work after Your enlightenment."
It is one of those strange incidents of history, where the obvious is completely ignored. I have talked, discussed, with a few very great scholarly Buddhist monks. One was Bhikshu Sangharakshita. He was an Englishman, but while he was young, searching, he found that Christianity had nothing to give and became a Buddhist. When I met him, he had become very old. He used to live in the Himalayas, in Kalimpong. He has written great books on Buddhism with such love and such insight that one feels full of awe.
I have been discussing many times with Bhikshu Ananda Kausalyayan, who is the most prominent Buddhist scripture scholar and who has written much with depth and profundity. And the third man was Doctor Bhikshu Jagdish Kashayap.
He was the head of the great Institute of Buddhist Studies.
None of these three people have noticed the difference -- that Ananda's version is humble and truer because he is saying what is reflected in his being, and he can authoritatively say only that. When I pointed it out to them, they were all surprised -- "We have been studying our whole life, but we never thought that this has any significance. We always thought that it is just the way Ananda writes."
And when I said to them, "No Buddhist, except a few Zen masters, are going to agree with me.…" The whole of Asia is Buddhist. In different countries it has taken different shapes, different rituals. But one thing is similar everywhere -- that Buddha worked for six years, hard enough to attain enlightenment. He attained enlightenment after six years of hard work -- this is just accepted.
But when I came to see the life of Gautam Buddha, I was simply amazed, because in a way it can be said that he attained his enlightenment after six years of hard work, but that is not the whole truth. It is not even a small fragment of the truth. The truth is, he attained enlightenment only when he dropped all desire for it, all work for it, all hope for it.
This gap between the hard work and relaxing and dropping the idea that anything like truth exists He had done everything that was told to him, and yet
no silence had descended on him. He had not been able to enter into his innermost being. He had knocked on all the doors, but no door was opened. His work was so total and intense that he could not conceive that there was anything more to be done.
I have been to the small river Niranjana, by the side of which he had become enlightened one full-moon night. That day, the most important experience happened -- which is not even talked about by the Buddhists, by the followers. It does not look important, they are not to be blamed. He had tortured his body, he had been fasting for months, and he had become so weak... and Niranjana is a very small river. He had got into the river for his morning bath, but even the smallest river and its current was too much; he started going down with the river. He could not manage to get out of it. He hung to the root of a tree.
That moment was momentous. Hanging to the root of the tree in the river, a thought arose in him, "What kind of stupid life have I been living? All this
asceticism, all this arduous effort, has led me nowhere to truth, but only to weakness. It has not given me an abundance of life; it has brought me closer to death. How is this kind of discipline, which is being taught by all the schools, going to help me cross the ocean of life and reach the further shore?"
A question mark about his whole lifestyle, and in a clear moment, in a transparent moment on that morning -- the sun was rising -- something changed in his whole being.
He had renounced his kingdom; in that moment he renounced his renunciation too. He had renounced this world; in that moment he renounced that world too. He had renounced ambition, power, prestige -- and now he saw that in a subtle way even the effort to achieve enlightenment is nothing but ambition, that it is also a desire. A desire for a more eternal life, desire for truth, but anyway it is also a desire.
As he struggled to get out of the river, that desire was also dropped. He rested under a bodhi tree. For the first time in his whole life he was utterly relaxed. There was nowhere to go, nothing to find, no effort to be made. And amazingly, the silence that he was seeking started descending on him like rain.
By the evening he was a totally changed
man -- calm and cool, at home, at ease. The center that he was searching for -- he laughed about it, because the seeker himself was the sought. He had been doing something absurd. The center of his being was not something separate from himself. Unless all desires disappear, all ambitions disappear -- unless you have nothing to do, nothing left to be done; you are just sitting, peacefully.…
He found the center. He was the center.
There was no object anywhere else.
One of the most important Danish philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, has said that
"Subjectivity is all." You can call it religion, you can call it truth, you can call it nirvana.
But your own subjectivity, your own being.…
And by the evening, a beautiful incident happened. It was a full-moon night -- it has just passed here, one or two days ago; it was the same full-moon night -- a woman in the nearby village.… In India people worship trees, they worship animals, they worship stones, they worship mountains, they worship the sun, the moon. On the surface it looks very childish, but deep down the question is not what you worship; the question is that you worship. Whether it is the sun or the moon or a tree or a river, these are only excuses; the real thing is worship. That woman was a worshiper of the tree under which Gautam Buddha was sitting.
