10

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‌CHAPTER 10

10 November 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Jesus says again and again: Unless you are like a child you will not enter into my kingdom of god. The child has something which the grown-up loses; that something has to be regained. The child has some qualities of paradise. Once you start growing up you start losing paradise; that paradise has to be regained.

Each child’s story is the story of the whole of humanity too. That is the meaning of the parable of Adam leaving the garden of god. Each child has to leave, because unless you leave it you will never be able to regain it; and unless you regain it, you will never be able to appreciate it.

The child has all that a Buddha will regain, but the child is completely unaware of it. How can he be aware? He is born with it; he is it. Once it is lost, then the understanding arises of what one has lost. Only by losing a thing do you come to know the value of it. You love a person, but when the person dies, then you become aware of what you have lost. When the person was available you were almost in a state of oblivion. One takes for granted that which is obvious.

It is like a fish in the pond. She cannot be aware of the pond and the beauty and the life-enhancing, nourishing, qualities of the pond. Take the fish out and immediately she understands that the pond was her life; now she hankers to go back to the pond. Drop her back into the pond: she will be utterly blissful because she is back. She will be grateful to god. Although she had always lived in that same pond, she had never thanked god.

Each child has that which a Buddha will regain. But when Buddha regains it, it is tremendously beautiful. The child has the diamonds with him but has no way to know the value of the diamonds. And these are the three diamonds: one, a blissful ignorance.… The child knows nothing; his consciousness is unburdened by knowledge. The second: the child is innocent, he knows nothing of good or bad; he is not yet divided. The third: he is choiceless; he simply moves through the

spontaneity of his nature. Hungry, he eats; sleepy, he sleeps. These are the fundamental qualities of Buddhahood with only one difference – that Bud&a is perfectly conscious of these three things and the child is unconscious. Childhood plus consciousness is equal to Buddhahood.

Deva means divine, suli in Hindi means crucifixion – divine crucifixion. And that is the beginning of resurrection. One has to die to be reborn, one has to utterly disappear to be. It is paradoxical, but this is how nature functions: the seed dies and the tree is born. And it happens in many ways, in many subtle ways; it may not always be so apparent. The child dies and the young man is born; the young man dies and the old man is born. In fact, it happens every moment – the past dies; that’s the way life evolves.

So crucifixion is not something that happens once and forever; it goes on happening. It is a constant process of cleansing. The person who really wants to grow has to die to the past each moment so that each new coming of each moment is fresh, young, new. Then life is really exhilarating; then it is ecstasy.

If we go on gathering the past and never allow it to die, life becomes a boredom because the past has all joy. We have lived it, we have known it, we have been through it; now it is a repetition. It is like seeing the same movie again and again and again. The first time it has an excitement because there is exploration; the first time you are excited because there are surprises, the first time you are thrilled because you don’t know what is going to happen, how it is going to end, the conclusion is not given to you and you are curious. But next time it is all dull; you know the conclusion already, you know what is going to happen. Now there is no surprise any more.

That’s how many people are living: dull, bored, dragging, because they know that whatsoever is going to happen has happened already. It is said that many people die at thirty although they are buried at seventy. And the hippies have a point when they say ‘Don’t trust a man beyond thirty.’ There is a point to it, and the point is that by the time people are thirty they have already settled; their life has now become a comfortable, safe, secure pattern. Now nothing new will ever happen, now they will go on repeating the same habitual pattern again and again, year in, year out, till they die.

This is not the right way to live. This is not the way a sannyasin should live. The sannyasin has to live each moment as if it were new so that life never loses excitement, so that it always remains a passionate affair, so that there are always surprises happening. And that is the reality of existence: it is never dull, it is never dead. Only the memory of man makes it look dull and dead.

You can watch it in the trees and the birds and the animals. They don’t look bored – never! And their lives have not as much ecstasy as is possible in man’s life. Still they are not bored. The simple reason is that they don’t collect the past, they don’t live in their memories; they live in the moment. They are not burdened by a great memory of the past. That is a heavy load to carry.

So this is the meaning... become a divine crucifixion. That is the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection. It may not be a historical fact – it can’t be – but it has a metaphorical reality which is far more significant than any historical fact.

A historical fact is an ordinary event in time. A metaphorical fact is something eternal. The historical fact can be proved, can be disproved. The metaphorical truth cannot be disproved. It is a poetic

statement of something that exists as an ultimate principle: it was so before Jesus; it is so after Jesus. Whether Jesus ever existed or not doesn’t matter; it makes no difference to the fundamental principle. The fundamental principle is: those who want to live will have to learn how to die. And that’s what Jesus means when he says: Carry your own cross on your own shoulders.

