1 I am a beginning and an end

‌CHAPTER 1

I am a beginning and an end

19 March 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,

MY WHOLE BEING BOWS TO YOUR FEET, BUT IT IS VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO TAKE MY EYES FROM YOUR BEAUTIFUL, RADIANT BEING, WHEN YOU GREET US COMING AND GOING IN THE MORNING. AM I MISSING BY PEEKING? IS THIS ATTACHMENT TO YOUR PHYSICAL PRESENCE AND FORM SOMETHING THAT HAS TO BE TRANSCENDED?

Yoga Prem – alias “Big Prem” – you are simply big; such is your innocence and such is your love... and such is your ignorance! You don’t have to transcend your love for my presence, you have to transcend the idea that you are there.

To make it simple for you, it almost always happens that whenever it is said, “Transcend love, transcend compassion,” the listener understands that he has to drop them. Transcendence does not mean dropping them. Transcendence means dropping yourself – so only pure love, without a lover and without a beloved, remains.

The purity in which lover and the beloved have disappeared is what is called transcendence; the trust in which the disciple and the master have dissolved. The question is of dissolving the duality.

Looking at your mind and its way of functioning, you have totally misunderstood – but not knowingly, not because of any prejudice; it is simply how the mind functions, how it protects itself.

You say, “My whole being bows to your feet.” When your whole being bows to my feet you should not be there. If you are still there, then it is not whole. I am not here, you are not there, and there is bound to appear a beautiful flower of tremendous gratitude. You don’t have to transcend it, because by transcending it you are going to become more egoistic, more of an “I.” You have to dissolve yourself, and in your dissolution transcendence will flower on its own accord.

You cannot do a few things. For example you cannot go to sleep – sleep comes to you. Ask those people who cannot sleep, who find it difficult to sleep, who do every kind of stupid thing to sleep: take a hot shower, do some monkey exercises called yoga, then lying down on the bed do transcendental meditation, and in between go on watching television. But nothing helps. When you are tired of all these transcendental meditations and yogic exercises and television nonsense, when you are utterly tired of the effort to bring sleep, suddenly it comes. It does not even knock on the door. It does not even ask you, “Can I come in, sir?” Without whispering, without making any noise it comes. You cannot find its coming; only in the morning you know, when you wake up – “My god, I have been asleep!”

No effort can bring sleep, because every effort keeps you awake. Effort is intrinsically part of awareness and sleep needs you to forget everything, drown yourself in forgetfulness, relax. Don’t even bother about sleep – whenever it comes it comes; if it does not come you don’t care a bit – and it comes.

You are saying, “But it is very difficult for me to take my eyes from your beautiful, radiant being when you greet us coming and going in the morning. Am I missing by peeking?”

Not at all, Big Prem. Peeping is a good exercise! One feels sad for those who don’t know how to peep. And you are not peeping into somebody’s bathroom. You need not be worried – peep joyously.

But people become worried... just last night, to wake up Niskriya, I gave him a Nazi salute. Then too he was not fully awake; just a little bit he came into his senses. Everybody enjoyed, but Garimo’s mother Gita became worried. She thought that this Niskriya seems to be a Nazi agent.

This poor Niskriya, he has nothing to do with anything, Nazi or German or great Nordic Aryan blood. He is a simple fellow. He is so simple that every girlfriend leaves him just in one day. But he is not worried, because he keeps a list and he waits for somebody else to come. Seeing that he is a famous figure here, he gives appointments: “For this week I am completely engaged.” And he has a secretary in Sarjano – another fascist! So every rejected woman goes to Sarjano.

This has been happening, and the whole commune is enjoying, but Gita is old and her memories of what happened in the second world war are still alive. She freaked out. I don’t know... if one day I tell Niskriya to do a goose step, what will happen to her? She is so old, and I don’t want to give her a heart attack. And most probably Niskriya does not know the goose step. But Gita has suffered, her father-in-law was jailed by the Nazis, her father died because of the jail; all kinds of tortures were revived when I gave Niskriya the Nazi salute.

And I was just trying to wake him up!

This is the most anti-fascist place you can find in the whole world. But I am sorry, because I forgot that there are a few old people: Gita is here, Gita’s husband is here, who must have suffered much. I should not have done it. But Niskriya is absolutely innocent; whatever fault there is, is mine.

