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Chapter 11 - A noah's ark of consciousness
"And when I become aware that I was not aware, I feel guilty." That is absolute stupidity.
When you become aware that you were not aware, feel happy that at least now you are aware.
For the concept of guilt, there is no place in my teachings. Guilt is one of the cancers of the soul.
And all the religions have used guilt to destroy your dignity, your pride, and to make you just slaves. There is no need to feel guilty, it is natural. Awareness is such a great thing that even if you can be aware for few seconds, rejoice. Don't pay attention to those moments when you forgot. Pay attention to that state when you suddenly remember, "I was not aware." Feel fortunate that at least after few hours, awareness has returned.
Don't make it a repentance, a guilt, a sadness -- because by being guilty and sad, you are not going to be helped. You will feel, deep down, a failure. And once a feeling of failure settles in you, awareness will become even more difficult.
Change your whole focus. It is great that you became aware that you had forgotten to be aware. Now don't forget, for as long as possible. Again you will forget; again you will remember -- but each time, the gap of forgetfulness will become smaller and smaller. If you can avoid guilt, which is basically Christian, your gaps of unawareness will become shorter, and one day they will simply disappear. Awareness will become just like breathing or heartbeat, or the blood circulating in you -- day in, day out.
So be watchful that you don't feel guilty. There is nothing to feel guilty about. It is immensely significant that the trees don't listen to your Catholic priests. Otherwise, they will make the roses feel guilty: "Why do you have thorns?" And the rose, dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, will suddenly become sad. The dance will disappear, the joy will disappear, the fragrance will disappear. Now the thorn will become his only reality, a wound
-- "Why do you have thorns?"
But because there are no rose bushes so foolish as to listen to any priest of any religion, roses go on dancing, and with the roses, thorns also go on dancing.
The whole existence is guiltless. And a man, the moment he becomes guiltless, becomes part of the universal flow of life. That is enlightenment: a guiltless consciousness, rejoicing in everything that life makes available -- the light is beautiful; so is darkness.
When you cannot find anything to be guilty about, to me you have become a religious man. To the so-called religions, unless you are guilty you are not religious; the more guilty you are, the more religious you are.
People are torturing themselves as punishment, as penance. People are fasting; people are beating their chests with their fists till blood oozes from their chests. These people, to me, are psychopaths; they are not religious. Their so-called religions have taught them that if you commit anything wrong, it is better to punish yourself than be punished by God on Judgment Day -- because that punishment is to be thrown into the abysmal darkness of hell for eternity.
There is no escape, no exit. Once you enter hell, you have entered.
The whole humanity has been made guilty in some measure or other. It has taken away the shine from your eyes, it has taken away the beauty from your face, it has taken away the grace of your being. It has reduced you to a criminal -- unnecessarily.
Osho - The Hidden Splendor 112
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