The Invitation
Talks given from 21/08/87 am to 05/09/87 pm English Discourse series
30 Chapters
Year published: 1988 The Invitation Chapter #1
Chapter title: Throw the bucket and draw the water 21 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8708210
ShortTitle: INVITA01
Audio: Yes Video: Yes Length: 107
mins
Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,
CAN YOU SAY WHO YOU ARE?
Maneesha, I am an invitation for all those who are seeking, searching, and have a deep longing in their hearts to find their home.
I am an answer to the question that everybody is, but cannot formulate -- a question that is more a quest than a question, more a thirst than a verbal, mental inquiry; a thirst that one feels in every cell and fiber of his being, but has no way to bring to words and ask.
I am an answer for that question which you cannot ask and you cannot expect that it could be answered.
When I say I am the answer, I don't mean that I can give you the answer... yes, if you are ready, you can take it. I am just like a well, ready for you to throw your bucket and draw the water for yourself. I have it but I cannot reach to you without your efforts.
Only you can reach to me. It is a strange invitation.
It will take you on a long pilgrimage and it will end only where you already are. You will have to move many steps and on many paths just to come to yourself, because you have gone far away from yourself. You have completely forgotten the way back.
I am a reminder, a remembrance, of the lost home. As a person I do not exist.
As a person I only appear. I exist as a presence.
Since the day I came to know myself, the person disappeared. There is only a
presence, a very living presence that can quench your thirst, that can fulfill your longing. Hence, in one word I can say I am an invitation, of course just for those who have a deep longing in their hearts that they are missing themselves -- a deep urge, that unless they find themselves, everything else is meaningless. Unless it is your a priori concern, your ultimate concern, such that if it is needed you are even ready to lose everything for it, but you cannot drop it.…
There are thousands of desires, but as far as longing is concerned there is only one: to come back home, to find your reality. And in that very finding, you have found all that is of any value -- blissfulness, truth, ecstasy.
Jesus used to say, "If you have eyes to see, see. If you have ears to hear, hear." Of course, he was not talking to the blind and to the deaf. He was talking to people just like you.
Perhaps he was talking just to you, because you are not new. You are as ancient as the whole existence.
You have always been here.
You may have come across many masters; you may have come close to many buddhas, but you were too much engaged in trivia. You were not aware of your longing.
I am an effort to provoke the dormant in you, to wake up the asleep. The fire is there, but is burning very low because you have never taken any care of it.
My invitation is to make you aflame, and unless you know a life which is luminous and aflame all your knowledge is just a deception. You are gathering it to help you forget that the real knowledge is missing. But however great is your accumulation of the other, the objective, the world, it is not going to become a substitute for your self-knowing. With self-knowing suddenly all darkness disappears, and all separation from existence.
I am an invitation to take a courageous jump into the ocean of life. Lose yourself, because that is the only way to find yourself.
Question 2
BELOVED OSHO,
EACH TIME I SEE YOU, I AM SHOCKED BY YOUR BEAUTY. YOU'VE GOT TO
BE THE MOST GORGEOUS BEING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED! OSHO, IN WHAT WAY DO YOU EXPERIENCE YOUR OWN BEAUTY?
Jalada, there is no way to experience your own beauty.
All knowledge needs a certain distance between the knower and the known. If the beauty is physical then there are ways to know it -- you can see yourself in a mirror. But if the beauty is coming out of your silence, out of your peace, out of your inner splendor -- it may radiate from your physical being but it does not belong to your physical body, it is not physical -- then there is no way to know it yourself, because it is not reflected in a mirror. You can experience it.
The most important thing to remember is that the beauty that you have seen in me is not my own, it is yours too -- it is everyone's. The bodies may be different, but the inner fire is the same. And when that fire starts radiating from your body, it creates a certain grace, a certain beauty. It is no one's monopoly. It is everybody's intrinsic potentiality.
If you can see my beauty, that's an indication of seeing your own beauty, because I am nothing but a mirror to you. But it often happens... looking in the mirror you may see a beautiful face, and if you are asleep or drunk or half-asleep, half- awake, you may think the mirror is very beautiful. But the mirror is just a mirror; it is only reflecting you.
One drunkard was torturing his wife by continually coming home late. Every night it was a fight. Finally, the wife gave up and she told the man, "You keep the key. Unlock the door from the outside and come in silently. Don't disturb my sleep, and don't create any nuisance so that the neighbors are disturbed. Just come and go to sleep."
The drunkard was very happy. That day he drank as much as he wanted; now there was no question of any problem arising out of it. Then he came home. He tried to be as silent as possible -- opened the door, went into the bathroom to change his clothes, looked into the mirror and said, "My God."
All his face was scratched. Blood was oozing, because he had been in a fight in the pub.
He said, "Right now I have managed perfectly silently, but in the morning the wife is going to discover these scratches and this blood, and that will bring the whole problem again -- the same fight. Somehow I have to hide the scratches; I should at least put some ointment on them."
He looked all around. He could not find anything except his wife's lipstick. He thought it looked like an ointment, and it was very helpful because it covered the scratches, the blood. He was very happy at his success, went to his bed, and there was no quarrel, no fight. It was one of the most beautiful nights of his life!
But in the morning, the wife shouted from the bathroom, "Are you mad or what? You have destroyed my lipstick. Not only that, why have you been painting the mirror?"
He was, poor fellow, trying to put the ointment on his face, but his face was in the mirror.
So in the mirror wherever there were scratches or blood on his face, he did a great job of painting -- the lipstick was finished and the mirror was spoiled.
He could not believe how it could have happened. He said, "I did not want to disturb you so I tried some ointment, and only this thing looked like ointment. I don't know what happened to me, why I have put it on the mirror. I was putting it on my own face!"
In life, what you see shows much about you, not about what you are seeing. The same sunset looks beautiful to one person, and to another, sad. And to another it doesn't matter; he remains indifferent. The sunset is the same. It looks beautiful to the person who is capable of being in tune with it, who is capable of being silent and a mirror to reflect it into his own being; who can drink out of it, its colors, its radiance, its splendor.
The same sunset looks sad not beautiful to somebody else because he is sad; he projects his sadness onto it. And the third person lives in a way which can be called the way of indifference. He never looks at the sunset or the moon or the trees or the flowers or people. He has eyes but he never uses them. He is in such a rush, in such a hurry to reach somewhere he knows not where... just a tension,
a constant running after shadows. He does not have time to waste to look at a stupid sunset.
It all depends on you.
If you see the beautiful in me, something beautiful has arisen in you.
Two men were riding on a train for the first time in their lives. One of them had a bunch of bananas. He offered one to his friend and began to peel one for himself. Just then the train entered a tunnel.
"Have you tasted your banana yet?" asked the first man, very alarmed. "No, I haven't," replied his friend.
"Well, for heaven's sake, don't," said the first man, "I took one bite and went blind."
We are very much enclosed in our own psychology, and we project that psychology all around.
A man of silence finds this whole world is full of silence. Even the sounds only deepen the silence. And a man full of noise never becomes aware of the immense silences in the night. It all depends on you. Your world is nothing but you, projected.
It is a good indication that you feel beauty in me -- don't stop there. It is not an objective experience, something beautiful is growing in you. Notice it, and a day will come you will see everybody beautiful around you, everything beautiful around you.
Only be satisfied when you cannot find anything which is not beautiful. When you have become capable of looking at the beauty of everything that exists and lives, you have reached to a flowering of your own being.
Your question can be looked at very easily from a different point. You say, "Each time I see you, I am shocked by your beauty. You've got to be the most gorgeous being that has ever happened! Osho, in what way do you experience your own beauty?"
There are people who see me as the antichrist. The American government, in conspiracy with fundamentalist Christians, destroyed the commune in America. And now they have raised a memorial in Wasco County where the commune was
-- a marble memorial, a memorial saying that they succeeded in getting rid of the antichrist.
It all depends on you what you see. It always refers to you.
Two small children were standing inside an art gallery because it was raining and they could not find any other shelter. So they entered the gallery. Standing there soaked with water, dripping, one boy looked at a Picasso painting and he said, "My God, we should get away from here! If they catch us they will say we have done it. Some idiot has spoiled everything. We have not touched it, but we are in a position we will not be able to defend."
It is said, that once Picasso's car was stolen. He reported it to the police station, and the people knew him. They said, "It is very sad and sorry. Do you have some details and a description -- number plate, what kind of car?"
He said, "I never looked at the number plate, but I can draw a sketch." So he drew a sketch of his car and the police searched hard. And finally, they caught one horse, one washing machine and the Eiffel Tower!
The Picasso sketch gave them all these ideas -- and it was a sketch of a car! Picasso's way of thinking, way of looking at things, was strange and crazy. He was a great genius, but a little outlandish.
A very rich woman wanted him to make her portrait. He said, "I don't generally do that kind of painting because my fee is so much. Secondly, nobody seems to be satisfied when the portrait is finished. It will be almost one million dollars. If you are ready to pay I can do the portrait."
The woman said, "One million or two million, it doesn't matter, but I want a portrait by you."
So he made the portrait. It took many sittings and the woman became more and more puzzled as she saw the portrait coming up. When the portrait was complete she said,
"Only one question, I want to know where my nose is. Everything is okay, but at least I should know where my nose is. From there I can figure out the eyes, the mouth, my ears -
- that can be the center for finding myself."
Picasso said, "I told you in the very beginning...! Now it is a trouble to find the nose --
who knows where your nose is! I have painted it, that is true, but in so many sittings I can't remember exactly where I have put it. You take it home and contemplate; perhaps you may find it. It is there, that much is certain. It is there, this much I can guarantee because I remember I have painted your nose. But don't harass me! You are paying money for the portrait not for these questions. If you had told me before that you would ask questions I would have refused, because who takes care where your nose is, and in what way does it matter? Somewhere it must be in the portrait. If somebody asks you, you can say, `Just look, you will find it.' Just one thing: if you or somebody else finds it, inform me."
Picasso became one of the great painters. But all his paintings are, to say the least, insane.
He himself was insane; he was pouring his insanity into colors on the canvas -- it was his projection. He was a genius. He could manage to paint, and paint in many original ways.
Naturally, if you cannot find the nose, the portrait is original. What more originality can you expect? He has worked hard but his way of seeing.…
I had a professor in my university... I used to listen to him with closed eyes. Finally, he could not resist the temptation. He said, "What is the matter with you? Whenever I talk to you, you close your eyes."
I said, "To talk with you and to see your eyes -- one going this way, one going that way --
makes me dizzy. Sometimes I look to whom you are talking, because you never look at me."
Those eyes were such that when he was talking to you one thing was certain, he would not be looking at you. That's the only way he could look at you: when he was looking somewhere else.
I said, "Either you get your eyes fixed or please forgive me. I want to listen to what you are saying; I don't want to get dizzy."
The way you see the world, the way you see people, the way you see trees... all depends on you.
You live in a world of your own creation.
There are as many worlds as there are people because everyone is living in his own world. No two persons agree about anything. Somebody thinks a woman beautiful, and others laugh at the very idea: "If this woman is beautiful then... finished! Then what can be called ugly?"
So, Jalada, it is perfect for you to see beauty in me, but it is part of your own seeing, it has nothing to do with me. I am just a victim! Today I am beautiful, tomorrow if you are angry at me, then too remember. If you see that this is the antichrist, remember, it is your own idea.
It reminds me that there have been found a few inscriptions contemporary to Jesus' life, which describe him as the ugliest man possible. Not only was he ugly, he was also a hunchback. And his followers have described him as one of the most beautiful men.
Christians never even raised the question: What about those inscriptions? But fortunately, I am no one, neither Christian nor Hindu nor Buddhist, so I can see from a distance.
My feeling is that both descriptions may be right. It looks absurd -- how can both descriptions be right about one man? They are not descriptions of Jesus, they are descriptions of the people who were describing him.
Those who loved him, because of their love they created a beautiful personality. Those who hated him, out of their hate have created an ugly man. And they were not satisfied even with that -- they had to make him a hunchback. They had to reduce his height to four feet six inches; they had to make him a pygmy.
This has to be understood deeply, because then you don't create the illusion and make it objective. You should always remember that whatever you see in the world is your own projection. Yes, there is a state when you are beyond mind and all projections have dropped. Then you see the world as it is. It is just unimaginably beautiful, but that beauty is a totally different kind of beauty, it is not your projection.
The moment you go beyond your mind, you suddenly become a mirror -- then you reflect reality. Within the mind you project reality; you don't reflect. Being with me, meditating for years, something must be getting out of the mind, beyond the mind. And you will be absolutely certain that some transcendence is happening when if not only in me but in everybody you start seeing the beautiful, the authentic, the sincere -- even in those who are not beautiful, who are not sincere, who are not truthful. It doesn't matter; their actions don't constitute their being. Their being is far bigger than their small, tiny, actions.
It is a good indication: you love me. Naturally, you can see something beautiful, but trust in it only when you start seeing that beauty everywhere, when the whole of existence becomes beauty.
The ancient seers of India have described existence in two ways. One way they have called satyam, shivam, sundram. Satyam means truth, shivam means good, sundram means beautiful. This is one expression of the ultimate experience. Another trinity by a few other seers has one thing certainly in common -- satya, the truth. Satchitanand: sat means the truth, chit means consciousness, anand means blissfulness.
Both are right; it is their choice. They could not avoid one thing: truth. If they had a poetic approach, then the good and the beautiful were naturally experienced. If they were of a different disposition, more of a mystic than of a poet, then consciousness and blissfulness became part of their trinity.
It is because of these statements that I say religions born outside of India are very childish. Just see these trinities and compare them with the Christian trinity: God the father, God the son, and the holy ghost.
It is not even comparable to satchitanand: truth, consciousness, bliss or to satyam, shivam, sundram: truth, good, beauty. These seem to be experiences. God, the son and the holy ghost... I don't think anybody has ever experienced
them. And the experience would be more like a nightmare!
But it all depends on you. Just as your dreams are yours and show something about your mind, so are your ideas while you are awake. They show something about you, and this is to be remembered by every seeker. This is a turning point. We are easily objective but our reality is subjective. We see things there which are our own projections.
A poet looks around the trees in a different way. He sees many greens, not one green. His sensitivity is so deep that he can make very subtle distinctions in the green of one tree and the green of another tree. You ordinarily simply see that the trees are green, but not even two leaves are exactly the same green. It needs a very sensitive, artistic, poetic, approach -- it depends on you; you live in your own world.
J. Krishnamurti used to say, "You are the world." Once this is understood tremendous changes are possible. You will not throw tantrums at others. You will become more centered, you will become more subjective and introvert. Your world will start losing objects; it will become more of a subjectivity -- and that is your truth.
Once you are centered in your being, beyond mind, then you can see the world as it is.
Only very few people have seen the world as it is. Everybody sees it as his mood, his emotion, as his idea suggests to him.
Jalada, it has to be remembered continuously, that whatever you see, it is your own projection. Unless you start seeing the same everywhere -- in the friend and in the foe --
then your experience has entered into a new realm.
Irving Levensky, a leading dress manufacturer, decided to go on an African safari. After spending six weeks in darkest Africa, he returned to Seventh Avenue. Everyone who worked in his show room gasped when he walked in the door.
Irving, who was six feet tall when he left New York, was now little higher than two feet.
His employees all looked at him and asked, "Mr. Levensky, what happened?"
He replied, "Never, but never, under any circumstances, call a witch doctor a schmuck!"
It is better not to call anything to anybody -- just remain centered in yourself. Look at the world and drop judgments, and you will have such a pure atmosphere around you -- no appreciation, no condemnation, just a pure watchfulness.
This watchfulness, I call meditation. Question 3
BELOVED OSHO,
SOMETIMES I AM BLESSED BY THIS OVERWHELMING FEELING THAT THIS
COMMUNE IS BECOMING GENTLY ONE BODY, ONE ORGANISM, ONE
HEARTBEAT. AM I DREAMING? AM I ONCE MORE THE USUAL UTOPIAN?
OH, AMORE, PLEASE TELL ME IT IS NOT A DREAM.
Sarjano, it is a dream that is coming true, but it is a dream -- not your dream, but the dream of everybody who is here.
It is impossible to find a man who is not carrying a dream of utopia, of a world which is better, more human, more beautiful, more loving; a world without conflicts, wars, discriminations, a world sensitive, compassionate, understanding. Every human being carries in some corner of his consciousness the dream, and it is not a new phenomenon.
From the very beginning the dream has been present in humanity, and efforts have been made to make a reality of it. Almost all efforts have failed, not because of any intrinsic difficulty, but because of a vast world that surrounds you. Your dreams are not in tune with the vested interests of the world, and they are more powerful -- immensely powerful.
The dreamer is very delicate, very fragile, just like his dream. It is a communion of dreamers.
We created a dream in America, but the American establishment could not tolerate it, because the dream of human beings living in peace and love as an organic unity is against all politics, against all those who are in power. It is against all the so-called religions, because if you succeed in creating a dream here and making it a reality, who is going to bother about their heaven and hell and God?
Bertrand Russell is right when he says that if people were really happy, religions would disappear. Religions have a vested interest in the misery of people. The people have to be kept miserable; otherwise, what will happen to Christianity, to Hinduism, to Judaism, and millions of priests who are living as parasites because you are miserable? In your misery you need some kind of consolation!
In the first place they make you guilty, and in the second place they ask you to go to the church to confess to the priest. The priest will fine you and will pray for you to God, that you should be forgiven -- it is such a game! And it has been going on for centuries and still man is so asleep that he does not see in what ways he is being manipulated.
No child comes with any feeling of guilt and if you don't teach him guilt, he will never know about it. He will live a natural, uninhibited, beautiful life, but that will destroy the whole profession of the priests. And now the psychoanalysts have also joined in that profession; they are the latest version of the priest.
Just the other day, I was reading that a patient said to the psychoanalyst, "Last night I did not dream." The psychoanalyst was saying, "Tell me about your dreams. Unless I have your dreams I cannot analyze them and I cannot help you."
The psychoanalyst became very angry. He said, "You are very uncooperative. Why did you not dream? Without dreams what can I do? My whole profession, my whole expertise depends on your dreaming. Continue to dream, and unless you cooperate, I am at a loss; I cannot help you."
The psychoanalyst wants you to continue dreaming. That has become his vested interest.
The priest wants you to go on committing sins. The priest will be at a loss if nobody commits any sin.
In a small school, the teacher was telling the children how to go to heaven. And after one hour's continuous effort to make those small boys and girls understand, finally she asked,
"Can anyone tell me, what are the requirements to go to heaven?" One small boy said, "You have to commit sin."
She said, "What? How have you managed to get this idea in your mind?"
He said, "Without committing sin, how is God going to forgive you? And without forgiveness, nobody can enter into paradise."
The child was saying something immensely significant. The priests, the saints go on teaching: Don't sin. But they don't mean that; remember, they go on saying it because they know the human nature, that you will sin. If they were for a moment made aware that people had decided not to sin, they would be in difficulty. You would have taken their whole profession.
The pope this year declared that anybody who confesses to God directly is committing a grave sin, you have to go through the right channel. Naturally, because if people start confessing to God directly, raising their hands to the sky and saying, "God, I have committed this sin, please forgive me," what will happen to the church? What will happen to the money that goes on flowing into the church because you commit sin?
I have heard.…
A bishop was very friendly with a rabbi. They became friends because both were interested in golf. And they had decided that on Sunday after the bishop was finished with the confessionals, they would go to the golf course. The rabbi waited, but it was becoming late. So finally, he came to the church to see what was the matter. He went inside.
In the Catholic church the priest sits behind a small window with a curtain. On the other side stands the man who confesses his sin, and the priest gives him the punishment:
"Donate ten dollars to the church and never do such a thing again," although, deep down he wants him to do it every day. It is natural, because from where is the money going to come?
The rabbi said, "It is becoming late."
The bishop said, "What to do? There is still a long line waiting, but you can be of help.
You just sit here, so I can wash, change my clothes, and get ready. Meanwhile, you do the confessional."
The rabbi said, "But I don't know what confessional is."
The bishop said, "It is very simple. You have just seen that man who raped a woman; I have fined him ten dollars. So just five dollars, ten dollars... fine them and tell them that they will be forgiven, and not to do it again."
The rabbi said, "Okay, I will try."
Of course, on the other side the people were not aware that there had been a change: the bishop was no longer there and the rabbi was sitting there. And one man said, "Father, you have to forgive me, I committed rape twice this week.
The rabbi said, "Son, don't be worried. Just put thirty dollars in the donation box."
The man said, "But last time when I committed rape, you asked only for ten dollars. Is the rate going higher?"
The rabbi said, "Don't be worried my son, ten dollars are in advance. You can commit another rape."
Utopia is what every human heart carries within him, particularly the younger generation, because as you become older you become less and less optimistic. Seeing the reality and its ugliness, seeing that all the powers are against any utopia, any freedom for human heart, any love, they don't want the world to become a paradise, because then they will be out of employment, and nobody is ready to lose his bread and butter.
So as you grow old, you slowly, slowly start thinking that utopias are utopias, and you start compromising with the society. But there are a few crazy people like me who go on dreaming in spite of the society, in spite of the whole world. And howsoever difficult the dream seems to be to materialize, still my heart says there is no harm in making another effort. Perhaps one day, if not in my life, then in the life of future human beings, utopia will become a reality.
When the commune in America was crushed, almost bulldozed criminally, anyone in my place would have dropped the idea -- but I am stubborn! I will go on till my last breath...
or even after that.
Sarjano, what is happening here again is that the dream is becoming true. And we have learned much in the destruction of the commune in America -- it has not been a bad experience. Learning is always good, and learning always comes through failures. The commune had succeeded, almost succeeded.
Here, we will avoid those possibilities of destruction. It is better to continue to dream for a better humanity than to settle into sadness and pessimism. Things are still coming together again. People are returning and they are more experienced now. They know not to have a structure that is capable of being destroyed. Something totally new, a more organic body, not a dictatorial regime; no enforcement of ten to twelve hours' work, but a more joyous, life-affirmative. Each according to his need, each according to his choice.
We are making every effort not to disturb anybody's individuality, not to sacrifice any individual for the commune. On the contrary, make every individual as strong as possible, because that will be the total strength of the commune -- and the seeds have started sprouting.
You are right, Sarjano, when you say, "Sometimes I am blessed by this overwhelming feeling that this commune is becoming gently one body, one organism, one heartbeat. Am I dreaming?" No, it is a reality that is happening.
"Am I once more the usual utopian?" We are making every effort to change the meaning of the word, ùtopia'. The meaning of the word ùtopia' is that which never happens, and we are determined to change the meaning. We are committed to the idea that utopia is that which can happen. Its old definition has to be changed totally. Utopia is the very heart of human beings. A man without dreams
for a better humanity is not a man, he is a desert.
"Oh, amore, please tell me it is not a dream." Sarjano, it is both: it is not a dream because the dream is turning into reality, but it is still a dream because much more has to be done.
You should not be satisfied.
This is a dream which goes on growing with new possibilities, with new dimensions. But we are determined to create it, to make it a reality. This is our religion. We are not interested in going to paradise; we are interested in making the paradise come here. It all depends on our love, on our silence, on our peace, on our meditation, and being aware and alert not to fall again into any trap of the vested interests.
Once the tree has become strong, has gained roots in the earth, it will be difficult for anybody to destroy it.
I believe in the earth.
I repeat Zarathustra who said to his disciples, "Never betray the earth." All the religions have betrayed the earth.
The earth is the only reality.
Everything else talked about by religions is only fiction to distract you. We don't want religions which are interested in a future heaven after death. Our interest is here, now --
before death. What is the point of thinking about after death? This has been the routine because people could not succeed to create something beautiful in life. They started postponing it beyond death because nobody knows what happens beyond death; so it was a very good postponement.
I am not for postponing it, not even for tomorrow. Whatever can be done should be done right now.
Don't betray the earth; don't betray the present.
Don't betray your dream; your dream is your very soul.
At a party an elderly bishop tired of social engagements sank wearily into a chair. His hostess rushed up suggesting that he have a cup of tea.
"No tea," grunted the bishop. "Coffee?"
"No coffee," was the solemn reply. "Scotch and water?"
"No water."
Sarjano, just avoid Scotch. Just avoid unconsciousness. Water is perfectly good. Be clear in your vision, be conscious in your efforts. The dream is gaining roots and I hope soon we will see the flowers. They are not far away.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #2
Chapter title: Get out! get out from your blankets! 21 August 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8708215
ShortTitle: INVITA02
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
105
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
SHUNRYO SUZUKI, ONE OF THE FIRST ZEN MASTERS TO LIVE AND TEACH
IN THE WEST, WAS ONCE ASKED WHY HE NEVER SPOKE MUCH ABOUT
SATORI, ENLIGHTENMENT. THE MASTER LAUGHED AND ANSWERED, "THE
REASON I DO NOT TALK ABOUT SATORI IS BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER HAD
IT."
COULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT.
David Hey, Zen in the West is in a very strange context. The master you are talking about, Shunryo Suzuki, must have felt immense difficulty to express himself, because Zen has a language of its own. It has a climate different from any other climate that exists on the earth.
To bring Zen to any country is a difficult task. One has to be ready to be misunderstood.
Suzuki's statement seems to be clear, and anybody who will read it will not have
any difficulty to understand it. But whatever he will understand will be wrong.
The master was asked, "Why don't you speak about satori?" -- the Japanese word for enlightenment. And he answered the way a Zen master should answer knowing perfectly well he could not be understood, he is bound to be misunderstood. He said, "The reason I do not talk about satori is because I have never had it."
The statement is clear; linguistically there is no problem, there is nothing to be understood in it. Suzuki is saying, "I have never talked about it because I have never had it." Now I will have to give you the whole background, the climate in which the meaning of the same sentence turns into exactly its opposite as you understand it.
Zen has an absolute certainty that no one can have satori or enlightenment; you can have things. You can have money, you can have power, you can have the whole world, but you cannot have enlightenment.
Enlightenment is not a thing; it is not possible to possess it. Those who say they have it, don't have it -- they don't even understand the ABC of it. One becomes enlightened --
that's what Suzuki is saying. There is no distinction between I and enlightenment, so how can I have it? The I disappears completely into enlightenment just like a dewdrop disappearing in the ocean. Can the dewdrop say, "I have the ocean"? The dewdrop is the ocean -- there is no question of having it. This is the first thing to be clearly understood.
Suzuki was an enlightened master; that's why he denied it. If he were not enlightened, but was only a scholar, learned about Zen, he might have felt very embarrassed to deny it. He might rather have lied, and nobody would have been able to detect his lie. He could have said, "I have it, but the experience is inexpressible; it was so simple, that's why I never talk about it." But the man really had it. To really have it means you can't have it; you disappear.
As long as you are, there is no enlightenment. The moment there is enlightenment, you are not.
You disappear just like darkness disappears when there is light. Darkness cannot
possess light; you cannot possess enlightenment.
I don't think, David, that the statement of Suzuki would have been understood by the people who asked the question and who received the right answer. It needs a totally different context to understand.
The Western education is so much of a nourishment to the ego... in fact the Western psychology supports the idea that a person should have a very clear ego
-- powerful, aggressive, ambitious; otherwise, one cannot survive in the struggle of existence. To survive, first you have to be, and you have to be not only defensive, because the right way of defense is to offend, to attack... Before anybody else attacks you, you should attack. You should be first, not the second, because to be defensive is already losing the battle.
And because of the Western psychology, the whole educational system supports the idea that a man becomes mature as he attains a more and more crystallized ego. This goes against the experience of all the buddhas, of all the awakened ones. And none of these psychologists or educationalists have any glimpse of what awakening is, of what enlightenment is.
Those who have become enlightened are agreed, without any exception, on the point that the ego has to disappear. It is false, it is created by society; it is not your original face, it is not you.
The false must disappear for the real to be.
So remember these steps: first, the false must disappear for the real to be, and then the real has to disappear into the ultimately real. People are living so far away from their ultimate home -- they are not even real, what to say about the ultimate? For it, they have to first move away from the ego. They have to experience in meditation their own center.
But this is not the end. Meditation is only a beginning of the journey. In the end, the seeker is dissolved in the sought, the knower in the known, the experiencer in the experience. Who is going to have satori? You are absent; you are non- existent when enlightenment explodes. Your absence is an absolute necessity for enlightenment to happen.
Suzuki is absolutely right: "The reason I do not talk about satori is because I have never had it." I am absolutely certain that those who heard him are bound to
have thought that he had had no experience of satori. That is simply the meaning of what he is saying.
Unless there was somebody who had experienced egolessness, and finally selflessness, Suzuki was without fail, bound to be misunderstood.
But he was a man of immense daring, of great courage, to introduce Zen to the West. Not many people were impressed. Many certainly entertained Suzuki's statements, his anecdotes from the annals of Zen; they thought them strange jokes. But there were a few who understood not what the man was saying, but the man himself. He turned a few people on; he has the same distinction as Bodhidharma who planted the seeds of Zen in China.
Suzuki can be compared to Bodhidharma. He planted the seeds in the West, and Zen became, in the Western climate and mind, a new fashion. Suzuki was very much disturbed by it. He was not introducing a new fashion, he was introducing a new revolution and a new style of being. But the West understands things only in that way --
every two or three years a new fashion is needed; people become bored with the old.
And Suzuki was received with joy, because he had brought something which no Christian or Jew was even able to comprehend. He attracted many people of the new generation; a few of them remained true to the master to the very end. Many traveled to Japan just because of Suzuki. Hundreds of Zen classics were translated in Western languages because of Suzuki. Now it is possible to talk about Zen and still be understood, and the whole credit goes to a single man, Shunryo Suzuki.
It has never to be forgotten that words don't exist without context. If you forget the context, whatever you will understand is going to be wrong. If you understand the context, it is impossible to misunderstand.
Berkowitz was crossing Washington Avenue on Miami Beach when he was hit by a passing auto. Several passersby picked him up and laid him down on a bench. A kindly, silver-haired lady approached the injured man and asked, "Are you comfortable?"
"Ehhh! I make a living," sighed Berkowitz.
In the Jewish context he could not understand the word `comfortable' in any other sense than in the sense of making a good living. He said, "Yes." He has the accident, but he cannot understand the word `comfortable' in the present context of accident. Perhaps he may be dying, perhaps he is badly hurt, but his context remains as his old mind which thinks only of money, earning.
This has to be remembered while you are studying Zen -- the differences of context.
It is said: To arrive at the truth, the German adds, the Frenchman subtracts, and the Englishman changes the subject!
I have heard...
You can always tell a man's nationality by introducing him to a beautiful woman. An Englishman shakes her hand, a Frenchman kisses her hand, an American asks her for a date, and a Russian wires Moscow for instructions!
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
CAN YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
THE SPIRITUAL QUESTION, "WHO AM I?" AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA OF "WHO AM I?"?
Prem Shunyo, it is exactly the difference I was just talking about -- the difference between the ego and the self.
The ego is your false idea of who you are; it is just a fabrication of the mind. It is your own homemade mind-manufactured concept, but it has no corresponding reality to it. It is perfectly good as far as the world is concerned because there, you are dealing with other egos. The moment you go beyond your mind, you also go beyond your ego, and suddenly you realize that you are not what you have always thought yourself to be -- that your reality is totally different, that it does not consist of your body or of your mind, that in fact you don't have any word to express it.
But it is still not the ultimate reality; it is just in between, between the ultimate reality and the ultimate falsehood. It is better than the false, but it is lower than the really real. You are still carrying a certain idea of separation from existence. That separation keeps you unavailable to all the blessings which are your birthright. If you can drop those walls and open yourself to the immensity of reality, you will disappear as a separate entity.
But this is only one side. On the other side you will appear as the eternal, the immense, the vast reality -- the oceanic experience, which is the only experience of enlightenment or liberation.
You have to get rid of the ego first. That is your psychological trauma, or better, your psychological drama. There are religions which have accepted the false ego as the end of all, there is nothing beyond it. That is the religion of all the atheists of different trends, a communist. Or the atheist may not be a communist, but the atheist in any form stops himself at the ego; that is his ultimate reality.
He is the poorest man in the world. All other religions except atheism... because I take atheism also as a sort of religion, a lower form of religion than other religions.
Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, go a step further. They all insist to drop the ego and to recognize your authentic reality, your real self.
But there are religions like Zen which go to the very end of the road. They are not satisfied just by dropping the ego. They are satisfied only when there is nothing left to drop -- even the self is gone -- when the house is absolutely empty, when you can say, "I am not."
This nothingness is creating the space for the ultimate to blossom. It does not come from anywhere else. It has always been there, just cluttered with rotten furniture, with unnecessary things. As you remove all those things and your subjectivity becomes empty
-- just as a room becomes empty as you remove everything from it -- in this emptiness of your subjectivity, blossoms the flower of ultimate experience -- you are no more.
Naturally, you cannot have your old miseries, your old traumas and dramas. You cannot have any connection with your own past; you have abruptly cut yourself
away from all that you used to be. Suddenly a new, totally fresh opening... in a way, you disappear. In a way your authentic essence has the first opportunity to come into its full glory, into its absolute splendor.
This is what enlightenment is. It is a negative process: negate the ego, the psychological; negate the self, the spiritual. Go on negating until nothing remains to negate -- and the explosion! Suddenly you have arrived home, with the revelation that you have never been out of your home. You have always been there, your eyes were just focused on objects.
Now all those objects have disappeared. Only a witnessing, pure awareness, has remained. This witnessing is the end of all your misery and all your hell. It is also the beginning of the golden gate -- the doors are open for the first time.
Two white rats were chatting through the bars of their laboratory cages. "Tell me," said the first white rat, "how are you getting along with Dr. Smith?"
"Just fine," replied the second rat. "It took a while, but I have finally got him trained.
Now, whenever I ring the bell, he brings me my dinner."
It is such a strange world. The psychologist, Dr. Smith, must be thinking he is training rats, and the rats are thinking they are training Dr. Smith! The games of the ego... The wife thinks she is training the husband. All wives are training their husbands their whole lives; the husbands are training their wives. It seems life is just to train and to be trained -
- for what?
A woman reached Pablo Picasso. She wanted a portrait; the portrait was made. She was absolutely satisfied. She said, "Just one thing, you have forgotten to put great diamonds around my neck, a great diamond ring, diamond bracelets."
Picasso said, "But you don't have them." She said, "It doesn't matter. I have cancer, and I am not going to survive more than six weeks. And I know my husband is going to marry immediately after I die. He is just waiting for my death, although he goes on saying, `My dear, without you I will not be able to live a single moment.' I know that without me he will not be able to live a single moment. He will immediately find another woman!"
Picasso said, "I don't understand the relationship of what you are saying and the diamonds."
She said, "You don't understand the woman's mind. I want my portrait, after my death, to be seen by the woman who my husband is going to marry. Then she will torture him,
`Where are these diamonds?' I cannot leave him, even if I am dead. He has to be trained, he has to be kept under control." Great idea!
People have forgotten completely to live. Who has time? Everybody is training everybody else, how to be -- and nobody seems to be satisfactory, never.
If one wants to live, one should learn one thing, to accept things as they are, and to accept yourself as you are. Start living. Don't start training for a life sometime in the future. All the misery in the world is created because you have completely forgotten to live; you have become engaged in an activity which has nothing to do with life.
The moment you are married to a man, you start training him to be faithful. Live while he is faithful -- it will not be more than two weeks; two weeks is the human limit! Live as deeply as possible -- perhaps your living and loving deeply may help him to remain faithful the third week also. And never project too much; three weeks is enough.
My own experience is that if you have lived three weeks lovingly, the fourth week will follow. But you start disturbing things from the first moment. Before you start living, training is needed; you spoil the time by training, and a man who could have loved you for at least two weeks becomes bored within two days.
One woman never married. And when she was dying, a friend asked, "Why have you never married? You are so beautiful."
She said, "What is the need? As far as training is concerned I train my dog, and he never learns! Every day I am training and he still comes home late in the night. I have a parrot who tells me everything a husband is expected to say. In the morning he says, "Hello darling!" I have a servant who steals, who continuously lies. What need have I for a husband? Everything is being fulfilled." A husband is needed for these things?
A wife is needed, not to have an experience of intimacy and love, but to make an exhibition of her; just to show around the neighborhood and make everybody jealous that you have such a beautiful woman. Load her with all the ornaments and make everybody jealous of your richness; otherwise, how are you going to show your richness? A wife is a show-window; she shows your achievements, your power. Naturally, you have to train her how to become more social, how to help you in your businesses.
The saying seems to be perfect that behind the success of every great man there is a woman -- in many different senses. Sometimes just to escape from her, one becomes madly engaged in earning money.
When Henry Ford was asked, "Why did you go on earning and earning, when you have earned so much? It was time to enjoy and relax."
He said, "That was not the reason for earning. I was engaged in earning first to escape from my wife, and secondly, I became interested in whether I can earn more or she can spend more." A competition, a lifelong competition!
People get involved in strange dramas. Very few people live authentically -- they just act.
A man is sitting in a cinema, and the wife is continually reminding him how the hero is showing his love so deeply to his wife. Finally, the husband says, "Stop all this nonsense!
You don't know how much he's paid for it! And moreover, it is only acting; it is not reality. I will certainly say he is a good actor."
The wife said, "Perhaps you are not aware that in actual life also they are wife and husband."
He said, "My God! If that is true, then he is the greatest actor I have ever seen; otherwise, even on the stage, to show so much love to your own wife is simply beyond human capacity. He is almost a genius as far as acting is concerned."
People think love is only for actors. It has been noted by psychoanalysts that people are sitting in front of their TV's for hours. An American watches TV six hours per day on average -- that is the average. There may be few maniacs watching nine hours, ten hours, twelve hours. Slowly slowly, watching movies,
watching television, watching a football match, watching a tournament, people have simply become observers; they don't love.
Some actor loves -- they simply watch. They don't play; some professional players play --
they watch. They don't do anything; they are glued to their chairs and are just watching everything. But watching and doing are totally different. They feel completely satisfied that they have seen a beautiful film on love. They are completely satisfied that they have seen a great boxing tournament. And they themselves are just onlookers.
It is something of a great calamity that has reduced millions of people to onlookers. And the people who are being watched are actors. They are not in real love, they are being paid for it. They are experts in deceiving people, pretending that what they are doing is real. Their tears are false, their smiles are false, their love is false, their anger is false.
What kind of world have we created? The doers are all acting because they are paid for it, and the remaining nondoing world is simply watching.
You are here to live. You are here to dance.
You are here to experience life.
Others are doing it for you. On your behalf people are loving, people are playing, people are doing all kinds of things. And what is left for you? -- just to watch. Death will not be able to take much from you -- only your television, because you don't have anything else.
