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Chapter title: None
3 July 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Archive code: 8007035 1/08/07
Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994
Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished
Query:-
ShortTitle: GWIND03 Audio:
No Video:
No
[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]
For centuries religions all over the world have been telling people to serve humanity, but it has not produced any effect, it has not served any purpose. On the contrary, it has created hypocrites. People who are not blissful themselves are absolutely unable to help anybody. Those who have not attained cannot share; they don't have it to share. You can give light to others only if you have it in the first place.
Blind people trying to lead other blind people -- that's what has been happening. It is a very dangerous game, because if the blind person knows nobody is leading him, he tries to find his own way, he tries to grope. He remains careful, cautious, very cautious. But the moment he finds that somebody is leading him, guiding him, that he has found a leader he relaxes; he need not be so alert, he need not be
on guard so much.
He is completely unaware that the guide is as blind as he himself. Now there is more danger than there was before because he will not live cautiously. He will think 'Now somebody is there to take respon-sibility --
why be worried?'
It is because of this -- these blind people guiding other blind people -- that the whole humanity has almost become a madhouse: everybody has fallen into all kinds of ditches, everybody is suffering. Life has become almost intolerable. And it has all happened through good intentions.
The people who have tried to help have only hindered growth. Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Jainism; all teach service to humanity: service to humanity is the way to god.
So people start serving without knowing whether they are capable of serving or not.
You won't allow anybody to operate on you unless he is a qualified surgeon. Whatsoever his intentions, even if they are very good intentions -- he reads the Bible every day and goes to church and he talks beautifully about god and about prayer and he is a man of prayer -- still we will say 'Don't touch my body --
you are not a surgeon.' And he will say, 'But I want to help you, I want to serve you. Service to humanity is my religion, service above all.' You will say, 'That's very good, but find somebody else!'
About the body you won't allow anybody to help you unless he is qualified, but about the soul all kinds of people are allowed to help you. Only the awakened ones can be helpers. Unless a man is enlightened, it is impossible for him to guide anybody. Of course the desire to guide is there in everybody, it is very ego- fulfilling. That's why everybody is ready to give you advice whether you ask for it or not. Unasked for advice is being given, and good advice, because everybody wants to be, at least in SOMEBODY'S eyes, a wise man. And it is very easy to advise others. They may not have practised the same thing in their own life...
There is a Sufi story. A woman came to a Sufi mystic with her small child who was eating too many sweets, ice cream and all kinds of things, and the mother
was worried. The mother believed that sugar was white poison; she believed in naturopathy. But the child was adamant and he wouldn't listen.
She told the mystic 'I have tried every possible way: I have punished him, I have rewarded him --
nothing works! He goes on eating sweets, he simply eats sweets and nothing else. He is ready to be hungry but he won't eat anything else; the whole day he goes on stuffing himself. We are worried -- it is going to be dangerous for his health, for his teeth, and everything will be affected. You have to do something. You have always been of great help to me -- please advise this stupid child. He is very stubborn.'
The mystic looked at the child and said to the woman, 'Come back after three weeks. I cannot advise you right now.' Even the child was curious, because so many people were advising him. He looked at the mystic and said, 'What is the matter? -- because every person that I have come across advises me, and my mother takes me to every place. I have become accustomed to all this nonsense, and I have to listen. You are the first man who has wanted three weeks. Are you going to ponder over it?'
And the old man said, 'No, my child, I am not going to ponder over it. I love sweets myself. I cannot advise you right now. I am not the right person to advise you; my advice will be futile. Three weeks I will practise. If I can manage at this age to drop sweets completely, then I can advise you. If I fail I will confess
"I cannot advise him -- take him to somebody else."' 1/08/07
Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994
Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished
Query:-
After three weeks they came back and the old man said, 'Three weeks more will be needed.' The child said, 'What is the matter?' The old man said, 'You know, I know, but this woman won't understand -- she is mad! I have been trying hard but I love sweets.'
The child said, 'You are right. I have also tried hard. Not that I don't want... I understand all these people are good people and they are all advising me for my good, but I cannot stop.'
The old man said, 'Wait three weeks more.' And after three weeks when they came back the old man said to the child, 'It can be done, my boy. I have done it! And look: I am a very old man, still I have been able to do it. Give it a try.' And the child said, 'Okay, master. I will try!'
