11

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 11

11 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, neeten means morality – divine morality. And there is a morality that man can create but that is worthless; it is only an imposition from the outside. There is another kind of morality which man cannot create, which is beyond man, which comes from the above. Man can only be the receiver of it, not the creator: that is divine morality.

Whatsoever man creates remains limited, and whatsoever man can create can never be bigger than man himself. Naturally, the creator is always bigger than the creation. So your morality is not of much value... at the most a social utility, at the most, good in living with people. It is helpful, convenient, respectable, but nothing much; it doesn’t go very deep. The real morality has to arise from the centre, from your very being – not as your work but as a gift of god. Hence my insistence on meditation.

If you go on meditating deeply, one day you suddenly realise that your life has started changing and you have not done anything to change it directly. You behave differently, you walk differently, you talk differently; you are different! And yo0u have not done anything aprticular to change your behaviour. It has changed because your centre is more open now and god can give more and more light to your beinbg. That morality is divine morality.

In Christianity they teach that one has to be moral to meditate. In the East we teach that one has to be meditative to be moral. If you first become moral and then you meditate, your morality will be superficial and will not allow you to go deep even in meditations. It will be an imprisonment.

In the East we teach to first realise at the centre of your being and then let things happen from that centre. Let it come from the innermost core and spread onto the circumference, not vice-versa: don’t go from the outside to the inside, come from the inside to the outside. Hence in eastern treatises on the transformation of man, sometimes morality is not even mentioned.

When the indian Upanishads were translated in Germany for the first time, the german scholars were puzzled because morality was not mentioned at all. They don’t say what to do, they don’t say ‘Be true, honest, don’t steal, don’t covet, don’t be jealous’; they don’t talk about anything. There is nothing like ten commandments, not at all; not even a reference is made.

So the whole thing is how to become meditative, how to become so silent that no thought disturbs you. In that no-thoughtlessness arises a new life, and you are just a witness to it, not a creator. You simply see it arising in your being, spreading all over, and then a totally different character is born. And that character is not a bondage, it is a freedom.

That morality one has not to remember: it comes out of your consciousness moment to moment. And it is not a doctrine, it is not a principle to be lived by. It is just your consciousness, your awareness... and through that awareness comes responsibility.

[Osho suggests to a sannyasin that she do several groups, for one never knows which door is going to be helpful unless one explores and gropes in the dark... ]

... and then something suddenly clicks in you, so you have simply to grope.

For spiritual growth no fixed map exists. And it is good that no fixed map exists because man is not mechanical so nothing can be fixed about man. Man is so fluid and so flowing and is basically freedom, so no map exists.

Man is not like a territory on the earth: you cannot make roads. Man is like the sky, so there is no possibility of any map. You cannot demarcate; roads don’t exist. One has to find, and that is the beauty of the whole search. Otherwise ready-made paths will destroy the whole beauty.…

If there were a super-highway to god who would really like to go there? Only foolish people would go there. Then all those who are really of any importance, significance, would not bother; only a crowd would be found there. Real individuals would not go on that way; they would search somewhere else. Because individuality is born out of your choice, and the greatest pleasure and the peak of pleasure is when you are really individual, absolutely individual.

So here, many things exist. You have to grope, you have to go from one to another and just search. Whatsoever fits you, choose. whatsoever doesn’t fit you, don’t judge it. Forget about it; it was not for you. Then soon you will find your own map... you can make a workable map of your own.

And that is the whole purpose here: not to give you ready-made maps but to give you all sorts of maps possible so that you can work out your own map. That’s what sannyas is all about. It is not just following blindly.

People would like that very much. They don’t want to search, they don’t want to seek. They want everything ready-made so tey can just open the can and enjoy. It is not possiblle that way. God cannot be canned!

So here we are making available all possibilities – all that has been done up to now and all that can be done. All the doors have to be left open and you are given total freedom to seek and search. Whichever door suits you, from there you escape!

