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Chapter 13 - Truth is not divisible
Although they belong to the same energy as opposite poles, you have to start from being spontaneous. All the religions of the world want you to start from commitment, all political parties want you to start from commitment.
Commitment, if you start with it, is very dangerous. It is another name of slavery. It means you are saying and promising something which is not within your capacity. You are saying that "Tomorrow also, I will be the same." But who can say what tomorrow is going to bring?
Commitment means, "I will remain blind to anything else that can change my commitment." That's why every belief makes people blind. They have to keep their eyes closed, out of fear -- they may see something which goes against their belief, their commitment.
Every year, the Catholic pope declares a black list of books that Catholics are not supposed to read. Reading them means a certainty of your going to hell. I was talking to a bishop in Nagpur, because a few of my books had been listed by the Catholic pope as not to be read by any Catholics; whoever reads them is paving his path towards hell. And this is not new, this is an almost eighteen-hundred- year-old tradition in the Catholic Church.
Before this century, they used to burn and destroy any book they decided was dangerous for Catholics. Now they cannot do that, but at least they can prevent the Catholics -- who are a great majority in the world, seven hundred million people.
I simply said to the bishop of Nagpur, "At least somebody must have been reading my books; otherwise how do they decide? Either the pope himself must be reading, or some associate cardinals in the Vatican must be reading -- without reading, you cannot decide that a book is dangerous to the Catholic belief."
He was in a dilemma: he could not say yes, he could not say no. Because if he says "Yes, somebody reads it," that means that person is bound to fall into hell. And if that person is not going to fall into hell, then the whole idea is ridiculous; then nobody is going to fall into hell.
It is just to keep people's eyes closed: no facts should be allowed to be known to them that go against their belief.
Commitment demands that you lose your eyes, lose your mind, lose your reason, your logic, your intelligence, your consciousness. It is almost a living death. Never begin anything with commitment.
But such is the mystery of life... Begin everything with spontaneity, with natural awareness, with no commitment for anything, but always ready and open and available to anything new that you come across on the path. Only a spontaneous lifestyle can lead you to your authentic being.
And this is the miracle: that once spontaneous living has led you to clarity of vision, to purity of intelligence -- has destroyed all the darkness of your soul and has made everything light within you -- then spontaneousness itself becomes commitment.
But it is not being imposed from outside, it is a growth within yourself. It is your experience to which you are committed; it is your understanding to which you are committed.
You are committed to your own eyes, to your own consciousness, to your own intelligence, to your own experience.
This commitment has a beauty and an aliveness. It is spontaneity becoming mature.
Osho - The Hidden Splendor 133
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