The woman was puzzled. She said, 'This is the first time that the child has taken any interest in any adviser. In fact he insists every day, "When are we going to the old man?" He reminds me, "Now three weeks are over and we should go." You are the first man with whom he has agreed willingly.'
The old man said, 'The reason is he can understand that I have tried on my own first, I have practised it.
He can see my sincerity; it is not mere advice. He knows it has cost me much. I love sweets, I have always loved sweets. Sugar may be white poison -- so what? One is going to die sooner or later. And I am an old man; whether I live two years or three years or seven years or ten, what does it matter? -- one day one has to die. For his sake I practised it, and I give my word that I will never eat sweets, I will never again use sugar in my life. If this can help the child, then it is okay, otherwise what else can I do?' This sincerity worked; the child dropped sweets that very day.
Missionaries have been doing much work all over the world -- missionaries of all religions -- trying to help people with things they have not practised themselves...
One can be a helper only if one has first helped himself. It begins from your very innermost core. You have to be the basic experiment of transformation.
This is my approach. So I don't say to my sannyasins: go and help humanity. Enough of that kind of help has been done and enough harm has been done through that kind of help. No more of it! I insist: help yourself. And if you can attain to light, to bliss, to an experience of godliness, then you are bound to help others. There is no need to say anything about it; it will overflow, your joy will start overflowing. And remember: only a blissful person can be helpful; the miserable person can only harm.
So the first thing to remember, the most basic, is to become blissful. Be totally selfish, only then can you be altruistic. This is a strange message, because for centuries man has been told 'Don't be selfish, then you can be altruistic.' I say just the opposite: Be totally selfish because only out of your selfishness does altruism grow; it is not against it.
A man who has loved himself will be able to love others. A man who has felt bliss will be able to spread it. One always gives whatsoever one has, one radiates it. It is not possible to hide it, it starts functioning of its own accord... It is such a miracle, it is such magic.
One cannot praise god unless one's life is a celebration -- obviously: if you are miserable you can only complain, you cannot praise -- praise for what? You cannot feel grateful -- grateful for what? In fact you will have a grudge against god. Deep down you will feel that you have been cheated.
One of the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's great novel BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, says 'If I meet god the first thing I am going to ask him is "Who asked you to create me? And is it right to create me without my permission? This is an imposition, this is dictatorial. I never wanted your so-called life, because I only suffered. Who are you to create me without my permission? Do you enjoy people and their miseries?
Are you a sadist of some kind? Are we created just to keep you engaged, and are all kinds of miseries created for us just for your enjoyment and entertainment? What is this existence for, for what purpose?"'
He is angry, and I can see that his anger has a certain meaning. In fact everybody has felt that anger once in a while. Whenever you are in misery, in deep suffering, anguish, you have felt it. It is not just fiction, it is not something out of the imagination of the novelist; it is very true, it is human.
It will be impossible to forgive god if we remain miserable -- what to say of praising? That's why people who pray are bound to remain hypocrites for the simple reason: they have not tasted of bliss -- how can they show their thankfulness? Maybe they are praying out of fear, but how can prayer arise out of fear? Out of fear love never arises; out of fear arises hatred, anger.
Friedrich Nietzsche seems to be far more authentic man than your so-called popes and ayatollahs and imams and pundits and shankaracharyas, because he
declared that god is dead! That was just sheer anger, anger at being in such a miserable situation where there seems to be no way to get out. The more you try to get out, the more you become entangled. The more you try to solve the problems of life, the more you come 1/08/07
Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994
Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished
Query:-
to see that they are insoluble.
Still man has to live because there is a deep desire to live. God has given us a tremendous libido, a lust for life -- and life is full of misery. He has created a dilemma, a double-bind; he won't allow you to die easily and he won't allow you to live easily either.
It is very natural that the twentieth century has revolted against religions. All intelligent people all over the world are against religion for the simple reason that the whole thing seems to be insincere. You cannot pray, you cannot feel thankful because there is nothing to feel thankful for.
My effort here is to create a totally new concept of religion which will be applicable to the modern mind, which will be contemporary. All religions are rotten and old now. They have lost their relevance, their context, they have lost all their meaning. They may have been meaningful once, but now man has come of age.
