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‌CHAPTER 10

10 May 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, garima means glory – divine glory. One thing is very important for you to understand, and it is that when a person is young a few things are easy, a few things are difficult. For example, religion is difficult. It is easier to be in desires, it is difficult to leave them. But when a person is old it is very easy to drop desires and very difficult to continue desires.

Life itself prepares you to come closer to god. Old age has one thing tremendously beautiful about it that desires can be left easily: even if you don’t leave them, they leave you. When they leave you it is ugly – you feel cheated – but when you leave them, there is a glory and great beauty in it. Meditation is very very simple in old age. The whole life’s experience has proved that it was nothing but a dream. One can easily get out of it – this life that has now become almost a dream. And you are ready for it!

Deva means divine, samveda means sensitivity – divine sensitivity. And sensitivity is the path – insensitivity is the obstacle. If we are insensitive, then there is no way; we are closed. There is no passage from our innermost core to existence; we are windowless. We are in a capsule... and each human being is living in a capsule.

The capsule is very subtle and transparent, so you don’t feel it, you don’t see it, but a little awareness and it becomes apparent that it is surrounding you everywhere. It is just as if your hands are in a glove and you shake hands: something goes on covering your sensitivity. You are covered completely with clothes and going out into the sun; the sunrays cannot penetrate your skin.

You have an umbrella and it protects you from rain, but it also obstructs the rain from reaching you.

Sometimes it is good to throw the umbrella and just go into the rains and to feel it. Naked on a beach, naked in a forest, just allow the air and the sun and the rain to touch you!

The more sensitive you become to things, the more aware you will become that god is present everywhere. In the same proportion of sensitivity that you have, you will feel god present. The less sensitivity you have, the less you will feel god; if you have no sensitivity, you will not feel god at all.

If god is dead in this century, it is not because god is dead but because man’s sensitivity is dead. We cannot touch, we cannot taste, we cannot smell; something is covering our being.

So uncover your being – that is the message in the name – and by uncovering your being you will be able to discover yourself.

[A sannyasin who is leaving says her feelings about sannyas and Osho are precarious. She knows she must take responsibility for what happens to herself but doesn’t know what to do in her confusion.]

In the beginning there is always confusion, but all these things that are troubling you right now will prove great stepping stones. It is almost like digging a well. When you start digging the hole you don’t get the water immediately: first you get stones, dry earth, rubbish, then by and by purer earth, then wet earth, then muddy water, and then finally you get pure water.

The process of digging into oneself is exactly the same. In the beginning you get only rubbish, because that is your first layer – anger, jealousy, hatred, sadness; that junk is there. When you start digging in, that is the thing you have to encounter first. So don’t be worried about it: it is just a part of the process.

If you go still a little deeper, better things will start coming. After anger has been finished, compassion arises – it is just there underneath anger: each angry person is potentially a compassionate person.

First you go and you find greed. If you go on digging, if the greed does not inhabit you then soon you will find sharing arising out of it. Behind greed there is the quality of sharingAnd it is so

with everything! Just behind your jealousy, possessiveness, is the quality of love. One has to go on digging continuously.

Yes, certainly in the beginning there is confusion, mm? because so much is stirred up. Next time you are here things will start settling, but meanwhile continue to meditate so that whatsoever has started is not undone by you again, otherwise you will have to start from abc again.

So even if sometimes you feel it is troublesome... It is! – it is not comfortable and you will never be so so comfortable as you used to be unless you pass through it; then for the first time you will be really comfortable and at ease with yourself.

Before this confusion started and this inconvenience, your ease and comfort were just imposed ideas. You were sitting on a volcano and thinking everything was fine – but the volcano can erupt any moment. Now you have become aware of the volcano – you know it is underneath so you cannot sit so comfortably. But this is a better situation than the first, because in the first situation you were completely unaware of the volcano: you were sitting on top of it and enjoying. Now you cannot enjoy because you know the volcano is there and something has to be done, otherwise any day it

will erupt and it will be too late then. You have to move away from it, you have to find another spot for your being, some other way of being, some other style of living. That’s what this confusion is all about. This confusion is saying to you that your style of life up to now has not been right.

And that too is natural – that you throw the whole responsibility on me. That is natural, mm? I expect it – there is nothing wrong with it. That’s my whole purpose here: you can throw all responsibility on me. Nothing to be worried about. That too is part of our mind: we never want to take the responsibility. If you are feeling angry, if you are feeling confused, you will say ‘Somebody has done it. Now it is Osho – he has done it!’ But this is your past: you have always been throwing the responsibility on somebody – mother, father, society, friend, enemy... but somebody!

A man becomes religious the day he starts taking the whole responsibility on himself. That day – when a man says ‘Now I am responsible; whatsoever happens to me, I am responsible’ – he becomes mature too.

