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Chapter title: Existence is taking care
20 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8705205
ShortTitle:
GOLDEN18
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
72
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
PLEASE WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LET-GO AND WITNESSING?
Prem Vijen, let-go is the atmosphere in which witnessing flowers. They are almost two sides of the same experience -- they are not different. One cannot allow let-go without witnessing, neither can one be a witness without being in a
let-go.
Let-go simply means total relaxation: no tension, no thought, no desire -- mind not moving, not going anywhere, just not functioning. Mind in silence allows the greatest experience of life, the arising of a new phenomenon -- witnessing.
We are all living and we are all a little bit conscious too; otherwise life would be impossible. But our consciousness is very superficial, just skin-deep -- or perhaps not even that deep.
Witnessing is as deep as you are, as existence is. It is the deepest point of life in existence where one simply watches what remains to watch: a tremendous silence, a great joy, a beautiful existence surrounding you, and a deep ecstasy -- a song without words and a dance without movement. Witnessing is the ultimate experience of religion. Only those who arrive at it have really lived; others have been only vegetating.
Nancy and Ronald Reagan went out to eat in a high class restaurant, and after seating them at the best table, the waiter gave them the menus. He returned to take their orders, and Nancy gave hers first. "For the aperitif I will have a dry martini, and for the appetizer I will take the Hawaiian lobster salad," she said. "Then for the fish course I will have rainbow trout, and for the entree I will take the steak."
"And what about the vegetable?" asked the waiter. And with only a few seconds hesitation, she replied, "Oh, he will have the same."
But it is true about most of the people in the world -- they are vegetables. They have not known anything that can make them claim to be more than vegetables. The whole effort of raising your consciousness is to make you transcend your vegetable existence. Let-go is to create the right soil, and witnessing, watching, being alert are the seeds. You have only to be the right soil for the right seed, and the lotuses are bound to grow in your being.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
WHAT DOES THE PHRASE "EXISTENCE TAKES CARE" MEAN?
Nirada, we are part of existence, we are not separate. Even if we want to be separate, we cannot be. Our life is part of being together with existence. And the more you are together with existence, the more alive you are. That's why I insist continually to live totally, to live intensely, because the deeper your living is, the more you are in contact with existence. You are born of it; every moment you are renewed, rejuvenated, resurrected by each of your breaths, by each of your heartbeats -- existence is taking care of you.
But we are not aware of our own being, we are not aware of our own breathing. Gautam the Buddha gave to the world a tremendously simple, but immensely valuable, meditation
-- vipassana. The word vipassana simply means watching your breath -- the coming of the breath in, and the going of the breath out.
People used to ask Buddha," What will happen by this?" He was not a theoretician. He would say to them, "Just do it and see. Experiment and report to me what happens. Don't ask me."
Just as you start watching your breathing, you start seeing a great phenomenon -- that through your breath, you are continuously connected with existence, uninterruptedly --
there is no holiday. Whether you are awake or asleep, existence goes on pouring life into you, and taking out all that is dead.
Carbon dioxide is dead, and if it accumulates in you, you will be dead. Oxygen is life, and you need continuously that the carbon dioxide be replaced by fresh oxygen. Who is taking care? Certainly you are not taking care! If you were taking care, you would have been dead long ago;you would not have been here to ask the question. You would have forgotten sometimes to breathe, or sometimes the heart would forget to beat, sometimes the blood would forget to circulate inside you -- anything could go wrong. There are a thousand and one things in you which could go wrong. But they are all functioning in deep harmony. Is this harmony dependent on you?
So when I say, "existence takes care," I am not talking philosophy. Philosophy is mostly nonsense. I am simply talking an actual fact. And if you become consciously aware of it, this creates a great trust in you. My saying to you,"existence takes care," is to trigger a consciousness that can bring the beauty
of trusting in existence.
I don't ask you to believe in a hypothetical God, and I don't ask you to have faith in a messiah, in a savior; these are all childish desires to have some father figure who takes care of you. But they are all hypothetical.
There has not been any savior in the world. Existence is enough unto itself.
I want you to inquire into your relationship with existence, and out of that inquiry, arises trust -- not belief, not faith. Trust has a beauty because it is your experience. Trust will help you to relax because the whole existence is taking care -- there is no need to be worried and to be concerned. There is no need to have any anxiety, no need of any anguish, no need of what the existentialists call angst.
