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CHAPTER 4
Laugh and drop the past
22 March 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,
LAST NIGHT, I WAS AMAZED TO SEE THAT THE PEOPLE FROM ‘BUNTE’ MAGAZINE WERE UPSET BY YOUR REMARKS IN THE DISCOURSE. FOR MYSELF AND OTHER GERMAN SANNYASINS IT WAS BEAUTIFUL TO SEE YOU MAKE SUCH GENTLE AND HILARIOUS FUN OF THE WHOLE NAZI TRIP.
MY LAUGHTER HELPED TO DISSOLVE THE WHOLE HEAVY PAST AND GUILT ASSOCIATED WITH HITLER’S GERMANY.
BUT THE ‘BUNTE’ REPORTER, INGE BYHAN, COULD NOT SEE THE JOKE. SHE WAS TOTALLY ENRAGED AND WANTED TO LEAVE IN THE MIDDLE. SHE SAID THAT WHAT YOU WERE DOING WAS A TERRIBLE INSULT TO HUMANITY. SHE WAS SCREAMING AFTERWARDS.
OSHO, I FEEL SO SAD THAT THIS STUPID WOMAN BEHAVED SO INSANELY. I ASK YOU FOR FORGIVENESS ON HER PART AND I THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART FOR LIBERATING ME.
Turiya, it is amazing and yet it is not amazing. It is amazing because the old woman from BUNTE magazine could not understand simple humor. I am absolutely against any Nazi ideology. It may be German, it may be Italian, it may be Indian – basically, I am against all fascist attitudes towards
life. My message to all is: never for a single moment desire to dominate anybody, nor allow anybody else to dominate you.
The very idea of domination has to disappear from the world. Only then can we call this world a human reality. Otherwise, it is absolutely inhuman. Millions of people all over the world are standing with loaded guns just watching for orders to be given. Missiles are ready, just buttons to be pressed, which any idiot can do. Pressing a button does not need much intelligence.
And the whole world will be just a huge fire. Not even grass will grow for millions of years. I was making a joke against Adolf Hitler, but to understand a joke needs intelligence – and particularly for a German; that too an old lady journalist of a yellow, third-rate magazine. That’s why I say it is amazing yet it is not amazing.
She wanted to scream. I also feel sad – not that she wanted to scream, I felt sad that she did not scream. We would have loved it, and screamed together with her! It would have been such a tremendous revelation; she would have been shocked to see what was happening all around. She would have been the first to stop screaming! But unfortunately, she did not scream. She had not even the courage to say what her whole being was exploding with.
What was the trouble with her? It is not only with her; it is with all of my German sannyasins, more or less. But it is natural. Under Adolf Hitler, Germany has made such wounds in the heart of humanity that every German, although he was not a participant in it, perhaps he was not even born at the time of the second world war – still, just being German and something inside hurts that “my country, my people have been so nasty, so destructive, so inhuman.” They have destroyed forever a healthy heart without any guilt.
My effort was simply to help you to laugh at the point, because what is past, is past. And what Adolf Hitler did, you are not responsible for. If you can laugh, the wounds can be healed, the guilt can disappear. But rather than laughing, if you start screaming at me, you are simply proving my point that inside you the same fascist attitude still prevails. Still you think you are a superior race, superman; that the second world war was only a small battle, the real war is going to happen when the real Aryan German blood will rule over the world.
These may not be conscious ideas in you. But the whole atmosphere in which you have been brought up has left its imprints in your unconscious. And unless you start laughing at the very stupidity of the idea of ruling over the whole world, of being somebody special, superior to anybody else... Laughter is a great medicine. It is a tremendously powerful therapy. If you can laugh at your own unconscious, the unconscious loses its force. In your very laughter your guilt, your wounds, disappear.
Those two old German goats... it was specially for them! My hand has been hurting for months, but thinking that these poor fellows have come from Germany, I forgot about my hand. And they were so angry that today they were going to have interviews with sannyasins but because of their anger they left Poona immediately – with a threat to Turiya, because Turiya is a princess of Hannover, so that old woman who was screaming, or wanted to scream, was calling Turiya again and again “Your Highness”... Poor Turiya felt ashamed at what that old goat was saying: You are a princess, royal blood, the last descendent of the German emperor, the oldest royal dynasty in the world, and you are mixing with these common people? She told Turiya, “I am going to write against Osho.”