This is the false ego that has created a false life pattern and lifestyle. Drop everything false.
Be authentic and true; that is the first step. And once you are authentic and true, you will see how beautiful it is. And that will create the longing to go beyond, in search of the ultimate truth, the final statement and the final experience, beyond which nothing else exists.
A famous surgeon went on safari to Africa. When he came back his colleagues asked him how it had been. "Ah, it was very disappointing," he said, "I didn't kill a thing. I would have been better off staying here in the hospital!"
Fifteen minutes after the Titanic sank, Morie and Louis find themselves on the same overturned raft. The water is freezing, sharks are cruising by, and the raft is slowly sinking. "Ah well," said Louis, "it could have been worse."
"Worse? How could it be worse?" screamed Morie. "Well, we could have bought return tickets!"
People are almost crazy -- a tremendous cleansing is needed -- and most of their insanity is because of their false life; it is not satisfying. False food cannot be nourishment, false water cannot quench your thirst, and false ego cannot give you real life. It is simple arithmetics.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
WHEN YOU SPOKE OF MEANING AND CONTEXT, IT SET BELLS RINGING IN
ME. MEANING, NOT JUST OF WORDS BUT OF EVERYTHING, DEPENDS ON
CONTEXT -- ESPECIALLY MY LIFE. YOU HAVE A VAST CONTEXT, BELOVED
MASTER. WILL YOU PLEASE SPEAK ABOUT YOUR CONTEXT IN THIS PLACE, THIS WORLD, AT THIS TIME? DID YOU CHOOSE IT, OR DID EXISTENCE PUT
YOU HERE KNOWING THAT WHATEVER HUMANITY NEEDS, YOU ARE THE
BEST MAN FOR THE JOB?
Devageet, as far as I am concerned, I have never done anything. Whatever has
happened, I cannot take the credit for it. Since the day I came to know my nothingness, things have been happening but I am not the doer. Existence has taken over. I am not even concerned whether what is happening is going to succeed or fail; it is none of my concern. Hence, you cannot call it my "job." I am as much part of existence as the trees, as the moon, as the stars.
The whole functions in an organic way. Everything is related to everything else.
The smallest blade of grass is connected with the greatest star millions of light years away. All are functioning, and there is nobody who is dictating.
Existence is, in itself, the master.
And whatever happens is spontaneous: nobody orders it, nobody follows. This is the greatest mystery.
Because this mystery could not be understood, people from the very beginning started imagining a God. Their imagination of a God is only their psychological difficulty in accepting this tremendous universe, running spontaneously on its own without any accidents. Not even a traffic policeman -- and millions of stars...!
Just the other day Hasya brought me the news that in California a very new thing has suddenly come into being. During the last week five persons have been shot dead. And this new thing is happening on the streets, because the streets have become so small and the traffic is so great that cars are almost not moving. Roads appear as if they are parking lots.
And people are carrying guns in their cars because they become so annoyed that the man ahead is going so slow and it gets on their nerves. They have been honking their horns, but nothing is moving. Thousands of horns are honking all around. And in the last week five persons parked by the side of the road, took out a gun and shot the man ahead whom they didn't know -- and he was in the same trouble, he was not creating it. The problem was just that the man was ahead. And this is just the beginning. Last week it started, now it will grow. Because when things start, it is very difficult to stop them, particularly in California!
Almost all the races of the world have conceived God. It is simply a psychological problem, it has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with philosophy. It is simply incomprehensible, it is inconceivable how this immense universe is running without any controller, how it has come into existence without any creator. Just because people could not stretch their imaginations and their logic, they invented... just to console themselves that there is nothing to worry about; otherwise, it would be very difficult even to sleep.
Millions of stars and galaxies are moving, and who knows in the night where the crash is going to happen? Nobody is looking after it all. There is no policeman, there is no court, there is no law -- but strangely, everything is going so smoothly.
Seasons change and the clouds come with rains. Seasons change and new leaves and new flowers... and it has been going on since eternity. Nobody keeps the record. Nobody tells the sun that it is time; there is no alarm clock that goes off exactly in the morning to tell the sun, "Get out! Get out from your blankets!" Things simply are going perfectly right.
In fact, my own denial of God is based on the same reasoning. I say God is not because no God can manage this immense universe. Either it can be intrinsically spontaneous... it cannot be managed from outside. Unless there is some inner coherence, some inner organic unity, no outside controller can go on managing it from eternity to eternity. He will get bored and shoot himself, because what is the purpose? Nobody is going to pay him; nobody even knows his address!
I have heard, a man wrote a letter to God because he needed fifty dollars very urgently.
And not knowing the address, he sent it to: God the Father, c/o The Postmaster -- because the postmaster must know! The postmaster opened the letter. What was the letter, to whom was he supposed to send it -- to God? He read the letter and he felt sorry for the man; he must be in really great trouble. He had described that his mother was dying, and he has no money, no employment, no money for food, no money for medicine. "Just for once, send fifty dollars and I will never ask again."
The postmaster said, "Something should be done because this man should not feel disappointed."
The postmaster himself was not very rich, so he asked all the people in the post office to please contribute something -- forty-five dollars was managed. He said, "Something is better than nothing; only five dollars are missing." He sent forty- five dollars.
The man was very angry. He said to God, "Listen, next time you send, never send through the post office because those people have taken their discount, five dollars."
My own understanding is that it cannot be managed from outside. That is more inconceivable: why should any God take the trouble, and how long can he manage?
Sometimes he will get tired, and sometimes he will be on holiday. What will happen on holidays? And when he is tired or has fallen asleep, what will happen? Roses will stop growing, stars will be going on the wrong path, the sun may start rising from the West --
who will prevent it? -- just for the change, just for one day.
No, from outside it is impossible -- God is absolutely absurd -- nobody can manage existence from the outside. The only possibility is from the inner; it is an organic being.
The moment you forget yourself as a separate being, you become part of it. You have been part of it; you were unnecessarily carrying the idea of being separate and feeling burdened. I have not felt burdened at all about anything. Whatever happens I have not even thought that it could have been otherwise. Why should it be otherwise? Who to complain to? Because I don't have anybody to pray to, I cannot complain either. A deep acceptance, and you have gone beyond misery.
Yes, my context, Devageet is vast -- but it is not my context, it is the context of the whole. It is functioning perfectly well -- nothing ever goes wrong. But if you take yourself separately, then you are unnecessarily becoming burdened. My whole teaching is: drop all the burden on the whole, be free of all burden, and live spontaneously and totally and without any guilt.
There is nobody who can punish you, and there is nobody who can reward you. You are part of the whole; you are not doing it. The whole is doing through you, whether you know it or not. The moment you know that it is the whole which is
functioning through you, you become absolutely free of all responsibility.
My colleagues in the university used to say they have never seen a more irresponsible man than me. And they said, "We cannot conceive that a man of your understanding never feels any responsibility for anything." It was difficult for them to understand that to be responsible, first you have to be.
I have left myself far behind, and since then there is no responsibility. Whatever the whole manages through me, the whole must be responsible for it. I don't come in its way.
I don't even think whether it is right or wrong, whether it should be done or not. Who am I to judge? This, I call let-go.
Hymie Goldberg died and went to hell. He immediately started giving orders and bossing everyone around.
"Stop it," said Satan. "One would think you owned the place."
"I do," said Hymie, "my wife gave it to me while I was on earth!"
I don't own anything just because I don't have a wife! I cannot even own hell. Nobody can send me there. I simply go on living moment to moment without bothering about the past, without bothering about the future. Anything that happens, happens, I accept it with absolute gratitude.
Certainly, the context is vast, and for those who will come close to me, for those who have come close to me, that makes understanding me or my life almost impossible; it has become part of the ultimate mystery. Unless you realize the mystery of the whole you cannot have any conception where I am. I am certainly not what appears to be my place, my space.
If you look into my eyes, you can see into the depths which go beyond me.
If you listen to my silences, you will hear the silence of the sky -- it is not mine.
And I would like you also to be in the same space, where you have nothing that you can say is yours, where nothing belongs to you because you belong to the whole.
Just a joke for Devageet; I don't know why it should be said, but that's why I have told you I don't have any reason to do anything -- just this joke wants to be told, and I cannot do anything about it!
Stella and Eunice are in the kitchen preparing vegetables and gossiping on a Friday night when Eunice looks out of the window. She sees her husband, Bernie, coming up the walkway with a bouquet of flowers.
Eunice turns to Stella and says, "Oh, no! He's bringing flowers. That means the whole weekend I will be on my back with my legs up in the air."
Stella replies, "What's the matter? Don't you have a vase?" Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho. The Invitation Chapter #3
Chapter title: Let yourself be a mystery
22 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8708220
ShortTitle: INVITA03
Audio: Yes Video:
Yes Length:
103
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
I FEEL WARM LOVE IN YOUR PRESENCE AND NOW I REALIZE THAT WHEN I AM NOT CLOSE TO YOU IT DOES NOT HAPPEN IN THE SAME WAY. IS IT
STILL TRUE THAT TIME AND SPACE DO NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE IN
THE GREAT AFFAIR BETWEEN MASTER AND DISCIPLE?
Deva Suria, it is always true that space and time make no difference in the great love affair between the disciple and the master. It is not sometimes true and sometimes not true; it belongs to the realm of the eternal. But in actual experience, particularly in the beginning, the love of the disciple is still not so pure; it still has expectations. It is not desireless yet; it is polluted by many things.
Because of this pollution of desires, expectations, it appears that space and time make a difference. They don't make any difference as far as love is concerned, but your love is not just love; it has many more things involved in it. Even the expectation of enlightenment is enough to destroy its purity.
The principle is about the pure love -- love that is simply happy for no reason at all, love that has already joined the dance of the master in the heart. Then the master is not outside you; you carry him within yourself, wherever you are. That's why space and time don't make any difference. But if the master is still outside -- an object of love -- then certainly, space will make a difference, time will make a difference. The difference comes in through impurities, and the impurities are such that it is almost unavoidable in the beginning, because you
cannot think of the desire for enlightenment as an impurity.
In fact, for you the great love affair between the master and the disciple is happening only because of your longing for enlightenment. Naturally, when you are close you feel more confident. The closer you are, the more you feel the presence of the master. The further you go away, your confidence starts shaking because the master is still only a means to a certain end.
The day Gautam Buddha died... there were ten thousand disciples who always followed him on his long journeys. In that great crowd of disciples, there were people like Sariputta, Maudgalyan, Mahakashyapa, Manjushri, Vimal Kirti, and many more who had already become enlightened, who had already crossed the barrier between the master and the disciple, who had entered into the world of the devotee.
When Gautam Buddha died it was a great shock to everyone -- even to his closest disciple, Ananda; he burst into tears. He was older than Gautam Buddha -
- Buddha was eighty-two; Ananda must have been nearabout eighty-five or even more -- he burst out just like a small child whose mother has died. But Manjushri, Vimal Kirti and Sariputta remained utterly silent, as if nothing was happening, or whatever is happening does not matter.
Many disciples were shocked by the coldness of Sariputta and others -- they could not understand. They could understand Ananda bursting into tears; in fact, they thought that Ananda was the most intimate. And Sariputta and Maudgalyan and Mahakashyapa -- they were sitting silently. People asked them, "When Ananda is crying, why are you silent?"
Sariputta said, "Because for me, my master can never die. Death cannot make us apart.
He has only left the body, but he is here; my heart is still feeling -- in fact, feeling more than ever -- his presence."
And the same was the answer of the other enlightened disciples... not a single tear in their eyes. They were not hard, they were not cold. They had simply crossed the barrier between the master and the disciple. Either you can say they had entered into the master's consciousness, or you can say they had allowed the master's consciousness to enter into them. It means the same thing: the two had disappeared; now there was only one.
People's understanding was absolutely wrong that Ananda, who had burst into tears, must have loved the master more. Asked, he said, "I am crying because he was alive, and for forty-two years I have been his most intimate disciple -- intimate in the sense that I was always with him. In these forty-two years not even for a single day was I separate; even in the night I used to sleep in his room, just to be present in case he needed something. I am not crying because I was the most intimate, I am crying because even with such a long physical intimacy I have remained separate from him. Something has remained like a barrier."
Gautam Buddha was not dead yet. He had closed his eyes, and he was relaxing into the eternal. He came back, opened his eyes, and said to Ananda, "Don't be worried. It was my presence and your love towards me that was the barrier, because your love was motivated. You wanted to become enlightened before anybody else, and you were always deep down jealous when other people were coming to their potential, coming to their source.
"Deep down you felt hurt that you were so close and yet others were becoming enlightened who had come after you. You could not rejoice in their enlightenment. You could have rejoiced, you could have celebrated, but your mind was focused on your own enlightenment -- you were too much. And your unconscious continued from the very first day, holding on to the idea that you are a cousin-brother to me, and my elder brother.
"Although, after the first day you never mentioned it, still the psychological memory was there. Consciously, deliberately you became a disciple, but unconsciously you always knew that you were the elder brother; you could not dissolve with me. But don't cry, because the moment I am dead, within twenty- four hours you will become enlightened.
Without my death, you cannot become enlightened."
Ananda still could not console himself. He said, "After twenty-four hours you will not be here. To whom am I to say whether I have become enlightened or not? And I don't know when in the eternity of time I will meet a man like you -- a consciousness so great and so vast."
Buddha said, "Don't be worried; it is going to happen. I was watching continuously. I was myself puzzled why it was not happening to you. You want it
too much."
And these are the problems: wanting enlightenment too much, and you will miss it; holding the desire anywhere in your unconscious to achieve it, you will not achieve it.
Relaxing, forgetting all about enlightenment, forgetting all about the future, living in the present, your love will attain to a crystal clear purity, undefiled by any desire, even the greatest desire of enlightenment.
Then you will not feel the distinction between the master and yourself; then you can carry the master within your heart. Then wherever you are, your master is with you. The duality is dropped; the two flames have become one. It is not your flame, it is not the master's flame -- when those two flames become one, they become universal. In separation, you are a disciple and there is a master -- in becoming one, the disciple disappears, the master disappears; what remains is only a pure awareness.
The transformation of love into pure awareness is the alchemy one has to learn by being close to a master. By being close to a master you can enjoy the warmth, his presence, his words, his heartbeat. But as you go far away you will not be able to listen to the same heartbeat; you will be again yourself -- back to zero. You will hear the heartbeat but it will be your own. Close to the master you are overwhelmed.
The secret to learn is to purify your love. Drop all ambitions.
There is nothing to be achieved.
All that you want is already present in you. The master is not going to give you anything that you don't have. In fact, the master goes on taking away things which you think you have but you don't have. And the master cannot give you, of course, that which you have.
He can only take away all the barriers, all the hindrances, all the obstacles, so only that which is your own, remains behind. In that unpolluted space, the distinction between the master and the disciple is no more. That does not mean that you don't feel grateful to the master. In fact, only after this has happened,
you feel for the first time a tremendous gratitude.
Sariputta was going very reluctantly on a message tour. Buddha had asked him to go to his own kingdom -- he was a prince before he became a disciple. Buddha said, "Now it is your responsibility and your compassion to go to your people -- to your father, to your mother, to your whole kingdom. What you have achieved, let them become aware of it. It is their potential too; share it."
He was very reluctant to leave. Buddha said, "What is the reluctance? -- because now I am within you. I am sending you away, knowing perfectly well that you will not feel any distance."
Sariputta said, "Distance is not the question. I can go to the farthest star, still you will be within my heart. The trouble is, here I touch your feet every day. You may be in my heart, but how am I going to touch your feet?"
Gautam Buddha said, "You are an enlightened being. You don't have to touch my feet."
Sariputta said, "Before enlightenment, it was a ritual. Just because every disciple was touching your feet, I was touching also. But now it is no longer a ritual. Now it is authentic gratitude, because without you I don't think I would have attained to myself.
Although it was always within me, I don't think that alone I was able to discover it -- not at least in this life.
"Your compassion, your love, your continuous showering of blessings slowly, slowly removed all that was not me. Now when I touch your feet it is not a ritual, it is a heartfelt nourishment. I feel nourished. The day I miss touching your feet, I feel a great gap. And I know that you are within me."
Buddha said, "Do one thing. All you who have become enlightened will have to learn to be away from me, and yet not away from me. It is true you cannot touch my feet, but from wherever you are just turn towards the side you think I am and bow down to the earth. My body belongs to the earth. If you touch the earth with the same gratitude, you have touched me."
Sariputta went away. And the people of his kingdom could not believe it; he had become such a glory, such a magnificence, such a beauty. All this was
miraculous, but their curiosity was that every day -- morning, evening -- he would turn towards the direction where Buddha was dwelling far away, and touch his feet with tremendous gratitude. They said, "You are an enlightened being; you don't have to touch the earth."
He said, "I am not touching the earth. I have learned a new secret, that the body is nothing but earth, that the earth contains not only the feet of my Buddha, my master, but all the buddhas of the past, of the present, of the future. Touching it, I am touching all those who have become awakened and made the path clear for me, showed me the way."
Even when Buddha died, he continued... towards the same direction where Buddha's body was lying at the last moment. He never felt any separation. And it was not only for him, it was the same for all twenty-four disciples who had become enlightened.
Ananda became -- just according to the prediction of Gautam Buddha -- enlightened after twenty-four hours. He in fact did not move from the place. He closed his eyes when Buddha died and remained without eating, without drinking, without sleeping. Those twenty-four hours were the greatest time of his life, a time of transformation from an ignorant being into an awakened soul. He opened his eyes only when the tears had disappeared and a smile had come to his face.
Manjushri was close to him. He said, "What happened? You were crying; you were sitting as if dead, and suddenly you are smiling."
Ananda said, "I am smiling because his prediction proved right. It was the impurity of my love that was the hindrance. And now he is gone, there is no question of feeling like his elder brother, of feeling any attachment. In his funeral pyre, as his body disappeared into the smoke, all my attachments also disappeared."
It is not necessary, Suria, that I have to be on a funeral pyre before you can become enlightened. I can be if you need it. One day I will be, but it will be far more beautiful if the day I am on the funeral pyre, you are without tears. As I disappear from the body you know I have become more involved deeply within you, within the whole existence.
Question 2
BELOVED OSHO,
HELP! I AM FALLING TO PIECES! IS IT JUST MY MONTHLY PREMENSTRUAL
EMOTIONAL TURMOIL? THIS TIME IT FEELS MORE LIKE AN EMOTIONAL
DEEP CLEANING. ALL THESE TEARS AND PAINS SEEM TO REMOVE
SOMETHING OLD TO MAKE SPACE FOR SOMETHING NEW, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS IS. I FEEL EXCITED AND SCARED AT THE SAME
TIME, AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO HOLD ON TO ANYMORE. BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Nandan, a purification is happening. It has nothing to do with your monthly period. It may be coincidence that both are happening together, but because you have been capable of dropping your miserable relationship, which very few people are capable... Look at Latifa -- old great Om is back! It took me so much trouble to separate them... because both were miserable, but misery is something at least to hold on to. Both must have been feeling very alone without misery.
Misery functions almost like a magnet. People complain about it, but not really to get rid of it; they complain about it just to brag about it. They are really saying, in fact without saying, "Don't think I am alone; I am miserable!" And because misery hurts, they are in a dilemma: if they leave the misery, that means leaving the miserable relationship. Then they feel very lonely, and then they are reminded of the Western proverb -- and nothing is more miserable -- "Something is better than nothing." At least there was something to talk about, to question, to figure out -- and now you are just sitting in your room doing nothing.
Ginsberg returned home from a trip abroad on business to find out that his wife had been unfaithful. Very upset, he interrogated his wife, "Was it that dungheap Goldsberg?"
"No."
"Was it that pile of filth, Levensky?" "No."
"Was it that swine, Morrie Levy?" "No."
Finally Ginsberg exploded, "What's the matter with my friends? Not good enough for you?"
People are so attached to misery they are searching and looking for it. Nandan, you are in a beautiful space. Just remember not to miss, that you don't have anything to hold on to --
there is no need. Why should one have something to hold on to? Are you a passenger in a commuter bus, that you have to hold on to something? And even if you want to hold on to something, avoid for the time being, human beings; otherwise, they will start the same old story again.
With great difficulty you have been able to finish a miserable relationship. Rejoice in it.
And as far as holding on is concerned, anything... a teddy bear! And don't laugh, because you know the great bodyworker, Satyarthi? He still holds on to a teddy bear. He cannot go to sleep without his teddy bear. And it is an old dirty teddy bear, an old relationship, ancient friendship, from his very childhood... he has become greasy! He may be wanting to escape, but Satyarthi is holding on and he has strong hands. His art is deep massage, and I think he must be doing that massage to the teddy bear.
An outdoor man who had gone on hunting expeditions all over the world -- always accompanied by his wife at her insistence -- told his troubles to a friend one day.
"Yes sir," said the hunter, "I've taken that woman into the jungles of Africa, the jungles of Borneo, and the jungles of Malaya. The only trouble is, she always finds her way back!"
So Nandan, it is good. Hold on to anything. Keep the doors closed because the
old misery may come back, the old miserable fellow will be also in the same space -- what to hold on to? Strange ideas... because I have lived my whole life without holding anything, and I don't see why you cannot.
Just learn to live. It is just a habit; there are people who cannot sleep without their intimate enemy, because it is a ritual. First they have to fight -- a good pillow fight, saying everything dirty that can be said to each other, and then, feeling tired, they fall asleep. Alone, one feels almost lost; one does not know who he is. But there is no need. It is only a question of giving a little time for your consciousness to become acquainted with aloneness.
Once you are aware of the beauty of aloneness, the purity and the ecstasy of it, you will never think to hold on to anything. And a relationship is possible without holding on to each other. Then the relationship also has a beauty. You are not dependent on each other; the other is not a teddy bear; nor should you allow the humiliation of being a teddy bear for him.
You stand as two pillars of a temple, separate but supporting the same roof. Your love is just like the roof: you are both supporting it, but you stand alone, in your beauty, in your silence, in your meditation.
Nandan, you are doing perfectly well. You ask me, "Osho, what is happening?" Nothing is happening, and that's what is needed. This constant desire that something should happen keeps one unconscious: running after shadows, throwing parties, going from here to there, to this person, to that person, for something to happen. But just watch your whole past -- has anything ever happened? One only deludes oneself that things are happening.
Stop deluding yourself. All is perfectly good.
There is no need for anything to happen.
The moment you relax and you don't desire for any happening, you will be surprised --
millions of things are happening. So many birds are singing, so many trees are blossoming... Just get out of the imprisonment of your own making, and all around things are happening.
The whole of existence is always in a celebration -- participate in it. Dance with the trees, dance under the moon. Just for a few days, avoid human beings -- I am saying just for a few days, just to give you a gap to become acquainted with the nonhuman existence around you. Otherwise, you become so miserable with human beings, you don't have any time, nor do you have a clear eyesight. Everything becomes dismal and dizzy, and you cannot see the tremendous universe all around you, in eternal ecstasy.
Be acquainted with this existence, and after this acquaintance and the bliss that will arise out of it, you can share it with a human being -- and without holding, without any attachment, just being with a human being as if you are with a stranger. You don't know who he is, nor does he know who you are -- and there is any need to know. Let yourself be a mystery and let him be a mystery. It is good if you can have a few moments of joy and celebrate together, but the moment you see that holding starts, beware... you are getting back into the misery again.
It does not matter with whom, holding on is the fundamental cause of all misery. If you can relate without any relationship, just a casual friendship, you will feel grateful. There was no need for it to happen, but still existence has allowed you to be with a stranger for a few hours or a few days. Don't expect too much. That's why I am saying a few hours, a few days -- not even a few weeks. Because the more you expect, the more is the possibility to cling, to hold.
One strange woman from the Philippines... I have never forgotten her; she is a sannyasin.
She told me that after being in so-called relationships and always finding, strangely, that every relationship ends in hell, "I decided not to have any relationship, but only casual meetings with strangers."
She said, "I can tell it to you -- I don't say it to just anybody: In a train I meet somebody. I don't know him; he does not know me -- we enjoy the time together. And then a station comes -- he gets out. And the moments have been beautiful while we were together.
Now, perhaps we will never see each other, but those beautiful moments still go on lingering in the memory."
She said, "Since I learned that, I have been only with strangers. I have not even
bothered to find out their names. I remember them only by their faces. And anyway there is no need to remember, because there is no possibility of meeting them again." But I have seen that the woman has a tremendous freedom and a great beauty.
Out of this understanding -- of not creating a relationship but only moments of relatedness, friendship, or better only friendliness; not falling in love but only enjoying love without creating any bonds, without giving promises for tomorrow or taking promises for tomorrow -- just live the moment joyfully. And when tomorrow comes it will also bring its own gifts.
Nandan, whatsoever pains and tears you are passing through are all cleansing. And you can feel it, that something new is happening: "Even though I have no idea what it is."
There is no need to have any idea. Let it happen, because having an idea means again you make it a mind thing. Let it happen; it is a cleansing of the unconscious. And it is good that it is happening in your premenstrual emotional turmoil -- that will clean your body and your mind, both together.
Just wait.… Some stranger is bound to knock on your doors. Never be afraid of strangers, because everybody is a stranger. However long you have lived with a person, you remain strangers. And being with a stranger has a freshness. Never hold him, and never allow him to hold you. Make it clear: "Our meeting is out of freedom; freedom is a greater value to me than love. Because if love destroys freedom, it destroys itself; if love enhances freedom, it enhances itself."
Freedom is our most precious treasure. Don't lose it for anything. And anything that comes out of it as an offshoot -- love, friendliness -- will have a great beauty to it, and will never create any misery; there is no point. The moment you see misery is arising, say goodbye; become strangers again as you have been before.
One thing I have observed which is very difficult for human beings to maintain: either they can love or they can hate, but they cannot remain just strangers neither hating nor loving. Remember, hate is also a relationship. And if you are going to have a relationship then it is better to have love, because in the misery of love there may be a few moments which are beautiful. But in the misery of hate it is all dark night -- no stars, no moon, no light, no possibility of anything; it is poisonous.
These are the secrets to learn: Love, but keep as much apart as the pillars of a temple --
don't come too close. Being at a distance is always good; a fresh breeze can pass between you. Coming too close, the bad body odor, the bad breath... and there are a thousand and one things. Life unnecessarily becomes a continuity from one hell into another. Just the names change, but the reality of misery remains continuous.
My vision of a good world is that people will be individuals, meeting with others, sharing their joy, their love, unconditionally. And not expecting that tomorrow also will be the same -- they will remain aware of the constantly changing existence.
Your love, your friendliness is also going to change. And when it changes don't cling.
Allow it to change. Be like a river, constantly moving; don't become a pond.
All marriages are ponds. They don't go anywhere, they are simply there. Water is evaporating every day and they are becoming more and more dirty. One day there will be only dirt.
The river is constantly flowing, and because it is constantly flowing, it remains always fresh. The freshness is in its flow.
Your life should be like a river.
And you will have to move through many scenes -- why get caught up with one scene?
Why go on reading the same page again and again and again? It is destructive. Once, it is beautiful -- twice, it is dangerous. Keep your eyes fresh, and keep your consciousness available, available in both ways: to allow someone in and to allow someone out, with no hate but only gratitude.
Slowly, slowly... Love is not the ultimate, it is just a training school for learning how to be alone. This togetherness is so painful that finally, even the most retarded learn that to be alone is the secret of being blissful.
Even Niskriya has learned it! He is a silent fellow; he tolerated as long as possible. He has no time for anything except his work, but even to him it became a trouble and finally, he had to get rid of it. Since then, he is looking very happy. I have just been wondering how long he will remain happy. It is possible -- he may remain happy -- he has his camera to hold on to!
So Nandan, you can find something. Anything will do except a human being; these are the most dangerous animals around. Don't get caught up. Unless you are certain that you are capable of getting out of any relatedness, don't enter in.
Keep the door open; don't close it. And keep the future clean without any promises to be fulfilled.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
SINCE I STARTED MEDITATING FOUR YEARS AGO MY LIFE HAS CHANGED
TREMENDOUSLY. CHANGES ARE HAPPENING; IT IS NOT THAT I HAVE AN
INSIGHT AND THEN I START DOING SOMETHING. THIS HAS BEEN A TIME OF
WAITING. THERE IS A FEELING THAT SOMETHING WANTS TO EXPRESS
ITSELF, AND THAT I HAVE TO ALLOW IT. AM I WAITING FOR SOMETHING
TO GROW STRONG ENOUGH OR AM I JUST LAZY? OR AM I WAITING FOR
GODOT?
BELOVED MASTER, THANK YOU FOR YOUR BEING HERE.
Amrit Sagaram, things are growing.
Since you started meditating, much water has gone down the Ganges, and much has changed in your consciousness. But don't ask for more; let existence take its own time.
Remember Ta Hui -- the more you hurry, the more you are delayed. You cannot do anything better than existence is doing already. Simply leave yourself in the hands of existence.
This relaxedness people have misunderstood always as laziness. It is not laziness. It looks like laziness to workaholics who cannot sit down, who have to do something because they are afraid the moment they stop doing something, they will have to know themselves. And that is their fear -- who knows who they are? It is better to avoid the encounter.
Relaxation is to be at ease. Whatever is happening to you is perfectly good.
You say, "Since I started meditating four years ago my life has changed tremendously.
Changes are happening, it is not that I have an insight and then I start doing something.
This has been a time of waiting. There is a feeling that something wants to express itself, and that I have to allow it." That's how it should be. Your mind is worried about what is happening because what is happening is going to take all the functions of mind out of its control. Hence, the mind is creating questions: "Am I waiting for something to grow strong enough or am I just lazy? Or am I waiting for Godot?" You are not waiting for any Godot.
Meditation is simply a waiting for the unknown, for the unpredictable, for the incomprehensible. And the more the waiting is pure, the more grace arises out of it. No hurry, no desiring, no expectations, just waiting and millions of things will happen. In fact, the things that are going to happen to a meditator are so vast you can not conceive of them, you can not have even dreamt of them; they are beyond the capacity of the mind to conceive.
You just wait and let things happen to you -- not according to you, but according to existence itself. Existence has not to be according to you; you have to be in tune with existence, according to existence.
This is the only difference between the non meditator and the meditator. The non-meditator always wants existence according to his ideas, and falls naturally into miserable states, because existence is too big; it cannot follow your ideas, your prayers, your expectations, your demands. The proverb is true that man proposes and God disposes -- but there is no God to dispose. In fact, in the very proposal, you have disposed of it. You have created a failure for yourself because you wanted to succeed.
So there is nothing to expect, nothing to desire. Existence is so abundant that if you are simply waiting it starts showering flowers on you. A life of waiting, without any expectations, is the only religious life I know of.
A Broadway bookie was given a parrot in lieu of cash payment. The bird's vocabulary included choice phrases in English, French, Spanish and German. Sensing a winner, the bookie hauled the bird off to his favorite bar. "Speaks four languages," he said to the bartender, who snorted in disbelief. "Wanna bet this bird can speak four languages?" the bookie challenged.
Annoyed, the bartender finally agreed to a ten-dollar wager. The bookie turned to the parrot and said, "Parlez-vous Francais?" There was no response. On the street the bookie glared at the bird, "You fink!" he exclaimed, "I've got ten bucks riding on you and you clam up on me. I oughta strangle you."
"Don't be a jerk," the parrot replied. "Just think of the odds you'll get tomorrow."
Just wait for tomorrow. My own experience is, every day brings so much that when I think retrospectively I cannot conceive that I could have expected it -- and it always brings in abundance! Existence is so compassionate and so sharing, but only to those who don't demand. Desirelessness is the foundation of all great happenings.
Sagaram, just wait in trust and everything that existence has will be revealed to you.
The Lone Ranger is about to be hanged by rustlers who caught him spying on their camp.
His only hope is Tonto who managed to escape and go for help. As the bandits are putting the noose around the Lone Ranger's neck, he sees three horses approaching at a gallop. Sure enough, as they get closer, he can see that it is
Tonto on the first horse, but he can't make out who the other two riders are.
The Lone Ranger finally sees that Tonto is riding with two beautiful naked women. The riders burst into the robbers' camp and Tonto rides up to the Lone Ranger saying,
"Kemosabe, I have returned with the people you asked me to get." "Tonto, you idiot," says the Lone Ranger, "I told you to go get a posse!"
It is better, Sagaram, not to ask for anything; otherwise, there is always frustration.
Don't ask, and you will be fulfilled.
Just trust silently and wait, and miracles are always happening to the meditators. The greatest miracle is the revelation of the mystery of oneself.
You are perfectly on the right path. Beware of your mind -- it will try to disturb you, to distract you, to create doubts. Just put it aside. This great affair has nothing to do with the mind.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #4
Chapter title: Your god is as rich as your consciousness 22 August 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Archive code: 8708225
ShortTitle:
INVITA04
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
99
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
GEORGE GURDJIEFF HAS SAID: "YOU ARE IN PRISON. IF YOU WISH TO GET
OUT OF PRISON, THE FIRST THING YOU MUST DO IS REALIZE THAT YOU
ARE IN PRISON. IF YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE, YOU CAN'T ESCAPE." WHAT ARE THE PRISONS THAT I CALL "HOME"?
Rama Prem, George Gurdjieff is one of the most significant masters of this age.
He is unique in many ways -- nobody has said things in the contemporary world the way Gurdjieff has said them. He is almost like another Bodhidharma or Chuang Tzu, apparently absurd but in reality giving great indications towards the liberation of human consciousness.
You are asking about one of his significant statements. He often used to say, "You are in prison." Sometimes he was even deeper into the reality, and instead of saying, "You are in prison," he would say, "You are the prison." That is more true.
If you wish to get out of prison -- or better to say, if you don't want to be a prison
-- the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison... or you are the prison. This is something to be always remembered as one of the first principles for any seeker of truth.
The tendency of the human mind is to deny those things which are ugly, to hide those things which he does not want others to know -- to hide in such a way, in such depths of the unconscious that even he himself becomes unaware of them. This way he maintains his superficial personality.
Gurdjieff had a story about it...
There was a magician who used to live in faraway deep forests, and he had many sheep because that was his only food. In those deep forests he was keeping all those sheep just to kill them every day, one by one. Naturally, the sheep were very afraid of the man, and they used to run into the forest being afraid that any day can be their day. Their friends are gone, there is no reliability... tomorrow they may be gone. Out of fear they used to go far away, deep into the forest. And to find them was a tedious job every day.
Finally, the magician did a trick. He hypnotized all the sheep, and told every sheep, "You are an exception; everybody may be killed but you can never be killed. You are no ordinary sheep; you have a divine privilege." To some he said, "You are not sheep at all; you are lions, you are tigers, you are wolves. Only sheep are killed. You need not hide yourself in the forest; that is very embarrassing, because a lion hiding himself in the forest in the fear that he will be killed... only sheep are killed." And in this way, he managed to hypnotize all the sheep in different ways.
He even said to a few sheep, "You are men, human beings, and human beings don't kill each other. You are just like me. Never be afraid and never escape out of fear." Since that day, no sheep escaped and hid in the forest, although they all saw every day that one sheep was being killed, slaughtered. But naturally everybody thought, That must be a sheep; I am a tiger, a lion, a human being. I am special and exceptional, I have a divine privilege So many different stories
he put in their minds.
Gurdjieff says that unless you realize the first thing -- that you are in prison, that you are the prison -- then there is no hope for freedom. If you already believe
that you are free, you are a hypnotized sheep which believes himself to be a lion
-- exceptional, there is no need to be afraid -- which even believes he is a human being. He goes on seeing other sheep being killed, and still remains in a hypnotized state, never being aware of his actuality. To be free, if you already know that you are free, there is no problem.
All the religions together, perhaps unintentionally, have created a tremendous hypnotic state. People believe they have immortal souls. I am not saying that they don't have, I am simply saying that they don't know what they are believing. And because they believe they have an immortal soul, they never discover that they already have it. They have been told, "You are the very kingdom of God"... and it is so comfortable and so consoling to believe. But then there is no way to seek and search and find whether your hypothetical belief has any truth in it, or is just a hypnotic trick used by the society to keep you unafraid of death, to keep you unafraid of disease, old age, to keep you unafraid of your loneliness.
Your God may be just a psychological hypnosis. It is not your discovery. That is true --
that much is absolutely true. It has been implanted in your mind, and because you go on believing in it, your belief prevents any adventure in seeking the truth.
Ordinarily, you have been told continually that unless you believe, you will not find. But the truth is just the contrary. Belief is a barrier, it is not a bridge. Those who believe never find, because they never even begin the search; there is no need.
You are in prison and you think you are free.
You are in chains but you think they are ornaments. You are a slave but you have been told that you are humble, that you are simple, that this is the way a religious person should be. You are surrounded by many hypnotic strategies developed by society down the ages. And those hypnotic strategies are the root cause of your ignorance, of your misery, of your unenlightened state.
Hence the first thing to realize is that you are in prison. The moment you recognize that you are in prison, you cannot tolerate the prison. Nobody can tolerate it; it goes against human dignity. You will start finding ways to get out of it. You will start finding people who have already got out of it. You may start seeking and searching outside help beyond the walls, because there are people
beyond the walls ready with every kind of help. But they are absolutely helpless if you believe that you are living in absolute freedom.
If you believe this imprisonment is your home, then of course it is absolute nonsense even to think of getting rid of it. The wall that keeps you a prisoner, you think is a protection. Then there is no question of making a hole in the wall and getting out, or finding a ladder, or taking some help from the outside. A rope can be thrown from the outside, a ladder can be arranged from the outside, but this is possible only if the basic thing, that you are in prison, is recognized. George Gurdjieff was consistently insisting,
"This is a basic realization. Without it, there is no progress towards enlightenment. If you think you are free, you can't escape."
"What are the prisons that I call `home'?" Rama Prem, all the so-called homes are nothing but prisons, because they don't give you freedom, they only give you security, safety, and in place they take away your very being, your freedom, your joy, your dance. But certainly they give you security, safety -- and naturally you have to pay for it.
The price that one has to pay is immensely great in comparison to what you get. You have to sell your very soul. But then what is the point of safety and security? You were searching for security and safety for your being, and in the very search you have sold your being. Now you are secure and safe, but what is the point? For whom is the safety and security? It does not serve you, it serves those who have managed to convince you that "If you give your soul, your being, we will take care -- then you need not be worried, then we are responsible for your safety and security."
The moment you give up your responsibility, you give up everything.
Then you are just an empty shell, without any meaning and without any essence. Your homes are nothing but beautiful prisons made by you, decorated by you. You think they are protecting you; they are destroying you. Certainly they protect you from the rains and they protect you from the winds and they protect you from the sun, but for these trivia they destroy you completely. You lose all joy, you lose all freedom, you lose all sense of direction.