[A long-time therapist says she is not sure whether to participate in a training for the helping professions or just be here.]

Your presence will be a help to those people. I would like a few sannyasins to be in that group; that will help them to come down from their ego trips. So you will be a catalytic agent; that will be very meaningful.

And one can learn much – even while others are going on ego trips. That need not be a disturbance. Unless you yourself are on the ego trip, it is not a disturbance at all... and you are not so there is no problem in it.

[She says: I still have some problems with my ego!]

Problems are there, but the trip is no more. Ego problems persist even when the trip is finished. The ego has two divisions: when the trip is, you have problems in the future and because of those future problems you have problems in the present, but your orientation is in the future because of the trip.

[A sannyasin says: I want to encounter you.]

Then do a few groups here; they will be very helpful... will bring you closer to me and will make things easier to understand. And if you really want to encounter me you will have to encounter yourself. That’s the only way to encounter. Because I am not something other than you, so you cannot encounter me on the outside...

You can encounter only in a deeper way, in an inner way. So the encounter can happen only through the heart, not through the mind.

[The sannyasin adds: Sometimes I smoke dope and then I like very much to listen to your tapes. When I’m sitting here you are quite far away and when I’m listening to your tapes you are much nearer.]

Sometimes it happens... sometimes when you are listening to the tape it is only the word that you are hearing. When you are listening to me directly, the word becomes secondary, my presence becomes primary.

It is very simply to listen to the word, it is very difficult to listen to the presence. Because with the word you are in absolute control; with me you are not. The tape you can turn on and turn off...

What I am saying is that with the word you are the master completely: if you don’t want to listen you can turn it off. If you want to listen you can hear it again and again and again, but you remain in control.

When you are facing me you are not in control. Somehow you start losing your control and that creates a resistance. It is a very unconscious resistance; it comes to everybody, it is natural.’And the more impressed you are by a person, the more will be the resistance. If you are not impressed there is no fear: you can listen, there is no problem. But if you feel that there’s some pull, there is danger too! You may get involved, you may get committed, you may get into deeper waters, so you

resist and keep a little aloof. That creates a disturbance; then you will not be flowing so easily as while listening to the tape.

Secondly, the presence has a totally different impact: it starts working on your body energies. while listening to a tape there is nothing else – just the words, dead words. When you are close to me many things are happening together. Your body is in contact with me, your eyes are in contact with me, and something of the deeper starts overlapping. That too creates a deep fear; resistance is natural.

Those things, if you understand, will make it clear why it happens. It happens to many sannyasins: when they are working far away in london or in berlin, they feel me more. When they come here they are surprised: they don’t feel me so much! They feel a little lost and they wonder what is happening.

When they are there I am just a projection, it is their mind, so they can talk to my picture and they can hallucinate whatsoever they want. They can hear whatsoever they want to hear and they can think whatsoever they want to think. They are completely free – I cannot interfere: it is their projection and their dream and they are the masters.

When they are here their projections are constantly struggling with my presence. Naturally when the real is there the dream has to give way. They feel unease... it feels difficult. Far away, they feel very good – close, something starts burning.

And dope can be helpful sometimes because the dope will help you to lose the resistance. But that is not a good way? Because if you lose the resistance consciously that will be something deep-going. It is a trick, a chemical trick. The dope can help: you can feel very flowing because there is no fear.

It is almost as when on an LSD trip a person thinks he can fly. Sometimes it has happened that people have started flying from the house and have fallen and smashed their bodies up, killed themselves. In that moment your imagination is so perfect and reason has no interference, so things are very fluid and things become very colourful. Things have a more poetic quality... and what I am doing here is poetry.

My whole approach is that of a poet, it is not that of a philsopher. So when you are under any chemical drug naturally you are not resisting; the ego is relaxing, the mind is flowing.