Trust helps you to relax, it helps you to let go, and the let-go prepares the ground for witnessing to come in. They are related phenomena.
Three gray-haired mothers, Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Cornfield, and Mrs. Baum, were sitting in a Catskill hotel bragging about their children.
"My son is a doctor," said Mrs. Fletcher, "and he's an internist, a surgeon and a specialist.
He makes so much money, he owns an apartment building on Park Avenue in New York."
"That's nice," said Mrs. Cornfield. "My son is a lawyer. He handles divorces, accidents, tax cases, insurance. He is so successful, he owns two apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue."
"Ladies," announced Mrs. Baum, "you should both be proud to have such successful sons. My boy, I have to tell you the truth, is a homosexual."
"That's a shame," said Mrs. Cornfield. "And what does he do for a living?"
"Nothing," said Mrs. Baum. "He has two friends: one is a doctor who owns an apartment building on Park Avenue, and the other is a lawyer who owns two
apartment buildings." Existence takes care. Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
HOW CAN A BLIND AND IGNORANT PERSON BE HELPED BY A BLIND AND
IGNORANT THERAPIST AND HIS BLIND ADVICE? IS IT ALL JUST TO MAKE
SOME FIRECRACKERS EXPLODE IN THE DARK TUNNEL, TO HAVE A PARTY
AND EXCITEMENT TOGETHER, TO MAKE THE JOURNEY A BIT "PIFF- PAFF-PUFF"? CAN REAL HELP AND GUIDANCE NOT JUST COME FROM A MASTER
LIKE YOU? IF YOU LIKE, PLEASE COMMENT.
Prem Ruchi, your question is," How can a blind and ignorant person be helped by a blind and ignorant therapist and his blind advice?" Do you mean to say that you cannot be helped by a doctor if you have a cancer and he has not? Are you going to look for a doctor who has a cancer? -- only he can help you?
In life, you are being helped by many people who don't have the experience but who have the expertise. The difference is great between experience and expertise
-- but the expert can also help.
A man was purchasing eggs, and he said to the shopkeeper, "These eggs are rotten."
The shopkeeper was very much shocked and angry, and he said, "Are you a hen? Have you ever laid an egg? What do you know about eggs? Neither are you an egg, nor are you a hen."
The man remained silent for a moment; he had never thought of this. He said,
"That means to know that an egg is rotten, I have to be a hen -- then life will become impossible. I will have to be so many things because life needs so many things."
So the first thing to remember is that a therapist is as blind and ignorant as you are -- and perhaps that is a qualification, because he knows what blindness is, what ignorance is. He is as miserable as you are, he knows the taste of misery. The only difference between you and him is that he is also an expert of a certain art: therapy.
His knowledge about therapy may not have made him able to help himself, but his knowledge about therapy may be of some help to you. At least he has some expertise that you don't have. At least he can analyze your problem. He may not be able to give a solution, but there are problems in life which need only analysis
-- they don't need any other solution. Once you know why they are there, once you know their analytical basis, they disappear.
Do you think Sigmund Freud is psychologically different from you? But he has given the whole science of psychoanalysis which has helped many people, if not to become enlightened, at least to become aware that they are blind, that they are groping in darkness, that they need a master. This is not something small.
You are asking," Is it all just to make some firecrackers explode in the dark tunnel, to have a party and excitement together, to make the journey a bit `piff- paff-puff'?"
Even if this much can be done by the therapist, it is a great service to have a beautiful party -- in the Italian sense -- in the dark tunnel, to explode a few firecrackers, and to make the journey a little joyous. You will not be going far, and you will not be going out of the tunnel because you cannot have the right direction -- you may be going deeper into the tunnel. But the therapist at least puts you on the move. He greases your wheels.
Out of this movement, something is going to happen. He creates in you at least a longing.
He may not be able to deliver the goods, but he creates a desire, a dream. And that is not a small thing, because there are millions of people who don't have dreams, who are so utterly content with their miserable lives that they don't think anything else is possible --
this is all there is.
The therapist at least creates in you a new longing that there is something more; and you should be grateful to him. He may be searching himself -- he is searching -- and he has made you also infectious with the search.
You want real help and guidance, not just a longing, a desire. You want the flowers but you don't want the seeds. The therapist at least can sow the seeds, can prepare the ground.