You lose the very purpose you are here for.
You get lost in your own home.
You become too much concerned about the furniture and about the decorations, and you forget yourself completely. This forgetfulness is a kind of deep psychological sleep.
Your wife, your husband, your children -- nobody is yours. All are man-made, arbitrary relationships -- even your own children are not your own. They come through you; they don't belong to you. You belong to the past; they belong to the future. There is no connection, there is no relationship; hence, as man has become more and more intelligent there has come a great generation gap.
One great Russian novelist, Turgenev, has written a book -- perhaps his best, his masterpiece -- FATHERS AND SONS. The whole book is about the struggle between the fathers and the sons, because the fathers would like the sons just to be their replicas.
Naturally, they will not allow the sons any freedom. Obedience they expect; they expect their sons to be their carbon copies.
Even God the Father was expecting obedience and nothing else; what to say about ordinary fathers? He was angry because of disobedience, and his anger was too great in comparison to the disobedience. The disobedience was created by him. He provoked it; he created the curiosity in the children, Adam and Eve, to eat from certain trees, by preventing them -- that is the easiest way.
I lived in a place; just next to me was a very beautiful house, with a very big garden and compound, with a big wall surrounding it. And in India, such places are used as urinals.
A good wall... and immediately you feel the urge. And the man was very angry. He was a retired general. He asked me what to do: "It is strange, because there are so many houses, but people go on urinating around my house."
I said, "The reason is that you have not put up any notice." He said, "What kind of notice?"
I said to him, "Just put a few notices around, all over the wall: Don't Urinate Here."
He said, "That's a good idea!"
He called a painter and wrote all over the wall, with big letters: Don't Urinate Here. And from that day, anybody who passed from that road had to urinate! It was such an invitation; otherwise, one might not have been reminded. But, "Don't Urinate"... and suddenly you feel that this is the right place. And you can see so many marks where people have already urinated. And the boards on the wall certainly show that the owner knows that people urinate here; otherwise, what is the need of putting such boards?
In one of the capital cities of India, Bhopal, I was surprised to know that people have to put small boards even in their sitting rooms -- "Don't Spit Here" -- because that is the only city in India where people spit anywhere. Even in your sitting room, it is common practice. And those boards don't prevent anybody from doing it. When I saw this I told the doctor with whom I was staying, "I have never seen anywhere in India such instructions. And here in your city, in every house... How did it start?"
He said, "I don't know."
I said, "Somebody must have first put up a board; spitting must have come afterwards." It is a temptation.
In the Garden of Eden, so many trees... and God indicated to a particular tree: "This is the tree of knowledge. Never eat the fruit from it." There was no need of any serpent to convince Eve, God convinced her himself; he is the serpent. And then the punishment for it is unbelievable. Even today we are suffering because Adam and Eve disobeyed!
Religions have created all kinds of crimes in the mind of man, just by prohibiting them.
They have also created ideas which prevent man from any search. They say, "Believe" --
and belief is cheap. You don't have to do anything. Gurdjieff had to go to such extents that he started saying to people, "You don't have souls. It is a wrong idea, implanted within you by religions, that everybody has a soul."
He had to say such a thing just to wake you up to search whether it is true or not;
otherwise, everybody was perfectly asleep. What is the need to search? You already have it; God is within you! So do other things which, if you don't do, you will not get --
become a president, prime minister, become the richest man in the world, conquer the world -- because these things will not happen on their own. As far as God is concerned you already have him; he is within you, you don't have to go anywhere. Any day, any rainy day when you can't go anywhere to conquer the world, and you don't have anything else to do -- to correct the mechanism of your car, or to open your wall clock, or to open your radio or television even though they are functioning perfectly well, but you don't have anything else to do.… Any day, when you don't have anything to do, you can find God. He is within you, in your pocket.
Gurdjieff is perhaps the only man in the whole of history who insisted against all religions that you don't have a soul -- that a soul has to be created, then you have it. You are not born with it, you are born only with the possibility. If you make a great effort, perhaps you may achieve it. Otherwise most people are born and die; there is no soul that survives.
He was telling a compassionate lie. He was not right, but I cannot say that he was telling the lie for any other reason than compassion. It is true you are born with the soul, but it has become such an accepted fact that you don't even look within yourself. Somebody needs to shatter your idea that you are born with a soul, to tell you that inside you are just empty, hollow. Perhaps this may shake you up, wake you up. Perhaps this may give you the idea to look inside at least one time, whether there is a soul or you have been deceived.
And George Gurdjieff helped more people in this century than anybody else, because he created a great longing:
"Don't die before you have created a soul; otherwise nothing will survive the death.
Crystallize your being so that death cannot destroy it. But you are not born with it, you have to create it."
The idea of all the religions, although true, has not been helpful; it has become a hindrance. Gurdjieff's compassion is great. All the religions were against him, obviously, because that is the one point they all agree on -- that everybody is
born with a soul. But Gurdjieff's point is more psychological, and more effective in creating liberation. He says you are just empty, and you will remain empty unless you make the effort, with a determined will, to create a center within you. There is possibility, potential, but you have to make it an actuality.
His insight was great.
And since Gurdjieff, people have forgotten it completely. He was alive just thirty years ago and just within thirty years people have forgotten the great teacher who was compassionate enough even to lie, just to make you shocked; just to create an opening in you so that you can start searching whether what all the religions have been saying has any truth in it or not.
The first thing he says is to realize you are in prison. The first thing that can also be said is, you have to realize that you are not yet. You have to be. You are a seed, but you have to find the right soil, and nobody else can do it for you. If you go on depending on priests and your so-called saints, you will miss this great opportunity that life has given to you.
And one does not know whether a second chance is being given or not. It has to be made emphatically clear to you that there is a possibility -- once missed, you have missed it forever.
Gurdjieff created a great turmoil in a few intelligent people, and he put them to great work in finding themselves. I don't agree with George Gurdjieff as far as his methods are concerned, but as far as this statement is concerned I agree totally. It is simply a psychological fact.
There are people who believe they are intelligent. In fact, it is very difficult to find somebody who believes he is unintelligent. If you can find somebody who believes he is unintelligent, there is a possibility for him to be intelligent. But for all those who already believe they are intelligent, you can't help them. And certainly this whole humanity is not intelligent. Their actions show it, their behavior shows it, their misery shows it -- it shows nothing but their retardedness.
But their belief is that they are geniuses -- life is just not giving them the right opportunities to show their talents; otherwise, they could have been Picasso, or Sartre, or Bertrand Russell, or Martin Buber; there is no problem. It is just because life is preventing them; otherwise, they have everything. It is not so.
Now education is universal, particularly in advanced countries, but even universal education does not create universal geniuses. Everybody is educated but even that does not give you the same talent. Man is living in a kind of half- awake and half-asleep state, and it is very easy to believe that you are great -- great in intelligence, great in beauty, great in everything -- rather than finding greatness, creating greatness, because that will require effort, tremendous effort. And enlightenment is the ultimate intelligence. If you already believe you are intelligent, you have stopped yourself from growing.
Just watch exactly where you are.
Be very impartial about judging yourself.
See exactly, even if it hurts, that you are a slave -- of some political ideology, of some religious theology, of some racial stupidity. Just watch and be very impartial and objective about yourself, and you will find what Gurdjieff calls your prisons. And once you recognize your prisons, it is not difficult to get out, because they are your own creations.
Bernstein died and went to hell. The receptionist asked, "Where do you want to go?"
"Do I have a choice?" asked the surprised Bernstein.
"Certainly! This anteroom is surrounded by closed doors. Just listen at each one and decide which you want to enter."
Bernstein listened at the first door and heard horrible shrieks of agony. He went to the second, then the third -- always hearing screams, cries, and yells. Finally, at the seventh door, he heard nothing but gentle murmuring.
He said quickly, "I'll take this one."
The door was flung open and he was propelled inside. He found himself up to his lower lip in a vast sea of shit. With him were millions of others, standing on tiptoe, muttering,
"Don't make waves! Don't make waves!"
Whatever you have made your life is your own choice. Even in hell you have a
choice --
everywhere you have a choice. Your life is your own creation. Once you recognize it, then every change is possible.
Churchill's commentary on man was: "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on." Man is a very strange animal, strangest of all the animals you see. He goes on believing in things which are not, he goes on believing in things which he has not. He never makes any effort, even in finding one very fundamental thing: who he is, from where he comes, and what is his destiny, where he is going.
People discuss all kinds of things, and people read about all kinds of things, but generally they never bother about themselves. It seems they take themselves for granted, and that's what Gurdjieff wants to stop: Don't take yourself for granted. Look inside, search for who you are, and whether you are or if there is just emptiness and something has to be done to bring the seed to sprout, to take care of the seed so that one day it can blossom.
Sinking uneasily into the depths of the psychiatrist's couch, the patient sighed, "Doctor, I have a problem." He loosened his collar and continued, "I've got one son in Harvard and another at Yale. I've just gifted them with twin Ferraris. I have a townhouse on upper Fifth Avenue, and a summer home at East Hampton, and a sprawling ranch in Venezuela."
"Well," smiled the psychiatrist, obviously impressed, "either I missed something or you really don't have a problem."
"Doc," the harried chap croaked, "I only make seventy-five dollars a week."
Naturally you will have problems! You make seventy-five dollars a week, and you imagine all these things: two Ferraris, two sons -- one in Harvard, one in Yale -- a townhouse, a house in the hills, a big ranch in Venezuela, and seventy- five dollars a week! People create their problems. People are utterly poor in their consciousness, and go on believing that the kingdom of God is within. In your poor consciousness, you can have only a very poor God -- seventy-five dollars a week. Your God is as rich as your consciousness is, because the God is another name for your consciousness.
Question 2
MY BELOVED MASTER,
THANK YOU FOR YOUR IMMENSE LOVE AND COMPASSION FOR ME! OSHO, HOW TO BE AWARE, ESPECIALLY DURING ANGER? THIS FEELING IS SO
STRONG IT COMES ALWAYS LIKE THOUSANDS OF WILD HORSES RUNNING.
I AM REALLY TIRED OF IT! CAN YOU HELP ME, AGAIN?
Prem Ila, you have the simplest problem -- you are making too much out of it. "Like thousands of wild horses running" -- that much anger would have burned you! From where do you bring thousands of wild horses?
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was having an interview to be employed on a ship, and there were three officials interviewing. One officer said, "A great cyclone, tidal waves, and the ship is almost sinking... what will you do?"
Mulla said, "No problem. I will do what is technically right -- I will stop the ship and lower down a heavy support."
The other officer said, "But another tidal wave is coming, and the ship is just going to sink. What are you going to do?"
Mulla said, "The same -- I will lower down another heavy support; every ship carries them."
The third officer said, "But another tidal wave..."
And Mulla said, "You are unnecessarily wasting my time. I will do the same -- lower down a heavy support to make the ship stable against the tidal wave."
The first official asked, "From where are you getting all these heavy supports?"
Mulla said, "It is strange. From where are you getting these tidal waves? -- from the same source! If you can imagine, why can't I imagine? You go on bringing as many tidal waves as you want, and I will go on lowering heavier and heavier supports. Anyway, the ship has to be saved. It is not a question from WHERE... you know from where you are bringing those tidal waves."
Prem Ila, anger is a very small thing. If you can just wait and watch, you will not find
"thousands of wild horses." If you can find even a small donkey, that will be enough! Just watch it and it will go, slowly. It will enter from this side and will go out from the other side. You just have to keep a little patience not to ride on it.
Anger, jealousy, envy, greed, competitiveness... all our problems are very small, but our ego magnifies them, makes them as big as it can. The ego cannot do otherwise; its anger has also to be great. By its great anger, and great misery, and great greed, and great ambition it becomes great.
But you are not the ego, you are only a watcher. Just stand by the side and let all the thousands of horses pass -- let us see how long it takes for them to pass. There is no need to be worried. As they come -- they are wild -- they will go. But we don't miss even a small donkey; we immediately jump on it! You don't need thousands of wild horses. Just a small thing, and you are full of anger and fire. You will laugh about it later on, at how stupid you were.
If you can watch, without getting involved, as if it is something on the screen of a movie house or of a TV screen... something is passing; watch it. You are not supposed to do anything to prevent it, to repress it, to destroy it, to pull out a sword and kill it, because from where will you get the sword? -- from the same source as the anger is coming. It is all imagination.
Just watch, and don't do anything -- for or against. And you will be surprised: that which was looking very big, becomes very small. But our habit is to exaggerate.
A small boy comes home running, and tells his mother -- he is not more than three years old -- "Mum, a great lion, roaring loudly, was running after me for miles! But somehow I managed to escape. Many times he came very close. He was just about to attack me when I started running faster."
The mother looked at the boy and said, "Tommy, I have told you a million times not to exaggerate! How can you find a lion in the city... and you have been running for miles?
And where is the lion?"
The boy looked outside the door. He said, "He is standing there. But, to tell you the truth, it is just a small dog -- very small! But when it was running after me, it appeared.… You tell me not to exaggerate, and right now you have been exaggerating that you have told me millions of times."
Our minds are very exaggerating. You have small problems, and if you can stop exaggerating and just see, then by the door a poor small dog is standing. And there is no need to run miles; your life is not in danger.
When anger comes to you, Ila, it is not going to kill you. It has been with you many times before, and you have survived perfectly well. It is the same anger that you have been through before. Just do one thing new -- which you have never done; every time you get involved with it, fighting. This time just watch, as if it does not belong to you, as if it is somebody else's anger. And you are in for a great surprise: it will disappear within seconds. And when anger disappears without any struggle, it leaves behind it a tremendously beautiful and silent and loving state.
The same energy that could have become a fight with the anger is left within you. Pure energy is delight -- I am quoting William Blake: "Energy is delight" -- just energy, without any name, without any adjective.… But you never allow energy to be pure. Either it is anger, or hate, or love, or greed, or desire. It is always involved in something; you never allow it in its purity.
Every time anything arises in you, is a great chance to experience pure energy. Just watch, and the donkey will go. It may raise a little dust, but that dust also settles on its own; you don't have to settle it. You simply wait. Don't move from waiting and watching, and soon you will find yourself surrounded by a pure energy which has not been used in fighting, in repressing, or in being angry.
And energy is certainly delight. Once you know the secret of delight, you will enjoy every emotion; and every emotion arising in you is a great opportunity.
Just watch, and bring a shower of delight on your being. Slowly, slowly all these emotions will disappear; they will not come any more -- they don't come uninvited.
Watchfulness, or alertness, or awareness, or consciousness, are all different names of the same phenomenon: witnessing. That is the key word.
Miss Johnson, the English teacher said, "Today we are going to do definitions. When you define something, you say what it is. Now, Wesley, will you define ùnaware'?"
Wesley replies "It's the last thing I take off at night!"
We are all living in such a situation! The poor boy must have heard ùnderwear'. Nobody is conscious; nobody is listening to what is being said.…
A young child was asked by the teacher, "What was the Polack pope's first miracle?"
A little boy said, "He made a lame man blind."
The Communist Party in Russia had a membership drive. The rules were as follows: Any communist who could recruit a new member would no longer have to pay dues. If he got two members he would be permitted to leave the party. And if he recruited three members, he would receive a certificate stating that he had never belonged to the party in the first place.
It is such a strange world. If you are aware, then everywhere miracles are happening. But you don't see miracles because rarely are you aware, very rarely. Most of the time you keep your eyes open; most of the time you don't snore. But that does not mean that you are awake. It simply means that you are pretending to be awake. But deep inside are so many thoughts, so much confusion, so many wild horses, that how can you see anything?
How can you hear anything? So although your eyes are open, they don't see. And although your ears are open, they don't hear.
It is a strange phenomenon that God made eyes in a different way from ears. You cannot close your ears; you can close your eyes. You have eyelids to close, to open, but what about your ears? God never bothered to give little earlids, because he knew you are so much involved in the mind, you don't need them. Your ears are always deaf; you don't hear, or you hear only what you want to hear.
Bedfellows Rule: The one who snores will fall asleep first. Naturally! I have heard...
A bishop was very angry at a man who was snoring loudly. He caught hold of him later on and told him, "It is not right! While I was giving the sermon, you were snoring."
The man said, "I am sorry. Next time I will take care."
The bishop said, "You have to take care, because there were so many people asleep and you were disturbing them all. I am not worried about my sermon, I am worried about my congregation which was fast asleep. And you were snoring so fast, you might have woken people up. They were having a morning nap after a tiring night, and I don't want to disturb anybody. It is also a great help to me, because I go on repeating the same sermon every Sunday. Otherwise I would have to prepare again and again, and it is unnecessarily tedious. I have been using the same sermon for years -- nobody objects, because nobody has heard it."
You go into any church and you will find people fast asleep; it is a place to sleep, to have a little rest from the worldly affairs, from the world and its tensions. Man is twenty-four hours asleep as far as spirituality is concerned. And in your sleep you see anger and you see greed, and they become so magnified, so big that you get caught into their net very easily.
A man who has a simple art of watchfulness has a golden key. Then it does not matter whether it is anger, or greed, or sensuality, or lust, or infatuation. It may be any kind of disease, it doesn't matter -- the same medicine functions. Just watch, and you will be free of it. And watching, slowly, slowly as the mind becomes more and more contentless, one day mind itself disappears. It cannot remain without anger, without fear, without love, without hate -- all these are absolute necessities for mind to exist.
By watching, you are not only getting rid of anger, you are getting rid of part of the mind.
And slowly, slowly... one day you are suddenly awake -- there is no mind at all. You are just a watcher, a watcher on the hills. That is the most beautiful moment, the most glorious dawn. Only from then your real life begins.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #5
Chapter title: To hell with enlightenment!
23 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8708230
ShortTitle:
INVITA05
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
99
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
I AM AFRAID -- AFRAID OF ENLIGHTENMENT. WHAT IS BEYOND
ENLIGHTENMENT? WHAT TO DO AFTER THE GOAL OF LIVING IS REACHED?
WHAT DO YOU AIM FOR? IT IS LIKE FALLING INTO A BOTTOMLESS PIT.
YOU FALL -- NO BOTTOM, NO GOAL. THEN WHAT DO YOU AIM FOR? WHAT
IS BEYOND THE GOAL?
Cliff -- obviously it is not my pilot Cliff, because the question does not show the guts of a pilot -- but whoever you are you have raised very significant questions. I am saying questions because there are many. You have condensed them into a very small question.
First you are saying, "I am afraid, afraid of enlightenment." This can be taken as a general state of human mind; otherwise there is no reason why so few people have ever become enlightened. And those who have become enlightened have been shouting for centuries of its joy, its bliss; its ultimate truth, beauty; its eternity and its going beyond death. But the larger part of humanity has not paid any attention to it, naturally. Your question comes from the deepest core of humanity.
It is not only your question, everybody is afraid of enlightenment. And the reason is clear why one is afraid: the fear is of losing yourself. For the same reason people are afraid of love; for the same reason people are afraid of trust; for the same reason they remain enclosed in all kinds of fears, miseries, anxieties and anguish, because at least these feel familiar. And one thing is certain, they don't ask you to be lost. The more painful your life is, the more you are.
Perhaps deep down you desire pain, you desire misery, you desire anguish, because that keeps you clearly defined. You are afraid of the same things for which you also have a longing. On the one hand, there is a longing to go beyond all fears, beyond all anxieties, beyond all suffering. But the problem becomes complex, because being beyond suffering you are also beyond yourself -- you are the suffering. You are the prison, that's why you are afraid to get out of it. On the contrary, you try to console yourself in every way, that
"This is not a prison, this is my home."
So you are living in a dilemma: you want to go into the open sky and open your wings and fly across the sun. But on the other hand, you are afraid you may
never be able to find the way back to your cozy, familiar space. Although it is painful you have become accustomed to it; although there is suffering it is like an old friend. The beyond invites you, calls you to take courage. But it also creates a trembling within you, because going out of the cozy circle of your misery and your hell, you know for certain -- you may not be very conscious of it -- that your so-called personality will melt away into the vast ocean, just like an ice block.
The fear is, is there something beyond your personality? You are not aware of it, you have never come across it -- you have never met yourself. You know only the superficial that has been told to you. You don't know on your own authority your essential, your inner. And of course nobody else can say anything about your inner. It is not available for observation; it is not available to be an object. Science cannot find it. Logic feels absolutely inadequate. Reason has not the wings to fly to the inner.
Karl Marx used to say, "I will believe in God only if he is caught in a test tube and scientists unanimously declare that this is God -- after dissection and autopsy to find whether he is really divine." Karl Marx was representative of you all, of the wider humanity; he is saying, "How can I believe in God? Science has no proof for it." And science has no proof either for your self. It can dissect you, it can cut you into as many parts as possible, but it will not find you; it will find only a dead corpse.
Only very recently have geniuses become aware that what we have been doing in physiology, in biology, in medical sciences, is not right. The moment you take blood out of my body and then you test it, it is not the same blood that is flowing in my body. In my body it is alive, it has a life of its own; outside my body it is a dead thing. And you cannot conclude from the analysis of the dead about the living. You can take anything out of the human body, but the moment you take it out, you have taken it out as a dead thing.
In the human body it was an organic, living, breathing, alive part.
A few very sensitive medical surgeons have become aware of the fact that something has to be done about it, because in the medical colleges they go on studying the corpses, skeletons, to decide about living human beings -- there is such a great logical fallacy. But they are also feeling impotent -- how to approach life? All that they know is -- their whole technology, their whole
methodology is to know -- the object, and you are not the object. Hence, science is never going to accept your living being -- it is beyond its limits.
Logic cannot accept, reason cannot accept, philosophy cannot accept.
And your fear, on top of it all, is that nobody is there to give you a certainty that beyond your superficial personality there is something more. You will disappear as you are, and you will appear in your authentic reality. This is the fear. People are afraid of coming closer to each other, even in love; they keep each other at arm's length. They want to come closer, but a fear... to be too close, you can be lost.
With love, the problem is not so great -- but going beyond your ordinary self, your accepted face that you have seen in the mirror, that others have told you is very beautiful, or is ugly... All your knowledge about yourself is dependent on others' opinions.
I used to have a very beautiful professor, Professor S.S. Roy. Now he is retired from the Allahabad University as head of the philosophy department. In fact, he was the cause of my going to the university where he was teaching in those days. He insisted. And I could not say no to him; he loved me too much.
One day we discussed... and every day we were discussing a thousand and one things.
Our relationship as student and professor had got lost long before; it had become a very deep friendship. And he loved sharp arguments; he himself was a great logician. And I said the same thing to him, "Your idea of yourself is only a collection of opinions of others; you don't know yourself."
He said, "You will have to prove it."
The next day I went to his wife -- and she was very loving towards me because I was always going to their home. She knew that her husband had never been interested in any student in this way. I had become almost part of the family; I had spent many days there, whenever he wanted. He invited me many times to his home to discuss his doctoral thesis, which had been accepted by Cambridge University -- he was working on the philosophy of Bradley in comparison to Shankara. Late into the nights we would go on discussing.
I told his wife, "Tomorrow I am doing an experiment and you have to help me." She was all willing. It was a small experiment. I told her, "When Professor Roy gets up in the morning, you have to say to him: What is the matter? Could you not sleep? Just hold his hand: Do you have a fever? You look so pale. And write down exactly what he says."
He said, "Who is looking pale? I am perfectly healthy. I have slept well and I don't have any fever. What kind of idea have you got?"
She said, "I was thinking to call the doctor."
He said, "Have you gone mad? When I am saying that I am perfectly okay... if there were fever I would know first. And I have seen my face in the mirror; there is no paleness or anything. Are you kidding or something?" She noted every single word the way he said it.
I had talked with his gardener: "When he comes out to go to the university, just run and hold him, and tell him: You are wobbling, what is the matter? Are you feeling dizzy?
And touching his hand, say: My God, you have fever!"
And to the gardener, he said, "I could not sleep as deeply as I always sleep, and perhaps you are right. I am feeling a little dizzy. But I will go to the doctor." The medical department was very close to the philosophy department. So he said, "I will go."
He used to walk; the distance was almost one mile. Next was the post office, and I had told the postmaster... and they were very close friends, because both were Bengalis. I had told the postmaster, "You be out when he comes by, and just say: Roy, I don't think you should go to the university today; you need rest. You look almost a faded shadow of yourself. You don't look to me... what has happened?"
And to the postmaster he said, "I myself was thinking -- should I go? I have never been absent. I have never taken any holiday, but perhaps I should go and inform the department that it is difficult, and go to the doctor and come back."
Just by his side used to live another professor, of economics, who had a beautiful car.
And I had told him, "Tomorrow you should not come out of your house before Roy has passed the post office. Just watch, and then bring the car, and stop by his side and say to him, What is the matter, man? You come in. I will take you to the doctor, you are not in right condition to walk one mile."
And Roy said, "You are perfectly right. I was wondering that if somebody comes I can ask for a lift. You are so kind. I am feeling dizzy; I could not sleep the whole night. And I have a strange fever that does not show on the body, but I know there is something feverish inside... perhaps a brain fever? I looked in the mirror and my face looks absolutely white." And he had said just the opposite to his wife just five minutes before!
I told the professor of economics, Dr. Sahai, "The whole journey, go on talking about his sickness and tell him that it is old age, and not to be worried: It happens to everybody.
Perhaps brain surgery... but don't be worried, I am here just by your side. I will take care of your family. My feeling is that you need hospitalization."
And Roy said, "Hospitalization? I was thinking just a visit to the doctor will do."
The professor of economics said, "You are not taking the thing seriously. Perhaps you have a brain tumor or something; otherwise, why are you feeling dizzy, wobbly, and a fever which is not showing on your body? On the contrary, your body seems to be cold. It must be something to do with your brain. You have been working too hard on your doctoral thesis. And I have told you there is no need. You have a doctorate; there is no need for another doctorate from Cambridge. You are unnecessarily... and you are now old. You should recognize that there is a time when one can work, and there is a time one should understand how far one is capable of going."
And Roy said, "Perhaps you are right; I should drop that project. It is three- fourths complete -- what a pity that I have to drop it; it is a great thesis."
Nobody had compared Shankara with Bradley, and both are very similar in their vision.
But they were not acquainted with each other. Shankara was fourteen hundred years before Bradley, so there was no possibility for him to know about Bradley. Bradley was just in the beginning of this century, and even he was not aware of
Shankara, because he was an original thinker. He was not interested in studying other philosophers; he was more interested to bring out his own ideas.
But they have both come to the same conclusions.
But Roy said, "Perhaps you are right -- I should not put too much strain on myself."
And then I had told the peon in front of the department, who used to sit outside the department to give appointments and other things... he was a strong man. I told him,
"You simply take Professor Roy in your hands. Even if he resists don't worry. I promise you there will be no trouble for you."
He said, "If you promise, then there is no problem. So what do you want?"
I said, "You should force him onto the sofa: Lie down! You are not in a state to walk or to sit, and I am going to call the doctor. And just note down what he says."
And when he forced him there was no resistance. He was very happy, and said to the peon, "I never thought that you were so kind. I needed to rest. Now you bring the doctor."
It was a very small, but very beautiful university -- perhaps the most uniquely situated in the whole of India, on a hill above a vast lake, and so many lotus flowers, and thick, lush greenery all around the university. The doctor came, because he was just next door, and I had told him, "Be ready. Inject him with just pure water. Do all kinds of testing, and tell him, "You are not in a position to do any mental work for at least three months. I hope that the brain tumor will subside by itself if you don't exert yourself. There will be no need for surgery, but one cannot be certain about such things, and I will have to talk to the head surgeon."
And Professor Roy said, "You just bring your car and take me back home." And the head of the department had not yet come, so he told the doctor, "I am not in a position to write; you write that I am not feeling well and I am going back home, and perhaps it will take some time for me to get myself together." He signed the note, and you could see -- his handwriting was very beautiful, but that day his
signature was shaky.
Back home, he slept the whole day. He could not eat anything; he said, "I have no appetite." The wife became afraid about what kind of experiment I was doing. He was talking about a brain tumor, and surgery, and three months rest!
And then I went and collected all the notes from everybody in serial number: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven... And I went to Professor Roy. He was under a blanket -- in hot summer! I said, "Just please read these notes."
He said, "I am not in a position..."
I said, "Don't be worried; I am in a position, I can read to you. From the very morning, these are your seven statements."
And when he heard his statements, he said, "You rascal!" He threw away the blanket and he said, "Hell to that brain tumor; I have nothing. I knew from the very beginning that it was a strange conspiracy! But I never thought about you, that you would do such a thing to me. You could have killed me! I have to phone to the head surgeon because he is to come to check me and decide whether I should rest or an immediate operation is needed!"
I said, "No operation is needed; the operation is complete! This is what I wanted to prove to you, that you live by the opinions of others, you are not independent. You can't trust even your own feeling that you are healthy. If so many people repeat something, you go on falling. Just look at your statements."
This is your personality -- this is not your individuality. You cannot do such a thing with an individual who has a groundedness. The fear, Cliff, is because you don't have any experience of your innermost being; all that you know about yourself is what people have said. And these are the people who don't know anything about themselves -- what can they know about you?
Everybody is afraid of enlightenment, because who knows? Once your personality disappears maybe everything disappears. Then what is the point of such an enlightenment? It is better to remain unenlightened -- at least you are. And death may come whenever it may come, but right now you are alive -- why unnecessarily commit a suicide?
Enlightenment appears to your personality as a suicide, and in fact it is a suicide.
But the suicide of personality is the beginning of individuality. The death of your personality and ego is the birth of your real authentic being, of your immortality. You will have to gather courage, and remember Michel's Rule for Prospective Mountain Climbers: The mountain gets steeper as you get closer to the top.
So as you come closer to enlightenment -- and that is the greatest mountain -- it gets steeper, and more and more dangerous as you come close to the disappearance of your old personality with which you were so identified.
But I tell you, I have survived. I have lost my personality; that's why I am not at all concerned what people think about me. The whole world is against me, but they don't even create a small stir in me. It does not matter whether they are against or for; it is their business, their problem. I know myself, and I know that what I am doing and what I am trying is intrinsically right. Nobody, just because they are in the majority, can destroy my truth.
Truth has never been the opinion of the majority; it has always been an individual achievement. The majority is interested in crucifying the truth, but it is not ready to accept it.
You can understand the psychology of it all. For two thousand years Christians have been thinking about Jesus and his crucifixion. And I am utterly disappointed with the whole two thousand years' theology, because they have not looked at the psychology of the crucifixion. Why did people crucify Jesus? He had not done any wrong; he has not committed any crime. But the majority was turning against him because he was telling them, "Drop your ego; be humble. Drop your so-called false identity; just be nobody.
Blessed are those who stand last in the line."
He was talking against the ambitious majority. They did not crucify Jesus, they crucified the truth that was hurting them and was making them afraid: if they become impressed by this man, there is a danger. They may lose half the bread in the hope of the whole bread, and there may not be any bread at all. It is better to keep the half and not to lose it in the hope of getting the whole. That is the majority's mind.
You say, "I am afraid -- afraid of enlightenment." It is natural, so don't be serious about it. In a way, it is a good symptom -- at least you have become interested in enlightenment; otherwise, you would not be afraid. Just go into the town and you
will not find anybody... ask people, "Are you afraid of enlightenment?" And they will say, "Why should we be afraid?" They have never bothered about it. It is not a problem to them, they have never thought about enlightenment. They will think you are crazy. "Why should we be afraid of enlightenment?"
Just the other day I was looking at a newspaper clipping. It was a statement against me, that the world is coming to an end but I seem to be the only person who is not going to change, who is still talking about enlightenment. As far as I am concerned, I take it as a compliment. When the world is coming to an end, this is the right moment.
Take the risk; anyway it is going to end.
Why not take a chance and become enlightened?
The world is coming to an end -- you will end with it. So now there is no fear: before the world ends, end your personality, and at least you will be saved. The world may end, but you will not end. And the person who has criticized me is right. I will go on insisting. My insistence will become more and more powerful as the end of the world comes near, to make more and more people interested in enlightenment because there is no problem about losing; you can put the fear aside.
The fear is a good symptom -- it means you have become interested in enlightenment and your mind is trembling. You have become interested in the great adventure, the great affair, and your small personality is worried that this is the end. As for the small personality, which consists only of public opinions, it is going to dissolve -- naturally.
It is said that every river before entering the ocean stops for a while and looks back -- a moment of hesitation about what she is going to do. Ahead is the vast ocean, in which she is going to be lost. Back, she had a personality of her own -- her own mountains, valleys, forests. The whole journey, long journey, maybe thousands of years, thousands of miles...
Naturally, it is understandable to hesitate for a moment. But I have never seen any river go backwards. You can hesitate, but you cannot go backwards.
Cliff, you have come to the cliff! You have to take the jump. Only by taking the jump will you prove your mettle.
"What is beyond enlightenment?" First things first! Out of fear you are thinking that it seems enlightenment is bound to happen; now be clear what is going to happen after it --
"What is beyond enlightenment?"
Beyond enlightenment is all -- the whole universe. Beyond enlightenment you are no more a small dewdrop, you are the ocean.
"What to do after the goal of living is reached?" You are not supposed to do anything. I can see all your concerns are very human. You know one thing, that now you cannot avoid enlightenment; you may be afraid, but you have to take the jump. Naturally, you are asking, "What is beyond enlightenment?" And even if something is there -- "What to do after the goal of living is reached?"
You have never thought about what you have done as far as your birth is concerned --
have you done anything? What are you doing as far as your life is concerned? Do you think you are breathing? If it was up to you to breathe, you would have been dead long before; just in anger, or in some love affair, you would forget to breathe. Or in the night, will you sleep or not? Or keep yourself awake just to continue breathing, because if you fall asleep and breathing stops, in the morning who is going to get up? No, breathing you are not doing.
Existence is breathing.
What are you doing as far as your inner structure of life is concerned? Do you digest?
Are you responsible for changing food into blood, into bones, into marrow? These are not your concerns. Your concern ends with the taste buds, and the moment the food is swallowed it goes into the hands of existence; it is no more your concern.
One day try to be continuously aware what is happening in your stomach, and then you will have a good disturbed stomach for at least one week! Your consciousness is not needed, the stomach is doing its work on its own. Your brain consists of seven million cells, and each cell is doing its own function, and you are not needed -- they don't even ask your advice. Has any part of your body
stopped you sometime and asked you, "What to do? -- I am at a loss?" They are never at a loss; they are part of the cosmic organism.
They have an inbuilt process; they go on doing their things.
The moment you become enlightened and disappear into the ocean, you will not be asked to do something -- to type, or to dig, or to prepare piesta... or is it pizza! You are not supposed to do anything; you are gone. Now the universal force has taken possession of you. Things will be happening, but they will not be your doing.
"What do you aim for?" You have reached beyond aim. Aim is a concern of the ego. The ego cannot exist without an aim -- some ambition, some desire, some infatuation, something to be achieved tomorrow.
The ego is a tension between today and the future. The moment there is no ego, there is no tension. You simply live in a state of let-go.
Then, wherever the river takes you, wherever the life force takes you, you simply go. It is not your goal; you have become part of the whole. Now whatever is the goal of the whole... and I don't think there is any goal. The whole is perfectly happy in singing and dancing and enjoying; in flowers, in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, in the stars. There is no goal. The whole is perfectly happy just to be, herenow.
If there is no aim, you start thinking it is like falling into a bottomless pit. Then what to do and what to aim for? "What is beyond the goal?" You are really in trouble! You will not be satisfied unless you are enlightened. All these problems: first, "What is the goal?"
Then, "What is beyond the goal?" You want to determine the whole eternity!
Your question should be just about enlightenment. Beyond that, existence takes care.
Who has given you the name, Cliff? -- that's what I have been wondering. Such a dangerous name! Use your intelligence to see that the fear is arising out of the false in you, the fear is not arising out of the real. The real is really deeply challenged by the idea of enlightenment. But be intelligent; otherwise you may listen to the personality and forget to listen to the individuality.
Meditate more, so that your intelligence can become more clear, unclouded, and all fears will disappear. And all other questions are just nonsense; they will also disappear. All that you need is a little more meditation, a little more sharpness of intelligence.
Paddy and Maureen planned to get married, so they went to the doctor for a physical checkup. The doctor then tried to explain sex to them, but Paddy just listened with a dumb expression on his face. So the doctor took Maureen over to the examination table, made her lie down, and then made love to her. "Now do you understand?" said the physician.
"Yes," said Paddy, "but how often do I have to bring her in?"
A great question! Just become enlightened, Cliff! Don't get worried about so many problems. You will be lost in a jungle of a thousand and one problems. And enlightenment is a simple process; it is just becoming your authentic self. And it is so luminous that in its light all darkness disappears, and with the darkness all the doubts, all the questions. And a tremendous insight arises that you are not separate from existence; hence there is no question of goal, no question of direction; no question where you are going, why you are going.
Then just to be part of the whole is so immense and so overwhelming, one feels fulfilled and contented. There is nowhere to go; you have arrived.
The theatrical agent, trying to sell a new strip act to a nightclub manager, was carrying on very excitedly about a girl's unbelievable seventy-two, twenty-six, forty, figure.
"What kind of dance does she do?" the manager inquired, impressed by the description of the girl's figure.
"Well, she doesn't actually dance at all," the agent replied. "She just crawls out onto the stage and tries to stand up!"
With that kind of figure... how can you dance? Even if you can stand up, that's enough!
Let me repeat the figure -- seventy-two, twenty-six, forty!
Cliff, you have come to the right place. Here we are not giving you any goals,
any heaven, any paradise. We are not selling any future to you. We are not in any business --
the churches are, the temples are, the synagogues are. I am teaching you that there is no goal and that there is no meaning, but there is great joy, and great love, and great blissfulness. And all that you have to pay for it is to drop your false ego, your false personality.
Become silent. In your silence, all questions will disappear. And the dance will begin, whatever the figure! Because as far as your inner being is concerned, it has no figure; it is just a luminous flame which can dance. It has been eternally there, repressed by you. You are the greatest enemy of yourself. My effort is to turn you into the greatest friend of yourself.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
I FEEL REALLY CONFUSED ABOUT THIS WHOLE ENLIGHTENMENT
BUSINESS. ON THE ONE HAND, YOU SAY, "BE THOROUGHGOING IN YOUR
SEARCH FOR ENLIGHTENMENT." BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, THE VERY
DESIRE TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED PREVENTS IT. HOW TO SOLVE THIS DILEMMA?
Prem Dipamo, you are saying something significant, but you have to understand that life is not a rational thing; it is very irrational, because it is mysterious.