I laughed, because I told her beforehand! She was really stupid; otherwise I would have helped her more. I did as much as I could on my own. If she wanted to write... and that was specially the purpose, because BUNTE magazine and those kinds of magazines and newspapers are not in search of anything good happening anywhere. They are in search of something dirty, nasty. They are seekers of gutters. Unfortunately, we don’t have any gutters here.
That’s why I had told her that “If you write positively... if you write truthfully, you will have to write positively, because you cannot find a more laughing group in the whole world, more joyous, more hilarious, living moment to moment.” Otherwise... Turiya is not an idiot. She is living here with “common people.” But the old goat does not know that some alchemy is happening here which makes people counts, countesses – without any account in the bank! Who cares? I can certify you, that you are the Shah of Iran, there is no law which can prevent me.
There are only five real kings: four are in the playing cards and the fifth is Turiya, a princess! I should start calling you all “His Holiness”...”Her Highness”...”Divine Disgrace”... And nobody can prevent me; I can certify you, that you are “Divine Disgrace.”
What more do you want? Small Germany, India, Pakistan... forget all about all these things. I make you Kings of the Moon, Queens of Mars. I just have to figure it out tomorrow, and give you certificates – and let us see which court can challenge it.
That old goat was threatening that she is going to write against me. I have told her myself – “Please, write against me, because nobody is writing against me and I enjoy people writing all kinds of lies and fictions. I have nothing to lose.” All these idiots have made me a world celebrity, and I am just an ordinary man.
But she has gone in great anger. I have told her, “Let my picture with the ‘Hitler salute’ be on the front page of BUNTE, with seven thousand hands raised.” And she could not understand that this is a joke, and in a very nice and loving way I am telling that you are still carrying your past within you. It doesn’t matter that you are carrying a German past – everybody is carrying his past, and my effort is to destroy your past, to free you from your past.
Yesterday Niskriya was sitting there as a Chinaman. Now, look by his side... the Chinaman is present. Please stand up.
This is the Chinaman. Look at him. Now, he is not angry. I have told you, we have only one Chinaman... and he must be very compassionate towards me, where I will have to look and find him. So he is sitting here next to Niskriya with the star – the red star, the communist symbol on his cap. This is intelligence! There is no question of getting angry because here the whole purpose is to take away all the garbage that, without your knowing, the past has been continuously pouring on you. You are living under its burden. And if somebody says something against it, you think it is being said against you.
Your past is not you, neither is your future you. Only your present is you – pure of past, that which is dead, and pure of future, that which is your dream, desire, longing.
The simple and sheer, crystal-clear present – that is you. And if you can discover this, you have found not the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of your own.
Why bother God? And why enter into somebody else’s kingdom? Why become unnecessarily a sheep, a goat, because somebody else is idiot enough to become a shepherd, leader, savior?
Just enter into your own kingdom. And a kingdom which cannot be conquered by anyone – unconquerable. A kingdom which once found cannot be lost. A kingdom which blossoms in everyone.
I was talking about that kingdom yesterday as the mystic rose. But that old goat did not hear a word of what I was saying. She was only concerned that I have “insulted humanity.” I cannot see any logical connection between the fascist salute of Adolf Hitler and humanity. Adolf Hitler killed humanity, insulted humanity. Forty million people – a very good account! – he murdered, butchered, gassed. And that old woman did not think that he has insulted humanity.
I am simply making you aware that if some part of you is still carrying, without your knowing, the junk that the past always leaves behind... and it goes on being given from one generation to another generation. Let it evaporate in a great laughter. Drop it. Forget that you are a German, forget that you are an Indian, forget that you are English.
It is enough that you are human.
Because of all these other names, you have forgotten completely that your humanness is covered by your Germanness. If somebody says anything against humanity, I don’t think anybody will object. You will say, “What have I to do with it? Let humanity object, I am German. I am Italian – let him say anything about Italians and I will show him...” Your humanity is covered like a mirror is covered by dust, and the dust has become more valuable than the mirror itself.
My basic approach to human problems is not to take them seriously, because once you take them seriously, you yourself become part of a problem. Watch and witness all the problems of humanity with a sense of innocence, aloofness. Perhaps then you can do justice; perhaps then you can create a better humanity, more loving, more joyous.
It is a small planet. The first astronaut who went beyond the boundary of the earth’s atmosphere... the earth’s atmosphere extends for about two hundred miles. And when he saw the earth from that standpoint, he laughed at the stupidity – such a small and beautiful and luminous planet, and he could not see any lines, which we are forcing every child to learn: This is Pakistan; you cannot cross this line without the permission of those political criminals who have imposed themselves on a certain territory.