I have been using therapists to move you from your stagnant, dormant state into a pilgrimage for the unknown. Once that desire is awake, then a master can be of help. The therapists can do the spade work.
It is true that the real help and guidance can come only from a master. But do you need real help? Do you need real guidance? Do you deserve it? Even if a great master knocks on your doors, are you going to welcome him? Are you prepared for that?
To receive a master, even to acknowledge a master, needs a long preparation. The therapist can do that preparation, so that when you come across a real master... the therapist has given you the thirst; now the real master can quench it. Without the thirst, even the greatest master is of no help.
I understand that the blind cannot lead the blind, the ignorant cannot help you to move towards light, towards knowing, towards realization; but they can do something else which can be used as a device. Therapy has never been used by any master in the world as a device, but I find it to be immensely helpful: it helps those who participate in therapies to become thirsty for the real. The therapist cannot deliver the real, but he has made you thirsty for the real. You should be grateful for that -- it is not a small service that he has done for you.
And the therapy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it helps the participant, and on the other hand it helps the therapist. The therapist is also in the same boat. He is also groping, he is also uncertain; he is also not in a state to say with a guarantee, "There is something like truth, or something like bliss, or something like ecstasy." But seeing so many people becoming thirsty, he also becomes more thirsty than he was ever before. If so many people can easily be made aware of a tremendous challenge for a pilgrimage towards the unknown... he himself also becomes a pilgrim. If he does not become a pilgrim, he has
helped you but he has not been able to help himself.
He can become a false teacher -- that is the danger of being a therapist. You can start thinking that you are a great teacher because you are making so many people thirsty for truth. And perhaps you may start delivering false goods to them too, because they don't know what is false and what is real; they cannot make any distinction.
There are many false therapists; they become false the moment they start becoming masters. They are not masters. They are as much a seeker as others; perhaps more articulate, more knowledgeable. If they remain therapists -- knowing perfectly well that they know nothing much, only a certain expertise -- they can help you, and they can help themselves, too; otherwise.… Kabir has a statement: "The blind people lead the blind, and they all fall into a well." There is nowhere else to go -- they will find a well somewhere to fall in.
An Israeli visiting Paris goes to a brothel and insists on the services of a certain Michelle.
He is told that Michelle is unavailable, but when he offers a thousand dollars, she is brought to him and they spend the night together.
The next night, the Israeli returns and repeats his generous offer, and again the third night. Finally, on the third night, Michelle asks why she has been singled out for this flattering attention.
"Well," says the man, "You see, I am from Israel." "Why, so am I," says Michelle.
"Yes, I know," the Israeli replies. "It turns out that your grandmother lives in the same building as my parents, and when she heard I was going to Paris, she asked me to give you the three thousand dollars you had asked for."
A Jew is a Jew! -- he cannot do anything else; a blind man is a blind man.
The therapist has to be very humble and very alert, and he has to make the people who come to him aware -- "I am as far away from truth as you are, but I have a certain expertise which I can deliver to you. Perhaps that may help you to find the way. I am not the way but perhaps I can give you a candle which may
help you."
It is not much, just a candle, but in a dark night of the soul even a candle is much
-- a treasure; it can help you to find the way.
The therapist has to become a bridge between the seeker and the master; he is not to become the master himself.
Question 4 BELOVED OSHO,
IN THE VIDEO THE OTHER NIGHT, FOR THE SECOND TIME I HEARD YOU
SAYING THAT NO MASTER HAS BEEN BETRAYED BY A WOMAN. I DON'T
UNDERSTAND THAT. WHAT ABOUT SHEELA AND HER GANG? DIDN'T THEY
BETRAY YOU? SO FAR AS I'M CONCERNED, IN THE MOMENT, I CAN'T
IMAGINE BETRAYING YOU, BUT I CAN'T SAY FOR SURE THAT I WOULD
NEVER DO IT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WAS IN THE POSITION
OF SHEELA. SAYING ALL THIS, MY HEART HURTS, BUT MY MIND KEEPS ON
GOING AND DOESN'T UNDERSTAND. PLEASE COMMENT.
Prem Samyo, a master can be betrayed if he requires your faith. You cannot betray me, because I don't require your faith. You can be with me; you can choose to go away. Being with me is your free choice. Going away is also your freedom.
Nobody can betray me.
I don't give you the chance to betray.
I have removed the very basis, the very possibility.
