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Chapter 1 - The Hidden Harmony
that these are climates, changes in season, moods that just come and go -- and you will see the gestalt in them.
This German word gestalt is beautiful. It says there is a harmony between the figure and background. They are not opposites, they APPEAR opposites. For example: in a small school you see the blackboard, and the teacher writes with white chalk on the blackboard. Black and white are opposites. Yes, for Aristotelian minds they are opposites: black is black and white is white -- they are the polarities. But why is this teacher writing with white on black? Can't she write with white on white? Can't she write with black on black? She can, but it will be useless.
The black has to be the background and the white becomes the figure on it: they contrast, there is a tension between them. They are opposites and there is a hidden harmony. The white looks whiter on black; that's the harmony. On white it will simply disappear because there is no tension, no opposition.
Remember, Jesus would have disappeared if Jews had not crucified him. They made it a gestalt: the cross was the blackboard, and Jesus became whiter on it. Jesus would have completely disappeared; it is because of the cross that he has remained. And it is because of the cross that he has penetrated people's hearts more than a Buddha, more than a Mahavira.
Almost half of the world has fallen in love with him -- it is because of the cross. He was a white line on a black board. Buddha is a white line on a white board. The contrast is not there, the gestalt is not there; the background is just the same as the figure.
If you simply love and can't hate, your love will not be worthwhile, it will simply be useless. It will have no intensity in it, it will not be a flame, it will not be a passion; it will be simply cold. It becomes a passion -- and passion is a beautiful word because passion has intensity. But how does it become a passion?
-- because the same man is capable of hate also.
Compassion has an intensity if the same man is capable of anger also. If he is simply incapable of anger, then his compassion will be just impotent -- just
impotent! He is helpless, that's why compassion is there. He cannot hate, that's why he loves. When you love in spite of hate, there is passion. Then it becomes a figure and background phenomenon, then there is a gestalt.
And Heraclitus is talking of the deepest gestalt. The obvious harmony is no harmony really, the hidden harmony is the real harmony. So don't try to be consistent on the surface; rather, find a consistency between the deep inconsistencies, find a harmony between the deepest opposites.
THE HIDDEN HARMONY
IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS.
That is the difference between a religious man and a moral man. A moral man is just harmonious on the surface; a religious man is harmonious at the center. A religious man is bound to be contradictory; a moral man is always consistent. You can rely on a moral man; you cannot rely on a religious man. A moral man is predictable; a religious man, never. How Jesus will behave nobody knows -- even his close disciples were not aware, they couldn't predict him. This man is unpredictable. He talks of love and then he takes a whip in the temple and chases the moneychangers out. He talks of compassion, he talks in terms of "love Osho
- The Hidden Harmony 12
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