The moon had risen... this is the strongest moon in the whole year, the most beautiful.
And Gautam Buddha was looking almost like a god under the tree in the silence of the forest, by the side of the river -- particularly to that woman. She had asked the tree something and her desire had been fulfilled, and so she had promised that she would come with delicious food to offer to the god of the tree. She thought perhaps the god of the tree had come out of the tree and was sitting and waiting.
And Buddha was hungry; he had not eaten for many days, so when she offered -- her name was Sujata -- he accepted. He slept for the first time in these six years of torturous search, without any tension, without any dreams. Just a silence was the only experience that was becoming deeper and deeper; his sleep was becoming samadhi. When there are no thoughts, no desires, and the mind is quiet, sleep becomes samadhi; it becomes enlightenment.
And in the morning, when he opened his eyes... just visualize... nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. And as he saw the last star disappearing in the sky, he saw himself also disappearing in the sky. This he called nirvana, disappearing. He became absent, just a pure silence, a nothing... a joyful silence, a silence that has a song in it, a silence which is an invisible dance.
This was the day of his enlightenment. Buddhist scholars for twenty-five centuries have thought that he achieved this state because of those six years of arduous effort. I differ from them absolutely. And they have not been able to prove to me... and they think that I am crazy because they think that if it were true, then in twenty-five centuries people would have seen it. But I say that he
attained enlightenment because he dropped the desire to attain it.
Pankaja, I said Gautam Buddha's work came to an end when he became enlightened. He worked too hard. I have never worked for enlightenment; I have never followed any discipline, any scripture, any religion, any ascetic path. Where Buddha reached after six years of arduous effort, I found myself there from the very beginning -- sitting under a tree, relaxed. People used to think -- my teachers, my friends -- that I must be mad. Even sometimes I used to think, "Perhaps they are right, because everybody has ambition; I don't have any. Everybody wants to become this and that, and I want simply to sit silently and not to do anything, and just be myself."
Enlightenment to Buddha was the culmination of his whole work. My work started after my enlightenment. I have never searched for it. It is one of those mysteries which have no explanation. It knocked on my door, and I said to it, "Come in, it is open." I have not even taken the trouble to open the door. I have left it open always.
The day I became enlightened, then my work began. My work is you; Gautam Buddha's work was himself.
I have lived for you.
I have no other reason to be alive, because all that life could give to me, it has given to me without asking. It has been very generous to me. But after my own enlightenment, I felt the first urge in my being -- that this is so simple, so natural, that it should happen to everybody. And unless it happens to everybody, the world is going to remain in misery and in suffering. Gautam Buddha was enlightening himself; I have been enlightening others. So where his work was completed, my work starts.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
WHENEVER I TRY TO WRITE WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU BEFORE
GOING BACK TO THE WEST, I FIND MYSELF AS SPEECHLESS AS LANCELOT.
IT IS MORE THAN GRATITUDE, MORE THAN LOVE, MORE THAN YOU AND
ME. AND YET, SOME LONGING TO CONVEY THIS FEELING IS THERE, STRONG, AND DOESN'T GO;THERE IS A QUIET SADNESS AND A BURNING
FIRE. BELOVED MASTER, HOW CAN I EXPRESS THE IMMENSITY THAT HAS
FILLED ME SO MANY TIMES WHEN SITTING IN YOUR PRESENCE AND
LIVING IN YOUR BUDDHAFIELD?
Satyam Svarup, the moment it happens it is always more than love, it is always more than joy, it is always more than gratitude, because life is more than you and more than me. It is so multi-dimensional, it is so vast.… Only if you are not aware of it, are you capable to express your feelings. But the moment awareness enters in your life, explanations start disappearing, expressions become impossible, because whatever you can say falls very short.
There have been many people on the earth who have achieved the ultimate, but we don't even know their names for the simple reason that the moment they achieved, they became dumb -- the silence was so deep, they could not find a way to convey what had happened to them.
There are many mystics in the world, but very few masters. Every mystic is not a master.