Thousands of people have been with me, and walked with me as long as they could manage. And when it was impossible for them -- and I am an impossible man, so it is not their fault -- then they took off on a road separate from me. But I don't have any complaint, because I was never expecting them to hang around me forever and forever. In fact, I have to work on so many people that I want a few old people to take their own way, to create space for new people. My caravan is big enough.
The old masters were betrayed, but the fault was theirs because they asked for your total surrender. I don't ask anything from you. It is your choice to walk with me as long as you wish, and it is your choice to say goodbye at any time you want.
I am a bit of a strange master -- a master who cannot be betrayed -- because I am a master who does not ask you for any surrender, any commitment; who does not ask anything from you, but who gives you as much as he can and is grateful that you receive his love, is grateful that you receive his silence.
And it is absolutely your individual decision to remain my fellow traveler or to move in some other direction. And who knows, perhaps you may come back to the caravan again, or you may meet me somewhere ahead on some other crossroad; you will be welcome there.
I accept you when you are with me, I accept you when you leave me; I accept you if you never come back to me, I accept you if you want to come back to me. From my side, there is no question of any commitment; hence, Prem Samyo, when I said, "No master has been betrayed by a woman," you have not to include me in it. I am talking about the old masters; they all wanted absolute faith, total surrender. They wanted you to be almost in a spiritual slavery, and I think this very situation created in a few people's minds a desire to be free of them.
You cannot desire to be free of me; you are free. You cannot contemplate betraying me because that will be absurd. I have never asked your faith, so you cannot take it away. I have not taken anything from you, so you cannot disappoint me.
My statement was about the past masters. I don't belong in their category.
I am the beginning of a new line, of a new category, where a master is a friend, where a master gives you freedom, where a master wants you to be on your own
-- the sooner the better. I would love that day, when all of you have betrayed me and I can sit silently, enjoying myself! I am enjoying myself right now too, but to enjoy in a crowd is one thing and to enjoy yourself in your bathroom is another.
So, if you are not sure... you don't want to betray me, but you are not sure. Who knows? -
- tomorrow, you may want to. So I want you to remember: even if you want to betray me, you cannot. I have made it impossible.
I am just a friend. We have met on the road; we are strangers. You liked me to walk with you, I liked you to walk with me, we enjoyed being together. But any moment you want to say, "Now it is time to depart," I will help you to depart without tears, joyously, because you are going to be independent -- yourself.
You are not capable of hurting me. All those old masters were hurt, but they created the situation themselves. I don't expect anything from you, so how can you disappoint me?
Whatever you do, I can bless it without knowing what it is.
"Mr. Baumgarten," said the doctor, "even though you are a very sick man, I think I will be able to pull you through."
"Doctor, if you do that, when I get well I will donate five thousand dollars for your new hospital."
Months later, the M.D. met his former patient. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Wonderful, doctor, fine, never been better."
"I have been meaning to speak to you," said the doctor. "What about the money for the new hospital?"
"What are you talking about?" said Baumgarten.
"You said that if you got well, you would contribute five thousand dollars to the new hospital."
"I said that?" asked the patient. "That just shows how sick I was."
To expect anything from you is just not right; you are in such misery. Out of your misery you may surrender, out of your misery you may have faith, out of your misery you may believe -- in any nonsense. I cannot exploit your misery which has been exploited all through the past.
I would like to help you to come out of your misery, and that will be my reward -
- if I can see you smiling and singing and dancing, it is more than enough. Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #19
Chapter title: The sunlit peaks of sacredness 21 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8705210
ShortTitle: GOLDEN19
Audio: Yes
Video:
Yes Length:
93
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE JUST FINISHED READING THE BOOK ABOUT JESUS AND HIS
JOURNEY TO KASHMIR AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION, AND NOW I HAVE A PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURE IN MY MIND OF THE MAN AND HIS
UNQUENCHABLE THIRST FOR TRUTH. HEARING STORIES ABOUT YOU, OR
THE BUDDHA BEFORE ENLIGHTENMENT, THERE WAS THE SAME
UNQUENCHABLE THIRST. BUT HERE I AM WITH YOU FEELING LIKE A DRY
LEAF, BLOWING IN THE WIND -- SEARCHING FOR TRUTH, BUT BEING
DISTRACTED BY EVERY GUST OF WIND THAT TAKES ME WHEREVER IT
WISHES TO. WILL BEING IN YOUR PRESENCE MORE AND MORE HELP ME
TO INTENSIFY MY SEARCH, AND ENABLE ME TO USE THESE GUSTS OF
WIND TO TAKE ME FURTHER ON THE PATH TOWARDS TRUTH?