Carry the secrets of dying with yourself always. Whenever something is finished, die to it. It is finished; forget all about it, unburden yourself of it. Come out of it just as the snake comes out of the old skin. Memory is just an old skin, and if one is capable of coming out of it, one is a sannyasin. Then one is in meditation. Then resurrection goes on happening, and resurrection is eternal life. Anything to say to me?

Prem means love, laghima means power to fly. Love gives wings, and only love can give wings. Everything else keeps you crawling on the earth. It is only love that makes you able to fly, it is through love that you can take off. It is only through love that one can reach to the ultimate. It is a flight from the alone to the alone. And remember, it is a flight, and to be ready to fly one has to unburden oneself of many things. Love gives wings, but if you have many many stones around your neck then even wings won’t be of much help.

So two things: first, one has to grow in love – the positive part. And second: one has to drop all kinds of prejudices, religious, political, social. One has to become unknowledgeable, one has to learn how to exist in a state of no-knowledge. In short, one has to become a child again.

The child is in a constant wondering because he has no knowledge. As you become grown up you stop wondering because you think that now you already know; there is no need to wonder. This is utter nonsense. No knowledge is really enough to destroy wonder; on the contrary, real knowledge helps you to go deeper into wonder.

A great scientist, Eddington, is reported to have said, ‘When I started researching in the world of science I used to think that the world consisted only of things and that sooner or later we would be able to know all that is.’ But in his old age he said, ‘I came to see the point that it is not possible to know all that is, because the world resembles more a thought than a thing. Reality is very elusive and mysterious.’ He said, ‘I started as a scientist, I am dying as a mystic.’

And the same was the case with Albert Einstein. He lived as a mathematician, he died as a mystic. It is reported that just two or three days before his death, he was saying to people, ‘If next time I am given the chance to be born again, I would not like to be a physicist or a mathematician; I would like to be a plumber.’ He means that he would like to live the ordinary life of a very ordinary man. He would like to function from the state of no-knowledge. As Albert Einstein went deeper and deeper into the reality of existence he became aware that it is infinite, that it is inexhaustible, that it is beyond our capacities to comprehend it and that it is going to remain so. We may know much, but all that we know will simply make us aware that much more is there yet to be known.

The person who wants to go into the ultimate has to unburden himself of all knowledge; then one becomes weightless. Love is the positive part in growing wings. The negative part is meditation, dropping knowledge.

So grow wings of love and grow deeper into meditation so that all unnecessary luggage can be dropped.

[Osho gives someone sannyas.]

Just raise your hands, close your eyes, and feel like a tree, solitary in a field. It is sunny, it is windy, the tree is delighted and dancing – become the tree. If the body starts swaying, cooperate with it. Just feel these hands as your branches. It is really windy and sunny. Forget the human body.

Veet means beyond, sandharsh means conflict, struggle.

The greatest calamity that has happened to human beings is an inner division. Man has been divided, he no more functions as a unity. This has been the greatest trick played upon man, a great conspiracy of the politicians and priests, because this is the only way to keep man a slave. If a man starts fighting with himself then he becomes impotent to rebel; he is castrated. This is a psychological castration. His whole energy becomes involved in inner conflict. He has no more energy to fight with society, with the state, with the people, with the crowd and with all kinds of superstitions. Then he is so weak outside that he accepts. He has no more will to fight, his inner fight is too much. This is a psychological trick.

If a man is one inside he will not tolerate anything that is inhuman; he will not tolerate anything that goes against his intelligence. He will not tolerate anything that is stupid, superstitious, howsoever long its history and howsoever respectable it may have been considered in the past. The man who is one will be able to see through things, and not only able to see, he will be able to act according to his intelligence.

But man is a house divided against itself. And the way that he has been divided is so subtle that it is a!most difficult to understand, to comprehend. Many things have been condemned, and those things are things natural to man. The moment you condemn something natural you create division in yourself. You are against your own nature: the split arises. Now there is never going to be any moment of victory, because nobody can win. Neither you can win – because you are also part of your being – nor the thing that you are fighting against can win, because that too is part of your being. It is like making your left and right hand fight, wrestle: nobody can be victorious because you are behind both. So it is only your energy being dissipated in an absurd, foolish fight.

My sannyasins have to learn how to get out of this conspiracy. Accept yourself in toto. All that is natural is good, nature is good. And if there is ever a choice between nature and the moralist, choose nature and forget all about the moralist. If there is ever any fight between the natural and the ideal, drop the ideal immediately; it is worthless.