There are no lines anywhere. All maps should be burned. No school, no college, no university should have any map. There is no need of any lines. Man should demand the simple right of movement, freedom of movement. If one wants to go to live in the Himalayas, it is perfectly beautiful. Why should others be worried?
After a world tour, I wanted to make a commune in the Himalayas, and the Himachal government became worried. I became for the first time aware that even in India... I cannot purchase land within India, because I am not a citizen of that state. I was informed by the Himachal government that, “Unless you are a permanent resident of Himachal, you cannot purchase land.”
I said, “Then what is the difference? That’s why twenty-one countries refused or deported me, because I was not a permanent resident.” In my own country, I cannot purchase a house in Kashmir or in Himachal or in Assam because those states don’t want anybody else to enter their territory.
It is a strange thing: the day I came back to Poona, just within two hours... I was asleep, and the police entered the ashram and served me a notice to leave Poona immediately. I said, “At least let me rest – in the morning, we can settle matters. Moreover, I have been living in Poona. At least you cannot deport me from Poona, I have the property in Poona already. And on what grounds do you want me to leave Poona?”
The grounds were the same all over the world: that my presence can be dangerous, can corrupt the young generation’s morality. Now, two years have passed and I have not corrupted a single Poona-ite. I don’t go into that dirty city. For corruption, at least I have to move outside of my gate! But if somebody wants to be corrupted, he can come here. He is welcome. Now, what can I do? If you want to be corrupted and you come from faraway lands to be corrupted, I say, “Okay, let us corrupt.”
Now, today I will corrupt this Chinaman. Remove your Chinacap and be corrupt! (THE CHINAMAN REMOVES HIS CAP AND REVEALS A HUMAN BEING.)
Right! There is no need to be unnecessarily discriminated.
Princess Turiya will be going in a few days to Germany. I would like her to go to this magazine’s office, BUNTE, and tell the publisher or the owner that “When you send people to Poona, at least send intelligent people – because that is a totally different world, absolutely corrupted, and if you send old goats, they will be corrupted very soon. They don’t even bother to see whether this is too old a goat, so leave it. Young or old, they don’t make any distinction. Send very intelligent people.”
It is not that intelligent journalists from all over the world have not come here. But when – also from Germany – another experienced journalist came here, he got corrupted. He was too intelligent, he could see the point. He became a sannyasin. He is here somewhere... and when he went back, his magazine simply refused – that’s why I had warned them yesterday – because he wrote a beautiful article saying that “Something new is happening. People of all religions and races are meeting in one place, working out how to be silent, making every effort to reach to their own innermost being. There is no fight, no crime. The whole commune can absolutely be called a love commune.”
He wrote a beautiful article, and the magazine told him, “You have been hypnotized.” He said, “I am your most experienced journalist, and you think I can be hypnotized? Then I am ready – you can come with me and I will show you.” But nobody was ready to come because then he will be hypnotized too! They refused to publish his article. They said, “Unless you make a few amendments... and the amendments will be suggested by us.” The name of the sannyasin is Satyananda.
He said, “You have not even been there, and you will suggest to me? You will make suggestions to be included in the article? I have been there, and you will tell me a few things should be removed... Then it is better that you write the article, because you are not hypnotized; naturally your article will be right.”
They fired him, and they wrote something fictitious on their own. When Satyananda came back, I told him, “It was bound to happen. You should have inserted something negative against me; nothing hurts me. You should have told some fictitious stories, allegations, because I don’t care about what other people think. And they would have published your article, they would have praised it and they would have thought that you were really great that you came out of that commune without being hypnotized. But you did not listen to me.”
He said, “I am absolutely happy that I have not listened to you. I wrote exactly what is happening, and I don’t care that they have fired me. It is for my good. I am absolutely happy to be here.” And he has been here with me, he has been in America in the commune, and when I came back here, he came here again. And he is utterly happy.
The problem of prestige, respectability, prevents people from entering the door of the commune. It was a strange experience to me in America. The very first day as I reached New Jersey, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, sent a special message that he wanted to meet me because he is immensely interested in Zen. But he cannot come to see me in New Jersey; it is a question of his prestige, his post, his power. He was ready to send a jet airplane which would take me to California... and he wanted to meet me in such a way that nobody would know; particularly the news media should not know.