Vimal, there is a saying of Jesus: "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you." These are beautiful words, but only on a very superficial plane. They have poetry in them, and they have a certain truth also; but unfortunately I have to disagree with them.
If I were to write them again, I would say, "Ask not, and it shall be given to you,"
because asking is desiring, asking is demanding, asking is impatience. Asking is not trust, is not love. Love never asks, but it is given all. It never asks, but it is always understood.
"Seek not; otherwise you will miss it," because every search leads you away from yourself; every path leads you away from yourself. "Seek ye not; just be, and you have found it," because it is something within you. It is not something far away, it has not to be found; it is the finder himself. It has not to be sought, it is the seeker himself. The moment you are silent, neither asking nor seeking, you have it, you are it.
"Knock not, because every knock makes you a beggar," because all knocking is on the doors of others. And it is not a question of finding it in somebody else's house; it is there within you. There are no doors for you to knock on. You have just to be utterly centered, and the doors are always open. This is what Lao Tzu would say, and this is what Chuang Tzu would say. I know if Jesus had been born in the East, he would have said the same thing. It is the Western atmosphere, where all search is for the object and nobody cares about the seeker.
There are great scientists of tremendous intelligence who discover many things in their lives, but go on missing themselves. The reason is that they are always searching for something; but one's own being is already there -- you have just to be in a relaxed state of consciousness, in a let-go.
I am reminded of one of the most important women who has walked on the earth, Rabiya al-Adabiya. She is truly a rebel, and without being a rebel nobody can be religious.
Rebellion is the very foundation of being religious. The orthodox can never be religious, the traditional can never be religious.
She was going to the market, just to fetch some vegetables, and she saw a great
Sufi, well known all over the country, Junnaid. He was sitting outside the mosque praying loudly and looking at the sky, crying, "When are you going to hear me? Why don't you open the doors? I have been waiting so long, do you hear me or not? I'm tired of knocking on your doors."
Rabiya stood behind him, heard all this and hit his head. He looked back -- because it is very sacrilegious to disturb someone who is in prayer -- and there stood that strange woman, Rabiya. And she said, "Junnaid, are you going to mature or not? Are you absolutely blind? -- because the doors are open. The doors are always open, twenty-four hours, day and night. What kind of nonsense is this, that you go on asking God Òpen the doors'? Even God cannot do anything -- how can he open doors which are always open?
Just look silently; the doors are not outside. Close your eyes and see. And remember, the next time I hear you say all this nonsense I'm going to hit you really hard! By your prayer you are avoiding yourself."
It was a sudden enlightening experience. Junnaid closed his eyes, looked within... the doors are open. What you are seeking is hidden within you, and if you go on seeking it you will go on missing it.
Vimal, don't make the search for truth a serious phenomenon. Take it easy, and remember
"easy is right." If strong winds take you hither and thither, don't resist; they appear strong because of your resistance. Relax, go with them. Go with them, with totality.
Lao Tzu became enlightened sitting under a tree, seeing an old dead leaf falling from the tree, slowly. Winds were taking it this way and that way, and it had no resistance. It was totally willing to go anywhere -- because the truth that you are seeking is everywhere. All that is needed is a relaxed consciousness to see it.
Those winds are not against you, they are not distracting you. Your resistance is the problem. You have made your search very serious. Be a little more playful. Dance with the wind; allow the wind to take you to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west, without any resistance.
In your resistance exists your ego. "What is ego?" people ask. It is your resistance to existence. "And what is egolessness?" It is your relaxed state of
being, a let-go. Wherever the winds take you, go with totality -- willingly, joyously, dancing, singing.
It is not that you will find the truth where the winds are taking you. You will find the truth in your non-resistance; you will find the truth in your let-go, in your playfulness, in your non-seriousness, in your laughter.
Sick people have dominated humanity for too long -- psychologically sick, spiritually sick -- and they have made everybody serious. My whole approach is that of playfulness, non-seriousness, taking it easy.
Relaxation is prayer.
Non-resistance is egolessness. And in egolessness all is found.