People become very good when they are drunk – more human than ever, more loving than ever. Drunkards are beautiful people; nobody can be compared with them. A person who has never been a drunkard does not know how beautiful a person can be when he is drunk and how soft, supple, flexible, relaxed. But this can be done without the chemical; then it will be something more meaningful.

It is happening to many people: I am their dope! Just listening to me – and by and by it becomes a very, very simple process – just listening to me, just feeling me they start feeling a chemical change. And that is far superior because then you are not dependent on any chemical.

The chemical change is of the chemical, not of you. Once the chemical has worn off you will go back again to the same resistance, to the same hardness. But if you can listen to me as if I am your

dope and you don’t substitute anything else, and that can be done, then you will see that there is no need for the dope. You can just open my book and just read a few lines and you will feel it has come... you have smoked!...

I am saying that if you read me, if you start feeling me, just by reading a few lines you are stoned, or listening to a few lines you are stoned, and that is far better.

[Someone says he spent two years with John Bennett; he also did Vipassana, and Colour therapy, with good teachers: But when I go away from them, it goes... it doesn’t stay.]

I know. They were good teachers but you have not come across a master in the past. A teacher theaches you something and you feel grateful too, but it cannot go very deep; it remains at the most part of your knowledge.

None of them is a master. Bennett himself was in search of a master for his whole life and he could not find one. He went from this master to that, this master to that: from Gurdjieff to Pak Subuh, from Pak Subuh to Shivapuri Baba, and continued.

He never belonged anywhere, he was himself a driftwood, but he gathered much knowledge. Driftwoods gather much knowledge because they go to many people. And he was a very very intelligent man, certainly a very talented man, and he did fifty years work.…

So you have been in contact with good people but you have not yet been in contact with a master. That’s why once you are gone things will by and by fade out and disappear. Just a remembrance will be left and that too of not much value.

And you seem tired, you look tired, as if your energy has gone through going to these people, learning this and that. A certain hopelessness has entered you – as if this is going to happen again and again... but this need not be so! This need not be so.

[The visitor says: I was warned against these groups]

Yes, they will be helpful. Those people who are against groups are helped tremendously by them. They are against them for a reason.

Whenever you against something you have something within you whcih is afraid, which can be broken by these groups.

So you have to drop that feeling and pass through at least two, three groups. And the passing will be meaningful only if you drop resistance and really participate, otherwise you can remain still and nothing will happen. So you have to try. You have tried other things: try these groups.

[Another visitor says: I have never done any organised groups or had any particular teacher... I spend a lot of time outsidee with nature.]

That’s good but you will need to go a lot inside too!

And nature is beautiful, to be with nature is beautiful, but there is a higher nature within, and unless you touch that layer everything remains like a dream. The trees are beautiful and so are hills but nothing compared to the trees and hills of the consciousness. The sun and moon are beatutiful – nothing compared to the inner light when it dawns on you. Then it is just... everything is just nothing!

But nature prepares: if one has been in tune with nature that is a good preparation... better than to be with teachers! Nature is one of the greatest teachers. If one can learn, if one is ready to learn, much can be learned from nature.

And I have the feeling that something has been happening to you, knowingly, unknowlingly; nature has done something. Now try to enter the super-nature.…

[The leader of the bio-energetic group says: Some people I felt were left unfinished... and I felt responsible for that... I feel too vulnerable to lead a group and I don’t know if that’s just my imagination... ]

No, it is just your imagaination.

And the groupleader has to learn one thing: he has to learn the difference between responsibility and concern. You become much too concerned... you get identified. You almost tkae it as if it will be your failure if somebody fails. That is not right at all, because that means that you will start manipulating people, you will start forcing – and growth cannot be forced on anybody.

Whatsoever you can do, do, but it is not your responsibility if somebody does not move in, if somebody remains sanding out, is left behind. You should not be lethargic, that’s right; you should not neglect, that is right. Do whatsoever you can do and then forget about it! More than that cannot be done.