I said, “A man who is interested in Zen – if he has not even the courage to meet me, unafraid that the whole world will know, then I refuse to come. If you want to meet me, you will have to come, and the news media will be informed.” He never came, he never answered.
And when I was in America, people from India... you will be surprised: even people from Poona and Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta, great industrialists, politicians, started phoning me in America to say, “We want to come to see you. I am coming from Poona.”
I said, “I am amazed! I have been in Poona for seven years.”
They said, “In Poona, to meet you was dangerous. People would have known.”
I said, “I will meet you in Poona, nowhere else. If life brings me back to Poona, you can meet me.” Life has brought me back to Poona, and that fellow has not come. I have informed him many times. He has told my people, “I know – you need not come again and again, because the neighbors start suspecting... why do sannyasins come here?”
People who are from Bombay cannot come, a fifteen-minute flight. But they were ready to come from New York to Portland to meet me. I refused. I did not allow any Indian who wanted to meet me there and has not met me here. Those who have come here, were welcomed there; there was no question. They were courageous people.
And what the world calls corruption is really just making you aware of things which are ugly, but your tradition, your country, your race, have conditioned your mind for them. For example, the Dutch parliament has made a law that I cannot enter Holland. The reason is that I have spoken against homosexuality, and “we don’t want to disturb the homosexual people of Holland.” I became aware for the first time that homosexuality is the religion of Holland! This is corruption; I would have corrupted people because certainly I would have spoken against homosexuality.
Twenty-one governments all around the world have given reasons, so absurd that one cannot believe that we are living on a sane planet. Perhaps this planet is a place where, from all other planets, when somebody goes insane he is sent here. There is no other explanation.
In America, I had not moved outside of my commune. The government agencies which are usually employed to arrest criminals refused to arrest me. They said, “You show what crimes he has committed! He does not come out of his commune, he has not murdered anybody. You don’t have any evidence – don’t make us a laughingstock.” And when two government agencies refused, the only possibility that remained was to approach the army to arrest me.
The chief of the army laughed at the very idea. When the government attorney approached him, he said, “Never in the whole history of mankind has the army been called to arrest a man who has not even committed any crime. Why shouldn’t your own agencies arrest him? Armies are to fight against nations, not against individuals.” And what were the reasons? The same – that “listening to him has a very dangerous effect.”
Sleeping in my bed, I worry: I have not committed any crime, and I am the most dangerous man alive?
The pope is behind the Italian government. For two years, Italian sannyasins have been fighting in the streets and in the parliament – in the parliament there are many members who are sannyasins. The answer is the same: “That man is dangerous and his influence corrupts the minds of the younger generation.” But nobody says what corruption is. Is it corruption that I tell people the truth, that the Christian trinity of God, the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ is a very immoral trinity? It is the Holy Ghost who made poor Virgin Mary pregnant – and still he remains the HOLY Ghost! Then who is unholy? Now all ghosts can make an effort to make as many virgins pregnant as possible and remain holy.
If I say the truth... And Jesus Christ – a poor carpenter’s son, uneducated – has gathered a small gang of twelve poor people of the same uneducated type: farmers, fishermen, woodcutters. Not a single rabbi, not a single scholar, not a single wise man – and he moved on his donkey from one place to another place declaring that “I am the only begotten son of God.”
Now to me, this seems to be hilarious. I will tell my sannyasins in Italy to just find donkeys and declare, “I am a cousin-brother of Jesus Christ, the only cousin-brother.” What evidence has Jesus Christ for his claim? And it is very strange that if the Holy Ghost makes Mary pregnant... then how does God become the father? At the most he can be an uncle.
These stupid ideas... if I make them clear, they don’t contradict them – because they cannot. What they can do is, they can pass laws in the parliament that I cannot enter in the country.
But I am going to enter – particularly Italy I cannot leave alone. I have told my sannyasins, “Create a great movement that the pope cannot be both the head of a state and the head of a church. A saint is not supposed to be a sovereign. The Vatican should dissolve itself into Italy.” It is such a stupid idea. Eight square miles and the Vatican is a sovereign country, a nation. And the pope is both: the highest priest of the Catholics, and also the king of the country, of the Vatican.
Great! We can declare that if eight square miles can create a country... We had in America a commune of one hundred twenty-six square miles; we could have declared that we were an independent country.
And we could have found any pope, any Polack and said, “He is our high priest and our king.”
To give people an opportunity to think is thought to be a corruptive influence. To make them aware of their superstitions is thought to be the greatest crime.