The serious are tense, the serious are worried. The serious are always concerned whether they are on the right path... and there are no milestones.
All paths are imaginary.
Existence is just like the sky, there are no paths. The birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints; the sky remains pathless. So is your consciousness a far more clean and far more clear space, where there are no footprints, no paths.
You cannot go astray. To go astray you need a path. And finding the truth is not the goal, finding the truth cannot be made an ambition. Finding the truth is finding yourself. And you can find yourself only in a relaxed state. Who can distract you from yourself? The wind may take you to the north, or to the south, but it cannot distract you from yourself; wherever you are you are.
If you start being playful in life you have learned the greatest prayer; you have learned the pathless path.
Most major cities have a dial-a-prayer number for anyone requiring religious reassurance in the form of a brief, pre-recorded sermon. Now there is talk of establishing a similar number for atheists: when you dial it, no one answers.
And I think that will be far closer to reality than a pre-recorded sermon. If you
can listen to the silence -- no one is answering, you are left alone -- it can become a meditation.
There is no goal. You are not to go somewhere, and there is not some object to be found.
You have just to relax into such a deep state that you can settle within yourself. In that very settling you have come home.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
THE OTHER DAY, OUT OF THE SILENCE OF YOUR NAMASTE CAME THE
UNEXPECTED GIFT OF YOUR DANCE. MY HEART BURST OPEN, AND
SUDDENLY I WAS LIKE A CHILD, INNOCENT AND UTTERLY IN AWE OF THE
MYSTERY OF YOUR PRESENCE. WOULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING
ABOUT HOW IT IS THAT THE SLIGHTEST GESTURE MADE BY YOU AFFECTS
US SO DEEPLY?
Puja Melissa, love is the greatest alchemy in the world. It transforms small things into great, into precious experiences. Just a bird singing, received in silence and love, is more valuable than God speaking to Moses, because that is a fiction -- and not a very nice one, either.
When Moses reached the mountain on Sinai to meet God, he saw a miracle; he saw a green bush, lush green, and yet surrounded by flames. As he came closer, a voice from the bush shouted at him, "Moses, take your shoes off! You are on holy ground" -- not a very nice beginning to a conversation. Moses must have been a very obedient person; otherwise he would have asked, "Can you tell me where is the land which is not holy?
Should I carry my shoes on my head?" The whole existence is holy.
But the poor fellow was so amazed by a voice without any person around, and the bush on fire, and yet green, lush green.…
God gave him ten commandments, ten pieces of stone, and on each piece one commandment was written: "Thou shall not commit adultery"... not a great meeting -- in a way insulting and humiliating. And poor Moses carried all those ten stones; they must have been heavy.
But, in the whole thing, the only significant part is the green bush in the flames of fire. As far as I am concerned, I take only that part to be important in the whole encounter. Jews have not bothered much about the bush and the fire; they are much more concerned with the ten commandments and God's declaration of the Holy Land.
If you enter into yourself you will find this very experience: flames of life and the green bush with flowers of ecstasy, of blissfulness, existing together. Those flames represent the revolution, and that green bush represents the coolness and the calmness.…
You may have come across calm and cool people, but they are not revolutionaries; they are dull, unintelligent, almost idiots. You may have come across revolutionaries who are fiery, but they don't have the calmness and the quietness and the peace which can make their revolution meaningful. Otherwise, the same fire that cooks your food can burn your house too.
To me, the meeting of Moses with God is simply a myth. Real religion, authentic religion, is concerned with your love, with your trust, with your joy. And when you see through the eyes of love, a small flower becomes so mysterious, the faraway song of a cuckoo becomes far more holy than any scripture.
You love me; that's why my smallest gesture makes an immense impact on you. It is not the gesture, it is your love. There may be somebody else sitting by your side to whom the gesture means nothing, just a movement of the hand. If his heart is not full of love, then just the movement of the hand is meaningless; if his heart is full of love, the hand, its grace, can be indicative of greater mysteries and secrets of life.
This is one of the mysteries of life, that life is how you see it. It depends on your eyes. If you have the eyes of a poet the same trees are greener, livelier; they have a message, they whisper things into the ears of the poet. But if you are not a poet you pass by the same trees without even noticing them. All depends on you.
Your whole life experience goes on growing with your growing consciousness. As your consciousness becomes more and more juicy, life becomes more and more divine.