Five thousand years ago men were like small children. They needed a different kind of religion, a very childish religion: god the father, and angels flying with wings and all kinds of fairy tales. They were good for children to keep them engaged, colourful, but not for people who have become grown-up. And our religions are still hanging around those ancient fairy tales. They still talk a language which is okay as far as children are concerned but which is stupid, silly as far as silly as far as a grown-up person is concerned.
It is good to take small children to Disneyland, but when the Dalai Lama goes and visits it, then it looks silly, just stupid. But I can see the reason: the Dalai Lama also lives in a very childish religious attitude. He was deeply interested, he
enjoyed it very much. There seems to be a certain affinity between the childish mind and the old religious mind.
To me religion should start not with a belief in god; a grown-up's religion cannot start by any belief -- it can only start in scientific experimen-tation. One has to become the scientific lab oneself. Of course the experimentation is inner and subjective, but it is as scientific as any objective experiment. In fact one has to be more alert because one will be dealing with more subtle phenomena. And one has to look for god, one has to look for bliss, because bliss is a natural desire; god almost seems to be something imposed upon us.
Religions can be without god; there are religions -- Buddhism, Jainism. They are without god. God doesn't seem to be a necessary hypothesis at all. But without bliss there can be no religion because then there is no need for any religion. Religion means the science of bliss. How to transform our energies from a state of misery into a state of bliss -- that should be the whole of religion.
And this is my experience, that when it happens a great gratitude arises. In that gratitude, for the first time you feel the presence of something divine. You can call it god, you can call it truth, you can call it tao
-- it doesn't matter what you call it -- or you may not call it anything; you may remain completely silent about it because it is something inexpressible. But certainly it happens when you are blissful. Then you start feeling a deep thankfulness towards existence. That is praise of the lord.
Find bliss and you will have found prayer as a consequence of it. But for centuries you have been told: pray and then you will find bliss. I am saying just the opposite: become blissful and prayer will come of its own accord. And then prayer has a beauty of its own: it is without fear, without greed. You are not asking for anything; it is not beggarly. You are simply feeling a thankfulness to the unknown source of all, to the ultimate source of all. And now you have something to feel grateful for -- you cannot complain.
Dostoevsky lived in misery. For his whole life he was a miserable man. He lived in all kinds of nightmares, he was really a tortured soul. He represented the modern consciousness in all its naked anguish, in its ugliest form. He suffered -- it is natural that he was angry. The same was true about Friedrich Nietzsche; he was also suffering very much. They were unable to find any way because
Christianity had become almost hocus-pocus. After Jesus died Christianity became a dead phenomenon.
Nietzsche was right when he said that the first and the last Christian died two thousand years ago on the cross -- the first and the last, he said. After Jesus there has only been a long queue of stupid of people, of all kinds of superstitious people. But this has happened to almost every religion more or less; the difference is only of quantity.
I don't want to give any belief, any dogma, any creed. I trust only in experience. So while being here with me and becoming a sannyasin, this has to be your goal: to become more blissful. We create our misery, hence it is not difficult to be blissful. It is just because we don't understand how we go on creating our misery; once we understand the mechanism of how we go on doing it, we can stop doing it. And the same energy starts moving into different directions. It starts becoming a totally new phenomenon: it becomes bliss, and then prayer follows.
That prayer is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan. That prayer is simply prayerfulness. That 1/08/07
Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994
Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished
Query:-
prayer is not addressed to any particular god -- Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan
-- it is not really addressed to anybody in particular. It is simply a heartfelt joy, a thankfulness for the whole existence: for the trees, for the clouds, for the stars, for all that has been, is, and will be.
-- What is the meaning of your name, Kiffy? -- I don't know. -- And I also don't know, so...! You have such a beautiful name -- there is no need for a meaning. Ma Anand Kiffy -- we will call you blissful Kiffy. Whatsoever Kiffy means, be blissful! That is the real thing; that is the elephant. Kiffy is just the tail-end. If the elephant passes by, the tall will also go! How long will you be here? -- Till December, I think. -- That's good. Both the elephant and the tail will go!
The Golden Wind
Chapter #4
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