The contradiction that you see in my statements is not a contradiction. It appears like contradiction, something inconsistent, but I will try to explain to you that there is no contradiction at all. But you will come across in my statements many times the same things, and the reason is that you have never gone beyond the ordinary mind and its consistency. I remember Oscar Wilde as saying, "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." A little imagination is needed to understand that the contradictory is complementary.
For example, before I take your question... Some examples are needed from your ordinary life experience; otherwise you will never be able to understand it.
Can you deliberately make any effort to sleep? When sleep is not coming, what are you supposed to do? Thousands of tricks have been suggested; nothing works. People say to drink a glass of hot milk. You can drink, but the hot milk will make you even more awake. People have been told to take a bath, but a good bath will make you more fresh, and less sleepy. People have been told to jog, to jump... all kinds of things; nothing helps.
Sleep comes only when you completely forget about it. You just lie down, and you don't try in any way to bring sleep in; it is not in your power. You have to completely forget everything, and it comes. It comes only when you are not desiring it.
Now there are two problems: first you have to desire; otherwise, why should you go to sleep? You have to have a certain need, a desire, a longing for sleep; otherwise why...?
So in the beginning a desire is needed, but in the final stage the very desire becomes the disturbance. So first you have to desire, and then you have to forget all about it. This is how sleep comes.
Your question is, "I feel really confused about this whole enlightenment business." It is a confusing business, but those who can manage to pass through it become the most unconfused people in the world.
"On the one hand, you say, `Be thoroughgoing in your search for enlightenment.'" Yes, it is true. First I have to create a longing for enlightenment; otherwise, enlightenment is non-existent on your laundry list. Nobody wants enlightenment; people are wanting all kinds of things, but enlightenment is a very rare variety. Only very unique people even become interested in it. So first I have to insist: "Be thoroughgoing in your search for enlightenment."
First I have to create the desire, the longing, the passion, so strong that you drop all other small things and put your total energy into the search for enlightenment. Once you have done this, half of the process is complete.
Then begins the other half: "But on the other hand, the very desire to become enlightened prevents it." When you have been very thoroughgoing in your
desiring, in your search, you will not find enlightenment. The more you search, the more you will be frustrated, because it is not something outside you that you can find. It is not something that you have to travel to, it is something within you.
So when you have become thoroughly a seeker, a searcher -- frustrated, so utterly in a state of defeatism that you have lost everything else; you staked everything else for enlightenment, and there seems to be no sign anywhere -- then you have been thoroughgoing. Unless you are thoroughgoing, you will come to this frustration because you will know that you are not thoroughgoing -- perhaps that's why you are missing.
So first be thoroughgoing. Your total energy should be involved in the search; then comes frustration. At that moment the master says, "Now you have done enough search.
Now drop all searching; just sit silently." And you can sit silently only if you have been running so long and you are tired, your mind is tired. And when the master says, "Now, sit down silently. Doing nothing the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself -- no desire, no demand," there is no contradiction -- this is the whole process.
Half the process is to bring your whole energy into the search, and the second part is to make you sit down and drop the whole search. And suddenly it is there because it is your innermost core -- no search is needed. But without this thoroughgoing search, you would not have been able to sit down silently. To make you sit down silently, you have to be made to run for miles.
Only when you are utterly tired and frustrated, then you can drop even the idea of finding enlightenment. Then you are utterly silent. You have forgotten about property, money, possessions, power, prestige, long before, because you staked everything for enlightenment. Now, the only thing to be dropped that you still have is the desire for enlightenment -- that is the last desire to be dropped. But first it has to be created.
This is the trouble that is creating confusion in you: if you don't desire, how are you going to drop it? You have to desire so totally that you can drop it totally too.
And this is the mystery of enlightenment...
Ask, do everything that is possible, and then finally -- tired, exhausted -- you need to relax; you even let go of the idea of enlightenment, it is all futile. In this silence, when there is no desire stirring your mind, you suddenly find you are the enlightened one.
That enlightenment was not somewhere else, it was within you. But it needed utter silence, no desire. How to create this state of no desire?
I used to stay in a house with a friend; he had a child -- very charming, but very active, constantly asking questions, constantly doing this and that, too full of energy. He was the first child. The mother was tired, the father was tired; the child was able to tire anybody.
He started doing his exercise on me too, but I said, "Listen, I have a certain condition."
He said, "What is the condition?"
"That I only answer any question if you fulfill the condition." He said, "I am ready."
I said, "You just go around the block seven times as fast as you can. And don't try to deceive me, because I know exactly whether you have been deceiving or not. When you come back I will see if you are perspiring... perhaps tears have come to your eyes. Then I will answer."
He said, "Okay."
He went round the block. It was a big house, and for this little boy, seven rounds were too many. When he came back he simply fell down. I said, "Rest a little, and then you can ask."
He said, "I have forgotten all questions. Just don't harass me; just let me rest." I said, "That's perfectly okay."
He fell asleep. His mother came; she said, "This is strange. He tires us all. What did you do? He is fast asleep."
I said, "I have my own ways of making people enlightened!" I have learned a secret: first exhaust the energy which has become their infatuation, their greed, their ego, their lust for power, and all kinds of things. First exhaust it."
So first I teach a thoroughgoing search. And once you have been around the block seven times, and tears are coming to your eyes, and you have not found enlightenment, I will say to you, "Just rest a little; then we can discuss enlightenment."
And you will say, "I don't want even to discuss this business of enlightenment; I am utterly tired." Just rest, and in that very rest, you become aware of your inner flame. So there is no contradiction, it is simply the strategy.
Unless you are exhausted you will remain interested in something or other. When you are exhausted all your interest disappears; all that you want is to be silent, at ease, relaxed --
and that is the moment when enlightenment happens. It is not an object to be found; it is a realization of a silent being.
That's how it happened to Gautam Buddha. For six years he was thoroughgoing in his search; perhaps nobody has been so thoroughgoing. He did everything that anybody suggested. He fasted for months; he became almost a skeleton. There exists a statue of the days when he was fasting -- he was fasting under a master. The fast was a special way where you have to reduce to smaller quantities every day.
Unless you come to one grain of rice as your whole food for twenty-four hours -- and he had come to one grain of rice, just one single grain... if you see that statue you will be surprised how thoroughgoing he was. All flesh has disappeared; you can see all his bones. His whole skeleton is simply covered by the skin. You can see that he has exhausted every possibility; if he goes a little further he will be dead.
That very day, when he had come to the point of one grain of rice a day, he had gone to take a bath in the River Niranjana. It is a small river; I have been to the place. But even in that small river, he was so weak that the current of the river was more powerful. I have been there; the current is almost nonexistent. But in his situation it must have been so much that he could not gather energy enough. Energy comes from your food, and for months he had been cutting down on
food. Now he had come to the last point -- his whole reservoir.… That's what your flesh is. So when you fast, in the beginning your weight goes down by two pounds per day.
Addressing a conference of vegetarians, I told them that fasting is a kind of cannibalism.
They were very shocked -- fasting, and I am calling it cannibalism? I said, "It is cannibalism because where do those two pounds disappear to? You have eaten them; you have used your own meat. Because you are not eating meat you think you are not using meat, but it is your own, and inside." Just in the sheer activity of living, one pound, two pounds, is gone. After seven days your activities become less; then you lose one pound per week.
Gautam Buddha must have come to the point where there was nothing to lose; he was just bones. And the statue is tremendously significant. It is a bronze statue showing every bone. You can count all the ribs; they are just covered with dried skin, because the skin also needs nourishment. He could not get out of the river; he was so weak that he was hanging on to a root, just to protect himself from the current of the river.
At that moment, hanging on to the root of a tree, he came to think, I have become so weak that I cannot even cross a small river... And in India, the world is thought to be a great ocean -- bhavsagar, the ocean of being -- and you have to cross it. Only then will you become enlightened. He thought, It is beyond me, this enlightenment business. I cannot cross this poor River Niranjana; how can I cross the ocean of being? -- I am finished. I dropped all desires; today I drop the desire for enlightenment too. I don't have any energy for any desire.
That night he slept without any desire. He had no idea what he was going to do tomorrow morning. For six years he was so much involved in searching for enlightenment, but now he had no energy even to think what he was going to do tomorrow morning. He slept one of the deepest sleeps of his life -- no desires, no dreams, no thought. And when in the morning he opened his eyes, the last star was disappearing. It was still a little dark, a little before the sun would be rising. As the last star was disappearing, he simply watched it disappearing -- utter silence all around. And suddenly he became aware of his own light.
He heard for the first time the still small voice that there is no need to search
anywhere: You are it.
But without those six years of thoroughgoing search this moment would not have arrived.
Do you see that there is any contradiction? Contradiction only appears; deep down there is a great coherence. You can say both things. That's why there are two divisions of Buddhists: one says enlightenment happened because of six years of thoroughgoing search, and the other one says enlightenment happened because he dropped even the desire for enlightenment.
But as far as I am concerned, I don't belong to any sect, to any religion, to any party; hence, I can see clearly without any prejudice that both the schools are only half right.
Those six years of thoroughgoing search created the space to be silent -- so silent that even interest in enlightenment is no longer there. That's why enlightenment happened.
He became aware of his own inner being. All outside search has disappeared; hence, the one hundred and eighty degree turn. His consciousness turns inwards, because there is no goal outside, there is no way, and there is nothing to be done.
Your question is significant, Dipamo, but remember: there is no contradiction; both are essential parts of a single process. But first start with thoroughgoing search. Don't from the very beginning think that if it has to be dropped, why not drop it from the very beginning? -- you cannot. First you have to have it.
Then why at all desire from the very beginning? -- because you will be desiring other things. The problem is first to give you a great desire for enlightenment, so all other desires become combined into a single, one-pointed goal. And then when you get frustrated... because you are bound to get frustrated, nobody can find enlightenment with thoroughgoing search. But by thoroughgoing search one finds frustration -- such utter frustration that one becomes silent. One wants just to rest, not to do anything. Even if enlightenment knocks on the door, one is not interested. One has no energy even to open the door.
In that moment, your inner flame is seen for the first time. And this seeing of the light inside you is the ultimate experience.
It is the most beautiful, and the most glorious, the greatest splendor there is. Enlightenment as such is already there.
You are a buddha, but you are not aware of it. How to make you aware of it? Down the ages, this has been the way, and I don't see there is any other possibility. You will become aware of it only in utter silence. But the utter silence, a state of no-mind, a pure space, needs all your desires to be exhausted -- so it is a device.
Gather all your desires, make your life one-pointed towards enlightenment -- and I assure you, you will not find it! But without this, nobody has found it either.
One day when you get frustrated, you say, "To hell with enlightenment!" That is the day the miracle is going to happen. It happens always only in that moment.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #6
Chapter title: You don't have to become a mountain climber 24 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Archive code: 8708240
ShortTitle: INVITA06
Audio: Yes
Video:
Yes Length:
94
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
SITTING WITH YOU IN DISCOURSE AND HEARING YOU TALK ABOUT
ENLIGHTENMENT AND SILENCE, I FEEL IMMENSELY BLESSED, SOMETIMES
ALMOST TOUCHING THIS SPACE OF COMING HOME, AND SILENCE COMES
TO MY MIND.
BUT AS SOON AS YOU LEAVE THROUGH THE DOOR AND THE MUSIC STOPS, IMMEDIATELY THE CHATTERING INSIDE STARTS AGAIN. FOR ME IT IS
MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO BECOME SILENT WHEN I AM MEDITATING
ALONE, BUT SO EASY IN YOUR PRESENCE.
IS THIS NATURAL IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MASTER AND A DISCIPLE?
Deva Anuragini, it is very natural. Being in the presence of a master, silence happens on its own accord. Just as in the deep Himalayas, where the snow is eternal and the silence almost ancient... just sitting there under a tree, you start feeling, falling in tune with the immensity that surrounds you.
To be in the presence of the master is even more deep-going. Because what is the meaning of being in the presence of the master? It is being with someone you love, someone you trust; someone with whom you are ready to go into the unknown. Being in this climate, you forget your trivial matters; and forgetting comes easy, not by your effort.
The master is silent and silence is contagious.
His heart slowly slowly brings you also into a synchronicity. You start beating with his heart, in the same rhythm.
This is a beautiful experience in itself, but it is only a lesson on the path; it simply gives you a glimpse. Silence has to come to you in your aloneness, then it is your own.
Otherwise, silence in the Himalayas belongs to the Himalayas; you are simply overwhelmed. And the silence in the presence of the master belongs to the master; you are simply touched. That's why, as soon as you are left alone to yourself, your old mind is back; it has just been waiting by the side. It comes with a vengeance.
You have to understand one thing: that the presence of the master simply gives you an indication that you are capable of silence, that mind is not your master. That it is not an impossibility; that you can have a little taste of it. Whilst being alone, remember it: that the mind is just a servant mechanism.
Watch it; it is very ancient, and your silence is very new. Your silence is almost like a roseflower and your chattering mind is like a rock, very ancient, very old. It can crush the roseflower at any moment unless you are aware, unless you learn one lesson -- that mind may go on, yakkety-yak, chattering, but you should not become part of it.
Certainly you are not the mind, just as you are not the body. You are within the body, within the mind, but your center is separate from the cyclone. It has a totally different quality to it. Silence, stillness is just natural to it; it is its flowering.
We have got mixed up. Being too close to the mind, working twenty-four hours with the mechanism, you have forgotten the distinction.
Just this much has happened, that you have forgotten something which is very essential.
The original root from which the word `sin' comes, means forgetfulness. To me this is the only sin. All else are just mistakes which can be corrected. And once this sin is dropped, many other mistakes, fallacies, will disappear on their own accord.
A simple strategy is needed; I call it meditation. You can call it anything -- awareness, alertness, remembering, watchfulness; the names don't matter. What matters is that you should be able not to get into the chattering of the mind. Just be a watcher. Don't participate. Just stand aside and see. Don't even try to stop its chattering, because even in stopping it you have lost your watchfulness. You have become a participant -- unfriendly, but still you have become a participant in the process.
This is a very simple phenomenon once you see the point that you can stand aside and let the mind go. Don't judge what is going on in the mind as right or wrong. Don't evaluate, just remain an indifferent watcher. The mind is almost like the traffic on the road. It is none of your concern to think about everybody who is passing on the road; it is just a habit.
You may have heard about a great English linguist, Dr. Johnson, whose dictionary is still used. He had got into the habit, while going for a walk, of touching every electric pole. If by some chance, he would forget to touch and then remember, he would go back. He could not go ahead without touching it because he would feel something is missing. He became so identified with the habit that no friend liked to go with him, even for a morning walk, because it looked so stupid...
"I am standing in the middle of the road and you have gone back to touch an electric pole? Why do you do that?"
And he said, "That's the question: Why do I do it? But if I don't do it, it seems something is missing."
Your mind and your getting involved with it, are not very different. You have to learn to disidentify yourself.
See the mind working.
Be watchful.
But don't make any judgment, either to stop it, or to help it, or to prevent it. In no other sense should you move from your indifference.
You will be surprised: a miracle is waiting for you. The moment you are completely indifferent, standing by the side, the traffic on the road slows down. Less thoughts are coming; bigger gaps between thoughts are happening. And those bigger gaps will give you such a beautiful peace, such silence.
So two things are happening: the mind is slowing down and gaps of silence are enriching you, nourishing you, making you stronger to become disidentified. You have learnt the secret; now the key is in your hand. Watching, finally one comes to a point when one thought leaves and another thought does not come for hours. One is simply watching and the road is empty.
This silence is yours.
The silence in my presence, or in the Himalayas, or in a silent deep forest is not yours.
You are simply overwhelmed by something so great that your small mind simply stops.
But it is not much of a gain, you should not become habituated to it; otherwise, whenever you want to be silent you have to come close to me. That has become a dependence.
No real master would like his disciples to be dependent on him. The whole effort of an authentic master is to make you independent, to make you a master. How long are you going to remain a disciple?
But it is all in your hands. I can give you the glimpses at the most. But those glimpses are keys; you should learn something from them. One thing is certain, you are capable of being silent. A second thing is certain, that your mind stops. Now the only thing to get hold of is how to do it on your own so that wherever you are, you are surrounded by silence and all its beauties and blessings.
There is a rule called Finagle's Eighth Rule: Teamwork is essential; it allows you to blame someone else.
Don't blame me for your silence -- take responsibility. Even when you are here, I may be the triggering point but the silence is yours. I may have been a catalytic agent, but the silence is yours.
After acquiring enough money from handouts, an inhabitant of the Bowery decided to take his refreshment at one of Wall Street's better drinking establishments.
A financial tycoon seated next to him was visibly appalled at the appearance and odor of the down-and-outer -- so much so, that he turned to the man and pointedly said, "
`Cleanliness is next to godliness' -- John Wesley." His words were ignored by the bum.
A few minutes later, the financier again intoned loudly, " `Cleanliness is next to godliness' -- John Wesley!" Still he was ignored.
Finally, the visibly irritated financier shouted in the man's face, " `Cleanliness is next to godliness' -- John Wesley!"
To which the skid row bum calmly replied, "`Screw you' -- Tennessee Williams."
The poor fellow must have been holding himself as much as he could. But an old habit...
finally, he could not manage; it was too much. He forgot completely where he was and that he had to behave in a mannerly way.
Your mind has collected all kinds of rubbish -- it is a bum. And whenever you are sitting alone, you don't have anything to do, the mind has every opportunity to exhibit all its accumulations. And it is because you become interested in it, remember: being DISinterested in it is also a kind of interest; being against it is also a kind of friendship. It is a love-hate relationship. You wanted to be silent, but just your wanting won't help.
Even if you shout to it, "Stop! Don't go on chattering," it is not going to listen.
In fact, the only way mind has ever become silent is whenever you are utterly
indifferent
-- as if it is not your mind and it does not matter whether it chatters or not. When your indifference is so deep that it does not matter if it chatters... Let him chatter.
If the mind stops chattering, don't start patting your back. Just remain calm and quiet, alert and watchful... and mind has always stopped. Meditation has never failed if you have followed the right rule.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
WHEN I HEARD YOU TELLING THE STORY OF BUDDHA SENDING
SARIPUTTA BACK TO HIS KINGDOM, THIS SUDDEN FEAR AROSE: IF I GOT
ENLIGHTENED, YOU WOULDN'T SEND ME BACK TO TEXAS, WOULD YOU?
Sarito, it seems you are from Texas. Nobody has ever heard that any Texan has become enlightened, so it is a very faraway possibility. Texan and enlightened? -
- it has never been heard!
Moreover, if by being a sannyasin you have dropped the idea of these stupid divisions of nations, states, races, religions, and you have become simply a human being, an inhabitant of this whole beautiful planet, you may become enlightened. But certainly I will not send you to Texas, because there is a famous rule of Mars: An expert is anyone from out of town. In Texas nobody is going to hear you. I will send you somewhere else.
But I will send you, certainly, so beware of enlightenment. If you don't want to go, don't become enlightened!
But I think it is worth going. It is worth going anywhere, because once you are enlightened, you need to share it. You have to go to those who are still groping in the dark. With enlightenment necessarily comes a deep feeling of compassion. The people may not listen to you; the people may even feel irritated and annoyed by you; the people may even be condemnatory of you, but still you will have a
deep compassion.
Whatever they are doing is bound to be -- they are ignorant. You have also been ignorant and you have also behaved in the same patterns. Now you are out of darkness, you can understand: those who are in darkness are going to behave accordingly. But they need help -- in spite of themselves they need help.
And by giving help to those who are living in unawareness, in unconsciousness, your own enlightenment will become richer. It will grow new dimensions to it. So it is not only helping them; you are also being helped immensely. Sharing what you have, you will have more of it.
Existence is never in favor of hoarders, of misers. Existence believes in abundance.
Otherwise what is the need of so many flowers? -- just a few chosen flowers, lotuses, roses, would have been enough. What is the need of millions of flowers? There are hundreds of scientists, continually discovering new species of flowers... and there are still places where man has not reached.
I know a place in the Himalayas where there is a flower valley. I have looked down into it, but it seems nobody has ever descended there. The mountain is so steep that it seems almost impossible to get down to the valley; it is thousands of feet deep. And the flowers look so rare, with such rare colors; I have not seen those flowers anywhere else.
I have inquired of experts, but they say nobody wants to get into trouble. If somehow one could reach down there, then coming back is out of the question. People have looked, they have photographed. They have enlarged the photographs, and they were amazed that these flowers don't belong to any species that we know. And this may not be the only place like this.
We have thought up to now that Everest is the highest peak of the Himalayas. But just a few days ago the Chinese discovered a new peak which is higher than Everest. It is a Himalayan peak, but in the whole past nobody had even thought that there was anything higher than Everest. And there are thousands of places in the Himalayas which have never been reached by human beings. They all grow strange flowers, with a strange perfume.
Existence is very abundant. And if you want to be part of existence -- and that's what enlightenment is, becoming part of the whole -- you cannot be a miser. You will have to reach people. They will prevent you, because the blind person does not want to hear about light. It hurts him because it makes him feel again that he is blind. He would love to know that there is no light, that it is only a fiction and there are no people who have eyes; these are just very cunning people. The blind man will be very respectful to the person who declares, "There is no light and there are no eyes and you are a perfect being.
You need not feel humiliated that you are lacking something."
But this is the trouble. If you talk to the blind man about light, he is going to be angry with you because you are hurting him. But without hurting him you cannot help him. You cannot take him to a physician; you cannot help him to be cured. You cannot give him the world of light and colors and beauties.
Eighty percent of life consists of eyes; a blind man lives only twenty percent. This is the ordinary blindness. The unenlightened perhaps does not see at all in the spiritual sense.
Enlightenment brings one hundred percent a new light, a new life, and a new laughter to your being.
Sarito, you yourself would like to go to Texas, although Texas is not the right place. But if you become enlightened, don't be worried -- you can find people here who are unenlightened; help them. Why be concerned about Texas? And in Texas nobody is going to listen to you. You have heard the rule: An expert is anyone from out of town.
In Hindustani there is a similar proverb: The drums which are very distant -- it seems almost an echo -- they are the most beautiful drums.
In ancient Hebrew there is a proverb; Jesus has quoted it: A prophet is never respected by his own people.
In fact, instead of respecting, they crucify their own prophet. It is always good to reach to strangers because they will be able, at least just out of courtesy, to listen to you. If you go to your own people who have known you as blind, they cannot believe that now you have become enlightened.
I will not send you anywhere -- you will ask to be sent somewhere, to help someone. I am saying it out of my own experience. After enlightenment, I could have rested and not bothered unnecessarily about people from whom I can get only condemnation. They are not crucifying me because it is a little out of date. They are not assassinating me because they have learned one thing: once you assassinate an enlightened man, the assassination becomes the cause of a tremendous tradition. The people who were never interested in the man become immediately interested -- "Why have you assassinated him?" If Jesus had not been crucified there would have been no Christianity, no possibility at all.
So the fools have also learned something: condemn, say all kinds of lies against people you would like to crucify, but don't crucify. You have done it once, and you are still suffering. Two thousand years have passed, and Christianity goes on growing. Jews can never forgive themselves that they did such a stupid act as crucifying Jesus; otherwise, how many followers had he? -- twelve uneducated apostles, villagers, fishermen... not a single rabbi, not a single learned professor, not a single man belonging to the higher society.
And these twelve beggars who had gathered around Jesus had nothing to do with religion.
Their whole interest was, "He is the only begotten son of God"; if they go on clinging to him, there is a possibility for them to enter into paradise!
On the last night when Jesus is about to be caught, you can see their desire. They are not worried about his being caught; they are not worried about the rumors that he will be crucified, they are worried: "Lord, in paradise of course you will have the second place to God, but what will be the order for us? Who will be the third? Who will be the fourth?" --
a poor lot, greedy, not concerned with religion at all. Their concern is that in this life they have suffered much; they have been poor, uneducated. At least now there is a chance to hang around the only begotten son of God. And when on the last judgment day he chooses the people who are to be taken into heaven, of course those twelve apostles will be the first; they are making it guaranteed. At the last moment they are asking such nonsense.
Gautam Buddha also asked his disciples, "Do you have something to ask?" And he had ten thousand disciples, but they all simply remained silent.
They said, "You have said so much, and we have not practiced even that. Don't make us feel ashamed. In this last moment of your life we would like you to relax and be silent.
We don't have any question; we don't want to disturb you at all." This was a totally different kind of assembly; they were concerned for their master that his death should be silent and peaceful. He had done so much.
But Jesus had a different kind of gang. They were all interested in how to enter into paradise; Jesus was just the right person to hang around. If somebody had proved that he was not the only begotten son of God they would have been the first to escape. Then why unnecessarily waste your time? Just go back and catch fish, or farm your fields, or go to your orchards. Don't waste time unnecessarily -
- you are poor already.
The moment you become enlightened, a tremendous desire will arise in you to share it with all and sundry.
A wealthy, ninety-five-year-old multimillionaire is meeting with his financial adviser.
The adviser is very excited and tells the old man, "I just found out about an investment I can make for you which will double your money in just five years!"
"Five years? Are you kidding?" exclaims the old man. "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas."
Who knows? By the time they are ripe, you may not be here. Experience teaches a few things. My experience is that once you are enlightened, you are so full, just like a rain cloud, you want to shower. Yes, even in Texas!
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
TO SIT WITH YOU IS LIKE DRINKING FROM A MOUNTAIN STREAM. MY
OWN ATTEMPTS AT MEDITATION AND MOMENTS OF LOVE BRING, AT THE
MOST, CITY WATER. HOW CAN I FIND YOUR CLARITY AND SILENCE IN ME?
About silence and clarity, Shantamo, we will discuss later. First be sure that the city water is not from Poona -- it is polluted!
It is true; you have given a good comparison. You say, "To sit with you is like drinking from a mountain stream. My own attempts at meditation and moments of love bring, at the most, city water.
"How can I find your clarity and silence in me?"
There is no qualitative difference between the water in a mountain stream and the unpolluted water coming from your tap -- there is no qualitative difference. If you have tasted, the difference will be in richness. The stream water is cool, fresh, always new. It is coming from melted snows from the high mountain.
All that you have to know is that even if you have started to taste the ordinary city water, you are on the right way. To reach the mountain stream, you will have to raise your consciousness to that height. You don't have to become a mountain climber, you have to become a consciousness climber.
There are schools in the world where mountain climbing is taught; in this school, we teach you how to climb higher in your consciousness, because that is the only real height.
And you have it within you -- the highest possibility of consciousness. It is just that you have not worked, or not even seen upwards to your own height. You are involved in so much trivia that you don't have time, just a little time for clarifying your own consciousness. You go on postponing. Small and ordinary things you don't postpone, but all that is higher, all that is really valuable, you go on postponing.
In Hindu scriptures they have divided life into four parts. And at the time they divided life into four parts, the highest age of man was not more than forty. Their division in the scriptures is that up to twenty-five years you should be a celibate and a student; up to fifty, which was very rare, you should be a householder, raise children, run businesses, earn money, fulfill desires, ambitions -- be worldly, in a single word. Up to seventy-five years, you start by and by, slowly slowly, to get out of your trivial, ordinary life; after seventy-five you become a
sannyasin. Great strategy! Neither will you live nor will you ever become a sannyasin.
This is a way of postponement, very cleverly done -- a good division, to postpone any effort of raising your consciousness.
It is not strange that the VEDAS, which define this way of how life should be... Those VEDAS are written by hundreds of learned people -- not a single one was an enlightened soul. Even the so-called seers of the VEDAS not only have their married wives, but also have purchased women from the marketplace -- because women were still sold.
Now what kind of seers were these people, who could purchase a woman like a commodity? And what respect could they have towards a commodity? Women were auctioned; hence, in Sanskrit, for `wife' there are two words -- people have forgotten the distinction. One is patni; patni means your married wife. Another is vadhu; vadhu means your purchased woman. You can use her as a wife, but her children will not be able to inherit anything from you because she is not your legal wife.
Even the so-called seers living in the forests were doing all such things. I don't think any of them... I have looked very closely into each sentence in the VEDAS. I could not see that any one of them had reached to the heights of Gautam Buddha. In fact, ninety-eight percent seem to be very stupid people, very ordinary.
Artie Finkelstein was advised by his doctor that he had a very rare disease, and the only remedy was a daily glass of fresh mother's milk. Artie finally found a young lady who was willing to sell her milk, and Artie sat down and nursed on her breast.
After about five minutes, the woman looked at him and breathlessly asked, "Is there anything else you would like?"
"Well," said Artie, "Er... maybe a cookie?"
Idiots are idiots! And the more aged they become, the more idiotic they become. Even small children seem to be more clear, more crystal clear than your so- called old idiots.
"I had tea in a Jewish house yesterday," said little Sadie.
"How did you know it was a Jewish house?" asked her mother.
"Well, because they had a fork in the sugar bowl!" replied Sadie. Even small children...
Murphy has his Sixth Rule: It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
And they are all around.…
Raising your consciousness is not something that you have to plan, that you have to carefully work out; it is a simple phenomenon.
The Fourth Workshop Principle says: The more carefully you plan a project, the more confusion there is when something goes wrong.
It is always better to remain simple, and my teaching is very simple. In just one word I have summed up the whole of religiousness: Be alert of your thoughts, and they will die of their own accord. And as less and less thoughts are there, you become more and more weightless; you start rising high, without any effort.
Soon you will be able to taste the fresh mountain stream. It is your own consciousness at its best.
Shantamo, you are asking, "How can I find your clarity and silence in me?" Just drop all that is rubbish; just look at the whole furniture of your mind. Perhaps you are carrying unnecessary things -- how many of your thoughts are really of any use? Just sit down one day and write. Close your door and lock it, so there is no fear and you can be authentic.
Just write down exactly whatever arises in the mind. Don't edit; don't add anything to make it look beautiful. Don't be worried that it looks as if some madman is writing it; nobody is looking at you. Just a ten minute exercise of writing exactly everything that is within you -- neither adding anything nor taking anything out -- and then read it aloud so that you can hear also that this is your mind. It is a madhouse. So many voices: irrelevant, relevant, meaningless, not at all related to anything, and they are all running around. But you have allowed them, you have nourished them, just by being not alert.
There is a small anecdote in Gautam Buddha's life...
A great king, Prasenjita, has come to listen to his discourse. Of course, it is his capital, his kingdom; he is sitting in front and while Gautam Buddha is speaking, he is continuously moving his big toe.
Finally, Buddha stopped and asked Prasenjita, "Do you know that your big toe is moving constantly?" He immediately stopped. Buddha said, "Don't stop. Let it move, but be aware that it is moving."
But he said, "There is no need."
"Then why was it moving? It is your toe, and you are not aware of it."
This is our state of unawareness. You are doing all kinds of things, most of them without being conscious. Why are you doing them? Smoking a cigarette -- have you ever bothered about why you are doing it? When fresh air is available you are making your breathing dirty with nicotine, poison, smelly, destroying your lungs -- and paying for it!
Many governments have decided that on every packet of cigarettes there should be some statement saying that it is harmful to your health. The manufacturers were very angry, and they tried to prevent this from being done, because this would destroy their business -
- and it is a big business. But medical science was absolutely insistent that it should be written. Then it is the individual's responsibility. He has read it, and still he is smoking; then he is taking his own responsibility.
It was thought that the cigarette business would fall down, that very few people will be so stupid as to read it and still smoke. This is the state of humanity; the business has not disappeared. There are more factories, and there are more cigarettes, and there are more smokers. And it is not that they don't know how to read. The doctor goes on saying, the wife goes on saying, the friends go on saying, "Stop, it is destroying your lungs. It is cutting your life; it is dangerous; even cancer is possible through it." But it makes no difference.
That's why I say humanity is living in a deeply unconscious state. If you are conscious, just a little bit conscious, your life pattern will start changing. You will drop many things which you were doing, and you will start many things
which you were postponing.
The day you start being alert and aware, you have taken a great step towards the heights of your own being. And it will not be long, if you persist, to reach to the fresh mountain stream water. Otherwise your whole life remains polluted, remains without any adventure, without any song, without any music, without any clarity.
It is your birthright to have clarity and silence. And if you don't have them, it simply means you have not tried to find what are your hidden qualities, what is your hidden splendor. You have been living outside the house, just in the porch. You never enter into the house; you don't know the treasures that are in the house.
People don't feel that they are lost, because they don't care at all about themselves. Rune's Rule is: If you don't care where you are, you aren't lost! Obviously, if you don't care then wherever you are it is perfectly good.
Create a little care about yourself.
Life is very precious; don't waste it carelessly.
Just a little care, and tremendous is the benefit. Because as you start being careful, alertness will come automatically. Consciousness will start growing in you; your actions will reflect your clarity, your silence, your beauty, your grace.
And I am not asking of you something superhuman; it is just your human right. But nobody else can give it to you, you will have to claim it. It is not in the hands of governments to declare it in their constitutions -- that won't help.
You have to do a little work upon yourself. Every man has to be a little artistic in finding and creating his own being, giving it beauty and grace, intelligence.
But people go on living so stupidly... the only reason seems to be that they find everybody else is also living the same way, so perhaps that is the right way; the majority cannot be wrong!
A man had gone to picnic with his wife, and the wife stopped at a place near a pond with beautiful trees, and said, "This seems to be the right spot."
The man said, "Certainly. Fifty million mosquitoes cannot be wrong!"
Truth is not a question of majority; truth has always been a finding of the individual. The majority has always lived in lies, in fictions, in fabricated ideas, which are consoling.
Truth needs a little effort on your part to drop all that is false, fictitious, superstitious, given to you by your parents and by your society. And immediately you will find your intelligence is becoming sharper.
Just rely on your own intelligence and you will find clarity. And just to have intelligence is to have such a treasure -- just to look at things without any prejudice, without any preconceived idea. Slowly, slowly clarity grows... but give it an opportunity.
It was the first day of the new term at Princeton, and a black freshman was learning his way around the campus. Stopping a distinguished looking upperclassman he inquired,
"Say, can you tell me where the library is at?"
"My good fellow," came the reply, "at Princeton we do not end our sentences with a preposition."
"All right," said the freshman, "can you tell me where the library is at, asshole?" Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho. The Invitation Chapter #7
Chapter title: Even donkeys are not worried
24 August 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8708245
ShortTitle:
INVITA07
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
101
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
HOW ARE ONE-POINTEDNESS, CONCENTRATION AND MEDITATION RELATED TO EACH OTHER?
Prem Dinesh, one-pointedness, concentration and meditation are not related to each other at all. This is one of the confusions prevalent all over the world.
One-pointedness is another name for concentration, but meditation is just the opposite of concentration. But in most of the books, in most of the dictionaries, and by the so-called teachers, they are used as if they are synonymous.
Concentration simply means one-pointedness. It is something of the mind. Mind can be a chaos, a crowd. Mind can be many voices, many directions. Mind can be a crossroads.
Ordinarily, that's what mind is, a crowd.
But if the mind is a chaos, you cannot think rationally, you cannot think scientifically. To think rationally and scientifically, you have to be concentrated on the object of your study. Whatever the object is, the one thing necessary is
that you are pouring your whole mental energy onto that object. Only with this much force is there a possibility to know the objective truth; hence, concentration is the method of all sciences.
But meditation is totally different. First, meditation is not of the mind. It is neither one-pointed mind nor many-pointed mind; it is simply not mind. Meditation is going beyond, beyond mind and its boundaries. They cannot be related; they are opposite to each other.
Concentration is mind and meditation is no-mind.
The West, particularly, has not known meditation. It has remained confined to concentration -- hence all scientific progress, technology -- but it has not known the inner science of silence, peace, of being a light unto oneself.
One-pointedness can reveal the secrets of the outside world. Meditation reveals the secrets of your own subjectivity. It can be said, concentration is objective and meditation is subjective. Concentration moves outwards; meditation moves inwards. Concentration is going far away from yourself. Meditation is coming home to your innermost center.
Mind, reason, logic, all point towards the outer -- to them, the inner does not exist at all.
But this is a fundamental law of the inner reality that nothing is ever accomplished in the inner world by a reasonable man. It is an irrational, or better to say suprarational approach -- to know oneself you don't need mind, you need utter silence. Mind is always concerned with some thing or many things. There are thoughts and thoughts, ripples upon ripples -- the lake of the mind is never ripple-less.
Your inner being can be reflected only in a mirror without any ripples. No mind -
-
absolute silence of all thoughts, absence of the mind completely -- becomes the mirror without any ripples, without even a single fluttering of thought. And suddenly, the explosion: you have become aware for the first time of your own being.
Up to now, you have known things of the world; now you know the knower.
That's exactly what Socrates means when he says: Know thyself. Because without knowing thyself -- I want to add to the Socratic advice -- you cannot be yourself. Knowing thyself is a step to being thyself, and unless you are yourself, you can never feel at ease. You can never feel contented; you can never feel fulfilled; you can never feel at home in existence.
Some discomfort, some misery... you are not exactly aware what, but a constant feeling that something essential is missing; that you have everything and yet something which can make everything meaningful is absent. Your palace is full of all the treasures of the world but you are empty. Your kingdom is big but you are absent. This is the situation of the modern man; hence, the constant feeling of meaninglessness, anxiety, anguish, angst.
Modern mind is the most troubled mind that has ever existed for the simple reason that man has come of age. A buffalo is not disturbed about the meaning of life -- the grass is his meaning of life; more than that all is useless. The trees are not interested in the meaning of life; just a good shower and a rich soil and a beautiful sun and life is a tremendous joy. No tree is an atheist; no tree ever doubts. Except for man, doubt does not exist in existence. Except for man, nobody looks worried. Even donkeys are not worried.
They look so relaxed, so philosophically at ease. They have no fear of death, no fear of the unknown, no concern for the tomorrow.
It is only man and his intelligence that has given him a very difficult life, a constant torture. You try to forget it in a thousand and one ways, but it goes on coming back again and again. And this will continue until your last breath unless you know something of meditation, unless you know how to turn inwards, how to have a look at your own interiority.
And suddenly, all meaninglessness disappears.
On a very high level, you are again as at ease as the trees. At a very high consciousness, you are as relaxed as the whole of existence. But your relaxation has a beauty to it -- it is conscious, it is alert. It knows that it is. It knows that while the whole of existence is asleep, it is awake.
What is the point of a beautiful sunrise if you are asleep? What is the beauty of a rose if you are asleep? Mind is your sleep, concentrated or not. Meditation is your awakening.
The moment you awake, sleep disappears and with it all the dreams, all the projections, all expectations, all desires. Suddenly you are in a state of desirelessness, non-ambition, unfathomable silence. And only in this silence, blossoms flower in your being. Only in this silence the lotuses open their petals.