Because you love me, my words have a meaning to you which they will not have without your loving heart. Your love contributes ninety percent, at least, to the meaning of my words or my gestures.
The day you are capable of contributing one hundred percent, then my gesture becomes your gesture, then my word becomes your word, then my heartbeat becomes your heartbeat. That state I call the state of the devotee: a merger, a melting of two souls into one.
But, unfortunately, in the name of love such pseudo things exist in the world that they have contaminated the greatest word we have. People "love" their cars, people "love"
their houses. They don't understand that love is a sacred experience, it is not mundane.
The moment you pull it down to the world of mundane reality you are being terribly destructive. You have to raise the mundane reality to the level of love, the sunlit peaks of sacredness.
But people are doing just the opposite -- and suffering unnecessarily. Life is not meant to be a suffering; it is meant to be a blissfulness. But one has to learn the art.
Brickman and Horowitz were relaxing on the beach in Puerto Rico. "You know," said Brickman, "this Racquel Welch -- what does everyone see in her? Take away her hair, her lips, her eyes and her figure, and what have you got?"
Horowitz said, "My wife."
These are our love relationships. Rather than adding to things, beautifying
existence, we are living in such negativity that we take away. Take away the lips of a beautiful woman, take away her hair, take away her eyes, and what is left? And of course, if this is your approach to looking at things, your life is going to be a hell -- worse than hell.
Love contributes tremendously, beautifies things. Where it was prose, love makes it a poetry; where it was just an ordinary flower, love makes it extraordinary. Love has the magic of transforming the whole world around you into a sacred existence.
I call the man materialistic who does not know the art of love; I don't call a man materialistic who does not believe in God. And I don't call a man religious who believes in God. I call a man religious who goes on growing in his love, in his trust, and goes on spreading his ecstasy all around existence.
People are so stupid that they are trying to demystify everything. The whole effort of science is to demystify existence, to know everything. So, of course, the way to know Racquel Welch is to dissect her on the table of the scientist. Take her hair apart, her eyes apart... and then see what is left. There is no beauty, there is no soul, there is no life; science has demystified a beautiful woman.
Religion mystifies existence. It makes the meaningless songs of birds as meaningful as great poetry, as great music. It makes ordinary trees as significant as great paintings.
It is up to you where you want to live, in hell or in heaven, because wherever you want to live you will have to create it. It is not something ready-made, so that you purchase a ticket and catch a train. It is something to be created.
Love can create paradise herenow.
My whole teaching is love more, to the point when you yourself become just a source of love, and nothing else.
"Hey man," one hippie said to another, "turn on the radio."
"Okay," the second hippie answered. And then leaning over very close to the radio he whispered, "I love you." He is turning on the radio.
We have destroyed beautiful words so ignorantly, and by destroying them we
have destroyed ourselves -- because what are we except our attitudes?
Melissa, you could see in my movements a beauty, a grace, a significance because your heart is full of love. I want to remind you that the beauty is not in the gestures, the beauty is in the eyes that see it. I want you to be responsible for the hell or heaven in which you live. And once you understand the responsibility, I don't think anybody is going to live in hell.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
HOW CAN I TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE PART OF THE MIND
OBSERVING ANOTHER PART OF THE MIND, AND THE WATCHER? CAN THE
WATCHER WATCH ITSELF? ONE TIME I THOUGHT I HAD GOT IT AND THEN
THAT SAME DAY I HEARD YOU SAY IN A DISCOURSE, "IF YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT THE WATCHER, YOU'VE MISSED." SINCE THEN I TRY
WATCHING FEELINGS IN THE BODY, THOUGHTS, AND EMOTIONS. MOSTLY, I'M JUST CAUGHT IN THEM. BUT, ONCE IN A WHILE, RARELY, I FEEL
TREMENDOUSLY RELAXED AND NOTHING STAYS -- IT JUST KEEPS MOVING. IS THERE ANYTHING TO DO?
Deva Waduda, one has to start watching the body -- walking, sitting, going to bed, eating.
One should start from the most solid, because it is easier, and then one should move to subtler experiences. One should start watching thoughts, and when one becomes an expert in watching thoughts, then one should start watching feelings. After you feel that you can watch your feelings, then you should start watching
your moods, which are even more subtle than your feelings, and more vague.