If you start thinking that somebody has remained incomplete in the process and this is your fault, you will create a very great anxiety. And if you have the anxiety you will not be able to help. Only a non-anxious person can halep. Anxiety in itslef creates resistance in the other. Only a non-anxious person helps the other to be open. If you are tense... and this will create a tension.

This is none of your business! They are not to become enlightened through you, by you. In fact when somebody attains something through the group, thank god! And if somebody fails nothing can be done about it. It is neither your doing when you succeed nor is it your doing when you fail. Success and failure should not come in your mind; then only can a groupleader function well. It should be a game on your part, a play. The concern should be more that you play it playfully rather than feeling that everybody has to be helped.

The groupleader should be like a river, flowing. If they are thirsty, they will come and they will drink. If they stand on the bank and don’t drink, that is none of the business of the river; the river is not guilty.

You are flowing: if they don’t partake of you that is their decision – and they have the freedom to decide! If they don’t want to grow who are you to force growth on them? If they decide this way – that they want to lose this opportunity – perfectly good, it is okay. You should okay it!

The very idea that the growth should be forced is wrong, it is violent! It will be disturbing them and it will be disturbing you. It is interference.

This taoist’s concept of wu-wei has to be remembered by every groupleader – non-interference. You make possibilities, you make opportunities available, you open the door. As the proverb says, you take the horse to the river but you don’t force him to drink. So you open the door and you invite; it is an invitation. But you are not to take a gun and force them: ‘I have given you the invitation – now eat!’ That will be wrong, absolutely wrong.

So you have a very wrong attitude and that is giving you trouble.

And it is your imagination that you are not adequate: you are perfectly adequate. This wrong notion just has to be dropped and your capacity to help will be trmendous. You are burdened by your own concept of guilt and responsibility, a feeling that you owe them something. Nobody owes them anything; everybody is perfectly free.

That is the beauty of god – that he makes people so free that even if they want to go against himthey can; that is the meaning of freedom. If god comes in the way and says, ‘Where are you going? You cannot go astray! You are free to be good but not free to be bad,’ then what type of freedom will that be?

That’s why I say that god is absent because if he were too much present freedom would be disturbed. So he is completely absent, you never find him anywhere. His absense is your freedom. A groupleader has to be present and also has to be absent; that is the whole art. He has to be present as far as people want him to be there... he has to be absent as far as he wants to be there.

You should be just a passive opportunity. If they ask your help you are there; if they don’t ask for your help, if they don’t want to take it, you are not there. And you should feel thankful all the same, whatsoever happens! Then your whole energy will be flowing; otherwise you become tense. And a group cannot be good when the leader suffers.

So drop all these considerations. You are not a servant and you are not a messiah: you are not there to do something. You are just to make available a certain door that they may not be able to see by themselves, so you simply indicate the door.

Buddha has said, ‘Buddhas only point the way; then it is for you to walk or not to walk.’

So you just remain there, help them. Your help is needed, your expertise is needed, and you can become really a very very competent groupleader. But these ideas are disturbing so simply drop them.

And this is your imagination – that you are not adequate. Your groups have been good; you continue work.

[She says: I do feel totally without support somehow and that’s something I haven’t let myself feel...

]

Just relax! And there is no need for any support; when you relax you have the support, in your very relaxation is the support. Just relax and be playful. Don’t be serious, and just enjoy the whole game. If somebody is helped through the play, good, very good. If nobody is helped that too is very good: so it was not needed, they were not ripe. When the moment comes they will ripen. And these things function like seeds. Sometimes it happens that you throw the seed now and years will pass and then it will sprout. When the right moment comes, when the rain comes, when the right season comes it will sprout. So nothing to be worried about.

Right now you may not have been helpful to somebody but finally you may prove of help; after ten years it may be a help to him. Suddenly after ten years in a certain moment he will have the insight and remember the whole thing, and everything that he was missing may fit together. So nobody knows! And life is very complex. One should go on simply helping.

< Previous | Contents | Next >