I am not a Catholic pope who never commits mistakes; I committed a mistake just yesterday and one never knows – I may commit it today, because you cannot rely on me. And Niskriya is getting ready. Of course for the goose step there is no space; neither does he have the right kind of boots. But when he gives the salute you all have to give him a good clap! It does not mean that that salute is monopolized by any Adolf Hitler.

Just today I have received a letter from England. The English postal department has started small advertisements on their envelopes; it costs fifty thousand pounds per advertisement. And this advertisement is really strange. It says, “Jesus is alive.” I have told my secretary to write to the person: “Please inform us of his address, or at least his phone number. You have been idiots to do this advertisement – this simply means that he is not alive, because five billion people are alive and nobody is advertising that, ‘I am alive.’ Unless Jesus is dead there is no point in advertising.”

Just as there are people who believe that Jesus is alive, there are people who believe that Adolf Hitler is alive. I received a letter from the president of the Nazi Party that I should stop condemning and joking about Adolf Hitler, because “he is a religious figure and you cannot hurt our religious feelings.”

I was amazed for the first time – Adolf Hitler a religious figure? Not only that, the man who killed six million Jews... the president writes to me that Adolf Hitler was the reincarnation of the Old Testament – Jewish – prophet Elijah. Strange – why should Elijah kill six million Jews? But in this mad world everything goes. And he threatened me, that “If you don’t stop, then we will have to act against you.”

I said, “It will be perfectly good. If Adolf Hitler is alive, it is better to let him act against me; let him encounter me.” He was an idiot, but sometimes idiots have a few beautiful qualities. First they are stubborn, adamant. And human beings are very frail. These idiots go on repeating the same thing again and again with such force that ordinary human beings start feeling that perhaps he is right.

His methods were very strange. His party was very small, in the beginning only nineteen members, and all had been rejected from the army. Meeting in a third class restaurant they formed the National Socialist Party.

And their strategy was... because they were only nineteen people, and the Communist Party in Germany was the biggest party. There was every possibility the Communist Party would have dethroned the emperor and taken over Germany. But instead of the Communist Party, which had the majority of the country in its favor, a very idiotic man managed to take over the country. His strategy is worth studying.

Wherever there was a meeting held by the Communist Party, these nineteen people would spread out in the crowd and as the speaker started speaking they would start beating the people who had come to listen. Now there would be chaos, it seemed that everybody was beating everybody else.

They disturbed the Communist Party’s every meeting, and the Communist Party became afraid: “What to do? Who are these people? And nobody knows them. Who starts it? A few people certainly start it and then others start fighting with them and then others – before anybody else hits you, you start hitting...” Nineteen persons managed to get thousands of people fighting with each other. And before they could be caught, they had slipped out and people were fighting with each other.

They disturbed all the meetings. It became well known in Germany

that nobody should go to such meetings because everybody came home fractured.

And then Adolf Hitler started his meetings. He had only nineteen persons, but they were all just standing around, and because they were the disturbers, nobody disturbed the meetings of Adolf Hitler. The whole of Germany became interested – “This is strange: a single man has managed so that nobody can disturb his meetings.”

Slowly more people started coming because, “You are safe only when Adolf Hitler is speaking. You are not safe with anybody belonging to any other party: from there you are going to come back fractured.” Soon Adolf Hitler had thousands of people in his meetings.

And his way of speaking was the way which is taught in the school of oratory: at a certain point beat the table, at a certain point shout loudly, at a certain point whisper. Everything is rehearsed, prepared. There was nothing significant in what he was saying, but he was saying it according to the rules of oratory. And particularly, people were interested in his meetings because you could come back home safe, without being beaten.

He came to power by such strange means. And once he was in power he started saying to the country, “Unless you kill the Jews and erase them completely Germany will never be able to fulfill its destiny. It is God’s own race, pure Aryan blood.”

What has pure blood to do with anything? And there are all kinds of blood – they are all pure. They may be different... And what has being Aryan to do with it, because everybody except Negroes, Japanese and Chinese – all are Aryans. Nothing is special in being Aryan. And this is the most stupid logic: that you kill the Jews... And they have been the most intelligent people. Forty percent of Nobel Prizes go to Jews; they have contributed to human knowledge, to science, and they have not been quarrelsome; they have created wealth and they have suffered a lot. The whole history of Jews is a long nightmare.

And Adolf Hitler is their own prophet, reincarnated – still alive!