Remember that any teacher who says to you that concentration is meditation is committing a great crime. Not knowing that he is misleading you, and misleading you on such a fundamental subject, he is far more dangerous than somebody who can kill you.
He is killing you far more significantly and deeply. He is destroying your consciousness; he is destroying your very possibility to open the doors of all the mysteries that you are.
Albert Camus has one beautiful statement to remember: "The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth." Naturally, when mind is not there, no-mind cannot be a rational concept. It is absurd. It cannot say anything reasonably -- where it is, what it is, what it signifies. It can only indicate mystically -- hence all the parables of the world. The mystics could not say in a logical way what they have experienced. They went around telling stories, parables, which can be understood on two levels: one of the mind and one of the no-mind.
That is the beauty of a parable. You can understand it just like any other story, but it was not meant to be just another story; it was meant to give you some hint, some hidden hint towards that for which mind is absolutely inadequate. I will give you a few examples.
A blind man is brought to Gautam Buddha. The blind man is not an ordinary man, he is a great logician. And his whole village is tired of his logic. They are very annoyed and irritated by the blind man, because he refuses to believe that light exists. And he requires of the whole village that if they say light exists, they have to give him proof: "I can touch things; let me touch your light. I can taste things; let me taste your light. I can smell things; at least let me smell your light. I can hear things; beat the light so I can hear the sound. Do something. These are the only four senses I have."
Light is neither available to the nose nor to the ears; neither to the mouth, nor to the hands. Unless you have eyes, there is no way to prove that light exists.
Gautam Buddha said to the people, "You have brought him to a wrong man. You
have all given all kinds of proofs, and you have not been successful. What can I do? Take him to my personal physician. He is just sitting behind me. He is the greatest physician of our time; perhaps he can cure the blind man's eyes. He does not need any argument, he needs treatment. He does not need any evidence, logical proof about light; he simply needs eyes. Then there will not be any question or any doubt or any asking for evidence."
He was given to the physician. It took six months for him to cure that man from his blindness. The day he saw light he cried and went from house to house in the village to offer an apology, "Forgive me. Although I was being rational and logical I had no idea that unless you have eyes, you cannot be given any proof that cannot be rejected by you, argued against." Although the whole world knows that light exists, the whole world cannot make a single blind man convinced of it.
Your consciousness is not available to the mind. Your mind is not the right vehicle to know yourself. Unless you have a new eye -- what in the East we have called the third eye, symbolically.… These two eyes open outwards. Just as a symbol, the third eye opens inwards. The two eyes are for the duality of the world, the one eye is for the singleness of your being.
As you start looking inwards, you are amazed: you were ignoring yourself, and that was the trouble. That was why you were in misery, anxiety, suffering. You were trying everything to remove the misery, but it was caused by your unawareness, by your unconsciousness, by your ignorance of your own being. That was the cause. And unless that cause is removed, you will never have a taste of blissfulness, of ecstasy, of immortality, of the divineness of existence.
The pretty young thing came slamming into her apartment after a blind date and announced to her roommate, "Boy, what a character! I had to slap his face three times this evening!"
The roommate inquired eagerly, "What did he do?"
"Nothing," muttered the girl. "I slapped him to see if he was awake!"
But nobody is awake. Spiritually, we are all asleep. Meditation is a way of awakening.
Concentration has nothing to do with meditation. But you have been told by
Christians, by Hindus, by Mohammedans, by all your so-called organized religions to concentrate on God; concentrate on a certain mantra; concentrate on the statue of a Buddha, but concentrate. And remember, whether you concentrate on a hypothetical God which nobody has ever seen, nobody has ever met, for which no proof, no evidence exists anywhere.… You can go on concentrating on an empty hypothesis, that is not going to reveal you to yourself.
Concentrate on a statue which is man-made, manufactured by you; you can go on concentrating but you will not find anything to transform your being. Or concentrate on scriptures, mantras, chantings... but all those efforts are an exercise in utter futility.
Go beyond the mind -- and the way beyond the mind is very simple -- just become a watcher of the mind, because watching immediately separates you from the thing you watch. You are watching a movie; one thing is certain, you are not an actor in the movie.
Watching the road and the crowd passing by, one thing is certain; you are standing by the side, you are not on the road in the crowd.
Whatever you watch, you are not.
The moment you start watching the mind, a tremendous experience happens -- a recognition that you are not the mind. Just this small recognition that "I am not the mind"
is the beginning of no-mind. You have transcended the crowd, the voices, the chaos of the mind; you have moved into the silences of the heart.
Here is your home, your eternal being. Here is your deathless, essential existence.
Knowing this has never been transcended by anything more blissful, more ecstatic.
You may have heard about Segal's Law: A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
Mind is not only two, it is many. A man with mind is not sure of anything. He is
doubtful about everything; he is unsure about everything. And a life of doubt and unsureness is not a life; you don't have any roots anywhere. And without roots you cannot have flowers, and you cannot become fruitful. Your life will remain barren, a desert where nothing grows.
Two women in a train were engaged in an argument. At last, one of them called the conductor. "If this window is open," she declared, "I will catch cold and will probably die."
"If the window is shut," the other announced, "I shall suffocate."
The two glared at each other. The conductor was at a loss, but he welcomed the words of a man who sat near. These were, "First, open the window; that will kill one. Next, shut it; that will kill the other. Then we can have peace."
That is what you have to do with your mind if you want peace, peace that passeth all understanding.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE TRIED TO WRITE QUESTIONS TO YOU, BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. WHEN
YOU WERE IN SILENCE, I BECAME AWARE THAT YOUR SILENCE IS AN
INVITATION FOR MEDITATION. IT IS PURE CELEBRATION; IT IS NOT A BURDEN OR A DUTY OR A BOTHER. IT IS A COMING CLOSER TO YOU; IT IS
JOY.
MY HEART IS OVERWHELMED TO SIT AT YOUR FEET. IN DEEP LOVE I SAY,
"THANK YOU, OSHO FOR THIS INVITATION."
Divyam Sakar, there are no questions which are really of any significance,
because questions are asked by the mind. And the mind cannot find any answer. The answer is in the death of the mind.
All questions are in the mind and the answer is beyond it; hence, if you are intelligent, you will find it very difficult to write a question. People who go on writing questions are not really alert to the fact that these questions cannot be answered. Yes, you can be shown a way where you can find an answer, but nobody else can answer your question; just like nobody else can breathe for you, and nobody else can drink for you, and nobody else can eat for you. You will have to do these things yourself.
It is good that you felt it was impossible to write questions. It is impossible because the mind cannot even have any idea of the right question, because to know the right question is to know the right answer. If you can recognize the right question, it is not so far away to recognize the right answer. A mind that can recognize the right question is certainly capable of recognizing the right answer. But all your questions are wrong.
There are millions of questions and there is only one answer. Questions are very complex and the answer is very simple. The questions have created so many great philosophies in the world, so many great systems of thought, systems of belief, great traditions of religion. But none of them have come to the answer that fulfills, to the answer that dispels all the questions, because the answer is your being, very being.
The answer is not to be found in any scripture, nor can it be given by any teacher. Those who know never answer your question; they simply destroy your question. They make you aware of a quest, not of a question. Their invitation is for a quest, not for a question, because only a quest can lead you finally to the space where you find not a verbal answer, but an existential answer -- yourself.
A man stepped into a very crowded bus. After a while he took out his glass eye, threw it up in the air, then put it back in again.
Then, minutes later he again took out his eye, threw it up in the air, then put it back in again. The lady next to him was horrified.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"I'm just trying to see if there is any room up front."
With a glass eye! Your questions are just like that. And the more you would have tried, the more you would have found that it is impossible -- there is no question which is of any worth.
But then you suddenly fell upon something for which you were not looking. Because I was in silence, you thought perhaps that was my message to you -- to be silent. And this invitation for silence became your meditation.
Now you can say to me, "It is pure celebration. It is not a burden or a duty or a bother -- it is a coming closer to you; it is joy.
"My heart is overwhelmed to sit at your feet. In deep love, I say, `Thank you, Osho, for this invitation.'"
Remember Fetridge's Law: Important things that are supposed to happen do not happen, especially when people are looking for them.
When you are not looking for anything, a certain silence descends on you. And in that silence things start happening that were never happening before when you were looking for them.
It is a very mysterious life.
It does not follow your ordinary arithmetic.
When you are running too much after silence, and peace, and meditation and enlightenment you simply get tired, bored, exasperated. It is never found that way. You cannot find anything of value while you are running. And naturally, your mind says: Run a little faster, you are not running fast enough. And the faster you run, the more tense you are, the more your eyes are blurred, the more dust you gather. You don't know where you are running because you don't know which direction the truth is.
It is not in running after it, it is in sitting silently. And while you are perfectly a pool of peace, truth arises within you. You never reach truth; it is always truth that reaches you.
But you must be at your home, and mostly you are never at your home.
I have heard about two men, great friends, who were talking to each other. And one said,
"Boy, last night was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I had gone fishing and caught such great fish that even to carry one alone, by myself, was so tiring; it was such a burden. The fish was so long you wouldn't believe it. And not one, I caught so many fish. The whole night I have been carrying them, just carrying them."
The second man said, "This is nothing, you don't know what happened to me last night. I dreamt that on my one side is Sophia Loren -- in my bed, under my blanket. I said,`My God!' because I looked at the other side and I saw Marilyn Monroe. It was such a juicy night."
The first man who had been catching fish the whole night said, "You idiot. Why did you not call me?" The second man said, "I did call, but your wife said you had gone fishing."
People are never at home. Truth comes many times and knocks at the door, but your wife says you have gone fishing.
You are always gone somewhere. Sitting silently you are at home.
And truth is not something that comes from outside, it arises out of the intensity of your silence. In fact, the intensity of your silence, a great silence crystallized, is truth.
Truth is not something other than silence.
A small silence becomes the door to greater silences, and finally, the silence itself becomes so condensed -- Gurdjieff used to call it the crystallization -- you find yourself.
In that very finding you have found the truth. Then life is a sheer joy, a song, a dance, a celebration.
Question 3
BELOVED OSHO,
COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING TO ME ABOUT FEAR? WHAT IS FEAR? WILL
MEDITATION HELP ME OVERCOME MY FEAR OF DEATH? WHY AM I AFRAID
TO LET GO INTO SOMETHING MORE POWERFUL THAN ME?
Prem Subuk, you have asked many questions in a single small question, and all are significant, significant for any seeker.
First, you are asking about fear. There are many fears, but fundamentally they are only offshoots of one fear, branches of one tree. The name of the tree is death. You may not be aware that this fear is concerned with death, but every fear is concerned with death. Fear is only a shadow. It may not be apparent if you are afraid of going bankrupt, but you are really afraid of being without money and becoming more vulnerable to death. People go on holding money as a protection, although they know perfectly well that there is no way to protect yourself against death. But still, something has to be done. At least it keeps you busy, and keeping yourself busy is a kind of unconsciousness, is a kind of drug.
Hence, just as there are alcoholics, there are workaholics. They keep themselves continuously involved in some work; they cannot leave working. Holidays are fearful; they cannot sit silently. They may start reading the same newspapers they have read three times already that morning. They want to remain engaged, because it keeps a curtain between themselves and death. But reduced to its essentials, the only fear is of death.
It is significant to realize that all other fears are only offshoots, because then something can be done if you know the very roots. If death is the basic and the fundamental fear, then only one thing can make you fearless, and that is an experience within you of a deathless consciousness. Nothing else -- no money, no power, no prestige -- nothing can be an insurance against death except a deep meditation... which reveals to you that your body will die, your mind will die, but you are beyond the body-mind structure. Your essential core, your essential life source has been here before you and will remain after you. It has changed through many forms; it has evolved through many forms. But it has never disappeared, from the very beginning -- if there has been any beginning. And it
will never disappear to the very end, if there is any end... because I don't believe in any beginning and in any end.
Existence is beginningless and endless.
It has always been here and you have always been here. Forms may have been different; forms have been different even in this life.
The first day you got into your mother's womb, you were not bigger than the full-point on your question mark. If a photograph is shown to you, you will not recognize that this is you. And in fact, even before that...
Two persons were arguing about how far back they could go, how far back they could remember. One could remember his childhood nearabout three years of age. The other said, "That is nothing. I remember the day my mother and father went to a picnic. When we went to the picnic, I was in the father. When we came back from the picnic I was in my mother!"
Will you recognize yourself as you were when you were in your father? A picture can be shown to you; it can be enlarged so that you can see it with your bare eyes, but you will not recognize it. But it is the same life form, the same life source that is throbbing in you right now.
You are changing every day. When you were just born, just one day old, that also you will not be able to recognize. You will say, "My god, this is me?" Everything will change; you will become old, youth will be gone. Childhood has been lost long before, and death will come. But it will come only to the form, not to the essence. And what has been changing all along your life was only the form.
Just the other day I looked at Chitten. I said, "My god, what has happened to this poor man?" Later on, I tried to find out if he has become a punk or what; he used to be a sane sannyasin. But nothing has happened to him, just to his hair, to his beard. He is the same; he is still sane.
Your form is changing every moment. And death is nothing but a change, a vital change, a little bigger change, a quicker change. From childhood to youth... you don't recognize when childhood left you and you became young. From youth to old age... things go so gradually that you never recognize at what date, on what day, in what year, youth left you. The change is very gradual and slow.
Death is a quantum jump from one body, from one form into another form. But it is not an end to you.
You were never born and you never die. You are always here.
Forms come and go and the river of life continues.
Unless you experience this, the fear of death will not leave you. You are asking, "Will meditation help me overcome my fear of death?" There is no other way. Only meditation... and only meditation can help.
I can say, all the scriptures can say, but that will not help; still a doubt may remain. Who knows, these people may have been lying, or these people may have been deceived themselves. Or these people may have been deceived by other literature, by other teachers. And if a doubt remains, the fear will be there.
Meditation brings you face to face with the reality.
Once you know on your own what life is, you never bother about death.
There are beautiful stories about people of meditation, how joyfully, how jokingly they have taken their death. One great master, before dying asked his disciples, "You know me perfectly well, that I have lived always in my own way. I want to die also in my own way. Just suggest some unique idea."
The disciples said, "This old man has tortured us his whole life. Now, what original idea about death...? People are afraid of death, and this fellow is asking for some original idea of how to die."
Somebody suggested to sit dying in a lotus posture. Somebody else said, "This is not new, people have died sitting in a lotus posture."
Then the old man said, "Reject it! Find something absolutely original, and be quick because my time is running out."
Somebody suggested to die standing. People usually die lying down on their beds. That is the most dangerous place, because ninety-nine percent of people die on their beds.
Beware of the bed! In the night when your wife has gone to sleep, slip down and sleep on the floor. Move into the bathroom, but don't be on the bed. That is the place where death has found ninety-nine percent of its victims. Avoid it!
Somebody said, "This is a little new, but it is not absolutely original because I have heard about a master dying standing -- just one man, but it is still imitating."
Then somebody said, "Then do one thing. Stand on your head; do a headstand -- we have never heard that anybody has done that."
It is very difficult. Even to fall asleep standing on your head is very difficult, because so much blood is running to the head it keeps you awake. Dying is much more difficult. In the night you keep your head on a pillow, so that less blood is reaching the head; otherwise, the blood flow keeps your brain cells awake.
Intellectual people need two pillows, three pillows. Then with great difficulty they can stop the rush of the thoughts. Now standing on the head, so much blood, because of gravitation, goes to the brain that it won't let it fall asleep. Dying will be much more difficult because death is a deeper form of sleep.
But the old man said, "I like that idea. Just be certain that nobody has done it."
All his disciples said, "It is true; nobody has ever done it. You can do it and feel happy that you are dying in an original way, in your own style."
And the old man stood on his head and died.
Then all the disciples became very disturbed. What to do now? They had known about people dying on a bed: you give them a bath, you change their clothes, you take them to the funeral pyre. But what to do with this fellow? -- he is standing on his head. Nobody has died this way, so nobody knows actually what should be done, from where to start.
Somebody suggested his sister. His older sister was also a great master; she lived in a nearby monastery. It was better to call her before taking any action than later on to be condemned for something that you should not have done.
They called the sister and asked, "What are we supposed to do? He has died standing on his head."
The sister said, "He has always been nasty." She was also a great meditator. She came close and told the old man, "Stop all this mischievousness! At least at the time of death, don't be ridiculous. Behave!" And she pushed him so he fell, poor man, laughing.
The disciples said, "This is strange. This old woman is also something."
And she went back, telling him, "Go to the bed and die, just as it is supposed to be done.
Just do it properly. I am not going to come again. And you fellows, don't be worried.
Whatever way he wants to die, let him die. Just drag him to the funeral pyre." The disciples said, "It was good we called; he was still alive."
Naturally, it is very difficult to die standing on your head. The poor man tried hard, but could not manage. And finally, because in the East it is not right to disobey elders, he lay down on the bed and died.
Then before dying he said, "This time I am really dying; you can start your ritual."
Still they watched, pinched, took every care because this man was strange. "We thought that he had died before, and who knows, he may still be playing a joke. Death is a joke?
We had been always so afraid " They pinched, but found he was really dead.
Another master before dying told his disciples, "Listen, I have already taken a bath and I have changed my clothes, fresh, new, so you need not... after I am dead, don't try to deceive me. You are my disciples, you have to follow my order. After my death, no bath, no changing of clothes. I have already done it for you."
They said, "Yes, we are all witnesses."
He said, "Then remember, nobody should interfere."
They knew their master; he was such a man that if you interfered, he might open
his eyes.
He had been beating them his whole life, and they did not want him to beat them again, even after death.
So, they simply followed. And what had he done? -- he had played the last joke. As the fire caught his body -- he had hidden firecrackers inside his clothes; that's why he did not want them to change his clothes -- firecrackers started exploding beautifully all around.
And people started laughing; they had never seen such a death.
But the disciples said, "He was a man who could laugh at death because he knew there is no death."
Meditation is the only way to discover your deathlessness.
Then all fear disappears. All other fears also disappear, because they were just offshoots, branches -- maybe gone far away from the roots, but still they were connected with the roots.
Finally you are asking, Subuk, "Why am I afraid to let go into something more powerful than me?" It is the same fear. All fear, all is the same. You are afraid of going into something more powerful than you because a dewdrop dropping into the ocean is bound to disappear; it is death to the dewdrop. The more powerful will absorb you; hence, the fear.
But if you know that your life is the greatest power in existence, there is nothing more powerful than it, not even nuclear weapons can absorb it... once you become certain about it, then the dewdrop knows it is not his disappearance in the ocean, it is the ocean disappearing in the dewdrop. It is the dewdrop becoming as vast as the ocean. It is not disappearance; it is becoming infinite, unbounded.
After Brezhnev's death, the central committee of the Communist Party met to choose his successor. After his unanimous election as general secretary, Uri Andropov, the former chief of the secret police announced: "Very well, comrades, now that you have voted, you may lower your arms and come away from the wall."
This was voting! Naturally, it was unanimous.
Death is such a fear. But if you have just a small glimpse of your own being then even in the Soviet Union death does not happen.
When khrushchev came to power, addressing the first meeting of the Community Party, he condemned Joseph Stalin as strongly as possible. He said, "At least one million Russians have been killed after the revolution by a single man, Joseph Stalin. Thousands are in madhouses; thousands are in jails; thousands are forcibly hospitalized and thousands have been sent to Siberia for their whole lives. They cannot return to Russia, and life in Siberia must be the hardest in the whole world, just to survive."
One man from the back of the meeting said, "Comrade khrushchev, you have been a central committee leader with Joseph Stalin your whole life. Why did you not say it before?" There was great silence.
khrushchev said, "Whoever has asked the question, the question is significant. I am going to answer, but you first please stand up." Nobody stood. khrushchev called three times,
"Stand up, so I can at least see your face." But nobody stood, and nobody repeated the question. khrushchev said, "Do you know why I was silent, why you are silent? You know that if you stand up, you will disappear. I knew that if I said anything against Joseph Stalin, I would not see another sunrise again."
Death is such a fear. Even to Joseph Stalin, who was so powerful, death was such a fear that he never allowed his wife to sleep in the same room. Who knows? -- in the night she may make an effort to take his life. Yes, she is his wife, but just being a wife does not mean anything. Everybody is a stranger in this world, and just by going to a registry office you can't become known to each other. He never allowed anybody to be friendly with him. In his whole life nobody ever put their hand on his shoulder. That was not possible. He always kept people far away, following the old rule of Machiavelli, that the most dangerous people to those who are in power are those who are closest.
The vice president is the most dangerous to the president. Because he is so close, the temptation is easy to push this man away in some way and capture the power yourself.
These powerful people like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Benito Mussolini are as much afraid of death as anybody else; all their power makes no difference. Only very few people like Gautam Buddha or Bodhidharma or Chuang Tzu have been able to go beyond the fear of death.
You can go beyond.…
It is within your power and it is your right.
But you will have to make the small effort of moving from mind to no-mind. A joke for you to remember at the time of your death...
It seems there was a captain in the KGB, whose stupid son had great difficulty understanding the concepts of the party, the motherland, the unions, and the people.
The captain told the boy to think of his father as the party, his mother as the motherland, his grandmother as the unions, and himself as the people.
Still, the boy did not understand. In a rage the father locked the boy in a wardrobe in the parental bedroom.
That night the boy was still in the wardrobe when the father began to make love to the mother. The boy, watching through the wardrobe keyhole, said, "Now I understand: The party rapes the motherland while the unions sleep and the people have to stand and suffer."
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #8
Chapter title: Only unripe mangoes are safe
25 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8708250
ShortTitle:
INVITA08
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
117
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
IN THE STORY OF THE BUDDHA TWICE SWATTING AN INSECT FROM HIS
HEAD, HOW DID HE KNOW THAT HE WAS NOT AWARE THE FIRST TIME, AND HOW CAN HE HAVE NOT BEEN AWARE? I ASK BECAUSE, ALTHOUGH I AM PERCEIVING MYSELF TO BE GRADUALLY MORE AWARE, YET I
CANNOT IDENTIFY WHO IS THE PERCEIVER. THE WORST THING IS THAT
THE MIND TAKES THE OPPORTUNITY OF RELATIVE SILENCE TO ENTER A HALL OF MIRRORS WITH WATCHERS WATCHING WATCHERS, WHO ARE
WATCHING WATCHERS WHO ARE NOT WATCHERS.
BELOVED OSHO, COULD YOU ILLUMINATE OR ELIMINATE ME?
Rashid, both the things are the same: to illuminate you, or to eliminate you. They are two aspects of the same experience.
Without your elimination, illumination is not possible. You are the only barrier to your own realization.
You have raised a question which has tortured humanity, particularly the intellectual part of humanity, for centuries. In logic it is called infinite regression. But existence is not logical if you remember that, then the problem disappears. If you think that existence is logical, then the problem becomes insoluble.
It is apparently true that you can watch the mind but somebody else behind you can watch you, the watcher. But you can go on and on; there is always somebody behind who is watching. In logic it is an absurd situation.
In simpler terms it is something like God creating the world. Who created God, because without creating, nothing can exist? That was the premise on which God was supposed.
How can this whole existence be there without a God creating it? But it creates the same problem: How can God be there without being created? Where are you going to end?
Your alphabet will end... A-God is created by B, and B is created by C, and soon you will come to X, Y, Z; and after Z there is nothing except jazz music. The whole long pilgrimage of logic ends in something illogical.
The very logical people have never supposed the first God because it is the beginning of a trouble which will never end, and you will get more and more into mud.
But in existence things are different. As far as God is concerned, I cannot say anything --
I have traveled my whole being, and I have not found him anywhere. And all the
religions insist that he is within you. I don't know about the without -- it is a vast universe; he may be hiding somewhere -- but as far as my own consciousness is concerned, I am absolutely aware there is no God. And if it is not within my consciousness, it cannot be in any other consciousness either, because the quality of consciousness is the same. Just as the light is the same whether it is in a small candle flame, or in the big sun, or in the faraway stars -- the quality is the same.
You can watch the mind because you are not the mind. That is the whole reason to watch it:
To become aware that you are separate.
Existentially, no problem arises because you cannot watch this watcher. You have come to the very end of the rope; in the very first step you have completed the journey.
Logically, you can manage to create the problem. Watcher one watches the mind; watcher two watches the watcher number one... and then go on ad absurdum. Don't make it a puzzle. That will be risking your own possibility of becoming aware.
It is not a logical conclusion.
Logic has no dominance over existence.
There is only one watcher; you cannot go behind it. If you can go behind it, then it was not the watcher, it was part of the mind -- mind was befooling you. A part of the mind can watch the other part. But if you have become completely unidentified with the mind and you are simply a watcher -- not a thinker, not part of the mind in any way -- you have come to the end of the rope in the very beginning. There is no beyond it; however you try, you will not be able to go beyond it, you will always remain the same watcher.
It is the experience of the meditators -- they have all tried -- that perhaps behind the watcher, they may find some other watcher. But the watcher as a word creates the problem. It is not watcher, it is really watching. It is a process; it is complete in itself.
You cannot jump out of it and watch it. You are it, so you cannot go behind
yourself.
It is possible to watch the mind because you are not the mind, so you can step back and have a look at the mind. And this stepping back and having a look at the mind, is the greatest transformation that can happen to man. Freed from mind, you are freed from all that was binding, imprisoning, enslaving -- your miseries, your sufferings, your desires, your fears.
The watcher has no disease; the watcher is simply a mirror, reflecting. And the miracle of the process is that the more you become clearly distinct from the mind, the mind starts disappearing. That is the elimination.
Mind exists with your support; it has no source of nourishment other than your support.
And the support you can give to the mind is of identity; you have to become one with the mind. Then mind as a parasite goes on living. But the moment you are separate from the mind, the parasite dies. You can see it disappearing just like smoke, into thin air. Only watching remains.
You cannot watch it, you are it.
You know it, but you don't watch it; you feel it, but you don't watch it; you live it, but you don't watch it, because you cannot go behind it. It will be still the same watcher.
It is good that existence is not logical; otherwise there would have been no buddhas, no awakened people. There would have been number one, number two, number three...
There are unending numbers, and the whole process would become tedious. But the process does not exist; it is only mind that can create the problem and can stop you from going into existential experience.
So to eliminate you is the only way, Rashid. To illuminate you, to make you enlightened, the only way is to kill you, to kill you as an identity with the mind.
As the mind is left -- like a snake leaves its old skin and slips out of it -- you have done the whole pilgrimage from darkness to light, from the finite to the infinite, from death to deathlessness.
You are asking, "In the story of the Buddha twice swatting an insect from his head, how did he know that he was not aware the first time?" When you have a headache, how do you know? Can you prove you have an headache? It is impossible. That does not mean that headaches don't exist.
One of my teachers, a very beautiful man, an old Mohammedan and a very colorful man... he never married. Once I asked him, "Why did you never marry?"
He said, "I cannot afford my clothes, my beautiful house, and a wife too. Either I can afford a wife... but then there is no house. And I love to have a new suit of clothes every day. He had three hundred and sixty-five suits, so his choice of the same dress came only once in a year, and by that time people had almost forgotten that dress. He lived a very colorful life and was a very loving man.
Before beginning a class, as the school opened, he always introduced himself with the words, "There are a few things you have to remember with me: I don't believe in headaches, in stomachaches, and things like that. Unless you can prove something, don't say anything; just sit and do the work. Don't ask for a holiday because you have a headache."
He was very logical. Either prove... but how to prove a headache? I was wondering what to do with this man, because he is blocking all the avenues to escape from school! And I was rarely in the school; I always had something: a headache or a stomachache -- which are very beautiful escapes; you don't have to prove them, you have just to say and you are freed. It was going to be difficult with this man -- but I found a way. He had created a mental problem; mind could not solve it. But existence is always available to help you.
Just in front of his small bungalow there were two beautiful mango trees. The mangoes were not ripe yet. Mangoes have to be taken away from the trees before they are ripe because the moment they are ripe, the parrots know before you know. And parrots love mangoes; in hundreds they come. Only an unripe mango is safe! And they were really very big mangoes.
I climbed the tree... because every evening he used to go for a walk. With his colorfulness, beautiful dress, a beautiful staff in his hand, with a beautiful cap... every day everything was new; he even had three hundred and sixty-five beautiful staffs, to go with each suit of clothes. I saw him going out and then I
climbed the tree. He used to come back when the sun had almost set, but still there was not absolute darkness; there was still light. When he came under the tree, I hit him with a big mango. An unripe mango hits almost like a rock and he said, "Awk!"
I said to him, "Stop the noise. You will have to prove that you have some pain, some ache in your head."
"You come down first," he said. "Why did you do that?"
I said, "It is in answer to your introduction today. It was the first day of your class. I am a student and I need as many holidays as I want. A headache is one of the best excuses, or a stomachache, and you have blocked those doors. You say,
`You can have a holiday if you show me your fever; I can check it. If you have a wound, I can check it. If you have broken your leg, I can check it. But headaches and stomachaches, and like things, I don't believe, so never ask for a holiday.'"
I said, "Now, can you prove that your head is hurting? I know it must be hurting; you know it is hurting, but can you prove it?"
He looked at me and he said, "Listen. It is a compromise with you. You need not say that you have a headache because that will give the idea to others. You simply raise your hand. If you raise your hand I will give you the day free."
I said, "There is no problem. You could have said that before. You could have saved your head from being unnecessarily hit by a mango."
The other students were very troubled, because whenever I would raise my hand, he would tell me to go home and rest. The students thought, What is the communication? A few others tried raising their hands and he asked, "What do you mean by raising your hand?"
They said, "We don't know. But why do you allow one student when he raises his hand?
And he raises it almost every day!"
Because the students were continually asking me what was the secret, I said, "That is not possible for me to say, because that is a commitment between me and him. And he is keeping his promise so I will keep my promise."
If you start thinking about this special question of how Buddha became aware of the insect he removed unconsciously by waving his hand... How do you become aware of your headache? How do you become aware of the headache that you had yesterday?
Right now maybe, but about yesterday's? -- you may be imagining. Do you have any proof that yesterday you really had what you are talking about today? But you know and everybody else knows, because a headache is a common experience.
Awareness, watchfulness, is not a common experience. It can be common; it should be common because that is the only possibility for the liberation of human consciousness.
But don't make it a mind problem; otherwise, it will become like the famous puzzle of Bertrand Russell.
I have told you the puzzle...
Once in England, a great mathematician, Godel, was writing a great treatise on mathematics, on the foundations of mathematics. And his assumption was that there is no problem that cannot be solved by mathematics. He had worked almost thirty years for that great book; it was very comprehensive.
Bertrand Russell was also working in collaboration with another mathematician, Whitehead, on a book -- PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA, the fundamental principles of mathematics -- which would be all-inclusive; there would not be any need for any other book as far as mathematics is concerned.
Both of the mathematicians were of the same caliber, of the same genius. Godel was almost completing his treatise, because he was an older man than Bertrand Russell. It was almost a thousand pages of complicated argument to prove mathematics is the fundamental science and the only science which has no flaw.
Just at that time, when he was going to give it to the publisher, Godel received a letter from Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell had himself received a letter, from the librarian of the British Museum -- he had received a few letters. The British Museum was ordered by the government to compile catalogs of all the libraries of England. So they ordered all the libraries to compile catalogs of all their books. And they should compile two catalogs; one they should keep in the
library and the other they should send to the British Museum.
Then the British Museum would compile a final catalog in which all the books of the country, including the British Museum, would be included. They would make two catalogs: one would remain in the British Museum and one would go to the Ministry of Education from where the order had come.
A few librarians became puzzled about something like your question. When they compiled the catalogs, one remained with them and one was going to the British Museum. Now the problem was whether to put that catalog also in the catalog -- because it was a book in the library -- or to leave it out. Both seemed to be not right. How can you put the catalog itself in it? And not to put it in means you are leaving one book in the library without being cataloged.
So they wrote questions to the librarian of the British Museum. He himself was puzzled by the same problem: whether to put the final catalog also in the catalog... which looks absurd because a catalog is for other books, not for itself. But there was this final catalog in the British Museum which remained uncataloged, so rather than sending it to the Ministry of Education, he sent the question to Bertrand Russell, knowing that he was a great mathematician. And he was a great mathematician, so great that I don't think anybody reads his book. The book is so complicated that just to prove that two plus two is four, he devoted two hundred and fifty big pages. All the complicated arguments... you cannot even think to write one page about the simple subject, two plus two is four.
But when he received the letter from the librarian, Bertrand Russell was puzzled. What to do? Just then he remembered: Old Godel thinks that everything can be solved by mathematics. It is better to send it to him.
He sent him the puzzle, saying "What do you suggest? According to you, every problem can be solved and it is a mathematical problem."
Godel thought over it, but could not find the way. And because he could not find the way, he did not publish his book. He said, "If I cannot solve a simple puzzle, on what grounds can I claim that mathematics is capable of solving every problem?"
You are saying: one can become aware, and one can become aware of one's awareness.
Or one can become aware of one's unawareness and then can become aware of one's awareness of unawareness -- but where it will lead?
In existence there are no problems.
Mathematics is only an extension of logic. If the question had come to me and not to Bertrand Russell, I would have simply said, "A catalog is not a book." And it is finished.
You are required to compile a catalog of books in your library and a catalog is not a book. That's all that is needed: a definition. A catalog is simply a catalog of other books, but the catalog itself is not a book because it deals with no subject; neither is it philosophy, nor is it logic, nor is it mathematics, nor is it physics. It has no subject matter; hence it is not a book. So there is no question of including it. Once you think of including it, the problem is arising because you have not defined what a catalog is.
Neither Bertrand Russell nor Godel thought of the possibility of defining it as a catalog, not as a book. That would have solved the whole thing. But they were more interested in the puzzle and the possibility of its mathematical solution.
Awareness to me is not a puzzle.
It is not even part of any philosophy. It is an existential experience.
Just become aware of the mind and then try to become aware of awareness, and you will fail. If you can become aware of your awareness, that will prove that the first awareness was not awareness, it was part of the mind. Once you are aware you have come to the dead-end. Your journey is complete.
You say, "... although I am perceiving myself to be gradually more aware, yet I cannot identify who is the perceiver." You cannot. It is not in the nature of it to know the ultimate. You can be the ultimate, but you cannot be the knower of the ultimate; otherwise, there will be a division between the knower and the ultimate.
The ultimate is the situation where knowing and knower dissolve into each other and become one, where the knower is the known. In J. Krishnamurti's words,
"Meditation is when the observer is the observed." All distinctions disappear. So remember Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
One needs to be a little unreasonable too. It brings great joy and spice in your life, being a little unreasonable. A reasonable man is simply flat.
And existence is not reasonable at all; it is simply there without any reason. If it were not there you could not have complained. If it is there you cannot explain why it is there. It is simply there.
Irving Levensky was asked by his wife to buy a chicken for Saturday night dinner. He bought the chicken and was on his way home when he remembered that he didn't have his house key and his wife would not be home for hours.
He decided to pass the time by going to a movie. In order to get into the cinema, he stuffed the chicken into his trousers.
He sat down and began watching the movie. It fascinated him so that he didn't notice the chicken sticking its head through the fly of his pants.
Two women were sitting next to him, and one of them nudged the other. "Look," she said, "look at that thing there sticking out of the man's pants."
The other replied, "If you've seen one, you've seen them all." The first one said, "Yes, but this one is eating my popcorn." Existence is very absurd.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
HOW CAN WE KEEP THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GATHERING OF REBELS AND
SEEKERS WHO EVER EXISTED ON THE EARTH FROM BECOMING AN ESTABLISHED SOCIETY?
Prem Dipamo, the authentic rebellious man has no such problem; he never becomes part of any establishment.
There was a very unexpected experience in the communist revolution in Russia. When the revolution happened, that was in 1917, a great uneasiness was felt in the revolutionaries. The topmost revolutionaries, Lenin, Trotsky, and their colleagues, were all in a strange situation, and one man, Joseph Stalin, took advantage of their puzzled state.
Stalin was not a revolutionary, he was one of the great establishment makers. Just to create the establishment -- because the country was in a chaos after the revolution; there was no order, no law -- the idea of the revolutionaries was to have individuals as free as possible, teach them to be responsible so there would be no need of law and no need of the law-establishing agencies of the police, the court, the judges.
Lenin was also of the opinion that marriage should disappear, because it is one of the fundamental establishments. All other establishments use it as their foundation. But when they were not in power, it was easy to think such things; when they came into power, then the real problems were there.
Leaving individuals free, society was becoming full of crime. Responsibility was not arising, because responsibility is not just an idea -- unless one is alert enough, meditative enough, silent enough, to take all the responsibility of his life and not to disturb, not to interfere with anybody else's life, it is very difficult.
It is well known, but not well established, that Lenin, the head organizer of the revolution, was poisoned by the secretary of the party, Joseph Stalin. But the poison was given very slowly, over a long period of time of two years. Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, has written that it was absolutely certain that he was being poisoned because she was not allowed to change the doctor -- the doctor was appointed by Joseph Stalin, was in his service. He was not treating Lenin, he was simply poisoning him slowly.
Krupskaya could see -- she was an intelligent woman -- that instead of getting well, he was getting worse. The more the treatment, the more he was drowning -
- something was wrong. Why this insistence that the doctor should not be changed when the doctor is not succeeding in curing him? It was a natural question that the doctor should be changed.
Trotsky was the foreign minister in the new government of the revolutionaries, but he was as authentic a revolutionary as Lenin. He wanted no ranks in the army -- somebody lower, somebody higher. Everybody should be equal: "We are creating a society of equality; at least the government should give proof to the society that the people who belong to government are equal in rank."
But the generals were not ready to be equal with ordinary soldiers. It is a childish game in the world, but even childish games are played by your oldest people. Just having a few colored stripes on your coat makes people feel very special; one color more added and they rejoice. It seems children are growing old certainly, but they are not growing up; they are not becoming intelligent.
So all the generals of the armies were against Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin was naturally in conspiracy with all the generals. They were all agreeing with him because he was going to keep them on as great generals, marshals, colonels, all the categories. He was going to give them more power.
So naturally they conspired with Joseph Stalin, and Trotsky had to run away, out of the Soviet Union -- and he was the defense minister; he was the head of all the armies. And he was also the foreign minister, because he was the most educated, most intelligent person of all the revolutionaries. Lenin was a great organizer, but was not a great intellectual or a great orator. He was number two, in that sense, to Trotsky.
Joseph Stalin's professional murderers followed Trotsky. He was killed in Mexico, and killed very brutally with a hammer on his head, and in a very strange situation. He was writing the biography of Joseph Stalin... because Stalin was destroying the whole revolution; he was not a revolutionary.