Nothing ever happens to you for which you are not responsible. Ultimately all responsibility is yours. But that is very scary, mm? – to take the whole responsibility. One feels a sinking; it is too much of a burden. But unless you take that responsibility you remain childish and you go on looking for a father figure... and I am not a father figure.

But in the beginning it happens to everybody.

... It will be better if you find a group of sannyasins somewhere to live with, mm? – that will help your growth. Right now you are just at the beginning, so if my people are around you they will push and help you. They will become a support.

[A sannyasin who works with drug addicts, says that he admires and talks about some of Mao Tse Tung’s ideas when working, and so is perturbed when he hears Osho putting Mao Tse Tung in the same category as Adolf Hitler.]

My attitude about politicians is that they are all ill people. It does not matter whether he is a fascist, a capitalist or a communist: a politician is a sick person. He is deeply violent. Now his violence can take many shapes: he can become an Adolf Hitler, he can become a mao tse tung, but both are violent people and both believe that the society has to be changed through force. And whenever somebody believes that the society has to be forced towards some change, he is mad. You can persuade people, you can explain to people, but forcing them is just madness... even forcing for their own good. Forcing is forcing.…

I am not saying that Mao Tse Tung has not done any good – that I am not saying. What I am saying is that even to force people for their own good is wrong. Violence is wrong, and nobody should use, in any way, other people’s lives as means. Each person is his own end.

Now it is true that in Russia – in Lenin’s and Stalin’s and today’s Russia – people are far better off materially than they were ever before the revolution, but spiritually they are far worse. They have bread and butter and a shelter but they have lost their souls, they ’don’t have any freedom.

Now this is a very ugly situation – that you have to sell your soul to get bread and butter and shelter; this is too much of a price to pay. Sooner or later russia will have to go through another revolution

– and the same is going to happen in china. People have been forced, regimented about each and every thing.

My attitude towards people who believe in violence is that they are deep down very much troubled. Because of their own inner sickness they throw the violence on other people. A really at-ease person cannot throw any kind of violence.

My attitude towards violence is such that I call even a man like Mahatma Gandhi, violent. Now, he is thought to be the most non-violent man of the world, but I call him violent because he used to force his disciples... of course in a very spiritual way.

For example, if a disciple is going astray – according to himBut who is he to decide who is going

astray and who is not going astray? If a disciple has fallen in love with a woman – which Mahatma Gandhi thinks is not good for him.And who is he to think about it – that it is not good for them? He

can explain his standpoint, that’s all. But what will he do? He will go on a fast. Now this is violence. He will force that couple through his fasting: they will start feeling guilty. Because of them this old man is on a fast and if he dies, then what? Then they will be the murderers. Now this is forcing in a very very subtle way. It is the same: whether you are taking a sword or you are doing fast makes no difference. In fact, to have a sword on your head seems easier – you have more freedom.

You can say ‘Okay, kill us, but we will stick to our own beliefs!’ At least your dignity is saved.you

may be killed; with hitler your dignity is saved. But Mahatma Gandhi is not killing you – he is killing himself. He says ‘I will kill myself if you don’t listen to me!’ But just look at the logic.…

Hitler’s logic is that of a murderer and gandhi’s logic is that of a suicidal person – but suicide is nothing but self-murder. They look very different but they are not basically different. In each case they are forcing the other – they are not persuading the other. They are bringing something into the argument which is ugly, they are bringing in force.

If I tell you ‘Become a sannyasin otherwise I will commit suicide’, and then you become a sannyasin, I will call that violence. Then I have been an Adolf Hitler to you. What is the difference? If you don’t become a sannyasin you will feel guilty, and if I commit suicide, for your whole life you will feel guilty.

So whatever the way, politicians always enforce things... their ways are violent ways. And my approach is that if I have a certain understanding, I have to explain it to you – and then too with the condition that you are free to do it like that or not. Even if you don’t follow it I will not be angry, I will not condemn you; that’s your individual freedom!

If you have decided to remain miserable, who am I to make you happy? If that is your decision then I will accept it – it is your life! Freedom should not be interfered with in any way, for any reason. Once you start interfering with freedom then there is no end to it. Today you interfere for this reason, tomorrow you interfere for another reason, and by and by the freedom is encroached on completely and destroyed.

In the beginning Adolf Hitler was also talking about socialism. There were thousands of people – and not uneducated people, not unintelligent people: germany was one of the most sophisticated countries. Even a man like Martin Heideigger supported Adolf Hitler thinking that he was going to

do good. The whole country was with him – almost the whole country was with him! Intellectuals, poets, painters, scientists – the major part of the country was with him: they were all thinking that he was doing good.

But by and by things started changing, because whenever there is violence you cannot do good; even in the name of good, bad will result. And this same happened with Joseph Stalin and with Mao Tse Tung. Things start off well, but finally if the man is violent inside, he is bound to destroy people. The more powerful he becomes, the more destruction will come. Now China has lost its soul... you are not even free to meditate! Thousands of Taoist and Buddhist monasteries have been destroyed. Three-thousand-year-old monasteries have been utterly destroyed; people have been forced to change their Taoist and Buddhist ways of life.