The miracle of watching is that as you are watching the body, your watcher is becoming stronger; as you are watching the thoughts, your watcher is becoming stronger; as you are watching the feelings, the watcher is becoming even more strong. When you are watching your moods the watcher is so strong that it can remain itself -- watching itself --
just as a candle in the dark night not only lights everything around it, it also lights itself.
To find the watcher in its purity is the greatest achievement in spirituality, because the watcher in you is your very soul; the watcher in you is your immortality. But never for a single moment think, "I have got it," because that is the moment when you miss.
Watching is an eternal process; you always go on becoming deeper and deeper, but you never come to the end where you can say "I have got it." In fact, the deeper you go, the more you become aware that you have entered into a process which is eternal-- without any beginning and without any end.
But people are watching only others; they never bother to watch themselves.
Everybody is
watching -- that is the most superficial watching -- what the other person is doing, what the other person is wearing, how he looks Everybody is watching;
watching is not something new to be introduced in your life. It has only to be deepened, taken away from others, and arrowed towards your own inner feelings, thoughts, moods -- and finally, the watcher itself.
A Jew is sitting in a train opposite a priest. "Tell me, your worship," the Jew asks, "why do you wear your collar back to front?"
"Because I am a father," answers the priest.
"I am also a father, and I don't wear my collar like that," says the Jew. "Oh," says the priest, "but I am a father to thousands."
"Then maybe," replies the Jew, "it is your trousers you should wear back to front."
People are very watchful about everybody else.
Two Polacks went out for a walk; suddenly it began to rain. "Quick," said one man,
"open your umbrella."
"It won't help," said his friend, "my umbrella is full of holes." "Then why did you bring it in the first place?"
"I did not think it would rain."
You can laugh very easily about the ridiculous acts of other people, but have you ever laughed about yourself? Have you ever caught yourself doing something ridiculous? No, you keep yourself completely unwatched; your whole watching is about others, and that is not of any help.
Use this energy of watchfulness for a transformation of your being. It can bring you so much bliss and so much benediction that you cannot even dream about it. A simple process, but once you start using it on yourself it becomes a meditation.
One can make meditations out of anything.
Anything that leads you to yourself is meditation. And it is immensely significant to find your own meditation, because in the very finding you will find great joy. And because it is your own finding -- not some ritual imposed upon you -- you will love to go deeper into it. The deeper you go into it, the happier you will feel -- peaceful, more silent, more together, more dignified, more graceful.
You all know watching, so there is no question of learning it. It is just a question of changing the object of watching. Bring them closer.
Watch your body, and you will be surprised. I can move my hand without watching, and I can move my hand with watching. You will not see the difference, but I can feel the difference. When I move it with watchfulness, there is a grace and beauty in it, a peacefulness, and a silence. You can walk, watching each step; it will give you all the benefit that walking can give you as an exercise, plus it will give you the benefit of a great simple meditation.
The temple in Bodhgaya where Gautam Buddha became enlightened has been made in memory of two things... one is a Bodhi tree under which he used to sit. Just by the side of the tree there are small stones for a slow walk. He was meditating, sitting, and when he would feel that sitting had been too much -- a little exercise was needed for the body -- he would walk on those stones. That was his walking meditation.
When I was in Bodhgaya, having a meditation camp there, I went to the temple. I saw Buddhist lamas from Tibet, from Japan, from China. They were all paying their respect to the tree, and I saw not a single one paying his respect to those stones on which Buddha had walked miles and miles. I told them, "This is not right. You should not forget those stones. They have been touched by Gautam Buddha's feet millions of times. But I know why you are not paying any attention to them, because you have forgotten completely that Buddha was emphasizing that you should watch every act of your body: walking, sitting, lying down."
You should not let a single moment go by unconsciously. Watchfulness will sharpen your consciousness. This is the essential religion -- all else is simply talk. But Waduda, you ask me, "Is there something more?" No, if you can do only watchfulness, nothing else is needed.
My effort here is to make religion as simple as possible. All the religions have done just the opposite: they have made things very complex -- so complex that people have never tried them. For example, in the Buddhist scriptures there are thirty-three thousand principles to be followed by a Buddhist monk; even to remember them is impossible. Just the very number thirty-three thousand is enough to freak you out: "I am finished! My whole life will be disturbed and destroyed."
I teach you: just find a single principle that suits you, that feels in tune with you, and that is enough.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Golden Future Chapter #20
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