Trotsky has written a tremendously insightful, very big, biography. He was completing the last page, and as he had put the final full stop -- that was the moment; it is just a coincidence that he was looking at the last line, finishing it -- the hammer came down on his head, and his head was broken into pieces.
His blood is splashed all over the last page of his hand-written biography. It is still in a museum in Mexico, on exhibition. It is one of the great biographies, and written by an enemy. Trotsky and Stalin were enemies, enemies in the sense that Joseph Stalin was never a revolutionary. All he wanted deep down was to replace the czar and become a czar himself -- and he became it. He became the
worst czar that has ever existed.
In Russian history the worst czar was Ivan the Terrible, but he was nothing compared to Stalin. He poisoned Lenin, he killed Trotsky, and he went on killing other great revolutionaries. He was satisfied only when all the great revolutionaries who were responsible for the revolution were finished. He replaced them with people who wanted law and order, and society and organization. He created the greatest establishment ever created, and with such strength that the whole country became a concentration camp.
It is very difficult for rebels and seekers to remain rebels and seekers. They will be rebellious even if the revolution has happened. Any revolution is bound to create another kind of establishment, and the authentic rebellious man will again revolt, revolt against the revolution he himself has created but had never thought would become an establishment. The authentic rebel never becomes part of any establishment.
The problem is that the rebels are very few, and the retarded masses are so many that unless every individual is a rebel, an establishment is bound to follow. The rebel is bound to fight against his own revolution, which is turning into a new establishment. Up to now no revolution has been able to succeed because the moment it succeeds it starts becoming another establishment. The people who had power change, but the people who come in their place are more powerful. And it is more difficult to change them, because they know all the strategies that they have used in changing powerful people. So they will not allow any of those strategies.
For seventy years in Russia there has not been a single rebel, because you cannot just become a rebel in a single moment. To be rebellious needs a certain understanding, a certain alertness, a certain unprejudiced mind. Russia is the only country in the world where revolution is impossible, and this is a very strange situation. It is the country where revolution succeeded on a great scale. But the moment it became a success, suddenly the water turned into ice; it became the establishment. And the rebels who are authentic cannot be tolerated anymore by the same group who changed the whole society.
Stalin was afraid of Trotsky, he was afraid of Lenin. They had to be finished because they were people who would risk everything, but would not drop their rebelliousness; they would not become a new establishment.
What you are asking for, Dipamo, is a society where everybody is so aware that no law is needed; where everybody is so peaceful that no police are needed; where everybody is so loving that rape and murder and heinous crimes become impossible; where everybody is unrepressed, uninhibited; where everyone has lived his life according to nature. There will be no need of any establishment; government will only be a functional entity like the post office, or railway trains.
Who cares who is the postmaster general? Have you ever heard? No speech, no photograph is ever published in the newspapers about who is the postmaster general. He is managing a great complex, but it is only functional.
Governments should be functional, they are servants of the people. But through the establishment, through power, they become the masters of the people. And very retarded people, when they become masters, destroy all that is delicate, all that is beautiful, all that is great.
But you can be a rebel even in a society which wants you to be part of the establishment.
Don't compromise. Even life itself is a lesser value than your individuality and your rebelliousness.
Your rebelliousness is your very spirit.
You are truly a man only when you are rebellious, when you can say no to anything that goes against freedom, that goes against man's dignity. When you are ready to go to the gallows without any grudge, because you are sacrificing yourself for something far greater and more beautiful -- for freedom, for individuality, for expression, for creativity; you are sowing seeds for future generations -- you will not be sad. You will be immensely happy that you have not been forced to become a slave; that rather than being enslaved, you preferred the gallows.
Unless in this society a person is ready to choose crucifixion rather than consolations, medals, and Nobel Prizes... only such a man can be a rebel and can be truly spiritual. We hope that one day there will be a society where everybody will be so rebellious.
But rebellion does not mean reaction or destruction; rebellion means your highest flowering of consciousness. Unless rebellion brings enlightenment to
you, you cannot save it; you will have to compromise. And to compromise is to lose your self-respect, is to lose your dignity as a man.
Up to now the society has lived under a false idea that people are free. Nobody is free; there are a thousand and one ways to enslave you. Only very rarely have a few people risked everything and remained individuals even at the risk of death -
- but they are the very salt of the earth. They are the people who have maintained humanity's evolution.
Evolution depends on only a very few people; they can be counted on your ten fingers.
Others live a life of middle-class comfort, and for that comfort they sell their souls in the marketplace.
Dipamo, you are asking, "How can we keep the most beautiful gathering of rebels and seekers who ever existed on the earth from becoming an established society?" If people are really rebels, not just because of their minds but because of their meditation, then there is no problem. With Gautam Buddha there were ten thousand meditators; there was no establishment. Nobody was higher, nobody was lower; nobody had to be ordered.
Even Gautam Buddha has never ordered anyone to do a single thing; he simply shared his vision. It is up to you whether to participate in that vision or not. That is going to be your decision, and that is going to be your responsibility.
Freedom brings responsibility.
Those ten thousand people around Gautam Buddha lived a rebellious life; they renounced society. People think that all the religions of the world have renounced society for the same reasons; that is wrong. Except Gautam Buddha, all other religions have renounced the world to gain something in the other world. It is not renunciation; it is pure business, almost a lottery, because here you lose very small things, and there you get a millionfold reward in paradise.
Here you lose a woman who is just a pain in the neck; there you get hundreds of beautiful young women who always remain young, who don't perspire, who don't use deodorants, who have a natural perfume arising out of their bodies; their age is fixed, they have not gone beyond sixteen. For millions of years they are just sixteen. It is perfectly good to renounce a wife here who is nothing but a
trouble, in the hope of getting beautiful women there.
I have heard that when Muktananda died, one of his disciples was so devoted to him that he could not live another day -- the next day he also died. Naturally, the first thing was to look around for where his great master Muktananda was.
He was very much ashamed to see that he was lying down under a beautiful tree
--
flowers were showering from the tree and Muktananda was lying down naked with a beautiful woman. As he came closer he said, "My God. He was always against pleasures, but perhaps this must be a reward for his great celibacy." Coming closer he saw that it was nobody other than the great film actress, Marilyn Monroe. He fell to the feet of his master and said, "My master, I always knew you would be greatly rewarded."
Monroe said, "You idiot! You don't understand anything. I am not his reward; he is my punishment!"
But people are hoping. Only Gautam Buddha has not given a hope for the future life to his disciples. He has given them the whole kingdom of the present, not of the future. And their renunciation of the world is not against the world. He is the only one who has renounced the world, and his followers have renounced the world, not against the world but against the establishment of the society. They have created a gathering of rebels with no order, with no system except their own consciousness, their own conscience.
He was working on those people to be deeply meditative. Then there is no need of any establishment. You always do the right thing; you cannot, even if you want to, do the wrong thing. You don't need any supervision, you don't need somebody to keep you within the law. Once you have learned the law of love, then all other laws are of no use to you.
Gautam Buddha pulled them out of society for the simple reason that in society they will have to compromise; their consciousness is not so strong that they can remain without compromise.
I don't want my people to leave the world, because twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha, and it is time that people should be strong enough in their awareness so they can remain in the society without compromising. Although it
is far more difficult, it is a great challenge to live in society and not be part of it, to live in society but not allow society to live in you.
That's my special contribution to the religious experience and to the rebellious human beings. In the past they used to escape out of the establishment, but that shows cowardliness, fear. Be in the society and live according to your own consciousness, whatsoever the consequences. It is better to suffer those consequences than to escape and show your fearfulness, because fear cannot allow you to rise to your ultimate height. The society can be used as a fire test of whether your rebellion is just a mind game or it is a spiritual growth. Those who are rebellious because of their spiritual growth don't have to fear that they will become part of established society.
Moishe Finkelstein, a tailor from a small Ukrainian village, applies for membership of the Russian Communist Party in Kiev.
"Who was Karl Marx?" asks the Commissar. "Never heard of him," replies Moishe.
"Who was Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin?" "Never met him," answers Moishe.
"Who was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin?"
"Can't say I recall the name," replies Moishe.
"Mr. Finkelstein, are you taking us for idiots?" asked the irritated Commissar. "No," replies Moishe, "Do you know Irving Levensky?"
"Never heard of him," replied the Commissar.
"So, do you know Bernie Heikleman?" Moishe asked again. "No," was the reply.
"So you know Hymie Goldberg?" Moishe asked again.
"I don't know who you are talking about," replied the irritated Commissar.
"Well," says Finkelstein, "that's how it is -- you have your friends; I have mine!" And this is how the compromise goes on happening in everybody's life.…
The out-of-work actor came home to find his house in a shambles. Lamps were knocked over in the living room, drapes were torn, and in the bedroom the bedspread was ripped and the sheets torn. On the bed lay his wife, badly beaten and bruised, sobbing her heart out.
"What happened? Who did this to you?" raged the actor.
"I... I fought as long as I could, but he was too strong," wailed the wife. "He... he..."
"Who?" rasped the actor. "Tell me and I'll find him and tear him limb from limb."
"It was your agent," said the wife. "He came while you were out."
"My agent?" the actor brightened. "Tell me, quickly, does he have a part for me?"
He has forgotten everything. Out of employment, you cannot fight with your agent.
In life, you go on compromising without knowing, not only with the society but even with your family. Even the people you love demand compromise. Nobody likes the individual; everybody wants to overpower you, to dominate you.
The husband wants to dominate the wife; the wife in her own ways tries to dominate the husband. The parents dominate the children; the children also in their own way dominate the parents. It is a constant struggle going on in multiple ways, where nobody is allowed to be just himself, where to be oneself is a crime.
But to accept the challenge and to remain yourself, in spite of all the odds, is a great joy.
To keep your individuality intact, undamaged, in a society where everybody is trying to dominate you... I don't think it is good to escape from such a society. In the Himalayas, in deep forests, you may think you are yourself -- but that is a
false notion, because there is no context in which you can put it to the test. The society is every moment a test.
And here, to be just yourself, not out of arrogance, not out of your egoistic feelings...
Those people who are arrogant will have to compromise, because there are more arrogant people. Those who are egoists will find sooner or later somebody else who can crush them.
There are different kinds of powers. People slowly, slowly learn not to stand erect, but they start crawling on the ground. In this society, to remain erect and yourself -- without arrogance, without ego, but just out of your silence, just out of your awareness -- is a tremendous experience and experiment.
I have lived life the way I wanted; it was difficult but it was immensely rewarding. It gave me the feeling that although society may be powerful, if you have guts no power can enslave you. They can kill you, they can destroy you, but they cannot enslave you.
And to be destroyed is not undignified; to be killed is not against your individuality, against your dignity, against your pride. In fact, these sacrifices will make you more and more authentically yourself.
Deep down, if you are a meditator, you know your body can be taken away but your being cannot even be touched -- your immortality is sure. Hence, I am adding to rebelliousness a new phenomenon. There have been meditators, but they escaped from the society, and there have been rebellious people who were destroyed by the society. I am bringing two very great qualities together that the world has not known before: the meeting of rebelliousness and meditativeness, the meeting of rebelliousness and religiousness. To me, rebelliousness and religiousness are two sides of the same coin.
There is no need to be afraid because there is nothing that can be destroyed in you. And that which can be destroyed will be destroyed whether you are in the Himalayas, or hiding in the monasteries. The body is going to be destroyed, so there is no need on the part of the body, on the part of the mind, to be ready to be enslaved. This happens because you are not aware of anything more than the body-mind structure. My effort is to make you aware of your immortality.
Once you have tasted the very source of your life which is eternal, then nothing can make you do things which are not in tune with your own being. You will say yes only when you feel that this yes is not the yes of a slave but a man of freedom. You will say no if you see that saying yes will be only falling into slavery. But this is possible only if you become aware of your being.
The old rebels were only intellectually rebellious. My rebel has to be spiritually rebellious, and that makes a tremendous difference. The intellectual rebellion is superficial and can be purchased, but the spiritual rebellion is not a commodity in the market; you have transcended the world.
I don't want you to escape the world, I want you to transcend the world -- living in it, going through all the fire because you know nothing can destroy you. This certainty can create a gathering of rebels without any establishment.
And if any functional kind of mechanism is needed, that is not a problem. Where there are so many people, something functional will be needed, But remember it is functional, it does not give you any status. A prime minister or a president of a country are nothing more than functional entities; they have a utility but they don't have any status.
Real status comes only from your realization of yourself, not by sitting on a golden throne. If people bow down to you, remember they are bowing down to the throne, not to you. Tomorrow somebody else will be there. Yesterday there was somebody else and people were bowing down.
I have heard it happened in Jagannathpuri...
It is one of the Hindu religious cities, and it has a great chariot, very ancient, dedicated to God. Jagannath means God, the lord of the world. Once every year, the chariot goes through the streets and millions of people gather. Once it happened that a dog was going ahead of the chariot, and thousands of people were falling on the ground, touching the earth. And the dog said, "Great, I must be someone very special!"
Millions of people, but all your presidents and all your prime ministers are in the same position as the dog. People are respectful towards them, not because of them -- once they are out of power, nobody even remembers them.
Before the Russian revolution, the prime minister of Russia was Kerensky, one
of the great powerful men in the world, because Russia is one-sixth of the whole world; it is one of the greatest countries. Kerensky was so powerful, but the revolution disturbed everything. The whole family of the czar was killed. Not even a six-month-old baby was left. Kerensky escaped, and for almost fifty years nobody heard anything about him. In the beginning, for three or four years, people thought, What has happened? But then the people forgot.
In 1960, Kerensky died in New York; he had been running a grocery store for all these years. He lived long, he was a hundred years old when he died, but he had changed his identity. And running a grocery store... nobody even bothered who he was.
These so-called powerful people don't have any power. There is only one power, and that comes from within.
Any power that comes from outside is not yours.
As it has come, it will be taken away. So if you are intelligent you will not think yourself anybody special; you are just functional.
In a society of greater consciousness, more intelligence, government will become just a small functional order, it will not be an enslaving mechanism. On the contrary, it will help individuals to become more sharp in their intelligence, deeper in their meditation, and flowering in their enlightenment with great grace.
Only this kind of evolution in consciousness, which is going to happen... Perhaps we are born in the right age when the transformation is going to happen, because the situation is such that either the whole of humanity will die, or it will have to change. And I don't think anybody wants to die.
The only alternative is to be more conscious, more alert, more alive, more loving
-- and create a new world with a new man, bring a new dawn to humanity. Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho. The Invitation Chapter #9
Chapter title: Who is this man osho?
25 August 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8708255
ShortTitle:
INVITA09
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
74
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
MY FRIEND, CHINTAN, IS JUST STARTING SIX MONTHS OF HEAVY CHEMOTHERAPY. YOU HAVE ALREADY SENT HIM SUCH BEAUTIFUL MESSAGES FOR HIS MEDITATION WHILE PASSING THROUGH THIS. NOW, OSHO, DO YOU HAVE SOME JOKES FOR HIM TOO?
Prem Garima, Chintan is certainly passing through a difficult stage, but
everybody has to finally pass through the difficult stage of death.
Only a meditator is capable of passing through it as if it is a joke. He can pass through it laughing and singing, because he knows that the fire cannot burn and the death cannot destroy him.
There is no sword that can cut him. He belongs to the eternal life.
Once a small glimpse of the eternity is achieved, there is no life which can be destroyed by anything. It can be removed from one form into another, but death cannot do more than that -- just the changing of the house.
To the non-meditator death is the end, to the meditator, a beginning. It is a new beginning, a fresh beginning, freed from the old rotten body, the old mind. It is a resurrection; every death is a resurrection. But if you don't know it, you will die unconsciously without experiencing the beauty of resurrection.
If you can die consciously, death is only a door into a new life on a higher plane. But to die consciously, one has to live consciously. You cannot manage to die consciously without a long, meditative, conscious life. Only a conscious life is rewarded with a conscious death -- it is a reward, but only to the conscious man. To the unconscious man, it is the end to all his efforts, ambitions, desires. There is only darkness ahead, not a single light and no possibilities left.
Death simply takes away the whole future.
Naturally, the unconscious man is immensely afraid and deeply trembling, knowing that death is coming closer every day. Since your birth the only thing that has been certain is death; everything else is uncertain and accidental. Only death is not accidental; it is an absolute certainty. There is no way to avoid it or dodge it. It will catch hold of you in the right moment at the right place.
I have always loved the beautiful Sufi story...
A king dreams in the night that a dark shadow is putting her hand on his shoulder. He looks back. He is horrified. It is just a dark shadow, but the shadow speaks and says,
"There is no need to be worried. I have just come to inform you -- it is not routine; you are a great king; it is an exception -- otherwise I never come to inform anybody. I come without any information."
The king said, "But who are you?"
The dark shadow laughed and said, "I am your death, and be prepared. Tomorrow, as the sun will be setting, I am going to come to you."
Naturally, this nightmare woke him up. Even after he was awake, knowing well that it was only a dream, he was trembling and perspiring. And his heart was beating so loudly he could hear it himself. He immediately called the council of all his wise men, and particularly the royal astrologers, prophets, and told them the dream. He asked them the meaning of it -- is it true that death is going to happen? The astrologers may be able to figure it out.
The wise men, the philosophers, the astrologers, the prophets, all started arguing about the dream. Perhaps it was the first dream analysis! But they could not come to any conclusion, just as they cannot come to any conclusion today. All the dream analysts, the so-called psychoanalysts, differ in their interpretations. You take the same dream to all and you will get different conclusions about the dream. You will be more confused than ever.
And so was the situation of the king from the middle of the night till the morning; he became more and more confused because everybody was saying something different.
And when the sun started rising, the old man who used to serve the king... He was not only a servant, he had helped the king from his very childhood. He had taken care of him, because his mother had died and his father had appointed the man to take care of the child because he was his most trustworthy bodyguard. So the king respected him almost like his father.
The old man said, whispered in his ear, "These great thinkers and philosophers and astrologers have argued for centuries and they have never come to any conclusion; do you think they will come to any conclusion within twelve hours? Forget it; that is not possible. These are the people who know only how to argue; they never come to any conclusion. They argue well but the question is not the beauty of the argument, the question is what is the conclusion of all your philosophies? There is no conclusion at all.
No two philosophers agree with each other."
The king asked him, "Then what do you propose?"
He said, "My understanding is let them discuss; there is no harm. But you take our fastest horse and get away as far as possible from the palace. It is dangerous to be at this place, for at least the coming twelve hours. After the sun has set, you can start turning back, but not before that." It looked practical. The old man said, "These people can go on arguing; there is no need to stop them. If they come to any conclusion, I will follow you immediately. The best way is towards Damascus, another capital of another kingdom. So I will know where to find you, to give you their conclusion. I will come behind you."
The king was convinced by the old man. He left all those great philosophers discussing, and slipped quietly out of the palace with the best horse he had. The whole day the horse was running as fast as possible. They did not stop to eat or even to drink water. It was not a time to think of water or food. And the horse seemed to be in a certain understanding that it was a very critical moment for his master.
They reached near Damascus, just outside the city, as the sun was setting. They stopped in a mango grove and as he was tying the horse to a tree, he patted it and he said, "You prove to be a great friend. You have never run so fast before; you must have understood my situation. And we have come hundreds of miles away."
As the sun was setting he immediately felt the same hand on his shoulder from behind.
The shadow was there and said, "I also have to thank your horse. I was worried whether you would be able to reach this place at the right time or not. That's why I had come to inform you. This is the place destined for your death, and your horse has brought you right on time."
Whether you run or you stay it doesn't matter death comes. Death has started coming closer to you from the very moment you were born. In what form it comes does not matter.
Bertrand Russell has said that if there were no death in the world, there would have been no religion. He has some great insight there: without death, who was
going to bother about meditation? Without death, who was going to bother to know about the secret mysteries of life? One would have remained always concerned with the mundane and the worldly. Who would have turned inwards? There would have been no Gautam Buddha.
So death is not just a calamity, it is a blessing in disguise. If you can understand, if you have this much intelligence -- that after birth, death is approaching every moment closer -
- you will not lose your time in trivia. Your priority will be to know what this life is before it ends: Who is living in me? What force? For every intelligent man and woman this is the priority. Everything else is secondary to knowing oneself.
Once you know yourself, there is no death. Death was only in your ignorance.
In your meditative consciousness, death disappears just as darkness disappears when there is light brought in. Meditation brings the light in, and death is found to be the greatest fiction. It appears only from the outside that somebody is dying. From the inside nobody has ever died, and that is where your life source is.
Chintan is taking his death very joyously, very peacefully. He will die consciously. He is giving every indication that death cannot make him unconscious, cannot knock him unconscious. He will retain his consciousness, and he will have a laugh as he will be dying, because the whole world is living in an illusion.
Life is neither born nor dies.
It has been before birth; it will be after death. Birth and death both are small episodes in the eternal stream of consciousness and light.
Garima, you are asking for some jokes for him.…
Giovanni bumps into his friend Alfredo on the streets of Rome, and notices that his friend is looking very depressed.
"How was your holiday in-a Miami Beach?" he asks.
"Mama mia," replies Alfredo. "It was-a terrible. I go-a to Miami and check into- a bigg-a hotel. In-a the morning I go down to eat-a breakfast. I tell-a the waitress, Ì wanna two pissis-a toast.' She bring only one piss. I tell-a her, Ì want two piss.' She say, `Go to the toilet.'
"I say, `You no understand, I wanna two piss on-a the plate.'
"She say, `You better no piss on da plate, you sonna va bitch.' I don't even know the lady and she call me sonna va bitch!
"Later I go eat at the bigga restaurant. The waitress brings me a spoon and knife but no fock. I tell-a her, Ì wanna fock.' She tell me, Èveryone wanna fuck.'
"I tell her, `You no understand. I wanna fock on-a da table.' "She say, `You better not fuck on-a table, you sonna va bitch.'
"So I go back to my room in-a hotel and there is no shits on-a my bed. I call the manager and tell-a him, Ì wanna shit.' He tell me to go to the toilet. I say, `You not understand. I wanna shit on my bed.'
"He say, `You better not shit on-a bed, you sonna va bitch.'
"I go to the check-out desk and the man at the desk say, `Happy Holidays, Peace to you.'
"I say, `Piss on you too, you sonna va bitch, I gonna go back to Italy.'" Just tell Chintan: Avoid Italy and go anywhere else.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
YOU SAY EVERYBODY IS BEAUTIFUL. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE BEAUTY
OF RONALD REAGAN?
Prem Samarpan, everybody is certainly beautiful. When I say this, I mean potentially, I do not mean actually. If actually everybody was beautiful, this
world would have been a paradise.
Potentially everybody is beautiful -- yes, even Ronald Reagan. But the actuality is what matters. Actually, he is the ugliest man today, Adolf Hitler number one. Kaddafi has called him "Adolf Hitler number two." I made a statement that Kaddafi should correct his statement. He is not Adolf Hitler number two, he is Adolf Hitler number one. The real, poor Adolf Hitler, has become number two.
Adolf Hitler had very little power. Ronald Reagan has millions of times more power, and he is as fascist and as fanatical as any Adolf Hitler. This is the actuality.
Everybody is beautiful but everybody does not prove to be beautiful, because very few people attain to their potential; they go astray. They don't grow to be what they were born to be. They grow in an insane society and naturally, learn the whole art of being insane.
Because here, whoever is more insane will be the winner.
The sane person will stand out of the race. And the insane will not take any note
--
whatever happens to him or to others, and whatever the cost, he is going to be on the top.
Your presidents and your prime ministers are your most insane people. Their right place is in madhouses, but they are ruling the whole world. In three thousand years they have managed five thousand wars. And the insanity has gone on growing; it has not been stable. Today it has reached its peak, and Ronald Reagan is standing on almost an Everest of nuclear weapons, ready to destroy the whole of life on this beautiful planet.
Hence, I have to make this strange statement: I love him; I respect him as a human being if he comes back to sanity... but he is going more and more insane and senile. Retarded, he has always been. It would have been perfectly good if he had remained in Hollywood as a cowboy actor. But when he became the president, he started behaving in the same way as if he was acting in a cowboy film.
It is real life; it is not a film, but he has not been able to assimilate the fact.
When he became the president, he came to the White House with his only friend, a chimpanzee. Now, if you cannot find any friendship in human beings and you find friendship with a chimpanzee, it shows something about you. It also shows something about the chimpanzee -- that he is an intelligent fellow.
On the first day they had both gone for a walk on the beach. An old drunkard watched these two fellows. He could not believe it and he could not resist the temptation either.
He went close to them and said, "Mr. President, it does not look right to have a chimpanzee as your friend. It is humiliating to the whole of America."
And as Ronald Reagan was going to say something, the drunkard said, "You shut up -- I am talking to Mr. President."
This man Ronald Reagan has gone completely astray, and he is now the most powerful man. In the hands of a great insane person is so much power that you are living moment to moment in tremendous risk. He can blow up the whole earth just by pushing a button, and I don't think that he will hesitate to do it.
His fanatical and fascist mind is capable of doing any idiotic thing. He has behaved with me, with my people, with the commune -- a group of meditators in a desert, just five thousand people in a vast desert of one hundred and twenty-six square miles, far away from any American town, at least twenty miles away from any town... He became so much interested in destroying the commune -- which had not done any harm to him, or to his country -- just because he could not tolerate a peaceful commune, joyous and happy and celebrating.
Hundreds of news media people and visitors from all over America had started coming to see what was happening: how in five years we had transformed the desert into a beautiful oasis. My garden alone had three hundred peacocks, and the commune had almost two or three thousand deer. It was such a dream come true.
As the news started spreading in America, Ronald Reagan began to fear that people would ask: If these people can turn even a desert into an oasis and can live so beautifully and so peacefully, with no court, with no law, with no government, why should the richest country of the world not live as peacefully and as joyously and as lovingly?
Why should there be thirty million beggars on the street in America? And we had absorbed a few hundred beggars into our commune. Those beggars could not believe it when we behaved with them on equal terms. They wrote letters to me saying, "For the first time we have recognized that we are also human beings. You have given us dignity and respect; otherwise, we had been treated almost like dogs, stray dogs."
Ronald Reagan and his government became absolutely antagonistic for the simple reason that we were so successful in creating a utopia. He could not tolerate us; he destroyed the commune. He had the power; he arrested me for no reason. He fined me sixty lakh rupees for no crime, and after that I was deported from America and the commune was crushed.
Now, where there were five thousand people living, and where every year on festival days for one month, there used to be twenty thousand sannyasins -- a great festival of love and joy and meditation and silence and creativity...
After I was out of America, his own U.S. attorney gave a statement in a press conference that they had no evidence against me of any crime; hence, they could not send me to jail.
Moreover, they did not want to make me a martyr. That shows their deep desire -
- they wanted to kill me, but they prevented themselves because that may have strengthened the sannyas movement around the world. Thirdly, he said, "Our priority was just to destroy the commune and not allow Osho into America for fifteen years."
I was not thinking that they would continue their harassment, but even today that harassment continues. They have forced all the governments of the world to pass laws so that I cannot enter -- not only America, but any country in Europe. Now this is absolutely criminal. Wherever I was, he forced that government to deport me.
Just the other day I found out that one archbishop of Greece has been caught at the Paris airport, hiding a large amount of heroin in his religious paraphernalia. I was deported from Greece and I was just a tourist. I was going to be there for only two weeks more; I had already been there two weeks. I was deported on the demand of the archbishop, the highest authority of the Greek Orthodox church, on the grounds that my presence in Greece will destroy its tradition, will destroy
its religion, will destroy its morality.
I could not believe that we are living in the twentieth century. I had not even left my house, the compound. And if a religion, a morality, a church, twenty centuries old --
because the Greek church is the oldest church as far as Christianity is concerned
-- can be destroyed by a tourist in two weeks' time, is it worth saving?
But the force behind was Ronald Reagan. In Uruguay I was given a one-year resident's permit. The president was interested in me. He had been reading my books and he was very happy that I had come to Uruguay. That would open the door of Uruguay to international visitors, sannyasins. It is a poor country and it would be an economic help to the country. It is a beautiful country, a small country.
But as I was given the one-year resident's permit, immediately, special agents from Ronald Reagan arrived. And Ronald Reagan himself phoned the president of Uruguay, saying, "Osho has to be deported within thirty-six hours. You have a choice: If you want to keep him in Uruguay, you can, but then you have to return all the money that has been given to you as loans in the past; that comes to billions of dollars. And the money that you are going to get in the coming two years, which also comes to billions of dollars, will be canceled. You can choose."
The secretary to the president of Uruguay told me, "I have seen for the first time, tears in the eyes of the president, and he said, Òsho's coming to Uruguay at least has made one thing clear to us, that we are living in an illusion that we are independent. We are not even free to accept a guest in our country. Now America is blackmailing us. They know that we cannot pay all the loans; we don't have... and we cannot afford to have the future loans withdrawn because all of our plans for the coming five years will have to be dropped. Our whole economy will collapse.'"
He agreed, "I will send Osho away, although it is against our legal court and against the constitution of Uruguay. Once you give a man one year's residence, unless he commits some heinous crime -- murder, rape, or something of that category -- you cannot take away his residential status. But I am ready to commit something against the constitution.
I will send him; I will persuade him to leave by himself."
But Ronald Reagan insisted, "No, he has to be deported; he has not to be persuaded to leave."
The president of Uruguay begged him that this was going too far: "In the first place he has every right to stay, because he has not committed any sin. He never goes out of his house. Secondly, to deport him what cause will we show?"
President Ronald Reagan was stubborn. "That is not our problem, but he has to be deported."
The president of Uruguay tried. He sent a messenger to me, "Shift your jet plane from the international airport to a small airport nearby. And leave from there, because the American Embassy is watching the international airport. There will be no need for us to deport you."
But American detectives must have been watching the president; they must have been watching me also. Before I reached the small airport, the American ambassador was there ahead of us and he had phoned the president to send all the officials with all the necessary documents for deportation: "Without deportation he cannot be allowed to leave the country."
I was deported. I had to be stopped for two hours at that small airport, and for no reason.
But they have made my passport a historical document. I had been deported from twenty-one countries without any reason -- against the constitutions of twenty-one countries.
Reagan's idea has been to close the whole world to me and then force the Indian government -- which he is doing continuously -- to allow no sannyasins to reach me. I have been informed by my friends from Washington that the attorney general said, "Our whole effort will be to completely silence Osho."
One reporter asked, "What do you mean by silence? Do you mean that he should be assassinated?"
The attorney general said, "No, we don't mean that, but it will almost be assassination."
The strategy is that no other country allows me to enter. My country of course
cannot deport me, but it can prevent people from reaching me.
Many television companies have written saying, "We are continuously being refused. We are asking to come to Poona; they immediately refuse, and they don't give any reason why."
Newspapers have been refused permission to reach me. Thousands of sannyasins from all over the world have been refused visas. Somehow thousands have already got their visas, because now I have taken away the orange robe, the mala
-- so they cannot figure out whether the person is a sannyasin or not.
I am not a serious man, so I have told my sannyasins, "If they ask you, simply ask, Who is this man Osho? Do you want us to go to him? Where is Poona? We were never thinking of going but you seem to be interested..." Although many people have got visas, some have been turned back from Bombay airport and from Calcutta airport, back to their countries. This is because, the American government has given the Indian government a whole list of the people who were living in the commune. They are asking continuously, that every sannyasin who is here should give the police commissioner his full address and how long he is going to be here, so that, even if you have reached me one time, the next time you cannot. We have not given any names; we have asked them, "On what grounds are you asking? If you are asking one religious institution, you should ask all the religious institutions of the country to keep a record of anybody who comes there and make a report every day. And if you want, you can open an office in front of the ashram, and anybody who comes you can take his name. That is your business; that is not our business. It is not our concern and it is against our philosophy and religion to discriminate between people of different countries or different races, or different colors. And we will not do anything against our own thinking."
So they are at a loss what to do, because if they do anything against the constitution we are going to fight. But Ronald Reagan goes on insisting. The American Embassy goes on insisting to the Indian government to prevent people from reaching here. Twice, the American Embassy has been here to watch how many people there are around the ashram. And now the police commissioner has asked US, "Why does the American Embassy come again and again to the ashram? This is strange."
They should ask the American Embassy. How do we know? And why should we
bother?
If all the embassies of the world start coming it is perfectly good. We are not doing anything criminal here.
But this man Reagan has lost his humanity.
Prem Samarpan you say everybody is beautiful -- but everybody does not actualize his beauty, does not actualize his consciousness. Everybody is capable of enlightenment, but that does not mean that Ronald Reagan is enlightened. Everybody is beautiful, but that does not mean that when you see a beautiful cobra, you should not avoid it. Even if you are enlightened, please avoid it! Appreciate the beauty, but avoid it.
What is the difference between a dead snake lying in the road and a dead politician lying in the road? Whom will you avoid first? If Ronald Reagan is lying dead on the road and a dead snake is lying on the road, I suggest, although both are beautiful, that you avoid Ronald Reagan first! Politicians cannot be trusted whether they are really dead or not.
And if you see a politician and a snake lying dead, you will also see one thing: there will be skid marks in front of the snake, not in front of the politician.
Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,
WHAT IS THE HIDDEN MYSTERY IN THE SILENCE BETWEEN THE PAGES IN
FRONT OF YOU?
Prem Maharaj, all that I want to say to you is in my gaps. I use the words only to create gaps. So when I am simply looking at the pages, I am giving you a chance to receive the message which cannot be said in words, which can only be relayed, transferred, in utter silence.
There is an ancient proverb: "People will believe anything, if you whisper it." Particularly if you want the women to hear anything, whisper it! But I go one step further. If you really want to express the truth, don't say anything about it,
just leave the gap. Let people hear without your saying anything. That's the only way truth has always been transferred
-- from one silent heart to another silent heart.
In utter silence is the only possibility to meet, to merge, to share.
A joke for you Prem Maharaj. The purpose of the joke is not the joke. The purpose is the laughter that follows, because in that laughter your thinking stops. In that laughter, you are no more mind. And after the laughter, just a very small gap and I can reach to the deepest core of your being.
An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian were arguing about the nationality of Adam and Eve.
"They must have been English," the Englishman offered. "After all, only a gentleman would share his last apple with a lady."
"They surely were French," the Frenchman asserted. "They were so hopelessly in love."
"They could only have been Russian," declared the Russian. "Who else would walk around naked, have but one apple to eat between them, and think they were in paradise?"
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #10
Chapter title: The only romance that knows no divorce 26 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code:
8708260
ShortTitle:
INVITA10
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
113
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS I HAVE BEEN GOING THROUGH AN
AMAZING PROCESS OF LETTING GO OF MY ATTACHMENTS, OF CLEARING
THE WAY FOR MY HEART TO EXPAND TO YOU, THE DIVINE.
THANK YOU, OSHO, FOR SHOWERING ME WITH SO MUCH LOVE. AM I WORTHY OF SO MUCH?
Prem Neera, everybody is worthy of much more, much more than he is receiving. But the responsibility of not receiving more is yours.
People live a closed life. They keep all their doors and windows of the heart completely shut. It happens because of a natural phenomenon that the child is so small and so helpless, and so dependent and is always in fear; everybody is bigger and more powerful.
His experience of fear in the very beginning starts the process of closing the heart.
Fear is a closing process.
Love is just the opposite, the opening process. Unfortunately, the way humanity has lived, it has lived in fear. Even if it loves, it is out of fear. And a love out of fear is absolutely false. It is better to be loveless -- because at least it will go on hurting you to the point that you will have to change -- than to have a substitute false love which consoles you, deceives you and keeps you where you are, a closed being.
The child is told by the parents to love them; it is almost an order. Love cannot be ordered. If through an order something resembling love happens it is false, and deep inside there is hate because nobody wants to be ordered, manipulated. But every parent is manipulating his own children: I am your mother -- love me!
What is so great in being your mother? What is so great in being your father? If there is something great, the child will start loving you and then there will be a totally different world. The child will learn to love on his own, not because you have ordered but because of the way you are.
Love arises out of deep respect and gratitude, seeing your beauty and grandeur, seeing your unconditional love which asks nothing in response, not even love. If the parents can shower the child with love without asking for any response from him, the response will come. And this response will have an authenticity; it will come from the opening of the heart. The child will know that there is no reason to fear. These are not the people to be afraid of; you can open, and this is the beginning of a totally different life. Once you have learned that, the open heart is not only capable of receiving love from your parents, it is also capable of receiving love from the whole existence.
The whole secret is a simple thing -- the opening of the heart. But what actually has been happening is that neither of the parents loves each other. The husband loves because he is a husband; he is supposed to love. The wife loves under submission, because she has been enslaved through marriage; she has to love.
When there is some compulsoriness, the beauty of love disappears and the reality of love changes completely to its opposite. Husband and wife love each other and hate each other too, simultaneously. They hate because they have to
love under compulsion, under the rules of society, convention, law. The husband can demand love; the wife can demand love, but it is a demanding love; in subtle ways they demand, not directly.
As the husband comes home... the wife was perfectly okay listening to the radio, looking at the television, singing to herself, and as the husband comes, she immediately lies down and suddenly, the headache!
The story is that Adam was constantly bothering God: first, he was alone and he had no idea that there was something missing in his life. But then he saw a bull doing something to a cow. And he ran to God and said, "What is happening? What is that bull doing to the cow?"
And God said,"You don't bother me again and again. I have told you, the bull is loving the cow." And all the animals and the birds... and Adam was again and again asking.
Finally, God became tired and told him, "I will give you a wife also."
And the next day, in the morning, Adam ran after God and said, "Just a minute, please, what is a headache?"
The first night, the very first night of humanity's beginning, and the headache is the first problem that arises -- the wife had a headache.
These are ways of manipulating. When your wife has a headache, naturally you have to be loving. This is not a time to quarrel or fight or to argue or tell her things that she has done wrong. Some other time -- this is not the time; she is already suffering. The headache is a way to ask for your sympathy, but it is not love. The man will show sympathy; and sympathy is ugly in comparison to love. Always remember: all these qualities are relative.
Sympathy is good in comparison to antipathy, but sympathy is very poor and ugly in comparison to love.
You have heard about Albert Einstein's law of relativity. Somebody has reduced it to a simple maxim: the theory of relativity says that it all depends on which side of the toilet door you are. If you are inside time is going fast, and if you are outside time is going slow. It is the same time, just the door is creating the whole trouble.
Love is something that can blossom in its beauty only when unasked, when it is not demanded. When it comes on its own, even unconsciously, it has tremendous beauty. The moment you demand, it may come because the wife is dependent on you... and in certain ways, the husband is dependent on the wife. Love happens between two independent people not between two slaves of each other. And the poor children are brought up by these two persons who themselves don't know the secret of the opening of the heart.