But what happens is that whenever you have a certain dogmatic mind it looks as if you are right. Now, one dogmatic mind is that everybody should work. If a Buddhist monk is meditating and not working then he is an exploiter and according to the communist logic it looks perfectly right to force him to go to the field and work.

So an old monk – a seventy-year-old monk who has been meditating for fifty years and who was creating a tremendous inner insight – is forced to work now. Otherwise he is beaten and thrown into the gaol. Meditation is a sin.

What I am saying about Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and others is only one thing – that the politician himself has not arrived at his own centre. Whatsoever he is going to do is going to be wrong and harmful in the long run.

The real people should first be interested in their own centering, and if you are centred then you will start overflowing and a few people will be changed – but that change will be very very silent, without any force, without any violence.

I believe in the individual and not in the society. My total respect is towards the individual and not towards the society. And all programmes that put society above the individual are dangerous – call them fascism, call them socialism, call them capitalism, communism; it makes no difference.

Any system that makes society more important than the individual is a dangerous philosophy. It will kill the individual. And it is the individual who is the real thing, it is the individual who is really alive. Society is just a name.

It is as if in the name of humanity you kill human beings. But where is that humanity? Human beings are real – humanity is just an abstract conception. It exists not, you cannot find humanity anywhere. If you go round the world searching and asking ‘Where is humanity?’ you will never find it – you will only come across human beings. My effort is to love the human being and forget about humanity!

Where is the society? Society exists not, it is just an abstraction. The individual is the truth! If the individual remains the end, then everything goes well. Once the society or humanity or islam or christianity . all abstractions – when they start dominating... You know how dangerous christianity has been... and in the name of beautiful ideals! So has been islam, so is communism! Just think: two hundred years ago the people who were torturing others in the name of christ never thought

that they were doing anything wrong. Now you know that they were doing wrong. But what was their blindness? Why couldn’t they see? They were thinking that they were doing it in the name of christ, in the name of god, in the name of the gospel.

After two hundred years you will be able to see what Mao Tse Tung has done in the name of ‘Das Kapital’, in the name of communism, in the name of equality... after two hundred years – but then it is too late! And man is very wise about the past, but that is meaningless. one has to be wise about the present.

It is very easy now to condemn Adolf Hitler because he is condemned, he has failed. Once somebody fails, it is easy to condemn him – his failure is enough proof. But when hitler was succeeding it was very difficult. At least it was almost impossible for the fascists to think – their eyes were covered with their ideology; so is the case with communism. It is very difficult for a communist to think; he is so prejudiced.

And remember, I am not against equality and I am not against the basic spirit of communes, but I am really against politics. And to me, communism can never come through politics; it will only come out of individual awareness. It may take a long time but nothing can be done about it. It will come only through individual awareness. Individuals have to change in their inner being, they have to change the whole structure of their mind. Capitalism is there in the structure of the mind. Kruschev had many cars, from almost every country. He was very interested in cars – everybody knew about it – so wherever he went, people would present him with cars. And he was very very proud of his cars. Now this is capitalism! Only he had those cars in Soviet Russia – nobody else – and he was enjoying the idea that only he had these cars. But what else is capitalism ?

Old, rich people are no more there but a new class has arisen: the class of the bureaucrats. Now in russia a certain class has ruled for fifty years. Into that certain class nobody has been able to enter... just a small clique of people have been ruling. Now what kind of equality is this? And that class has become very rich, very powerful. Now there is no possibility to dethrone it. Stalin died – that makes no difference: another member of the police group becomes the chief, he dies; another member of the group – but it remains the same small clique of people. They are tremendously powerful no czar was ever so powerful, no Nixon was so powerful. What I am trying to convey is that all that is beautiful has to happen through the individual, not through a social programme, through individual effort, through human consciousness, not through the state, not through the government, not through violence, not through police and military force.

And all those people who use force are enemies – whatsoever their branch; that makes no difference, So just think about it, mm? Good!

[A seeker asks: I’m gay and I want to ask if it is a hindrance in my development and if it is, what can I do to get free?]

No need to be worried – it is not a hindrance, nothing, mm ? Only one thing is a hindrance in spiritual growth – that is a rejection of yourself. Gay or not, that doesn’t matter – if you can accept totally, there is no hindrance. If you reject it, then there is hindrance. The hindrance comes not from your being gay; it comes from your rejecting it. If you accept it, it is perfectly okay, mm? It is irrelevant in a way.

[The seeker asks: is there a possibility for gay people to transform sexual energy in a tantric way?] Yes – as much possible as for any other type. There is no problem in it, mm?

... Accept yourself totally and enjoy the way you are; don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself. And from every place one can move towards god. There is not a single place from where you cannot move, mm? So nothing to be worried about – just be happy.

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