Listen to your nature, and slowly slowly you will be able to become one again. And the day one becomes one, life has a totally different meaning. It is vital, it is capable of rebelling, it is capable of asserting itself, it is capable of being on its own, it is capable of risking. And only the person who is a unity, who has integrity, will be able to reach god, because the journey is long, arduous. It needs great integrity. The people who are falling into parts cannot go on that journey. Their whole life is wasted in keeping themselves together somehow.

Anand means bliss, devi means goddess – goddess of bliss.

And this is our reality. We are born to be gods and goddesses but we never claim our destiny. It remains unclaimed. We never search for our treasure; it remains there waiting and waiting for us.

We remain beggars because our whole search goes on in the outside world; we never come home. And god is not there somewhere outside to be found: he is your innermost core, he is your life. Once god is felt in one’s own being then he is everywhere, but only then, not before that. If before that somebody thinks ‘Everywhere is god’, that is just imagination, fantasy – religious, good, but just a projection of a dream.

The first contact has to happen within, the first taste has to happen within, and then it goes on spreading. When you have tasted your nectar inside and you open your eyes, it is all over the place. It is in the green leaves and the red roses, in the stones, in the river, and in people; it is everywhere. One who knows god, knows him everywhere, and then to live is to live in paradise.

This is the right moment to have come. This is the time to drop everything else and go within.

The West has completely forgotten that at different stages of life different kinds of education are needed. We send a child to school to learn the ways of the world because he will have to live in the world, he will have to survive economically. He has to learn mathematics and geography and history and all that because it will be helpful for him to find a job. We send him to school, to college, to university, so that he is equipped, so that he is efficient in attaining a certain standard of living. That is a need.

But when a person is getting old, the world is disappearing, death is coming close and one is to enter into another dimension, then another kind of education is needed. Just as one prepares for life, one has to prepare for death too. The journey of life is a very small journey and the journey of death is very great. When one is going on such an unknown journey, much preparation is needed.

That’s what sannyas is: it is a preparation to encounter death, to know death, to go through death without fear, without clinging.

If one is ready to go through death without fear, without clinging to life, one transcends death, one comes to know the deathless, and that is god.

Life should be divided into two divisions. Just as children go to school to learn about how to live, after a certain age, after fifty, each person should go to some other kind of university, some esoteric school where he can prepare for the long journey, the long pilgrimage of death. That has been the way in the East.

We divided life into four sections. Thinking that life consists of a hundred years, hypothetically, we divided it into four. Twenty-five years, the first part, is for education, education for life. The second part, twenty-five years, is to live in life as a householder, as a husband, as a wife, mother, father, to experience life in all its ways. These years are to help your children to grow, are to protect your children, to send them to university so they can be ready. But after the fiftieth year one has to start thinking, now the time is coming to leave. One has to prepare to leave.

Up to seventy-five, the third stage, one is preparing to leave, getting ready for sannyas. And after seventy-five, the last twenty-five years, is the state of sannyas. One is now ready to face god. One has lived; now one meditates, prays, purifies oneself, becomes a witness to one’s body, to one’s mind, so that one can see something deep in one’s own being which is neither the body nor

the mind. Because death will take only the body and the mind, and if we can know that we are something separate from the body and the mind, then death is not going to disturb us at all. This was a very scientific division of life.

So this is the time for you to prepare, and it is not late yet.

[A sannyasin couple ask about their relationship: We get possessive and jealous and passionate.]

Mm mm. It always happens... it happens to every couple, because man as he is right now is not yet capable of loving. So he can start love, that is simple, but as things start going deeper, problems start arising. So alt loves in the beginning are immensely beautiful but sooner or later troubles arise because troubles are there in each human being.

He (the boyfriend) is hiding them. When you fall in love, you don’t show them, you simply hide them; you show only the beautiful parts of your being. But the ugly parts are there! Sooner or later they will start asserting themselves, and when they do then there is conflict.

Love is a good therapeutic situation: it makes you aware of your neurosis. And if both persons are willing to use the opportunity to grow, then there is no problem. Then love can become one of the greatest growth situations. It is.… For example: when you feel possessive, rather than becoming trapped in the unconsciousness of it, make it conscious, deliberate. Discuss, don’t hide; bring it out, express. Both meditate together on it and see the stupidity of it.