Naturally, they start from the very beginning. The mother goes on saying, "He is your daddy, smile!" as if these things can be ordered. Smile... and the poor child has to smile.
Now what is there in this dodo you call daddy that the poor child has to smile? And the poor child does not understand what this fellow has done that he has to smile. But he has to smile; that smile becomes, naturally, a Jimmy Carter smile, absolutely false. The child starts becoming a politician; he smiles because he knows that way he is appreciated, thought to be a beautiful child. If he does not smile, he is thought to be unworthy, and nobody wants to be condemned as unworthy. That's how, slowly, the child starts learning false things: false smiles, false love, false respect.
In a more conscious and authentic world, the husband and the wife should first learn how to remain independent and yet allow love to pass through. They should not come too close. Kahlil Gibran is right when he says to the lovers, "You should stand like the pillars of a temple -- far apart, yet supporting the same roof." Your love should be supported by you, but you should leave enough gap for each to have his own individual territory, his own individual space, his own individuality.
You should not trespass on each other. But what to say of trespassing? Husbands and wives become detectives, FBI agents -- against each other. They are continuously looking out of the corners of their eyes: What is happening? This is not love. This is domination; this is pure animal sexuality. A child is born out of this situation, and unfortunately has to be brought up by these people. They themselves don't know what love is; they missed the train. Now they will train the child to miss the train. And this goes on from generation to generation.
Just the other day, there was a question from Veena -- how to open the heart? It is just like somebody asking how to open the eyes. If you were forced from the
very beginning and ordered to open the eyes, perhaps you would have retaliated by closing them. That would have been your assertiveness, your individuality, and you may have forgotten completely how to open the eyes. Now, do you think there can be some training to open the heart, some discipline, some technique? That will be another mistake. You can pretend that your heart is open. That's all that will happen by your discipline and training and technique.
What is needed is a deep understanding of why the heart is closed. There is no need to be worried about opening it. Just knowing why it is closed, you will come upon all those fears that have closed it. Now those fears are not there, but once you have closed the doors and the windows, they have remained closed.
Now nobody is forcing you; now you are grown up enough. You can assert yourself; you can be an individual. You can say to your father, "If you are lovable, I will love, but not because you are my father." You can say to your mother, "Create the quality of lovableness and I will love you -- not only I, but others also will love you -- but not because you are my mother."
Love is not a rational thing. It is not a syllogism: she is your mother; hence you have to love her. Wherever any kind of compulsoriness comes in, love is very delicate and disappears.
Everybody is much more worthy than he can even dream of, to receive love, to share love, to rejoice in making love your very life.
Birth is not in your hands, neither is death in your hands. Between birth and death only one thing is in your hands, and that is love. And unfortunately, that which was your only freedom is not available to everybody.
Prem Neera, you are saying, "Am I worthy of so much?" You are worthy of much more.
Just learn to be receptive, just learn to be humble, just learn to be simple, just learn to be trusting. Even if the whole world deceives you, still trust, because that is their problem if they are deceptive; it is not your problem.
What happens? A single man deceives you and you start distrusting the whole of humanity. Do you see the absurdity of it? Even if the whole of humanity deceives you, I say to you, still trust -- because trust is much more valuable; it has an intrinsic value. It does not depend on whether people are trustworthy or
not. And if you can trust in spite of their untrustworthiness, you may create a revolution in their hearts also, because they are also as human as you are.
They are also victims of the same society and the same pattern as you are. You are fortunate if you have opened one window. You are fortunate if by accident a door has been flung open. You are fortunate not to be part of the closed humanity.
Now, this little opening has to be made bigger. In fact, a moment has to come in the life of love when all the windows and doors disappear; not only that, but all the walls disappear also.
You are just under the open sky, under the stars and you will be showered from all directions, all dimensions, with so much immense love and blissfulness that you cannot believe why it is happening to you.
It is the only miracle in the world. Walking on water is not a miracle; it is just a stupidity.
Turning water into wine is not a miracle; it is a crime. The only miracle I am aware of is a completely, totally open heart. No situation, no condition can close it.
Meditation will help you. Meditation is almost a golden key, a master key which opens many doors. It can open the door of love too. As you become silent, as you become peaceful, as you become aware of your life force, as you become aware there is no death, fear disappears. And with the disappearance of the fear -
- from the very roots -- now there is no point in keeping your heart closed. You can open your heart to friend and foe, to those who are familiar and to those who are strangers. And you will receive gifts which you had not ever imagined.
You are saying, Neera, "Over the last few months, I have been going through an amazing process of letting go of my attachments." It is an amazing process, but it is the process I have been telling everybody my whole life; that your attachment is a barrier, it is not a bridge.
Your attachment keeps you unaware of your own great potential. The more you become attached to things, to people, the more you become a slave. Attachment is another beautiful name of spiritual slavery. A man who is attached to money is a slave.
I used to know a man...
I have never come across another of the same quality of attachment. He was so money mad that even if you had a one hundred rupee note, he would say, "Just let me touch it."
And he would touch it as if he was touching his beloved, with such romance. It was impossible to give him money and to get it back. I inquired about him from all the people who knew him. They said, "He has never returned anybody's money. And people feel full of pity. Nobody is angry about it. They just think he is insane, obsessed with money."
Walking on the street on a fullmoon night, he suddenly picked up something and then threw it away and said, "If I meet this man I will kill him. The son of a bitch spits mucous as if it is a rupee; it shines in the light."
Such was his madness. He had a small cloth shop, and for a few months I used to live just by the side of his shop in a small house. I was puzzled to watch the whole show that went on in his shop. There were people whom he knew would ask for things on credit. He would immediately give me a sign and then hide in the back of the shop in the bathroom.
He always avoided one old woman in particular. And I had to tell her, "He is not here."
But one day I said to her, "What is the matter? Whenever you come you never find him here."
She said, "There is nothing the matter. He is afraid of me because he owes me money.
And naturally, I will purchase things and I will tell him, `Deduct it from the money you owe.'"
I said, "If that is what is the matter, then he is hiding in the bathroom." She said, "Really."
I said, "You go in."
She said, "Well it does not look right." I said, "You go in and open the door."
So she went and opened the door. He came running out. He was very angry with me. I said, "If I had known that this was the reason, I would have never deceived that woman that you are not in the shop. You owe money to her?"
He said, "I owe money to everybody. In this whole area, nobody can say that I don't owe money to them. But you know me; I cannot return money once I get it. It is almost like a heart attack to give the money back."
It is verging on insanity. All attachments although different in degree, are a kind of putting yourself down and making something so important that people are ready to die for money; people are ready to die for power. People are ready to do anything to fulfill their ambition. All these attachments destroy your worthiness. They take away all that is beautiful and valuable in you. You become smaller than the things you are attached to and infatuated with.
A man who has no attachment has tremendous freedom; he has nothing to lose. And if everything is lost, he will not look back even a single time.
I have told you the story of Diogenes...
He used to live naked. He is the only man in the Western world who can be compared to Mahavira in India. Both were contemporaries; both lived naked. Both had immensely beautiful bodies and were very strong people.
Diogenes was going to the river. He used to carry only a begging bowl. Mahavira did not use any begging bowl because everything that you become used to creates a subtle, psychological slavery.
Mahavira used to make a cup with his hands to drink or to take food. But Diogenes, like all old renunciates, used to carry a begging bowl. He was running towards the river; he was so thirsty and it was hot. And just then he saw a dog running by his side. The dog jumped ahead of him in the river and started drinking.
Diogenes felt very much offended, but he also felt deeply grateful to the dog.… he has shown him that a begging bowl is not needed! You can drink water
without it, why carry it unnecessarily? "If a dog can manage to live without a begging bowl, I am a man; I can manage." First, he threw away the begging bowl, and he said, "That was my only possession -- and I was thinking that I had overcome all attachment, but throwing that bowl, I knew that now I had become really free. Otherwise, I used to keep an eye out in case somebody might steal the begging bowl."
It was a beautiful bowl presented to him by a king and beautifully carved. In the night also he used to touch the begging bowl once or twice to see that it was still there. He said,
"Since the moment the dog taught me the lesson, I have felt such freedom, and such a burden has been relieved from my heart."
If this is the situation with a begging bowl, what will be the situation of people who are possessed of so many things, so possessive that things become their only life? And remember, the moment you become attached to a person, the person is no more a person.
You have changed the person into a commodity, into a thing. Only things can be possessed.
If a husband possesses the wife, he has reduced her into a thing, and the wife can never forgive him. If the wife possesses the husband, she has committed the greatest sin by reducing a human being into a commodity. Only things can be possessed, not conscious human beings.
But you possess even your children. You say, "This is my child." You should be more aware. You should say, "This child has come through me. I have been the passage, but he does not belong to me. He belongs to existence." If this insight settles in you, then you will not try to make the child a carbon copy of you.
What can you teach the child? All that you know is of the past; it is dead, it is gone, it will never come back. And the child has to live in a future about which you don't have any understanding. There is no possibility for you to know the future. Prepare the child for the unknown; prepare the child to be adventurous. Prepare the child to learn to live dangerously, because the more safety and security you ask, the more you are enclosed in a prison of your own making. A prisoner cannot be a lover.
Only freedom knows the fragrance of love.
Only freedom knows your immense worthiness. And that does not give you any ego, any arrogance. It makes you really more humble than ever -- you don't deserve it; still existence out of its abundance has given you so much. You learn for the first time the sense of gratitude, gratefulness.
To me, gratitude is the only prayer. Nothing has to be said, just a feeling of gratefulness.
But people are full of complaints not gratitude.
Veena has just asked how to open the heart because she had written a letter which was ugly, and now she has written another letter. She thinks she has improved upon the first one, but the basic points are still there. She used to live in this house and, to make a bigger library, seventeen people from the house have been moved into other houses in the campus; the whole campus is one. She was never grateful that she was in the house, but she is complaining very seriously that she has been moved from the house. She is not worried that sixteen other people have also gone.
Those sixteen have written letters of thankfulness, that they are grateful that they lived in the house with me, and they are grateful that they have been chosen to make a place for the library. They are immensely happy and thankful. Only she is complaining, asking why she has been moved to another house. She is living with her boyfriend in the room; she knows that we don't have enough space for people...
We are trying to find more and more places, and within two or three months, you all will have places in the ashram. But just my name, and the price of any house goes up three times. So it is a little difficult, but I know you are living in difficulties outside. The same flat that was rented for seventeen hundred rupees per month before our coming back to Poona is now being given to sannyasins for eight thousand rupees per month. Prices have gone seven, eight times higher.
But Veena will not feel grateful that she is in the ashram. She will not think that thousands of sannyasins are living outside, paying too much, eight or ten times more than the market price.
Two thousand sannyasins are living outside, and she is demanding that she wants
a separate room to herself. That means a separate room for her lover and a separate room for herself, perfectly aware that we don't have a space.
Demanding, and when your demand is not possible at this moment to fulfill, you become closed; you become angry. She has been angry, so angry that I was puzzled. Whenever I would come, she was sitting with folded hands, but she would never open her eyes. She is perfectly aware that if I see her eyes, I will immediately see what is going on in her. To avoid that... she was keeping her eyes closed, and I knew that she was boiling within.
Rather than feeling grateful that you are part of a commune where everybody loves you, everybody respects each other, where there is no hierarchy, where there is nobody higher and nobody lower, that you are living in a totally new world, a miniature experiment...
she is concerned about stupid things. That's how the mind functions, and then it becomes closed. And when it is closed then she is angry that I am not loving towards her.
My love is available, just as the light of the sun is available. You just have to open your eyes. My love cannot be addressed to particular people, because love to me, cannot be a relationship.
I am love.
I can share with you.
I am sharing every moment.
Those who are capable of receiving it will receive it, as much as they are capable
-- and their capacity depends on the opening of their hearts. But an angry heart or a fearful heart cannot be open.
It is simply a question of understanding. You don't have to force your heart open; that won't help. You have simply to understand. It is just like you were putting two plus two is equal to five. Now no training is needed, just a simple understanding that you have been counting wrong -- finished. Start counting two plus two is four. Don't ask what to do with five, how to get rid of five.
Life is mostly a question of understanding. So just understand and pay attention
to whatever life has given to you. Are you worthy of it? We are not worthy of anything.…
intelligence, love, life itself; we are not worthy. If you had not been given life, you could not have registered any complaint in the complaint office: why have I not been given life when everybody else -- Tom, Dick, Harry, everybody else -- is given life?" No, there would have been no possibility.
Life is given to you. Capacity to grow is given to you. Every opportunity to come to your ultimate peak of consciousness is given to you. A heart that can blossom in love is given to you. Just feel grateful to life, and as you will feel grateful, you will become more and more worthy, and more and more humble -- no grudge, no complaint.
This is exactly the state of a religious man. It does not need you to belong to any organized religion for you to become religious.
Religiousness is your gratefulness towards existence.
Such beautiful trees, such infinite sky, so many stars and you have not paid for anything.
This immense universe is given to you with all its beauty, sunrises, sunsets, and all the flowers and beautiful people. Just watch and you will be aware that so much is already given, but you are taking it for granted. You have never looked at it as a gift from existence without your asking, without your demanding.
Once you start seeing all that has already been given, your heart will be full of gratitude.
And that gratitude will open all the doors, all the windows. Existence is bridged by only one thing and that is gratefulness. Then miracles start happening to you. Then mysteries go on opening their doors to you. The more humble, the more simple, the more grateful, the more worthy you become -- and your worthiness has no limits.
Isaac Asimov has made a beautiful statement: "God loves all men, but is enchanted by none."
Existence loves everybody -- and a man who has disappeared as an ego, as a
personality, is nothing but a vehicle to existence. He does not love; he is love. I would like to remind you about Oscar Wilde. He says, "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
If you will see what miracles are happening around you, within you, you will respect yourself too, you will love yourself too. If the whole existence loves you, you will love yourself. And that is the only romance that knows no divorce. But it is not arrogant, it is not egoistic. That has to be remembered, because ego is a closing factor.
Arrogance divides you from existence.
To be nobody is the greatest achievement in the world. But we are living in a very insane world -- and when I say insane world, I only mean the insane humanity -- it goes on demanding and it has no gratitude for anything. Everybody thinks that he is very worthy; life is just not giving the right opportunities. One should understand in a different way.
Whatever is given, you don't even deserve that. There is no right to demand; everything is given out of abundance, not because of your right.
A woman went to her psychiatrist and said, "Doctor, I want to talk to you about my husband. He thinks he is a refrigerator."
"That's not so bad,"said the doctor, "it is a rather harmless complex."
"Well, maybe," replied the lady, "but he sleeps with his mouth open and the light keeps me awake."
We are living in such a world where you never see that you are mad. Everybody is throwing all their garbage on other people. The woman thinks that the husband is insane, and in actuality, she is insane. She believes that he is a refrigerator, and the problem is not that he is a refrigerator -- he can go to hell -- the problem is he sleeps with an open mouth and the light keeps her awake the whole night!
Always remember -- whenever you start condemning anything, remember always --
whenever you are going to complain against existence: have you made a list of what has been given to you by existence?
No! Nobody has any idea even that anything has been given. But if any small thing is missing you make so much fuss about it; that shows your insanity.
The same person is utterly blissful just because so much is available, and without asking.
He has never asked for this wonderful world and he has been given it. And he has not even thanked the universe.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
ALL THESE YEARS WITH YOU IN THE COMMUNE I DID WHAT I WAS TOLD.
NOW, IT SEEMS, IT IS ALL UP TO ME... BUT... WHO AM I TO KNOW WHAT TO
DO? BY THE WAY, I'M GERMAN.
Siegfried Deven, even without your saying I would have known you are a German!
All the dictators in the world are created by us because we want somebody else to tell us what to do. There is a very subtle reason for it: when you are told by somebody else what to do, you don't have any responsibility for whether it is right or wrong. You are free of responsibility; you don't have to think about it; you don't have to be worried about it. The whole responsibility goes to the person who is giving you the orders to do something.
People like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Ronald Reagan are not just there in their powerful positions because of any quality of theirs. They are there because millions of people want to be told what to do -- without anybody dictating to them they are at a loss.
We create the dictators.
Adolf Hitler was almost crazy, but a nation, one of the most intelligent nations in the world which has created a great tradition of philosophers, thinkers,
theologians of the first rate... Even in this century Germany has produced people like Martin Heidegger, who is perhaps this century's greatest philosopher -- but he was also a follower of Adolf Hitler.
It seems almost incomprehensible that a man of the qualities of Martin Heidegger... I have looked into all the philosophers of the world; Martin Heidegger seems to have such a genius, such a great originality in approaching things from absolutely new directions --
but he was a follower of Adolf Hitler; he supported him. I was wondering what could be the reason -- and the whole nation supported that madman. The reason is that nobody wants to have any responsibility. But the moment you lose your responsibility -- you think it is a burden, somebody else takes it -- you also lose your individuality, you also lose your freedom.
Your responsibility is not separate from your freedom, your individuality. Once you drop your responsibility on somebody else's shoulders, you have reduced yourself into a nonentity. Of course, now nobody will blame you if something goes wrong, but you have lost your soul.
People condemn the dictators, but nobody thinks what the psychology is, how dictators are created, who creates them? We are the people who create them, and we create them in the hope that they will take the responsibility. But we are not aware that with the responsibility goes our freedom, goes our individuality, goes democracy, goes freedom of thinking or expression -- everything.
We have lost our soul the moment we put our responsibility into somebody else's hands.
And there are people who enjoy to dominate, to dictate; these are insane people.
So it is a strange situation. People want to be unburdened of responsibility, and of course there are a few people who are ready to take all the responsibilities, because they are also taking all your freedom. They are taking all your rights, your very individuality; they are people whose only will is for power. They have a different kind of insanity, but it seems to be very fitting. There seems to be a certain synchronicity between the people who want to get rid of responsibility without knowing that they are getting rid of their very soul, and the other insane people, who love only one thing, power.
In the commune, you were happy... because I was not at all involved in the commune; I was in silence and isolation. And naturally, a clique took all the responsibility, and you were very happy to work twelve hours, fourteen hours a day. Even God became tired in six days. You were working seven days. You had no other time, even to think about yourself. Why did you love it? There is some psychological background to be understood...
You loved it because it helped you to forget yourself. You loved it because it helped you to be so occupied from the morning till night and then falling asleep... never finding a small gap of time just to see that your life is slipping by and you have not done anything even to be introduced to it. Death is going to knock any day on your doors, but you are not prepared -- all these worries had no time, because you were so tired. But you were happy.
Here, nobody is dictating to you.
It was all contrary to me, because I was in isolation and silence; I was not interfering in anything. The moment I started speaking, the clique that had become the dictators all escaped from the commune. They knew it perfectly that I would disturb the whole dictatorship. That dictatorship could not be continued; it was destroying people, killing them, killing their very spirituality. The whole clique disappeared immediately as I started speaking, the moment they saw that I had come into the commune, and I would not tolerate the kinds of structures that they had maintained.
I want you to be meditative; I want you to have some time to relax; I want you to have some time to think about the vital problems of life, and to do something about them.
And we have all the arrangements for meditations, for group therapies, for counseling, for all kinds of possibilities that can help you to become a spiritual giant.
The work is needed because you need food, you need clothes. So, it is good working five hours -- and that should also not be too tight. Here we are not going to create an army to conquer the world. We are creating a commune of individuals with their own spirituality, unhindered, uninterfered with. We want them to cleanse their minds, sharpen their intelligence and enter into the deepest center of their being. Those four, five hours' work is just to keep you alive so
that you can meditate, so that you can realize one day a consciousness full of light, full of joy.
Here nobody is going to tell you, Deven, what to do. I want you to find what you can do the best, what you would like to do; that which you can enjoy, which will not be a burden, which will not be imposed on you, which will be your own creativity.
I want your work also to be part of your spiritual growth; not against it, but for it. But that can come only from your own spontaneity. You have to take the responsibility on yourself.
I want individuals to be absolutely free, responsible, alert, aware, neither allowing anybody to dictate to them; nor allowing themselves to dictate to anybody. It has to be a beautiful communion. It is not based on any dictatorial ideology. It is based, basically, on ultimate freedom.
And if freedom is the ultimate goal then it should be your first step too, because only the first step will lead you to the last step. It is not possible that your whole life you are just a beast of burden, doing things that people tell you to do and then suddenly one day you will become enlightened. That is not possible.
You will have to take all the responsibility for what you are doing. And you will have to grow in your consciousness and awareness so that only the right flows through your actions, so that whatever you do beautifies the commune, helps people.
This is a gathering, not a crowd; it is a brotherhood, not a factory. Here, every individual has an equal opportunity to grow into whatsoever he wants to grow. And my whole effort is that you should not be interfered with. Naturally, you will find it difficult, but don't be stuck to your Germanhood; that is a kind of disease.
The world has suffered two world wars because of Germans. Don't be too much concerned that you may go wrong. It is always good to go wrong sometimes. Just don't go wrong again on the same point -- do something else, some new wrong. Always be in search of some novelty. Mistakes are absolutely needed for learning, but one should not commit the same mistake again.
And everybody has to be aware of it: nobody is responsible for you. And you
don't have to ask anybody's permission. Even if you commit something wrong there is a famous law, Steward's Law: It is easier to be forgiven than to get permission.
And remember another law; it is dangerous, so never follow it: It is called Jacob's Law: To err is human. To blame it on someone else is even more human.
Don't do it, ever. To err is human and to accept your responsibility is the dignity of a human being. Don't go on thinking what to do -- do something! Parkinson's Law is: Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Don't delay. Do something that seems appropriate in the situation and congenial to your spirit. And it is not that you have to go on doing continuously; doing is not the goal of life. Being is the goal of life. Doing is only to support your survival so that you can find your being. So don't wait for somebody else to tell you.
But all these centuries that man has passed through, this has been the case -- always looking to the politicians, looking to the priest; looking to neurotic-type people who proclaim themselves prophets, the son of God, messengers of God... People who don't want to take any responsibility immediately fall into their trap.
All your prophets, and all your messengers of God are so ordinary. Your holy scriptures are not even worthy to be called great literature; it is third class journalism, nothing much more. And they are bringing laws and rules and regulations for you and people have accepted all kinds of nonsense just in order not to seek and search themselves.
To avoid search, to avoid seeking, people have even avoided thinking -- somebody should do the job for them! The people who have been giving you your moral codes, your ethics, your life styles are the people who remind me of another law, Maud's Law: A conclusion is the place where you get tired of thinking. All the conclusions that your prophets have given to you are nothing but where they got tired of thinking.
Just the other night, I was looking at a beautiful story. I became interested because it was saying why Moses and all his Jews, his followers, went on wandering in the desert for forty years. So I became interested because it seemed the man was going to give some idea why. The idea suggested was that they had lost a quarter so they looked all over the desert; it took forty years. Nobody
knows whether they found the quarter or not; I don't think so.
The people you have been following are great people, great in their neuroses. This rule will explain it to you. Woop's Rule for Drinking -- they have given you ideas for everything: I always drink standing up because it is much easier to sit down when I get drunk standing up, than it is to get standing up when I get drunk sitting down.
Avoid these thinkers. They have dictated to humanity for long enough. Now, stand up on your own two legs. Remember that you are alone, there is no God, there are no messengers, and there is no dictator. You have to be decisive about your own life. It is your life and you have to live it according to your own style. Only then you can make your life a celebration; otherwise it is burdened with so many rules and regulations that you cannot dance with that much burden.
Deven, I think a few jokes may do for you. My only fear is that you are a German and whether you will get them or not, because they say that when you tell a joke to an Englishman, he laughs twice; once, just to be polite, and then in the middle of the night when he gets it. A German laughs only once, because everybody else is laughing. And if you tell a joke to a Jew, he will not laugh at all. On the contrary, he will say to you that it is an old joke and, moreover, you are telling it all wrong.
But I think being here with me for so long, you may have started getting, if not the whole joke, something of it...!
A priest and a drunken bus driver arrived at the pearly gates where they met St. Peter. "I am the village priest and would like to be admitted to heaven," said the priest.
"And I am the village bus driver and I want to come in too," said the drunk.
"Okay," said St. Peter. "You, Mr. Priest, will have to wait over there for a few years, but you Mr. Bus Driver, you can go right in."
"But wait a minute," said the priest, "I preached every Sunday in church and taught people how to pray and be good. He is nothing but a drunkard."
"Listen," said St. Peter, "when you preached everybody slept. But when he drove, everybody prayed like crazy."
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #11
Chapter title: Just be happy that your hat is back 26 August 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
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8708265
ShortTitle: INVITA11
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99
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
AM I COMING OR GOING?
Anand Surendra, the coming and going are happening simultaneously. Each moment you are dying, and each moment you are resurrecting. Each moment goes on becoming past, and past is nothing but another name of the dead. Each moment goes on bringing the future in, and the future is life. The small present moment is simply a moment of transition where death and life meet.
So your question is not so simple as you may have thought, nor is it an ordinary question.
It is concerned with our very existence; this is the way life is happening to us every moment. But we are unaware that something goes on dying in us and something goes on coming fresh and new. We are not aware -- and all this transition happens within you, within your very heart.
But because we are not aware even of the heart, we are not even aware of our interiority.
Our whole lives we are outside of ourselves -- always somewhere else, but never at the center of our being. If even for a single moment you are at the center, you will see that coming and going are happening simultaneously, that life and death are meeting each moment.
To know this is of tremendous importance. That means it will change your whole perspective -- you will not think of death as somewhere far away in the future. And you will not be afraid of it because it is happening every moment. What we usually call death is not death but simply that life stops coming in; the body is no longer worth living. Life starts looking for some other vehicle, some other medium to express itself. Death has always been coming, but because life was not going you continued to live. With every breath, you inhale life and you exhale death.
Have you ever thought about whether any man in this whole millennium has ever died during inhalation? Can anybody manage to die with inhalation?
Death will always be at one with exhalation. Inhalation is the continuation of being alive.
If you see this, then death is not somewhere far away. There is no need to fear; it is every moment with you, just like a shadow. By knowing it you will never try
to postpone living, because you cannot be certain whether in the next moment life will be coming back or not; there is no guarantee. And it is not unfortunate that there is no guarantee; it keeps you more alert, more watchful, and it keeps you more in tune with the present moment.
If things were guaranteed you might not be able to live life with surprises, with mysteries; then life and death would be simply mechanical happenings and you would be just a machine. Your always being available to life and to death makes you a living being; you are not a machine. And to be mechanical in your behavior is to reduce yourself from your dignity. That which is going, say goodbye to it, and that which is coming, welcome it with deep love and deep gratitude.
But most of the people have chosen not to live. Of course they cannot choose not to die; that is beyond them. But they can choose not to live, by living in a lukewarm way. Most of the people have given their living into others' hands; others are living on their behalf.
Slade's Law says: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy man; he will always find an easier way to do it.
And life is certainly one of the most simple and at the same time, complex phenomena.
People have distributed it: others are living for them; they are living for others. Parents are living for children. I have always felt amazed when somebody has said to me, "I am living for my wife," or "I am living for my husband," or "I am living for my children."
Nobody can live for anybody else. This is a simple mind trick to befool you; you can live only for yourself. Life on behalf of somebody else is just not possible.
That's why there are millions of people in the world, but the quantity of life is very small.
Five billion human beings, and the life is almost non-existent: there is no song, no dance; there is no joy, no love. On the contrary, people are putting their whole energy into creating more destructive forces. Anybody watching from another planet is bound to think that the planet earth has gone crazy. But it is not new, this craziness is very ancient; it has always been so.
One of the great thinkers, and a scientific thinker, Arthur Koestler, is of the opinion --
very firm opinion -- that from the very beginning something has gone wrong as far as the human mind is concerned. And unless that wrong is corrected, people are going to continue fighting, destroying each other -- any excuse is enough and people are ready to kill. My own feeling is that people are ready to kill because they don't know how to live.
If they know how to live, they will respect life, they will have a reverence for life, and killing will become impossible. War will be an impossibility for any intelligent human beings.
Our wars prove nothing else except our stupidity. What are we proving by war? Whom are we trying to conquer? It is our earth and it is one. All demarcations and lines are drawn by us; they are not on the map.
When the first Russian astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, came back from the moon -- he was the first man to have such a close look at the moon, and the first man to have such a faraway look at the earth -- he said he was amazed that in that moment he could not conceive some part of the earth as the Soviet Union, some part America, some part India, some part China; there were no parts. And the whole earth is as luminous as the moon -- it needs only distance to see the luminosity, because the sun's rays are being reflected back.
If you look from the moon, the earth looks like the moon and the moon looks like the earth. The moon does not shine on the moon. It is in our eyes from far away that the reflected rays of the sun give the light to the moon. Yuri Gagarin was not aware before this that a miracle was going to happen: the moon becomes just like the earth, and the earth becomes luminous. The earth is eight times bigger than the moon and so its light is also eight times greater. It is tremendous. It is unimaginable.
When he came back to Moscow, the people asked him, "What was the first idea in your mind when you saw the earth from the moon?"
He said, "You will have to forgive me -- I forgot completely that I am a Russian. I simply said, Àh, my beautiful earth.' Those were the first words that came into my mind."
To see a simple fact, one has to go that far? It is our beautiful earth. It belongs to no race, to no nation; it belongs to us all. But rather than using our life energies and forces, our intelligence, for rejoicing, we are working hard in manufacturing death. It seems the only function of life is to manufacture death; it is utterly absurd.
This planet has the capacity to become a paradise, but it is up to us. The poor mountains cannot do anything; the poor trees can dance in the sun, in the rain, but they cannot do anything more than that. It is man alone who can transform the whole atmosphere from death orientation to life affirmation.
And to me, the man who is life affirmative is authentically religious, not the people who go to the churches every Sunday, or the people who go to the mosques, or the people who go to the synagogues. Those people are deceiving themselves by purchasing religion very cheaply, without risking anything, without transforming themselves. They have managed to create beautiful toys to play with: statues of God, scriptures descended from heaven, messengers and prophets imagined by us... because we love the very idea that God cares and sends messengers to us.
We have believed in those messengers because of our ego. We have believed in God because of our ego: that God created man, and God created man in his own image, and God created man as the ultimate creation. After that he did not create. This is his last signature of his creativity; since that he has retired.
To me, it has a totally different meaning. Man has believed that he is created by God because that gives him a feeling of great ego: "I am no ordinary person, but a creation of God." But to me, the very idea of God is ugly, and the idea that he created man makes man just a puppet. The idea that you are created by somebody -- manufactured, maybe handmade -- takes away all dignity and all pride and all self-respect. Then you cannot have any soul of your own. Then you are certainly a mechanism and nothing more.
And moreover, you are in the hands of a whimsical God. In the first place, why did he remain silent for eternity and not create you? According to Christianity, he created man exactly four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. I presume it must have been Monday, the first of January; that is a logical conclusion. He cannot create you on any other day, because before the creation there cannot be any calendar. So whichever day he created you was the first of
January, and the first year of Our Lord!
That reminds me: One Jewish astrologer was very famous and well known for his accurate predictions. Adolf Hitler, although reluctant -- but knowing perfectly well that the man had predicted things which had come to pass, which did happen -- finally agreed to allow him to read his destiny, because his destiny was the destiny of the nation. In his eyes, his destiny was the destiny of the whole world -- and not just for one year; his idea was to have a one-thousand- year rule over the whole of humanity.
The Jewish astrologer came, studied the stars when Adolf Hitler was born, looked into his books and said, "Only one thing is certain: you will die on a Jewish holiday."
Adolf Hitler said, "It is a strange prediction; what do you mean by it? Which holiday?"
The astrologer said, "That's not certain. Only this much is certain, and this is certain because any day you die will become a Jewish holiday!"
In the same way, any day God created the world must have been the first of January; there is no other way.
And just six thousand years ago... What about before that? That's why I call him whimsical. This whimsical God remains silent for eternity -- never created anything --
and in just six days he created the whole world. And since then nothing is known about him. On the seventh day he rested -- okay, allowed. But one has to come back to the office on Monday! He never came back to the office. And moreover, it is dangerous if he returns to the office; what will he do? Now, the only thing left is to destroy. And a God who creates the world without any reason is also capable of destroying it without any reason. Neither do you have any answer to your question why you have been created, nor will you have time to ask why you have been destroyed. Because once you are destroyed, you are destroyed. Who is going to ask?
The whole idea of God creating man has taken away the beauty of life, the joy of life; it has turned you into mechanisms. I want to take God away from your life, so that you can feel yourself for the first time independent, free, not as a created
puppet but as an eternal source of life. Only then you can rejoice.
The world looks so sad, so Christian. It is not only Jesus Christ who is sad. He can be forgiven; he is a poor fellow on the cross. You don't expect that he should smile and say hello to you! But he represents almost everybody -- not only the Christians but everybody looks as if he is on the cross, the invisible cross... so serious.
Perhaps Jesus was right that everybody has to carry his cross on his shoulder. Why in the first place should everybody carry the cross? Can't you find anything else to carry? I cannot accept the idea. Nobody should carry the cross, either for yourself or for anybody else. You should not carry the cross at all. There are beautiful things to carry: you can carry a guitar. And if you like very heavy things, you can carry very heavy things: an old big-sized piano, but something beautiful, something that is worthy of an intelligent man -
- not a cross.
I see the whole humanity drowned in a sea of sadness, and the reason is that you have been conditioned to be sad. Your religions don't want you to sing and to laugh and to dance, because people who laugh and sing and dance are fundamentally of independent character. They have a certain uniqueness and individuality of their own. They are not slaves, and they will not agree to be slaves whatever the consequence. And this world only wants you to work for some vested interests, and work hard; it does not want you to waste your time in meditating, or playing on the guitar, or dancing under the stars. The vested interests will not like this idea. They would like you to be serious, sad, so that you can be enslaved easily, so that you can be purchased easily, so that you can be exploited easily.
Just think for a moment of the whole world laughing, dancing, singing -- just for one hour. All kinds of slaveries will disappear, and all nations will disappear, and all religions will disappear. Naturally, the presidents and the prime ministers and the popes and ayatollahs will look very shocked. What is happening? And they will join sooner or later, because what is the point of standing amongst the whole humanity dancing and enjoying?
And nobody even asking why, what has happened -- nobody has time, everybody is enjoying. Soon you will see the pope also in the crowd, because looking from
the outside at the rejoicing people will be so awkward, so embarrassing. There is every possibility that if Jesus were alive he would come down from the cross and start dancing, forget all about the cross and Christianity!
Who cares about God? -- only miserable people. Who goes to the churches? -- only people who are close to death, old people afraid of coldness and aloneness and darkness and the grave. And one never knows how long they will have to wait in the grave before the last judgment day comes. It is going to be a long, long wait in the grave, where you cannot even move; dancing is out of the question!
On the last judgment day I can guarantee you there is going to be no judgment, because there will be billions and billions of people: all those people who have been lying in the graves for centuries, all of you, and all the people of the future up till the last judgment day comes. The crowd is going to be so big that it is almost impossible... And remember, half of the crowd will be women; there will be so much chattering and so much searching
-- everybody is looking for his husband or his wife. I don't think that there is any possibility, particularly on that day, of any judgment. The whole idea is nonsense. In one day...! And why should these poor people wait in their graves?
So when people come close to their graves, when they feel that their one foot is in the grave, they put their other foot in the church! Who knows, maybe all these stories that have been told in the church are true, and anyway there is no harm -- why take the chance?
Before I was deported from Greece, the archbishop of Greece threatened the government that if I am not immediately deported, he is going to dynamite and set fire to my house.
And all the people who are in there with me, he is going to burn them alive. This is the representative of Jesus who says, "Love your enemy" -- I am not even a friend -- and
"Love your neighbor." He has forgotten to say, "Love the tourist."
These people are religious heads! And why was the archbishop so troubled by me?
Because in the garden of the beautiful house by the sea where I was the guest of a famous film director of Greece... It is an ancient, beautiful house, renovated, with a big garden, and under a tree I used to sit and talk to the people. And people gathered from all over the world who had not seen me for almost a year, or two years, or five years. I was close so they all had come. We were not doing any harm to anybody; we were simply singing, dancing. There was music; I was answering their questions.
What was troubling the archbishop? -- because he must have been troubled very much; otherwise nobody threatens to burn somebody alive.
The joy... people are dancing, people are loving to each other, there is nothing but rejoicing -- no prayer, no Jesus Christ, no cross. He became afraid: "This is going to destroy our younger generation."
I came to know from friends that ninety-four percent of Greeks are registered as Christians, but only four percent of the people ever go to the churches -- out of ninety-four percent! And who are the four percent? I inquired how many people this particular archbishop has in his congregation. A woman who is my sannyasin simply laughed and said, "I was worried that you would ask that question; it is very awkward. Only six old women are his whole congregation." And he was threatening for fifteen days continuously that he would bring a protest against me. I was waiting; we were all waiting to enjoy the protest. We would have welcomed them with music and dance, but they never came.
Finally I asked, "What is the matter? Every day it is being postponed."
And they said, "You don't understand his situation. He goes on making these threats, but he cannot bring a protest because who will come? -- six old women, and one old archbishop! Seven in all; it will look hilarious."
But he managed to make the government afraid, because the government depends on votes, and ninety-four percent of the people are Christian. Their archbishop has to be listened to. They may not go to the church, but still, their conditioned minds are the same.
Against the law, against the constitution, I was deported. I was arrested immediately. And they were so afraid; the government was so much afraid. I was asleep when the police came to arrest me, and my people said to them, "Come, sit down and have tea and we will wake him up."
But they said, "We are not going to wait a single minute."
And they rushed and started throwing rocks at the windows, beautiful windows of that house. John had come to wake me, and when I woke up I could not understand what was happening on the first floor. I was sleeping on the other floor.
The police had dynamite also. It almost looked as if the house was being dynamited, because they were throwing big rocks and destroying beautiful glass windows; it was so noisy. I could not see the point. I asked the man who took me into police custody, "What is the point of it all?"
He said, "I don't understand myself." The government just seemed to be absolutely afraid of the threat that the archbishop was going to burn twenty-five people who were living in my house.
I said, "For fifteen days he has continuously been threatening to bring a protest against me; that has not happened. Can't you see that a man who cannot bring a protest can neither have the guts, nor the support? Who will carry all that dynamite... those six old women?"
Even the police were sad, and they could not believe it: "We have not even seen your people in the city; they never come out. They are just enjoying themselves in the garden of your house."
Just by the side of the window at the police station where I was sitting, two women police officers were standing to prevent sannyasins from reaching me. Sannyasins had come and surrounded the whole police station, and they started dancing and singing. Now it is not criminal to dance and sing, but the police officers said to me, "Stop your people; they are dancing and singing."