But I want you all to be criminals, if thinking is to be a crime. I want you all to be corrupted, if to be intelligent is to be corrupted.
You have to be in a total revolt in this insane world.
So, Princess Turiya, this time you are the only princess here. When you come back after a few weeks, you will find many princesses, princes, kings, queens. So enjoy for four weeks more – you are the only princess. In these four weeks I am going to give certificates. Whosoever wants to be the King of Mars... what is the harm? He can enjoy, feel great, without any fight. Without destroying anybody, he can become Alexander the Great!
Niskriya, you choose the planet you want to be the king of. Everybody can choose. And not only choose – have your letterheads; choose as far away stars as possible. Even if you want to be the Sovereign Head of the Whole Universe, you can be.
These stupid ideas, Turiya has left behind. It is that woman who was continually calling her “Your Highness.” Her husband, Vimalkirti, was my bodyguard. He was the descendant of the last emperor of Germany. Prince Phillip of England is his uncle; the Queen of England is his aunt. He was connected, because royal families go on marrying amongst themselves. They make marriage such a mess. They go on cooking each other and the result is retarded people.
Turiya is not really from any royal family, she is a commoner. Vimalkirti was intelligent enough to marry her, against all the royal families of Europe. That was the beginning of his revolution. He revolted, saying that “I am not going to marry into any other royal family.” It is a scientific fact that you should not marry close relations; otherwise you will create retarded children. And you can see it: just look at the Prince of Wales, who was a cousin-brother of Vimalkirti. Even his photograph can show you that this guy is gone.
It is beautiful that these royal families are slowly slowly disappearing, have almost disappeared. Blood is the same; you cannot tell the difference... that idea that royal blood has some speciality is absolutely absurd and un-scientific.
There was a time in the Victorian Age when queens used to have clothes made in such a way that you could not see their legs, their feet. And the idea was all over Europe that queens are different from other women; their thighs are joined together. That’s why they walk so slowly. That’s why they hide, with the long clothes touching the floor, so that nobody can see their thighs.
But nobody was allowed to see, so no investigation was possible. It was only just a few years before... one sister of Queen Elizabeth was on the sea beach, and the winds don’t care who you
are. And the whole dress blew in one direction, showing both the legs – separate. All over the world, the picture was printed and a great superstition died. Now, nobody talks about that. But if anybody had said before that “a medical examination is needed, only then we will accept this idea,” he would have been thought to be corrupting people’s minds.
Now, it is time to corrupt your mind.
Mendel Kravitz is standing at the urinal, when he notices a message on the wall at eye level. “Look upward,” reads the message and there is a big arrow pointing up.
Mendel cannot resist and looks up. Several feet up the wall, there is another message, which says, “Higher.”
Mendel looks higher, and there near the ceiling is another message. “Still higher,” it reads.
Mendel is now looking directly upwards, and on the ceiling in faint writing is another message, “Quick! Look down, you are pissing on your shoes.”
A Chinaman in Paris picks up a girl and takes her to his hotel room.
He opens the bedroom window and takes a deep breath. Then, they get into bed together and make love. After a while the Chinaman says, “Excuse me, I am a little tired.”
He gets out of the bed, goes over to the window, takes a deep breath. Then he rolls under the bed and comes out the other side. He jumps into bed and starts to make love again.
After a while, he gets up saying, “Excuse me, I am a little tired.”
Again, he goes over to the window, and takes a deep breath, then he rolls under the bed and gets out the other side. He jumps back into bed and starts making love once more.
When this has happened five times, the girl gets up saying, “Excuse me, I am a little tired, too.” She goes over to the window, takes a deep breath of air, looks under the bed and finds four Chinamen there.
The last prayer, to the God who has died...
Rabbi Nussbaum has been attending a rabbi’s convention in Chicago. When it is over, he checks out of his hotel and gets all the way to the station before realizing that he has left his umbrella behind. When he gets back to the hotel, he finds that his room has already been taken by a newlywed couple.
He is about to knock on the door, when he hears a man’s voice say, “Whose little lips are these?” “Yours, dear, yours,” says a female voice coyly.
“And whose little tits are these?” says the man.
“Yours, darling, yours,” squeals the girl.
“And whose little hips are these?” he croons. “Yours, darling, yours!” she gasps.
“Hey!” shouts Rabbi Nussbaum through the keyhole, “when you get to the umbrella, remember, it is mine!”
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
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