How can one human being possess another human being? And if you love the other person, how can you be possessive? They are contrary, contradictory. We can possess things; we cannot possess persons. The effort to possess a person is to reduce him to a commodity, to a thing, like a chair or a car or a house. This is insulting, humiliating, to the other, and naturally the other feels offended and he starts reacting. He will start trying to become more free, and the more he tries to become free, the more possessive you will become, and so on, so forth; then it is a vicious circle.

This is the rock onto which marriages come and are shattered; beautiful beginnings but always a tragic end. A little more understanding and there is no need for the tragic end, love can go on becoming more and more beautiful every day; it can end in a crescendo of beauty, joy. It doesn’t happen because we are not really alert to what we are doing. So decide one thing: that it is not only a question of love, it is a therapeutic situation to grow in.

And help each other. (to the man) When she is possessive don’t start reacting, because that will make her more possessive. Rather, help her to bring her possessiveness to the surface. Cool down, sit silently together for one hour. Turn the light off, burn incense. Just sit silently together, meditating over it, what it is, how it comes up.

(to the woman) Because it is not only your question. Sometimes it comes from him; then again, you have to understand it and meditate over it. Sometimes small things happen and you start nagging, and he starts feeling offended. He wants to dominate and you defend yourself. Att these small things are not really small; they are only apparently small. Deep down is the effort to dominate the other, deep down is power-politics. Meditate and see what kind of foolish games we go on playing.

I’m not saying to change these things immediately, because change won’t help: only understanding will help. If by understanding they drop on their own accord, then it is good. If you forcibly change – you say ‘Okay, I will decide not to be possessive’ – that is not going to help. You will simply go on repressing and one day or other it will explode. So that is not the way.

That’s what people go on doing. When they come to see that possessiveness brings misery, conflict, they think ’Why talk about it? – change it! What can I do by? how can I change? I can repress,

that’s the only possible way!’ So you don’t take any note of it and it goes on accumulating; then you are sitting on a volcano. One day it erupts out of all proportions; and the situation had been just a small thing. You are surprised, he is surprised: ‘Are you going mad or something?’ because the situation did not demand this. It was so trivial yet you exploded! It was just a spark; you had gathered too much ammunition in you. And he will go on doing the same. This is what all couples are doing all over the world.

Make it a therapeutic relationship.

(to the man) And you come and go too fast so you cannot do any groups; otherwise they would be very helpful. So next time you come be here at least for three weeks so you can do a few groups separately. They will make you aware of many things. And then do at least one or two groups together – that will settle things.

There is nothing to be worried about. These are natural phenomena, human.

[A sannyasin has just completed individual therapy. The therapist said it was very difficult to get him to open. The sannyasin said that he felt very stuck. He works in the ashram bakery and enjoys putting his total energy into that, but when he is not at work he feels more and more stuck and isolated.

Osho checks his energy.]

Good. There is nothing to be worried about. You are deliberately stuck, so the problem is very simple. You have decided to act this way. Any moment you can drop it; nothing else is needed. This is your choice. If you want to remain stuck there is no problem in it, then don’t make a problem out of it. Remain stuck, enjoy it. If you want to drop it, it is very simple. It is not that you are entangled in it; it is just the way you have decided to be. It is so simple – that’s why they (the therapists) were in difficulty. If it was something that was like a compulsion in you, they would have broken the ice. they would have penetrated you.

It is like a person who is awake and pretending to be asleep. Now you cannot wake him, it is impossible to wake him because he is already awake; he’s simply pretending to be asleep. What can you do? If he is asleep he can be wakened. It is simple then: you just shake him or bring a bucket of cold water. And that’s what they were doing, they tried everything; but you are not asleep! You are perfectly alert but you are pretending to be asleep, you are enjoying the pretension.

So you need not go to any group. Enjoy – if you want to remain stuck.If you are fed up with it then

simply drop it like that. There is no problem in it; it is very simple.

And don’t be worried – put your energy into your work. That is good because you have too much energy. If you don’t, it will create troubles for you. It is perfectly good. Put your energy as much in the work as you can, and enjoy it. And don’t make any problem out of it, it is not a problem at all. If you want to remain in bed with closed eyes, you are free to. Whenever you decide to get up you can get up; you don’t need any alarm.

That’s what therapy can do. The therapy always fails with a person who has no real problem. It is as if you don’t have a real problem and you go to the doctor. He gives you this medicine and that; nothing will help because the problem in the first place is not there; there is no disease.

You are perfectly okay. Put your energy into the work and forget all about it. It is nothing to be worried about. It is finished. I declare that you are out of it! And don’t torture my therapists any more!

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