I am thinking to inform both: “It will be good; send Jesus and Adolf Hitler both here. They both need psychiatric treatment.” Unfortunately both are dead, but we will do whatever we can do to give psychiatric treatment to a dead person. At least we can teach him to lie down meditatively... and he will lie down more meditatively than you can do. In fact he cannot do anything else but meditation!

You are very innocent, Big Prem. Nothing has to be transcended, just you have to disappear in love, in trust, in deep grace, childlike. And Big Prem has that quality.

Three kids – little Hymie, little Bruce and little Ernie – are playing by a river in the Northern Territory of Australia. They are swinging backwards and forwards across the river on a rubber tire, which is hanging from a tree.

Little Bruce is flying through the air, when suddenly a crocodile leaps out of the water and swallows him and the tire in one bite.

Little Ernie and little Hymie stand looking at the ripples in the water.

“You had better go and tell his mom,” says little Ernie. “And I will go and get another tire.”

While lecturing the Sunday School children about hell and the nature of sin, Father Murphy asks little Ernie, “Do you know where little boys and girls go when they do bad things?”

“Yes,” says little Ernie, “they go in the bushes.” Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

LATELY YOU HAVE BEEN SHOWERING SUCH UNBEARABLE AND OVERWHELMING FRIENDLINESS ON US, THAT IT DRIVES ME TOTALLY BANANAS.

I GET AN UNCONTAINABLE URGE TO STAND UP AND CUDDLE YOU.

HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO BE BOTH SUCH A FRIEND AND SUCH A MASTER TO US? ISN’T A MASTER SUPPOSED TO STAND ALOOF AND COOL, LIKE A BUDDHA?

WHY DOES ALL THIS INTIMACY, EVEN SO DELIGHTFUL, SCARE ME SO MUCH?

WILL I FORGET THE MOON, BITE YOUR FINGER, AND TAKE YOU FOR GRANTED ONCE MORE?

This is from the private secretary of Niskriya, Sarjano.

Sarjano, nobody can drive you bananas, you are a born banana. And you are saying, “I get an uncontainable urge to stand up and cuddle You.”

Whenever such an urge arises, just stand up and cuddle Niskriya. He pays you!

You are asking me, “How do you manage to be both such a friend and such a master to us?” A master is not a master if he is not a friend too. But vice versa is not true. A disciple is a disciple and cannot claim friendship to the master, for a simple reason: because the disciple has to rise to the heights – only then he can cuddle the master.

I have given you a substitute. He is not a master, he is a simple human being and he would love being cuddled.

A master is always a friend, but his friendship has a totally different fragrance. It is less friendship and more friendliness. Its intrinsic part is compassion. He loves you because he cannot do anything else. He wants to share his experience because he can see you are searching for it, you are thirsty for it. He makes his springs of purest water available to you. He enjoys and feels grateful if you receive his gifts of love, of friendliness, of truth.

But rarely have you come across such a master, because the old style was for the master to be very serious and to keep a distance. To allow intimacy, to allow friendliness... he was afraid that his truth and his finding might be lost in the crowd.

I am a beginning and an end: the beginning of a new kind of master and an end of the old style of masters. Certainly I am not like Gautam Buddha; I have left him twenty-five centuries back. If I am just like Gautam Buddha, that means consciousness has not evolved higher than where Gautam Buddha left it.

I say unto you, consciousness has grown higher, reached bigger peaks, deeper depths than Gautam Buddha.

Gautam Buddha is a prototype of all the old masters. The disciple has to be kept far away. He has to learn discipline, respect, obedience. In a certain way it was a spiritual slavery.

I don’t want you to be my slaves and I don’t want you to obey me. I want simply that you should understand me, and if my experience is authentic and your intelligence is able to understand it, you will follow it on your own accord.

It is not obedience. I am not telling you to do something, I am telling you to simply understand and then follow your understanding wherever it leads. I am happy whatever you become; just remain truthful and sincere to your own being.

The old master asked, “Be sincere towards me, be authentic towards me, be obedient towards me.” I simply cannot do such harm to you, particularly to those whom I love.

I want you to be sincere to your own truth.

Yes, I can show you the path, how to find yourself. But I cannot order you; this is not an army. But the old world of masters and disciples was almost just like an army: everything had to be according to the rule the master had given. And centuries have passed and the rule remains and people go on following it without any understanding. They cannot even answer why they are doing it – just because it is written in the scriptures, because great masters have said it.