I said, "Dancing and singing -- is that against any law?"
The officer said, "It is not against any law but it is making us very frightened."
Those two policewomen who were standing just by the window, to watch the window, allowed the sannyasins one by one to come and to talk to me. And finally they said to me,
"We are sorry that this is happening in this country, in this century. We hope that
you will come again."
The policewomen told me, "The people of the island where you are staying are inquiring what they should do, because everybody has felt so wounded and hurt by the behavior of the government and the archbishop."
I sent the message: "Tell them they all should come to the airport to show the archbishop just who can protest against whom!" And when I came to the airport, there were almost three thousand people; the whole airport was full of people. It was a small island; perhaps everybody from the island had come except those six women!
Religions have lost their grip over man, but not over man's unconscious. Consciously, people can see the point; it is so simple: this kind of behavior is not only inhuman, it is according to their own religion absolutely against Jesus Christ, against THE HOLY
BIBLE. But their unconscious is beyond their own power; they could not go to the archbishop to stop him, to say, "You are humiliating us, you are humiliating Jesus Christ, and your behavior is against Christianity."
Nor could the government say to the archbishop, "You should resign; you should not be in such a post. To an innocent person who has not done anything, your behavior, your constant threat -- and ugly threats, that you will burn twenty-five people alive -- is not gentlemanly, to say nothing about it not being Christian." But neither the government seems to have courage, nor the people. It is as if man has lost all his guts.
I have been around the world and my experience is that over the centuries religions have been castrating humanity; they have been destroying all your courage, all your dignity.
You have become so accustomed to being a slave that you cannot revolt. And that's what is needed, urgently needed, that the whole of humanity revolts against all limits and boundaries, prisons and chains.
I came across a statement of Karl Marx; I don't agree with him, but with this statement it is impossible to disagree. He says that all the religions have put flowers on your chains.
So you see only the flowers, you don't see the chains.
Throw away all the flowers and throw away all the chains. Only then will you be able to have a heart of your own, an individuality, and existence can become full of laughter. We are not here to be unnecessarily miserable, but it seems we are trained, so well trained to be miserable that even if there is an opportunity we will miss it.
In Bali there is an old saying: If you are happy you can always learn to dance. But basically man is not happy. He is so unhappy that just to forget his unhappiness he goes on drinking alcoholic beverages, uses drugs -- marijuana, hashish and opium -- just to forget, at least for a few hours, his miserable state.
And there is no reason at all to be miserable. In fact, misery should be very exceptional; happiness should be simply natural. You should not ask anybody, "Why are you looking happy?" But this is the situation. If you are looking happy and smiling and enjoying yourself, everybody will look, stare at you, as if something has gone wrong: What has happened to this poor fellow? Why is he smiling and enjoying? -- there seems to be no reason. And somebody is bound to ask, "What is the matter?" Some policeman is going to come asking, "Why are you creating this crowd in the traffic? Why are you smiling?
Why are you dancing?"
Is it necessary to show some cause to be healthy and happy? But nobody asks anybody who is miserable; nobody even stops to look at him. To be miserable is accepted as our natural state. There is no need to inquire about any cause, about any reason. If you think about it, you will not believe to what an insane state man has fallen.
A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have some bad news and some worse news," says the doctor. "The bad news is that you have only twenty-four hours to live."
"Ah, no!" says the patient, "What could possibly be worse than that?" The doctor answers, "I have been trying to reach you since yesterday!"
Man cannot fall into a worse state. But he has fallen; he has forgotten the laughter every child is born with; he has lost his way to health and wholeness.
The door opens right this very moment -- always herenow, where life and death are continuously meeting. You have chosen death orientation because it was in the interests of those who are in power, and you have forgotten that life is passing by while you are being drowned in sadness.
Once Confucius was asked by a disciple how to be happy, how to be blissful. Confucius said, "You are asking a strange question; these things are natural. No rose asks how to be a rose." As far as sadness and misery are concerned, you will have enough time in your grave; then you can be miserable to your heart's content. But while you are alive, be totally alive. Out of this totality and intensity will arise happiness, and a happy man certainly learns to dance. I agree with the old Bali proverb.
We want the whole of humanity to be happy, and to be dancing, and to be singing. Then this whole planet becomes mature, evolves in consciousness. A sad man, a miserable man, cannot have a very sharp consciousness; his consciousness is dim, dull, heavy, dark.
Only when you laugh heartily, suddenly like a flash all darkness disappears. In your laughter you are your authentic self.
In your sadness you have covered your original face with a fake identity that the society expects of you. Nobody wants you to be so happy that you start dancing in the street.
Nobody wants you to have a hearty laughter; otherwise the neighbors will start knocking on your walls, "Stop. Misery is okay; laughter is a disturbance." Miserable people cannot tolerate anybody who is not miserable.
The only crime of people like Socrates was that they were immensely happy people, and their happiness created immense envy in the great masses which are living in misery. The masses could not tolerate such happy people; they have to be destroyed because they provoke inside you a possibility of revolt, and you are afraid of that revolt.
Once a man falls in love with rebellion, he is on the right path. An old Russian story...
The people of Chelm were terrible worriers; they even worried about how much they worried. So the mayor and the rabbi appointed Ira the candlemaker to do all the worrying for the people of Chelm. And for this he would earn four rubles a week.
The scheme did not work because Ira went home to Ruth and said, "Wonderful, I have got four rubles a week; we have nothing to worry about!" Naturally, he was thrown out from his employment -- that was the reason that he was going to get four rubles a week, so that he could worry for the whole town. But he forgot completely... just the joy of having four rubles a week for nothing. Naturally, he said, "Now there is nothing to worry about." But that's how he lost his job!
Paddy was feeling under the weather, so he went to see his doctor. "I just can't find any cause for your illness," said the physician. "Frankly, I think it is due to drinking."
"In that case," replied Paddy, getting up to leave, "I will come back when you are sober!"
"All right," said the psychiatrist, "tell me why you hate your sister so much." "But I don't have a sister," said Hymie Goldberg.
"Look," said the psychiatrist, "if you want me to help you, you have got to cooperate!
You can't say that you don't have a sister."
His psychoanalysis can't start if you don't have a sister! And certainly, your cooperation is needed. This is the world; it can't be worse.
Question 2 BELOVED MASTER,
PLEASE, HOW CAN I FALL INTO A DEEP ACCEPTANCE OF, "I DON'T KNOW"?
I DON'T KNOW. MY GOD! I DON'T KNOW MYSELF! I AM SEARCHING...!
Prem Anna, there is no need to fall into a deep acceptance of "I don't know." Either you know or you don't know. There is no question of acceptance. If you know, it is perfectly good; if you don't know, it is even better! Why are you making a problem out of it? If you don't know, it is perfectly okay I think, with everybody here... no objection! It is the most beautiful state.
Not knowing is the ultimate state of wisdom.
Socrates said in his last statement, "I know nothing." And he had to say this because the Oracle of Delphi had declared that Socrates was the wisest man in the whole world. The people who heard the Oracle rushed towards Socrates just to inform him, "The Oracle of Delphi has declared you the wisest man in the world." And Socrates said, "I am sorry to disagree, because I know nothing."
The people were shocked; they were thinking that they were bringing good news. They went back and asked the Oracle, "What is the matter? You declare Socrates the wisest man in the world, and when we inform him, he says, Ì know nothing.' There must have been some mistake."
And the Oracle said, "I have declared him the wisest man because he knows nothing; he has become an innocent child, clear and pure."
Knowledge is a kind of disturbance in your innocence. It is a burden, it does not help you; it simply makes you more and more puzzled, worried -- doubts arise. And you think gathering more and more knowledge is going to help? It does not help; It simply makes you more tense. What ultimately helps is dropping all knowledge. But if in the very beginning you feel, "I don't know," you are blessed
-- enjoy it.
It is not a question of acceptance, because acceptance does not mean enjoying it. You may +accept something with reluctance; you may accept it because there is nothing else to do. No, rejoice in your not knowing; make it innocence. Don't say, "not knowing,"
because that is a negative idea. That's why it has become a problem how to accept it. Call it innocence and there will be no problem of acceptance. You will rejoice it, you will dance it, you will sing it.
Prem Anna, have you heard this?
Hymie Goldberg, who only weighs seventy pounds, goes to Texas on business. He checks into a hotel which is fifty storeys high, and is shown into a suite the size of a ballroom. Overwhelmed, he goes down to the bar and is served a drink that is so big it takes both hands to lift. "Everything is big in Texas, pal," says the bartender. When his dinner arrives, the plate is the size of his dining room table at home. "Hey pal, everything is big in Texas," says the waiter.
Finally, overcome by all this, Hymie decides it is time to go and try out his super-king-size bed, but he loses his way in the hotel's vast corridors. Opening the door of a darkened room, Hymie falls into the swimming pool with a great splash. When he comes to the surface, he begins to shriek, "Don't flush it!!! Don't flush it!!!"
Naturally he was thinking that this must be a toilet, everything is so big.
Prem Anna, just enjoy life. And you can enjoy life more when you know nothing. The more you know, the less is the possibility of enjoying life. I have never seen knowledgeable people even laughing; it is below them. Laughter is one of the greatest qualities of the evolved intelligence of humanity, because except man, nobody else laughs in the whole of existence. And to think laughter below you is to forget that it is the highest peak of consciousness.
A man was drowning in a river and was shouting for help, saying, "I can't swim, I can't swim!"
"So what?" shouted back a drunk from the bank, "I can't play the piano, but I'm not shouting about it!"
Wishing to surprise her husband with a new wig she had just bought, the wife put it on and strolled unannounced into his office. "Do you think you could find a place in your life for a woman like me?" she asked sexily.
"Not a chance," he replied, "you remind me too much of my wife!"
So, Prem Anna, don't be worried about your ignorance, just learn to call it innocence.
Always use right words, words which are life affirmative, which don't condemn you.
Then the idea of how to accept it does not arise. And if you have to accept something, you cannot rejoice about it; it can be only out of compulsion, out of necessity. I don't want anybody to live a life of compulsion or a life of necessity. One should live a life of abundance, a life of innocence, a life out of freedom of the heart. Innocence is a great quality; don't call it ignorance.
The priest has just finished his sermon on charity, and so passes his hat around for donations. The hat goes around the whole congregation and then comes back to him as empty as when he sent it out.
The priest looks inside, then shrugs and looks up to heaven and says, "Thank you Lord for small mercies. At least I got my hat back!"
In such situations, rejoice! There is no point in complaining or making a fuss about it; just be happy that your hat is back!
As far as I am concerned, innocence has not to be accepted, it has to be relished, danced, rejoiced -- it is a blessing.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #12
Chapter title: A meditator needs no personal guidance 27 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive
code: 8708270
ShortTitle: INVITA12
Audio:
Yes Video:
Yes Length:
110
mins Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE BEEN YOUR SANNYASIN FOR SEVEN YEARS AND I AM UNABLE TO
EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE, AS IT GAVE MY LIFE DIRECTION AND JOY AND
GRACE AND MORE.
NOW, BEING HERE FOR ONLY ONE WEEK, I REALIZE THAT I HAVE ALWAYS
HAD A NEED FOR PERSONAL GUIDANCE FROM SOMEBODY TUNING INTO
ME AND MY QUESTIONS. THIS STRONG NEED WAS ONLY REINFORCED
DURING A COUNSELING SESSION TODAY, HERE. BELOVED MASTER, WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?
Satyam Robert, the way you are growing in silence, in your meditations, in your grace, and the way the gratitude is coming to you, you don't need any personal
guidance. You need to be more and more open to the impersonal existence. The idea of personal guidance is mind's old habit to become dependent on someone; and I am struggling hard against your habits.
The whole existence is available to guide you -- and you are now in a position to be in direct contact with the universe. As your gratitude deepens, as your grace becomes more and more clear, as your silence becomes more and more rooted in you -- it is the universe itself which takes you into its own hands. Those hands are invisible, but they are there; you are not orphans in the universe. You are immensely needed and loved, you are just not aware of it.
My own suggestion is to drop the idea of personal guidance, because anybody will try to guide you according to his mind, according to his ideas of how you should be. That's what all the teachers of the world have been doing: imposing their idea, their image on people who are searching and seeking guidance. It is one of the most dangerous games to play, because in it you are always the loser. If the teacher succeeds in imposing certain directions, certain patterns, disciplines, according to me it is not guidance; it is misguidance. Because nobody knows your unique self -- only you can know it. And you have to grow according to your nature, not according to anybody's guidance.
To me, to be natural, to be spontaneous is enough. All guides have been misguides. And you can see it: the whole universe of humanity is living in tremendous misguidance.
Otherwise why should there be so much insanity? Why there should be so much misery, so much agony and spiritual suffering? The reason is that nobody has been allowed to be just himself, his natural being.
Your so-called religions don't trust nature; they trust in holy scriptures; they trust in dead words spoken thousands of years before by people we do not know. Whether they knew anything, or they were just creating fictions... unless you know, you can never be certain.
But they are molding you according to patterns created in the past. This process of molding people into Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Buddhists, goes against the very basic human right; it does not allow you to be your natural self. And unless you are yourself, you cannot be happy.
Just think, if there were teachers teaching roses that they have to become
lotuses...
Fortunately, roses don't care about teachers and religions and churches. But just think for a moment: if people were there who were telling the roses to be lotuses, the marigolds to be roses, what would be the ultimate outcome of it?
Roses would try to become lotuses, which they can never become; it is not their self-nature. They can only be roses, beautiful, immensely graceful, fragrant. But if this idea of being somebody other than what their nature is, is imposed on them, two things will happen: they will never become lotuses, but their whole energy will be wasted in trying to become lotuses. And the second thing is they will not be roses either, because from where will they find the energy to be roses? That whole energy is making an effort for the impossible.
Actually the same has happened with humanity. Everybody is giving you an idea; everybody is ready to tell you how you should be.
All "shoulds" and all "should nots" have to be abandoned. You simply have to listen to your own inner voice. And wherever it leads, just go without bothering whether people think it is right or wrong.
If you can become just your own self, if you can blossom into your intrinsic nature, then only you will have blissfulness -- a peace which cannot be expressed in words, and a certain poetry to your being; a certain dance to your being, because you will be in tune with existence. To be in tune with yourself is the only way to be in tune with existence.
Nobody needs personal guidance, because all personal guidance is a beautiful name for dependence on somebody and he is going to distort you.
I don't give you any discipline -- I don't tell you, you should be this or that. I simply say you should become silent, so that you can listen to your still, small voice. That is your real guide; the guide is within you. I know hundreds of psychoanalysts, psychologists, so-called counselors. They are burdened with all kinds of problems, but they have just learned the technique, either from education or from the libraries. And they go on advising -- to advise is so simple. In their own lives they are not what they are advising.
If you watch the life, as I have watched very closely the life of people like Sigmund Freud -- the topmost counselors in the world: Karl Gustav Jung, Alfred
Adler, Assagioli -
- I have been simply shocked to see that these people have become the guides to millions of people.
I remember one small incident...
Wilhelm Reich, as a young psychoanalyst, was deeply interested to meet Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. He had read in the universities and he was a genius, perhaps of a far greater quality than Sigmund Freud himself. Sigmund Freud was in his old age, just the last years, and this Wilhelm Reich was asking again and again for an appointment. Finally he got the appointment. And the way Sigmund Freud treated him is so inhuman, just because he was a young man, fresh from the university.
He had come with some significant questions, and he had created in his own mind a great image of Sigmund Freud, naturally. He asked, "I have come from far away to inquire a few things: One, you insist that unless a man is psychoanalyzed, completely psychoanalyzed, he will never be out of confusion and misery. Can you show me a man who has been completely analyzed, so I can just meet him and see what a completely clear man would be like? I have read about it, but I don't have any personal experience of meeting somebody who is beyond confusion and is pure clarity."
Sigmund Freud became angry, and he said, "What kind of nonsense... psychoanalysis is not a simple thing. It takes decades for anybody to become completely psychoanalyzed."
Reich was shocked, but he said, "You have been working your whole life. Have you psychoanalyzed any person completely, so that I can go and see the person? Because other than that there is no proof that what you are saying has any significance as far as science is concerned." And seeing Sigmund Freud getting angry... because Sigmund Freud was not accustomed to such questions, he was surrounded with cronies, yea-sayers.
Whatever nonsense he would say, they would say that it was a great truth. Seeing Sigmund Freud getting so angry, Reich said, "Drop that subject. I want to know whether you have been psychoanalyzed totally or not." And Sigmund Freud had to tell him, "Get out! And never again try to come to me; you don't know how to behave."
The reality is that all his life Sigmund Freud was being asked by his colleagues again and again, "Just as you psychoanalyze us, now we know the technique, why don't you get psychoanalyzed, by any of us you choose? We would like to have a look into your inner world of dreams, imaginations, desires, to see whether what you claim to be absolute clarity, peace, integrity is there inside you or not?"
He refused continuously; he never allowed himself to be psychoanalyzed, and he is the founder of psychoanalysis. Why was he so afraid to be psychoanalyzed? He knew perfectly well that it is easy to advise others, but it is difficult to transform yourself. He was suffering from ordinary human problems, the same tensions, the same misery, the same repressions, the same inhibitions, the same taboos. And he was afraid to open up his dream world because that would show things which would be a proof that although he was the founder, he himself was not what he was trying for the whole of humanity to be.
The same is the situation today. Psychoanalysts themselves once in a while go to another psychoanalyst to be psychoanalyzed, because they have become too burdened with problems. It is such a stupid game.
If Gautam Buddha says anything about meditation it is his own experience, not just a theoretical, intellectual formulation. If he says something about the inner light, he has seen it. If he says it is possible to go beyond mind, he has gone beyond mind, only then he says it. And the people who watched him for forty- two years continuously never found any flaw, never found him at any time angry, at any time miserable, at any time sad. One cannot pretend for forty-two years continuously; one needs holidays! Even to pretend for a few hours to be what you are not is such a tension and such a burden that you are going to drop it and expose yourself at the slightest excuse.
This is the difference between the Western psychoanalytic movement and the Eastern movement for meditation.
I have told you a Sufi story...
A woman was very much impressed by a Sufi mystic, and she was very worried about her only son. She was living for him; the father was dead. That boy was her life, and she wanted him to become something.
The boy was too attached to eating sweets and all kinds of junk. She tried hard;
everybody, the teachers, the priests all tried, but the boy was absolutely indifferent to their advice; he continued to eat sweets.
He was the only son, so finally the mother would relax and would give him what he wanted; otherwise, he would remain hungry. But he would not eat anything that he did not want to eat; he would eat only things that he wanted to eat. And those were things which were not healthy, which were not nourishing, which could create problems later in his life.
The Sufi mystic had come wandering into the village, and the woman thought it was a good chance. That man has such a tremendous and powerful aura around him, perhaps he may be able to change this stupid boy's mind. She took the boy... she had been taking him to anybody who could help; it had become almost a routine thing. The boy went there very reluctantly, very resistant; it had become almost a question of his own self-respect.
When the woman told the Sufi master about the situation, he said, "You will have to forgive me. Right now I cannot say a single word to this beautiful boy. I am old, I am seventy years, but it will take at least two weeks for me to be able to say something to him."
The woman could not believe him. Anybody, any idiot was ready to advise. And a great mystic followed by many many people, says to the boy, "You will have to forgive me; you came and I cannot advise you right now. You will have to give me two weeks at least."
The boy for the first time dropped his reluctance, his resistance. For the first time he was respected, he was accepted as a dignified human being; he was not condemned out of hand. And the old man was really concerned, he wanted to give him some advice which would be of importance; he needed at least two weeks' time. The mother was absolutely shocked, could not believe that this great mystic cannot advise a small boy right now on such a trivial matter. But what to do? They had to wait two weeks.
After two weeks she came again. This time the boy came very joyously. In fact, he was very eager about how fast the days were moving, and he was counting because he wanted to see the mystic again. "He is a totally different man from all other men you have taken me to." The woman was surprised because the boy was always resistant, reluctant. He went against his will, was forced to go -- and
this time he is so eager! He cannot wait for two weeks; those two weeks look like two years.
Finally the day came, and in the early morning the boy took a shower, changed his clothes, got ready. The mother said, "What is the hurry?"
He said, "I want to see the man. He is the only man that I have felt respects others."
Otherwise, advising others is a kind of humiliation; it is saying: I know and you do not know. I am the guide and you are the guided. I am the teacher and you are the taught. It is enjoying a certain egotism at the cost of humiliating the other person.
They went, and the woman first asked, "Before I ask about the boy, I want to know why it took two weeks for you -- is it such a great philosophical problem?"
The mystic said, "If it were a philosophical problem I would have answered immediately; it is an existential problem. I am seventy years old; he is just seven years old. I have lived ten times more than the boy, still I love to eat sweets. And as long as I myself eat sweets I cannot say anything. These two weeks I tried not to eat sweets, and to see what happens.
My advice will depend on my own experience, not just on the common opinion that sweets are bad. They may be bad, but if I cannot drop them at seventy years of age, to expect a small boy to drop them... I cannot advise that."
The boy was immensely impressed. A man at this age tortured himself for two weeks?
And he said to the boy, "My son, it is very difficult. I managed to drop sweets, and I have managed now for the rest of my life -- but to advise you I feel a little shaky. You are so young. To drop sweets if you love them will be arduous, and to impose this idea on you I will be almost being violent and violating your individual right. So all that I can say is, it is good and it is healthy, but it is very difficult. It is a challenge. You can choose whether you are ready to take the challenge. I have dropped them for the rest of my life; only now have I the authority to say to you that you can also drop. But it is certainly a difficult thing. Are you ready for a challenge, an adventure?"
The boy said, "I drop them right now, and for my whole life. If you can drop them, why can't I drop them? And you are so old; I am so young. You are getting weaker; I am getting stronger. I can take the challenge; you don't feel worried about it."
The mother could not believe what is happening: it is a miracle. The boy is persuading the old man, "I will be able."
The old man said, "My feeling is, you should also think about it for two weeks, try..."
The boy said, "No. I am dropping them right now in your presence, with your blessings."
The people you go to for personal counseling are in the same boat in which you are; they have the same problems. Here, I have all kinds of psychotherapists, and they are good at their work technically. They know how to help people, but they don't know how to help themselves. They write their problems to me, and they are the same problems for which they are known to be good counselors, good therapists. To know something technically is one thing, and to know something existentially, experientially, is another thing.
As far as you are concerned, you are already moving on the right path. These are good symptoms that you are feeling a sense of direction, joy, grace, and more; these are indications that you are on the right path -- you don't need any personal counseling. You need to be yourself more and more, more integrated, more natural, more spontaneous.
You have found the path, now anybody else can disturb it. It is possible that you may go to a counselor who has not even grown as much as you, but he is very knowledgeable.
His expertise is great; he can talk about things and distract you from the path.
A meditator needs no personal guidance. A meditator, on the contrary, needs only one thing: the atmosphere of meditation. He needs other meditators; he needs to be surrounded by other meditators. Because whatever goes on happening within us is not only within us, it affects people who are close by. In this communion people are at different stages of meditation. To meditate with these people, just to sit silently with these people, and you will be pulled more
and more towards your own intrinsic potentiality.
I don't want you to become somebody else, a Gautam Buddha or a Jesus Christ. I want you to become just yourself, anonymous, nobody special, but blissful. And you are already on the right path. You have taken a few steps; now just go on moving, trusting yourself, and on each step your confidence will become deeper.
Never ask for advice, because everybody is so unique and so different that there has never been any person like you before, nor is there going to be another person like you again. So really, no guidelines for you exist. But existence is greatly compassionate. It has given you the whole program of your life in a seed form. If you don't ask anybody, and just silently listen to your own heart and go on following it, you will reach the space where you can feel at home; where suddenly you realize who you are, where suddenly you feel a synchronicity with the whole existence.
All that is natural, the trees, the clouds, the mountains, the oceans, with all of them you will find a certain harmony. You will not find harmony with machines, big and great computers, factories, automobiles, railway trains. You may not find any harmony... there is no question, because these are heartless, lifeless things. They don't know how to sing; they don't know how to dance. Have you seen any computer dancing? Have you heard of any computer falling in love with a woman computer? Only machines will be left out.
With all that is natural and all that grows, all that blossoms, all that moves and breathes, all that has a heartbeat, you will find a tremendous harmony. Your heartbeat will be merging and melting into the universal heartbeat -- no personal counseling.
I am not a counselor. Never even for a single moment in my life have I thought that somebody should be according to my ideas. I share my ideas, I share my experiences --
not so that you should become a certain ideal; I share with you as fellow travelers. It may harmonize with you. You may find that it comes suddenly to your awareness that this is very natural for you; that you were not aware of it, you have become aware. But it is not my idea then. It is your own idea of which you have not been aware. I share my ideas with you, not to make you into certain prototypes, but to give you an insight into your own nature.
I know myself, I know my nature; I know that all my well-wishers, my parents, my teachers, my professors, my friends, have tried their hardest to make me something else.
And I am immensely grateful to existence that I never listened to anybody; I simply went on following my own inner voice. Whether it leads me into hell or into heaven I have not cared, because my feeling is that if my nature leads me into hell then perhaps that is the place where I belong. In heaven I will be an outsider, I will feel unfit.
Wherever my nature leads is the place that can give me the feeling of joy and the feeling that life has tremendous meaning, that it has great splendor; that it is a miracle just to breathe in and breathe out; that nothing can be more perfect if you reach to the climax of your own nature.
Avoid advisers -- because they are so available all around that whether you ask their advice or not they will give it. People love to give advice; it has a certain joy. People would love to create their own carbon copies, and they will feel very happy that they are the original and everybody is just at the most a true copy.
You have your own originality.
It is better to remember it always. Never go against your inner feelings.
Very few people in the world have come to the flowering, and the reason is that very few people have been rebellious enough against the so-called advisers. Very few people have dared to find their path and have not followed the superhighway where everybody is going. But those are the few people who have helped humanity, its whole evolution, its whole intelligence. Just take away those few people and man will be back to where Darwin thinks he started growing to be a human being.
The crowd must have laughed at that time also. When a monkey came down from the trees and stood on the ground on his two feet, the whole crowd of monkeys must have laughed, giggled: "Look at that character! Look at that fool who is going against tradition, against our forefathers, against our religion, against our race." But they must have condemned that monkey who rebelled against the whole culture of the monkeys, their civilization; they must have said,
"You have fallen down." Naturally, he has fallen down from the trees. And as time passed, he must have become weaker. Monkeys are far stronger than you are; they have to be, they are doing continuous exercise jumping from one tree to another. You have to do something else; you cannot do that kind of jumping now. You are not capable; your body has changed completely.
But the first monkey who came down must have been a genius, must have wanted to explore life on his own rather than with the crowd and the mob. Other monkeys are still hanging on the trees -- they are traditional people! They believe in their ancestors, they believe in their golden past and they don't want to change. To change, one needs courage
-- and to be alone, and to make your path. And make your path by walking it; don't look for a ready-made path. It may have served somebody else but it was not made for you.
If one remembers some self-respect and dignity of his own being, then there is no need of anybody to teach you, to help you. You are born as a complete being, with all the potential. You just have to work on your potential and you will find the goal.
Leo Tolstoy is reported to have said -- and before I quote him, I have to give you the background.…
He had the most miserable life possible. He was born in a super-rich family, a distant cousin to the royalty. He himself was a count; his wife was a countess. Both families were within the ten topmost families of Russia, but he was utterly miserable. He could not manage to live his life with his family, with his wife, and the reason was simply that both were of totally different natures. The wife could not even look at him. To him the way he was behaving was saintly. He used rotten clothes the way beggars do, old secondhand shoes, and lived in a way only a beggar is supposed to live. Naturally, the wife could not tolerate him. She has lived like a queen, and she was one of the richest women in Russia.
But Leo Tolstoy was a Gandhian, you will be surprised to know. Although Gandhi came later, in the last days of Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and he had written a few letters to each other. And Mahatma Gandhi declared that he has been under three masters; one is Leo Tolstoy, another is Henry Thoreau, and the third is a Jaina monk, Shrimad Rajchandra. These three people impressed
Mahatma Gandhi.
Mahatma Gandhi was working in South Africa but he was very much impressed by the lifestyle of Leo Tolstoy. His wife was so angry that they were not even talking to each other. Talking meant always a fight. They had different natures. Tolstoy was trying hard to make his wife live a simple life, the life of poverty because, "blessed are the poor." He was a fanatical follower of Jesus Christ. Literally, he was living a poor life -- and the wife was feeling absolute repugnance. She wanted him to live like a prince, as he really was.
They quarreled their whole lives, both trying to make the other be according to his ideas, or her ideas. This is an extreme case, but this is the story of all families: nobody is allowed to be himself -- people go on manipulating.
Maneesha is writing a book about her experiences with me. Just the other day I heard that her mother from Melbourne, Australia, has written a very angry letter, "First you made me condemned by the Christian society here in Melbourne, and now you are trying to write a book, I hear. That means you would expose it to the whole world, and particularly in Melbourne where I will have to suffer."
And it is not any exception. Devageet has received a letter from his mother saying, "Stop writing the book," because he is also writing a book. Now these poor mothers are in great anxiety. What are these people going to write about them? -- that must be a deep fear.
Secondly, they will expose that Christianity is no longer relevant, that something new, something basically discontinuous with the past is needed. And that's what sannyas is. So they must be afraid of the crowd, of the church, of the congregation, of the priest; what they will say: "Look what your son has done," or "Look what your daughter has done.
You did not bring them up rightly; they have gone astray."
Everybody is concerned that everybody else should not go astray. And what do they mean by astray? You should not go in a different direction than they are going. And you know their whole life is misery, you know their whole mind is full of anxiety and agony; you have never seen them joyous. You have never felt a deep harmoniousness with your own parents. And they have tried in every way
-- in your helplessness, because every child is helpless -- to force you onto the way that they think is right.
But their whole life proves that they are not right. If their life was a life of joy and songs and celebrations, the children would have followed without any punishment, without any harassment, without any torture. And now Maneesha and Devageet are not small children; they have their lives, they have their lifestyle and they want to share it with the whole world. Why should their mothers be so concerned? What is the fear?
Leo Tolstoy says, "All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I cannot agree with him; I would rather change the whole statement to the contrary: All unhappy families resemble one another, but each happy family is happy in its own way.
And the same is true about individuals: All unhappy individuals resemble each other; only happy individuals have a uniqueness. Happiness, growing towards blissfulness, makes you unique in a world which is full of misery.
Always remember, the whole effort of psychoanalysis and other therapies, and other so-called wise men is nothing but to help you remain normal, to help you remain part of the crowd. The moment you try to become an individual you will be condemned, because five billion people cannot be wrong -- although they are suffering in hell. But the number is never decisive about truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson has made a statement: "To be great is to be misunderstood."
I knew one very beautiful man...
There were only two men in India who were respected so highly as to be called Mahatma; Mahatma means the great soul. One was Mahatma Gandhi and another was Mahatma Bhagwandin. I was very much interested in Mahatma Bhagwandin, just as he was very loving towards me. I was a small child when we became friends, because he had stayed with my family. He had come to deliver some lectures in the town, and we used to go for morning walks together. By and by, we forgot completely that he is very ancient, old. We started arguing and discussing.
It was just by coincidence that he was on his deathbed in Nagpur and I was coming from Wardha, from a lecture tour. Somebody in the train told me, "Mahatma Bhagwandin is very very sick, and there seems to be no possibility that he will survive more than a week." So I stopped at Nagpur and went to see
him.
He was almost dead; he had become absolutely like a skeleton. He opened his eyes and he took my hand in his hand, and he said, "I am worried about you, that you will be misunderstood your whole life. There is still time for you to agree with the masses, whether they are right or wrong." And he was saying it out of compassion. He said,
"Because I have suffered my whole life, and I have been condemned, I don't want you to be condemned."
I said, "Do you want me to be a hypocrite and respectable? Do you want me to be something other than my nature allows me?"
He said, "I knew you would argue, and I know that you are right. It is just a fatherly feeling; I have suffered my whole life because I always was in favor of unpopular movements, unpopular ideologies... and you are far more dangerous, you are against everybody."
I said, "I have to be against everybody. I have to be just myself. And anybody who wants to pull me in some other direction is not my friend." I said, "I understand your love, but you should also understand my situation. I would rather be condemned by the whole world than go against my nature. Because who cares about the world? They cannot bring me the truth; they cannot bring me the meaning; they cannot bring me the significance.
What can they give to me? -- respectability, honor? And what am I going to do with respectability and honor? Those are all bogus words used to cheat people. I simply want to be nobody; I am going to stick to myself. And this is my promise to you as you are dying. Remember my words even when you are dead, that I will..."
He said, "I knew you wouldn't listen. And I am happy that you are absolutely determined." He had tears of joy in his eyes -- not of sadness, joy. He said, "If you had agreed with me, I would have felt very sad that the world has lost another individual. But you don't agree with me, even when you see I am dying. In such a situation anybody will say, just to be polite, `Yes, whatever you say I will do.' Even in such a situation you are not ready to accept. I can die joyfully because I have loved you and I have watched how you are growing -- of course with a concern that you will be condemned by religions, by governments, by
masses."
But what about all your psychotherapists, your leaders, your teachers, your universities --
what is their function? Their function is to keep you within the fold; to keep you just a sheep amongst the crowd of sheep and never allow you to be yourself. They are all angry with me for telling this to young people who have not yet died
-- because people mostly die nearabout thirty years of age, that is average. And then they are buried when they are seventy. That is almost forty years that people live a posthumous life; they have died long before.
The day you decide that it is better to be a hypocrite and just do whatever everybody else is doing and not be different, you have died -- you have committed suicide.
My whole teaching is:
Don't commit spiritual suicide.
You don't need anybody else to guide you, because whoever guides you will guide you wrongly. He cannot know your nature and he cannot look into your future. He has no eyes, and there is no possibility. How can you see in a seed the flowers that will come one day years after? All that can be done is that the seed should be given a right soil --
not right advice. Not that you have to be a lotus, or you have to be a rose.
Care should be taken that the seed is not destroyed, that when small leaves start growing out of it, they are not destroyed. That's the function of the master: not to guide you but just to protect you when you need protection, when you are so fragile, so new. Just growing, the new leaves coming out of the earth, entering into an unknown world where strong winds blow, heavy rain falls, there is every possibility that you may be destroyed.
The function of the master is not to lead you. The function of the master is to help you, to protect you, but only to the moment when you can stand on your own. Then slowly, slowly detach himself from you so that you can dance alone in the sky under the stars in your full glory.
Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe has made a beautiful statement: "All theory, dear friend is grey. But the golden tree of actual life springs ever green."
Avoid theories; they are all grey.
Let the dead people discuss theories.
The living have something more golden, something more alive. They have to love; they have to meditate. They have to become enlightened before death knocks on their doors.
Also remember that life is not the way it is lived in California! California is almost a vast crazy place where people are going from one master to another master, just like any fashion. Just as they change their toothpaste, they change their masters. Just as they change their soaps, they change their teachers, their counselors, their psychoanalysts.
Oscar Wilde used to say, "Fashion is a form of ugliness, so intolerable that we have to change it every six months." There is no need.
Just the other day, I received a letter from a sannyasin saying that he is going to a teacher; has he my blessings?... can he go? People are in a strange situation; they want to ride on many boats. They are creating their life in such a way that it will be a disaster. If you are growing well... and he writes that his meditation is going well, he is starting to see things that have so far been only words. Now at this fragile moment, going to somebody is dangerous. But if I say, "Don't go," I interfere. And I would not like to interfere, even if you are going wrong.
So I have informed him: I cannot bless because I don't know to whom you are going, but you are intelligent enough. If you feel that the person is going in some way to nourish your growth, which is going perfectly right even according to you -- you are feeling that you are absolutely on the right path, that misery is disappearing, that suffering is disappearing, that you are no more worried; that a kind of playfulness, weightlessness is arising -- if you are aware of all this... Remember, that if anybody can be of nourishment, it is perfectly good to go.
But in fact, there is no need to go anywhere, you are going so right. Go more deeply into it, rather than going sideways.
Go straight like an arrow.
Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SILENCE AND
BLISSFULNESS? IS SILENCE ALL THAT IS NEEDED? DOES EVERYTHING
ELSE FOLLOW?
Prem Samarpan, there is no relationship between silence and blissfulness; they are two names of the same thing.
Silence is blissfulness, not in the dictionaries, but in actual experience. And I don't see that in actual experience it can be different to different people. As you become silent, you cannot be worried, you cannot be tense; you cannot be miserable, you cannot be noisy, you cannot be chattering continuously. Otherwise, how can you be silent?
And when all these stupid activities are gone, silence simply clears the ground for blissfulness to be discovered. They are almost the same phenomenon because they happen simultaneously. As you become silent, a certain sweetness, a certain fragrance, a certain beatitude spontaneously arises in you.
But your silence should not be a repressed stillness; you should not be silent by force. If you are silent by force, if you have repressed your mind then rather than doing meditation you are doing gymnastics, fighting with the mind. It is possible you can force the mind to be silent, but then there will be no blissfulness. There will be just emptiness and a silence of the graveyard, not the silence of the garden; something empty, not something overflowing.
The silence that comes out of meditation is not an empty experience, it is very positive --
it is overflowingly positive. And what is there to overflow in silence except blissfulness?
So, please check. If your silence is not bringing blissfulness then you are trying to have a wrong kind of silence -- blissfulness is the criterion -- then stop doing
what you are trying to do.
In meditation, silence comes on its own accord. You simply go on watching the mind without any control, without any repression, and silence comes suddenly just like a breeze, and with the silence, the fragrance of the flowers -- that is your blissfulness; it is your own fragrance which you were not capable of knowing because there was so much noise.
The mind was creating so much fuss, thoughts were creating so many dark clouds, emotions and moods, it had become a thick barrier between you and your real self. When the barrier is removed, it is as if you have removed a rock which was preventing a stream, a fountain.
And the moment you remove the rock, suddenly the fountain bursts forth in a great dance of joy. Your blissfulness is not something that comes from outside, it springs from within you. Just the rock of your mind -- thoughts, miseries -- has to be removed. It is not that you have to repress it, because by repressing it you will be repressing the fountain behind it too.
So the question can arise, Samarpan, if your silence is a wrong kind of silence. You are asking, "Is silence all that is needed?" Yes, absolutely yes. Silence is all that is needed, and everything else follows on its own accord.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
The Invitation Chapter #13
Chapter title: Three tickets for titsburgChapter title: Drowned in spaghettiChapter title: G-dChapter title: Avoid the priests