It is a rare combination of articulateness, of using words in such a way that they carry wordlessness in them, to say things in such a way as if nothing has been said, to be in such a way as if you are not. And the more you are absent, the more you are a pure presence.
You are asking me, "Whenever I try to write what I would like to tell You before going back to the West, I find myself as speechless as Lancelot."
You are fortunate. It is part of blissfulness to be so silent; you know something has to be said, but there is no way to say it. You know there is a great
blissfulness overflowing you, a gratitude in your heart, and it does not look right not to express them. But all words are so earthly, and all these experiences are so unearthly, that there is no way of translating them. Even the great masters who tried to convey something of the inexpressible had to find strange ways.
Just the other day, I received the news of a man in the part of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan. He is one hundred and twenty-five years old, and he has joked about death three times. This was the third time.
He dies; doctors declare that he is dead and there is great mourning -- friends and relatives, and preparations -- and at the final moment when they are taking him to the graveyard, he opens his eyes and he starts laughing! The first time he did it people thought, "It may have been just a coma, and we were misled." The second time they were more alert not to be deceived by the old fellow; in every way they made certain that he was dead. But still, the same thing happened: at the last moment, just when they were putting him into the grave, he said, "Wait!" He said, "Can't you see the joke?"
And he has performed it now again at the age of one hundred and twenty-five. This is his way, a strange way of saying to you that life is eternal and death is just a joke. He is saying it by his own life. And this time he has said, "Now I am very old, and I cannot go on doing this strategy for long, so perhaps this is the last time. Remember -- the fourth time I may be really dead."
But they said, "We can't believe you. Every time you say, `Next time I may be really dead.'"
He is showing the eternity of life and consciousness. He is a master. Without words, he is saying what the UPANISHADS have said: Amritasya putra -- "You are sons and daughters of eternity." But his way of saying it is far more significant, because words can be used in a very poetic way and still they may not be true, they may not be the experience of the poet. But this man knows how to go deep -- so deep into himself that there is no medical way to find out that he is still alive.
Speechlessness is bound to happen with anything that you can experience but you cannot bring to words. You see a beautiful sunset -- what can you say? You see a bird on the wing in the sky -- so beautiful, just the expression of freedom -- but what can you say?
And whatever you say will always fall short of the target. Only mundane things can be said.
The sacred makes you speechless.
Because "it is more than gratitude.…" You say "gratitude" and you certainly feel you have not said it; the word is so small and the experience is so big -- and yet there is a great longing to convey the feeling.
These are the mysteries of life: when you cannot say, the urge becomes more and more powerful to say it. The musician says in his own way, the poet says in his own way, the painter says in his own way, but nobody succeeds -- something remains beyond all expression.
That something beyond expression is God, is truth, is enlightenment, is liberation. But these words also don't say it; they only indicate -- just fingers pointing to the moon.
You are right, "There is a quiet sadness and a burning fire... how can I express the immensity that has filled me so many times when sitting in Your presence and living in Your buddhafield?"
You will have to go through an alchemical change. That sadness is beautiful; it is not misery, it is just the sadness of experiencing the beyond and the inability to express it.
And the burning desire to express it turns into creativity -- you can paint, you can sing, you can dance; you can find your own way somehow to indicate the beyond, and the burning fire will not be a torture to you. It will become a great joy of creativity.
So don't make it sadness, and don't make it a suffering. Feel blessed! Change it into a great laughter. It is only a question of getting out of the bed from the right side.
The Mother Superior of the convent awoke in a happy mood, dressed and set off to visit her flock. "Good morning, Sister Augusta. God bless you. Are you happy at your work?"
"Yes, Reverend Mother, but I am sorry to see you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning."
The Mother Superior ignored the remark, and passed on to another nun. "Good morning, Sister Georgina. You look pleased with yourself."
"I am, Reverend Mother, but it is a pity you got out of bed on the wrong side today."
The Mother Superior, greatly puzzled, moved on to a young novice, "Tell me, little sister, do you also feel I got out of bed on the wrong side?"
"I am afraid so."
"But why? Am I not as happy as a songbird? and pleasant to you all?" "Yes, Mother, but you are wearing Father Vincenzo's slippers."
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #12
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