But times change; circumstances change. Moreover, no two individuals are the same; hence no rule can be applicable to all the individuals, century after century. In fact no rule can be applicable to you all even in this moment, there is no question of centuries. Even in this moment you are all separate individuals like beautiful pillars of a temple – supporting the same roof, but the pillars have a distance; they have their own unique individuality.

You are all here to seek and search the truth of your being – that is the roof of the temple. And you are all like the pillars – but every pillar has to be himself. It may support the same roof, but it is not going to be a replica of another pillar. He has to be his own, original self.

I am saying this to you so you remember that I don’t belong to the old category of masters, and there is no category to which I can belong. Neither do I want any of you to be imitative. Life is not a dance when you are just an imitation. It is a dance when you are yourself.

I am not like anybody – Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu. I love these people; I love them because they were unique – but I am myself and I love my uniqueness just as I love their uniqueness.

Your question is significant when you ask, “Why does all this intimacy, even so delightful, scare me so much?”

It is very simple, Sarjano. Love is the most dangerous thing in the world, because love dissolves you just like a dewdrop disappearing in the ocean. It does not kill you, but it certainly makes you so big, so huge that you cannot think in the old terms as when you were just a dewdrop, sitting on the lotus leaf.

The lotus leaf... just a little breeze and the dewdrop starts slipping towards the ocean. You can understand the fear of the dewdrop. The dewdrop can see the ocean and knows perfectly well that within a minute it will be gone.

Intimacy and love are the most dangerous things, because they dissolve your personality, your ego, your I-ness. They give you authentic reality, but they take away all that is false and not intrinsic to your existence.

It is a kind of death. Every great love is a death and a resurrection.

You are saying, “Will I forget the moon, bite your finger and take you for granted once more?”

Sarjano, if you have seen me, if you have loved me you cannot forget the moon. And as far as biting the finger, Niskriya is available – for all the cannibals who are here, bite Niskriya. I really mean it!

And Sarjano, you can never take me for granted. It is impossible for love, it is impossible for trust – and I know your heart and I know you have loved me. It is because of that love that such a question has arisen in you.

Now, Sarjano, it is time for prayer.

In fact it is always time for prayer. Even when we are talking seriously, and everybody is listening very seriously, it is time for prayer.

Deep down a laughter is gathering like a raincloud; soon it will be showering. And the time has come.

Gorgeous Gloria, after an examination, phones her doctor and asks, “Doctor, would you see if by any chance I left my panties in your office?”

The doctor looks in the examination room, returns to the phone and tells her, “I’m afraid they are not here.”

“Sorry to trouble you, Doctor,” replies Gloria, “I will try the dentist.” Three guys are sitting in the pub one evening, talking about their dogs.

The first guy, a car salesman, says,

“My dog is incredible, I have trained him as my assistant. Watch this!”

He whistles, and his dog jumps up and races out of the door. Five minutes later, he is back. In his mouth are all the papers, signed and sealed, of a brand new Cadillac car he has just sold. The salesman pulls out a box of biscuits and gives one to his dog.

“That’s nothing,” says the next guy, a doctor. Just then, there is a screech of brakes and a crash of metal outside the pub. The doctor whistles and his dog jumps up and races out of the door.

Within five minutes the dog has bandaged up all the casualties, called an ambulance and comes running back into the pub. So the doctor gives his dog a biscuit.

“That’s nothing,” says the third guy, a lawyer. He gives a whistle and his dog jumps up, eats all the biscuits, screws the other two dogs and then goes out to lunch.

Kowalski goes into the ice cream parlor and orders a chocolate ice cream. “I’m sorry, sir,” says the clerk, “but we are out of chocolate.”

“Oh,” says Kowalski, “in that case I will take some chocolate.”

“No, no, sir,” says the clerk, “you don’t understand. We have run out of chocolate.” “Oh,” says Kowalski, “then, just give me some chocolate.”

The clerk looks hard at Kowalski and says, “Okay! Spell, ‘van’, as in vanilla.”

Kowalski spells “V-A-N.”

“All right,” says the clerk, “now spell ‘straw’, as in strawberry.” Kowalski spells straw.

“Good!” says the clerk, “now, spell ‘fuck’ as in chocolate.”

Kowalski looks puzzled and says, “But there is no fuck in chocolate.” “Aha!” shouts the clerk, “that’s what I have been trying to tell you!” Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

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